1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Regular Session 10 Monday, February 14, 2000 11 9:00 a.m. 12 Commissioners Courtroom 13 Kerr County Courthouse 14 Kerrville, Texas 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: FREDERICK L. HENNEKE, Kerr County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 LARRY GRIFFIN, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X 2 February 14, 2000 PAGE 3 -- Commissioners' Comments 3 4 1.1 Pay Bills 5 1.2 Budget Amendments 6 5 1.3 Late Bills 17 1.4 Read and Approve Minutes 19 6 1.5 Accept Monthly Reports 19 7 2.14 Burn Ban 20 8 2.1 Update & Report - First Responders 23 9 2.2 Abandonment of platted road easements in Japonica Hills Subdivision 32 10 2.3 Appraisal for Sheppard Rees right-of-way 35 11 2.4 Right-of-way deeds and future policy for same 44 12 2.5 Bid packets for annual Road & Bridge bids 49 13 2.6 Sale of surplus property on March 11, 2000 55 14 2.7 Employee status, District Court Bailiff 58 15 2.8 Request for funds for part-time employee in 16 Voter Registration Department 63 17 2.9 Year 2000 Accident Prevention Plan 69 18 2.10 Set public hearing - Regulations for Sexually- Oriented Businesses in the Unincorporated Area 19 of Kerr County, Texas 71 20 2.11 Final plans, Flat Rock Lake Park 100 21 2.12 Job description for Purchasing Agent, Timing & strategy for appointing same 106 22 2.13 Petition - establish Ingram Lake Estates Road 23 District & set date for public hearing 143 24 ---- Adjourned 146 25 3 1 On Monday, February 14, 2000, at 9:00 a.m, a Regular 2 Session of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in 3 the Commissioners Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, 4 Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in 5 open court: 6 P R O C E E D I N G S 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Good morning. It's 9 o'clock 8 on Monday, February 14th. Happy Valentine's Day to one and 9 all. We'll convene this regular Commissioners Court 10 meeting. Commissioner Letz, I believe have you the honors 11 this morning. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If everyone would please 13 stand. 14 (Prayer and pledge of allegiance.) 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: At this time, any citizen 16 wishing to speak on an item that's not on the regular agenda 17 may come forward and do so. Is there anyone who would like 18 to address the Court on an item which is not on the regular 19 agenda? Once again, is there anyone here who would like to 20 address the Court on an item which is not on the regular 21 agenda? Seeing none, we will move, then, to Commissioners' 22 Comments. Let's start this morning with Commissioner 23 Williams. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, I think 25 Commissioner Letz summed it up. We really need the rain, 4 1 so -- and we're not going to get it before we start talking 2 about the burn ban. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Commissioner Letz? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't believe I have 5 any comments this morning. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Commissioner Griffin? 7 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: No comments. We do 8 need the rain, that's for sure. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Dittos from everybody, 10 but I would hope that we could possibly take care of the 11 burn ban item so maybe these guys can get it in the press 12 and make sure it gets out today, A.S.A.P. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: I'm sure, without any 14 objection, we can move that up to the head of the list. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's all. And it's 16 terrible to see our friend, Tom Landry, pass. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Indeed. As well as Charles 18 Schulz. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's -- well, that's 20 true, but Tom Landry is kind of up in here somewhere. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Just a couple in things I'd 22 note. I would offer the Court's congratulations to Justice 23 of the Peace 4, Bill Ragsdale, who was inducted into the 24 West Kerr County Hall of Fame last week, an honor well 25 deserved. Bill has served that part of the county well and 5 1 faithfully for a number of years, and we are proud of him, 2 as always. Also, I'd remind everyone that our next meeting, 3 February 28th, is our first evening meeting, and we will be 4 convening at 6:30 that evening. To the Commissioners, I 5 would say that I think it would be particularly appropriate 6 if any of the boards and committees that you all sit on 7 would like to make a report to the Court, I think it would 8 be appropriate for them to do so at the evening meeting, 9 which is more accessible to the general public. So, if 10 anyone has an organization that would like to make a report 11 to the Court, let's get them scheduled for the 28th, if at 12 all possible. With that, we'll move into the approval 13 agenda. Bills. Do we have any bills, Mr. Auditor? 14 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes, we do. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone have any questions or 16 comments on the bills, as presented? 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have one question. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: All right. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: On Page 1, 20 Commissioners Court, I just -- the Denton, McKamie, and 21 Navarro bill of $3,100, is that the -- the recent lawsuit 22 that we were all involved in because the jail failed -- or 23 supposedly failed to provide a prisoner with law books and 24 religious services and those kind of things? That's the 25 same one? Okay. I didn't recognize the guy's name. Okay, 6 1 that's all I wanted to know. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone else? Questions or 3 comments on the bills? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Question I have. I think 5 it's just the way it was worded here. OfficeMax Credit 6 Plan. We bought that. Are we paying that out over time, or 7 is it a lease or -- 8 MR. TOMLINSON: That's the name of the 9 vendor. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. I thought that was 11 probably it, but -- I couldn't imagine we'd be financing a 12 laser printer. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anything else? 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move we pay the 15 bills. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner 18 Williams, seconded by Commissioner Letz, that we authorize 19 payment of the bills as presented and recommended by the 20 Auditor. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor, 21 raise your right hand. 22 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 24 (No response.) 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Carries. Budget amendments. 7 1 It appears we have a couple. Number 1, Tax 2 Assessor/Collector. 3 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes. In this budget 4 amendment we're actually increasing the budget by $1,428. 5 Those funds we received from the State of Texas. The 6 purpose of those funds are to hire a part-time person for 7 Voter Registration, and that's the sole purpose of these 8 funds. So, the -- the amendment increases the revenue line 9 item and also increases the part-time salary line item for 10 the Tax Collector. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But it's money that 12 comes from TexDOT? 13 MR. TOMLINSON: It came from the State of 14 Texas. I think it was from the Secretary of State, but I'm 15 not positive. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's not automobile 17 registration? 18 MR. TOMLINSON: No, no. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's strictly Voter 20 Registration? 21 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions or comments? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner Letz, 8 1 seconded by Commissioner Griffin, that we approve Budget 2 Amendment Request Number 1 for the Tax Assessor. Any 3 further discussion? If not, all in favor, raise your right 4 hand. 5 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 7 (No response.) 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, there is a 10 question on my part. Since we're going, basically, to have 11 to declare an emergency to do that, do we have to state 12 that? I mean, because this increases the budget, do we have 13 to do an emergency for us to increase the budget, or is 14 this -- because of the way these funds come -- 15 MR. TOMLINSON: I don't think you have to 16 declare an emergency in this case, because we have the funds 17 from -- from an outside source. That also increases the 18 budget. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. So -- because both 20 of them go hand-in-hand. It's not a normal increase in the 21 budget. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The way I understand 23 it, though, normally, yes, you do have to declare. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 25 MR. TOMLINSON: But in this case, we're not 9 1 expending surplus funds from -- from our coffers. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's my understanding. If 3 we were going to take surplus funds and add them to a line 4 item or create a line item, we'd have to declare an 5 emergency, but since we're revenue-neutral, we don't have 6 to. Number 2, Traffic Safety Fund. 7 MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. This budget amendment 8 also increases that budget. You have a letter from Albert 9 Pierce, D.W.I. instructor. I think it's with this budget 10 amendment. It explains the reason for the amendment. 11 There -- there's sufficient funds in the surplus in that -- 12 in that fund to handle this, so that's my recommendation, 13 that we -- we do this. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't have the letter. 15 I don't know that -- 16 MR. TOMLINSON: Oh, well, I thought -- I 17 thought we had it attached, but it -- it's in summary. It 18 says that the State Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse has 19 introduced new forms that relate to the course that they 20 teach, and the cost of these for -- for the D.W.I. vendors 21 for the rest of the year is approximately -- is estimated to 22 be $1,100. So, these are new -- new supplies that are 23 needed in relation to the course. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 10 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner 2 Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Letz, that we approve 3 Budget Amendment Request Number 2 for the Traffic Safety 4 Fund. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor, raise 5 your right hand. 6 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 8 (No response.) 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carried. Number 3, 10 County Court at Law, Court's Collection Department. 11 MR. TOMLINSON: This is a request from Judge 12 Brown to transfer $61.97 from -- well, excuse me, $30.99 13 from County Court at Law budget line item in Office 14 Supplies, and $30.98 from Office Supplies in Collections 15 Department to Capital Outlay in County Court at Law budget 16 for the replacements of a fax machine. 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: So moved. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner 20 Griffin, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin, that we approve 21 Budget Amendment Request Number 3 relating to the County 22 Court at Law, the Court's Collection Department. Any 23 further discussion? If not, all in favor, raise your right 24 hand. 25 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 11 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 2 (No response.) 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Budget 4 Amendment request Number 4 relating to Road and Bridge 5 Department. 6 MR. TOMLINSON: This is my request -- this -- 7 the $650 in question is for purchase of a radio for a new 8 truck. The radio was budgeted under Radio and Equipment 9 Repairs. I prefer to -- to record that or classify that in 10 the Capital Outlay. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Third. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner Letz, 15 seconded by Commissioner Griffin, that we approve Budget 16 Amendment Number 4 for the Road and Bridge Department. Any 17 further discussion? If not, all in favor, raise your right 18 hands. 19 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 21 (No response.) 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Any late 23 bills? 24 MR. TOMLINSON: I have one more that I didn't 25 write anything up on. But Glenn Holekamp is in -- in the 12 1 Court today to help me explain this. And, through -- 2 through the last bill for jail repairs under -- under that 3 budget in that department, we have expended the total amount 4 of the budget. I don't have any feel for -- for what we 5 need to -- to increase that by. That's the reason Glenn's 6 here, to try to explain to the Court what he -- what he 7 anticipates or for the rest of the year. So -- so, Glenn, 8 would you -- 9 MR. HOLEKAMP: On our jail budget that we 10 broke out this last year to -- to identify where our 11 problems were, we ran into an unforeseen amount of -- and if 12 y'all didn't get it, I'll be glad to share this with you. 13 We had approximately half of our $25,000 budget this year, 14 approximately $12,000 has gone to Simplex, which is a smoke 15 alarm -- fire alarm people from -- out of San Antonio and 16 other places. We had numerous problems with the computer 17 that -- that detects the smoke detectors; we were getting 18 false alarms. And then we also had some vandalism on the 19 part of prisoners. They spray water or some kind of 20 substance in the smoke alarm and it ruins it, and it's -- it 21 costs approximately $500 every time they do that. The 22 Sheriff has assured me, and the Jail Administrator, we are 23 working on a system now to possibly catch the -- the people 24 that are actually doing this, and most of it is done in 25 multi-occupancy cells, so it's really difficult to say who 13 1 did it. But, they are checking with the Jail Commission to 2 see if there are some -- some things that we can do to 3 remedy that. I think that -- that is the big one that has 4 really got us into kind of trouble on our budget this year. 5 It's very specialized, and when it -- when those smoke 6 alarms do go off, you cannot shut them off. You have to fix 7 the problem or they -- so -- so, it's not something you can 8 just turn off. So, what I'm asking the Court is, we've gone 9 through $25,000 in the first four months of this budget. I 10 would -- I would -- I don't think that -- I would like to 11 believe that it would not cost us another $50,000 or $60,000 12 for the remainder of this year. I can't assure anybody of 13 that, but I would hope to think that the -- the fire alarm 14 problem should at least be leveled off now after we got this 15 new equipment and got the computer part of it changed and 16 rerouted. So, as far as a recommendation on my part, I 17 would -- I would think that $40,000 to $50,000 should -- 18 should cover it. But I couldn't -- I would not be able to 19 make that statement. If y'all want to do it on a per -- 20 bills as they come in, we can do that, or if you want to 21 just try to do a line item transfer into that budget. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: From where to where? 23 MR. HOLEKAMP: I don't know. I don't have 24 enough money in my maintenance in the other areas, 25 Courthouse or Ag Barn either one, to make a substantial 14 1 impact on that particular budget. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We would have to find 3 it. I mean -- take it out of Tommy's salary or something, 4 but -- 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Are there outstanding bills 6 right now that have to be paid? 7 MR. HOLEKAMP: Yes, there's two of them for 8 approximately $266 outstanding right now. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: I would suggest that maybe 10 what we want to do is transfer money into the account to pay 11 those bills, and then perhaps do a little more study on it. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: An agreement. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Until we get a better handle 14 on what we need and where we're going. I mean, it frightens 15 me that we've spent $12,000 on a fire suppression system and 16 we don't know that we've fixed the problem. 17 MR. HOLEKAMP: Well, we have fixed the 18 problem, but what I meant is, I have not been able to fix 19 the problem of somebody ruining the equipment. I mean, 20 physically doing it. That's part -- we're trying to come up 21 with a system of maybe punishing or -- people for doing it, 22 if you can find out which one did it. I think that's where 23 we really need to try real hard to have some type of a 24 punishment system for ruining our County property. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I can't imagine that, I 15 1 mean, Simplex or any alarm company that puts alarms in a 2 jail would design a system that you could -- that prisoners 3 could throw something in. I mean, there's got to be a way 4 that they can protect it, 'cause that would be a -- I mean, 5 if I was -- you know, I think prisoners would figure that 6 out pretty quick. 7 MR. HOLEKAMP: We're looking at -- and this 8 will cost us money, is to -- to build a type of a -- right 9 now, it's a -- it's a grate that looks like a -- a vent like 10 this, for example. We're trying to think of a -- get a way 11 of putting something in front of it so when they spray it, 12 it doesn't get into the -- the alarm, itself. But we first 13 have to find out if the jail -- State Jail Commission is 14 going to allow to us do that sort of thing, because 15 everything is hinged on their -- their -- 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, obviously, they 17 have to work. 18 MR. HOLEKAMP: And, there again, that's 19 something that we would have to -- to find out if we could 20 even do it. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I would recommend going 22 with that approach, more so than trying to find out who's 23 doing it. That's fine, but then what are you going to do? 24 I mean -- 25 MR. HOLEKAMP: We'll file charges on them. 16 1 You can file charges on them. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm curious as to 4 your projection of an additional $40,000. 5 MR. HOLEKAMP: Well, I'm just -- 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that for all 7 maintenance, you're saying, or is that -- 8 MR. HOLEKAMP: At the jail. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- or is it this 10 problem? 11 MR. HOLEKAMP: No, no, no, for the whole -- 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Because you depleted 13 that line? 14 MR. HOLEKAMP: Yes, sir. That's where I was 15 coming from with that. It's all jail maintenance. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Not related solely 17 to -- 18 MR. HOLEKAMP: No, no, no. I was trying to 19 identify where I felt like that the problem has really -- 20 really impacted my budget, because that is the big one that 21 stuck out that was costing the County quite a bit of money. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I go along with the 23 Judge. I make a motion that we pay the bills currently 24 outstanding and revisit this in our next meeting. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: What source are we going to 17 1 use for the funds? 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Contingency in 3 Commissioners -- or Nondepartmental Contingency. We should 4 have 200-some dollars left, or whatever it is. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: $266, did you say, Glenn? 6 MR. HOLEKAMP: $266.67. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 8 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 9 MR. HOLEKAMP: Bills pending payment today, I 10 think it is. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner Letz, 12 seconded by Commissioner Griffin, that we transfer $266.67 13 from the Nondepartmental Contingency into the Jail 14 Maintenance line item. Any further discussion? If not, all 15 in favor, raise your right hand. 16 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 18 (No response.) 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. 20 MR. TOMLINSON: That's all I have. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any late bills? 22 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes, I have one. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 24 MR. TOMLINSON: I have a late bill from 25 Software Group, and it's payment of a -- of a modem. It's a 18 1 dial-up modem that we purchased for the Ingram Tax Office. 2 Part of that cost we paid for -- or the Tax Collector paid 3 for through her -- it's the -- the Voter Interest account. 4 No, I'm sorry, it's the V.I.T. Interest account, which is -- 5 which is auto -- I think it's auto registration account. I 6 believe it is the interest on that fund -- on that account, 7 itself, paid for part of this. We're paying -- County's 8 paying $300. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is it budgeted or out of 10 the budget? 11 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 13 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner Letz, 15 seconded by Commissioner Griffin, that we approve the late 16 bill to Software Group to pay for the modem for the J.P. 4/ 17 County Tax Collector's office in Ingram. Any further 18 discussion? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 19 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 21 (No response.) 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. 23 MR. TOMLINSON: That's all I have. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Thank you, Tommy. 25 Next item on the agenda -- on the agenda is to read and 19 1 approve the minutes. Do I have a motion to waive reading 2 and approve the minutes of the January 10th and January 24th 3 meetings? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 5 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner Letz, 7 seconded by Commissioner Williams, that we waive reading and 8 approve the minutes of the January 10th and January 24th 9 meetings. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor, 10 raise your right hand. 11 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 13 (No response.) 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carried. Next item is 15 to approve and accept the monthly reports. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner Letz, 19 seconded by Commissioner Griffin, that we approve and accept 20 the monthly reports as presented. Any further discussion? 21 If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 22 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 24 (No response.) 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. That 20 1 concludes the approval agenda. We'll move to the 2 consideration agenda. At Commissioner Baldwin's excellent 3 request, without any objection, we'll move straight to Item 4 Number 14, which is to consider and discuss burn ban for 5 Kerr County. I believe it's time we did it again, boys. 6 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yes. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Did it not rain in the 8 western part of the county? If -- I mean, the reason is 9 that I talked to one of the volunteer fire departments in -- 10 in Center Point yesterday, the members, and they kind of 11 think it's a toss of the coin. They say -- I mean, it's 12 greening up so quickly in the eastern part of the county 13 that I don't know that it's that necessary. They would like 14 to have it -- I mean, this individual said, from a 15 standpoint of getting work done, he'd like to have it, but 16 from a standpoint of a good time to burn, it's a good time 17 to burn still right now. But if it didn't rain in -- 18 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That's not so in the 19 western part of the county. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Didn't get that much 21 rain? 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: All of the volunteer 23 fire departments have said they would highly recommend that 24 we reinstate the burn ban. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I've had a couple 21 1 calls in the eastern part of county where fires have gotten 2 out of control and burned right up to the place; they're 3 pretty upset about it. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But that's because of the 5 individual -- the man individually started that fire, I 6 believe, and it's done every year and they're going to have 7 a civil action against him, I believe. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Can't explain it to 9 the guy making the phone call that it's -- when he's all 10 upset about it. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right, I understand that. 12 But, that is -- that situation, I believe, Commissioner, 13 is -- has really nothing to do with the burn ban. He does 14 it every year. And, I mean, I just hate to see us doing a 15 burn ban continually, and it's going to get worse in the 16 summer with places like that, that you're -- Commissioner 17 Williams is talking about. That area -- there's areas of 18 the county, a lot of dry grass right now. Either this time 19 or the next cycle, when we do get some green from kind of 20 the few rains we've had, it's better to burn that brush now 21 or that grass now than to have it in July when you can't 22 control it. And we're at a point now that it's a -- I mean, 23 I don't mind putting it back in, but I'm just explaining to 24 the Court, it's going to get worse rather than better, and 25 we can't keep, you know, any fires from starting ever. And 22 1 now is a good time to start keeping it under control, 'cause 2 it's relatively cool still and -- and soil -- the soil 3 conditions aren't all that bad. But, I'll go along with -- 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see a stopping 5 point. I move we put the burn ban back on. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Which one are we 8 talking about? The flexible one we had with the prescribed 9 burns, or the Forest Service one, which is absolute? 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The flexible 11 prescribed burn ban. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The one that allows 13 prescribed burns. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Are we talking about for 15 another two weeks? 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. Fourteen 17 days, I think it says. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: All right. Moved by 19 Commissioner Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Williams, 20 that we reinstitute the burn ban which allows for burning 21 for agricultural purposes, so long as the individual has a 22 prescribed burn plan approved by the Department of 23 Agriculture, for 14 days or until February 28th, Year 2000. 24 Any further discussion? If not, all in favor, raise your 25 right hand. 23 1 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 3 (No response.) 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Okay. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I assume that we can 6 notify the radio stations. 7 THE WITNESS: I believe it's being done even 8 as we speak. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's service. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Don't you have somewhere to 11 go, Jeff? 12 MR. DAVIS: No, deadline's tomorrow morning. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. All right, we'll go 14 back to the regular agenda, then. First item for 15 consideration is Item 2.1, update in year-end report on the 16 Kerr County First Responders. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just a second. Yes, 18 sir. I put this on, and after thinking about it, when we do 19 our reports we need to go to the evening meeting from now 20 on, 'cause that's -- we're kind of gearing our evening 21 meeting -- our quarterly meeting toward reports like this. 22 But, I -- my fault. I failed to -- failed to recognize 23 that. But, just as a reminder what the First Responder 24 program is, Kerr County contributes around $8,000 a year for 25 training purposes to train volunteers and professionals to 24 1 assist the -- the Kerrville Fire Department in their 2 ambulance service, and our -- Kerr County's primary concern 3 and function is to help save the lives of our citizens, so I 4 think it's money well spent, and -- or so far. It depends 5 on what the report's going to be here. But, Mr. Derrick is 6 the training officer for the Kerrville Fire Department for 7 this program, and he comes in -- we try to get in every 8 three or four months to kind of update the Commissioners 9 Court on how it's working and -- and all that. Mr. Derrick, 10 thank you for being here. 11 MR. DERRICK: Not a problem. Just to 12 clarify, I'm -- my title is E.M.S. Coordinator. I'm in 13 charge of the everyday operation of the total E.M.S., not 14 just the First Responders. Just a little side note on what 15 you were saying; Center Point was toned out four times 16 yesterday for brush fires, so I think y'all did a good job. 17 Tired of going out in the county and doing that. 18 A little bit -- I just wanted to give you an 19 update, first, on the overall E.M.S. situation, and I have 20 the yearly report for 1999, just a little informative type 21 thing. I'll be very brief. Actually, we were 200 patients 22 less in '99 than we were in '98. But our revenues were 23 over -- '99 revenues were higher than revenues in 1998, so 24 our -- our cash fund, as far as the E.M.S. is concerned, is 25 very, very good at this point. Just to remind you, the way 25 1 the E.M.S. is set up, no tax dollars from -- from the County 2 or from the City are used for the overall budget. Now, 3 there are funds used from the County and the City to pay the 4 Medical Director; part of that is to pay my salary, like 5 Commissioner Baldwin mentioned. But, nothing else goes 6 towards the -- to the running of the First Responder system 7 or the E.M.S. Department here for Kerrville and Kerr County. 8 So, that's -- it's -- we're only, like, one out of two in 9 the whole state that runs that way, and we're making it work 10 right now with a positive cash balance, so we're real proud 11 of that. Even though our runs are a little bit down. 12 Just to give you an overall idea, in 1998, 13 you know, these were patients -- five -- in 1998, 5,789 14 patients were -- let me backtrack. The first one is overall 15 responses, 5,789 in 1998. In 1999, 5,579, so actually a 16 210-call difference. The patients -- total patients were 17 4,661, and in 1999 it's 4,439, so it's still about a 200 18 patient difference. So, as far as the First Responders are 19 concerned, numbers are dwindling as -- as they have been. 20 We still have about 15 active First Responders in Kerr 21 County. I have been kind of taking a different approach in 22 trying to recruit people, and I'm -- I'm headed to the fire 23 departments now. I have talked with several fire 24 departments. I've gone to Ingram and I have visited with 25 Turtle Creek. I was very surprised at the turnout the other 26 1 night. I went to the to the Turtle Creek Volunteer Fire 2 Department meeting, and there was about 12 or 14 people 3 there; I was very surprised at the numbers. And they were 4 very interested in some medical training and -- and to 5 helping out, starting first with just basic CPR and then 6 moving on to this, so I'm very encouraged. Because, 7 unfortunately, in Precinct 1, Commissioner Baldwin's area, 8 that is the area that we are covered the least amount. In 9 Ingram we're covered great, Center Point we're covered 10 great. Hunt we're covered great. Out in the Mountain Home 11 area we're covered fairly reasonable, but the Kerrville 12 South and the Turtle Creek area is -- is where we've been 13 hurting. 14 As a matter of fact, I've been making -- I 15 live out there now, and I've been making responses myself, 16 First Responders. So, there are several avenues that 17 we're -- that we are looking into, I guess could you say, 18 right now, and one of the ways is the way Kendall County 19 does it as far as their First Responders and volunteers, and 20 that is some type of allowances. These people are putting 21 in their own time, their own money, their own -- you know, 22 we supply them with, of course, like Commissioner Baldwin 23 said, their training and their equipment, everything of that 24 is paid for by E.M.S. funds, but they're leaving their 25 families in the middle of the night, they're driving their 27 1 own vehicles, they're buying their own clothes and such like 2 that. And -- and it's all volunteer. They're putting a lot 3 of money into this and not getting anything out of it 4 besides a little bit of recognition. So, I think we might 5 need to address that, and it has been addressed by several 6 different counties in several different ways. I'm not going 7 to get into that now. 8 I do want to bring a proposal back to you, 9 very reasonable as far as economics is concerned, that we 10 may need to look at when you start your budgeting functions 11 for the next fiscal year for this county. We've got to do 12 something. It's volunteerism all over -- you go ask the 13 volunteer fire departments; every -- every fashion of 14 volunteerism is declining. So, we've got to come up with 15 new inventive ways to not only recruit people, but keep 16 them. So -- so, the system still is functioning very well 17 at this point. We haven't had -- I can't think of -- of any 18 major problems that we've had in the last year -- calendar 19 year 1999. The people are there when we need them; they are 20 very, very dedicated. And -- and we have been -- because of 21 the -- some small areas just outside the county, the City 22 does run the fire trucks into the county, First Responders. 23 Of course, we've got a County contract, as far as fires are 24 concerned, but I just want to let you know that the fire 25 trucks have been responding -- City fire tricks have been 28 1 responding to the -- like, the E.T.J. area of the city and 2 assisting, especially if the ambulances are coming in and 3 there were no First Responders show up, and they're bringing 4 in a full cardiac arrest and the paramedic needs help, the 5 fire truck will meet them out on the road. So -- like, 6 coming in from Center Point, they'll meet them out by the 7 airport, put another paramedic on board, and ride with them 8 to the hospital. So, that's about all I have right now. Is 9 there any -- 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Ron, how many First 11 Responders do you have signed up in the county? 12 MR. DERRICK: Right now there's about 19 13 signed up. Now, not all of those are active First 14 Responders. As a matter of fact, I've gone back and in the 15 last four months, I've asked for two bags of equipment and 16 radios back from people that are not responding. We have 17 had one bag of equipment that was stolen out of the back of 18 a truck that was reported to the Sheriff's Department, and 19 they were doing their investigation on that. Nothing has 20 come up with that. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You have -- out of the 22 19, do you have 50 percent that come to training classes? 23 MR. DERRICK: Well, all of our training 24 classes, we -- we originally set up a meeting a month for 25 the First Responders to come to. I couldn't get anybody to 29 1 come. One, maybe two people every month were coming. So, 2 what we did was said, okay, since this isn't going to work, 3 we're going to open up all of our training sessions to the 4 First Responders also, the training sessions that all the 5 fire department has. And even such as we just had a 6 pre-hospital trauma life support class this past weekend at 7 the auditorium, which a First -- we only had one, but a 8 First Responder attended to get continuing education 9 classes, at our cost. It cost the Fire Department -- we 10 paid for it. It wasn't much; it was only, I think, $25. 11 But -- but we -- we absorb those type of costs to get them 12 training. 13 They're invited to all of our training. We 14 have training once a month for the basics, twice a month for 15 the paramedics. All of those training sessions are open 16 to -- and all of them -- all the extraneous training that 17 are available are open to them. There is extra training 18 that -- that I set them up with. If they can't make those, 19 then there is computer training, there are video tapes that 20 I can order from Texas Department of Health. And those type 21 of programs are all available to them. Now, do they all 22 accept and do it? No, they're usually coming to me, going, 23 "My certification is fixing to run out. I got to do 24 something." And we're scrambling -- we're having to 25 scramble. But, unfortunately, fire guys do it too. 30 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: One other question. 2 Brief -- brief answer, please. How many of these 19 come to 3 evening classes? 4 MR. DERRICK: Very few. Very few that we 5 have set up. We're going to start trying it again. Instead 6 of having meetings, just have education classes once a 7 month, and see -- see if we can get them coming again. But 8 history tells me that -- that, unfortunately, they don't 9 take advantage of the -- of the -- of the education that's 10 out there. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay thank, you. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ron, you go to -- I know 14 you talk with the Kendall Fire Department, but when you're 15 doing your -- you're going around, you might go meet with 16 Kendall volunteers, as well. I know a number of their 17 volunteers live in Kerr County. 18 MR. DERRICK: Yeah, and do remember that 19 Comfort E.M.S. does cover a portion of Kerr County. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right, kind of an overlap 21 between the two counties. 22 MR. DERRICK: Yes. It is by mutual agreement 23 with Kendall County. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Ron, you say you have 25 19 First Responders currently. How many, ideally, could you 31 1 use? 2 MR. DERRICK: How many are -- are actually 3 taking part? 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, how many would 5 you really need to have an ideal situation to cover all the 6 circumstances? 7 MR. DERRICK: Oh, we have 25 sets of 8 equipment -- well, 24 now. One is -- got stolen. But -- 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Twenty-four? 10 MR. DERRICK: Ideally, anywhere between 20 11 and 25 would make the system work very, very good. We are 12 making the system work now, but it's kind of limping along. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions? 14 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Good report. 15 MR. DERRICK: By the way, we are having 16 another E.M.T. class coming up here, so hopefully we can get 17 some more people interested in the areas of -- of the 18 volunteer fire departments to take part in that, too. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If somebody wants to 20 volunteer, they contact you -- 21 MR. DERRICK: You bet. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- or Kerrville Fire 23 Department? 24 MR. DERRICK: You bet. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, Ron. Excellent 32 1 report. We appreciate the good work you and your people do 2 for us. 3 MR. DERRICK: Thank you very much. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. Bye, Ron. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Item Number 2, 6 consider and discuss the abandonment of platted road 7 easements in Japonica Hills subdivision; number one, 8 Sendero; number two, Deer Hollow; number three, Javelina 9 Point; number four, Lisa Lane; and number five, an unnamed 10 road easement along northwest edge of Lot 6. 11 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: This is a -- this is a 12 continuation of an item that was first addressed some months 13 ago. 14 MR. JOHNSTON: Months ago. 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And we outlined, and 16 there is -- just as a reminder for members of the Court, 17 there's our dialog at that time about what needed to be 18 done. Homeowners have gone and done that, as far as I can 19 tell, and -- and Franklin's here to give us the detail on 20 it, on abandoning these -- these roads within the 21 subdivision. There is 100 percent -- you'll notice in the 22 certification there's -- 100 percent of the owners have 23 agreed to these abandonments. So, Franklin? 24 MR. JOHNSTON: I think we just need the -- 25 you know, the Court's authorization to put the notice, or 33 1 whoever puts the notice in the paper. The clerk, I think. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I'm not sure. There 3 is a notice posted. 4 MR. JOHNSTON: We need to have a notice in 5 the paper for a public hearing, and we recommend that you go 6 ahead with it. 7 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Do we need to set a 8 date for that -- 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Yes. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: -- hearing? 11 MR. JOHNSTON: Thirty days. At least 30 days 12 from today. So -- 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: The second meeting in March, 14 which would be March the 25th? 27th. 15 MS. HARDIN: Do you want to put the notice in 16 the paper? 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That will be on March 18 the -- 19 MS. BARBEE: 27th. 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: March 20th is our 21 second meeting. Oh, I'm sorry, 27th. It's March 27th. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Do I have a motion to set a 23 public hearing on the abandoning of these easements on March 24 27th at 10 o'clock a.m.? 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 34 1 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: So moved. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll second. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner 4 Griffin, seconded by Commissioner Letz, that we -- the Court 5 set a public hearing on the abandonment of the platted road 6 easements in Japonica Hills subdivision for 10 o'clock a.m. 7 on March 27th, Year 2000. Any further discussion? 8 MS. HARDIN: Do we do the notice or does the 9 clerk do the notice? 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: I don't know. 11 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I suppose we'd have to 12 review what the law says on that one, if it's included. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't think the law 14 says. 15 MR. ODOM: Do you want us to do it or -- 16 MS. HARDIN: I think it just says the 17 Commissioners Court. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Why don't you all do it? I 19 think that's a good suggestion. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Jannett's being awful 21 quiet over there. 22 MS. PIEPER: Y'all can do it. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Y'all prepare the notice, run 24 it by Jannett to make sure it meets the legal requirements, 25 and you'll be responsible for publishing. Any further 35 1 discussion? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 2 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 4 (No response.) 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Next item 6 is -- 7 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: If I may, I would just 8 like to -- to express my appreciation for all the hard work 9 that Don Townsend, who's present from the Homeowners' 10 Association, has done in gathering the signatures, and all 11 this -- this was a long and drawn-out process, very 12 difficult to find some owners. When we have citizens that 13 are willing to jump in and do the job, it really helps. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, Mr. Townsend. We 15 appreciate your help to the Court, and all of your 16 neighbors. Next item is Item Number 3, which is consider 17 and discuss the appraisal for Sheppard Rees right-of-way. 18 Commissioner Baldwin. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. The -- I 20 don't know if you're familiar with this particular project 21 or not, but this is going to be a major project for Kerr 22 County, and what this is doing is proving that the Kerr 23 County Road and Bridge Department is a planning department, 24 that they're looking out in the future. There is quite a 25 bit of growth out in that particular area. There's three -- 36 1 four subdivisions out there, two new large subdivisions and 2 a possibility of more. We're talking about a high amount of 3 traffic, so these folks are out in front of -- front of all 4 this traffic planning for the future for Kerr County, and I 5 appreciate that. And, I'll turn it over to the County 6 Engineer. 7 MR. JOHNSTON: Well, the first thing we need 8 to do is acquire the right-of-way, and that's what this is 9 concerning today. Road and Bridge has been working with 10 Texas Mental Health and Mental Retardation hospital out 11 there and Texas General Land Office in acquiring additional 12 right-of-way. We had a meeting, I think, January 7th with 13 the Assistant Administrator at the hospital, and I think 14 we've worked out the -- the appraisal. It's listed in here 15 in your revised -- it includes, what, 13 acres? I think 16 it's 13 acres. We have some already, right-of-way. We're 17 asking the Court to consider a court order to proceed with 18 the contract with General Land Office to acquire the 19 right-of-way. I think this falls under acquisition with 20 Schreiner Trust Fund for land acquisition. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: So just -- just to put it in 22 words that I understand, you're basically asking us to -- to 23 approve purchase of land from the Texas General Land Office; 24 they own the land because it's adjacent to the hospital? 25 MR. JOHNSTON: State Hospital owns it, but I 37 1 think we have to work through the Land Office. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: And that the funds would come 3 from the Schreiner Road Trust because this is in Precinct 1. 4 MR. JOHNSTON: Right. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: These are budgeted, 6 correct? Or is this not budgeted? I mean, I know the 7 project's in the budget. 8 MR. JOHNSTON: Project's budgeted. This is 9 out of Schreiner Road Trust, so -- 10 MR. ODOM: Out of Schreiner Trust Fund. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It will still take a 12 budget amendment, even if it's coming out of the Schreiner 13 Trust. If it's not budgeted -- that's why I'm asking if 14 it's not budgeted. 15 MR. JOHNSTON: Right. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Exactly. We still need 17 to do a budget amendment, get the money from the Trust Fund 18 to pay it. 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I think that's the way 20 we did it before on -- what was it, the bridge? 21 MR. ODOM: Yes. 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And we did -- 23 MR. ODOM: See, this was approved by the 24 Court, and this goes back well over a year. And, basically, 25 the direction was that it would come out of the Schreiner 38 1 Trust Fund when everybody -- 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 3 MR. ODOM: -- first came aboard, and it's 4 been a long, arduous -- 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's a great 6 idea. 7 MR. ODOM: -- ordeal, so -- you know, dealing 8 with them. What we really need from the Court is an order, 9 because they're going to go to their board -- the G.L.O. 10 will go to their board, and they need to approve it. What 11 we wanted was a court order issued so that they would know 12 that -- that we're committed to do this for 27,000-some-odd 13 dollars. And, that once that is done, then we can proceed. 14 The other thing is -- is, what attorney do you wish to use? 15 We could use the G.L.O., but it may be, you know, a very 16 long time before the lawyers in Austin get to do anything. 17 They're backlogged. So, they're asking us -- you know, it 18 would probably expedite the situation if we used a local 19 attorney. If we do that, then we're asking for not only a 20 court order, but what attorney would you like for to us use, 21 or do we go to the County Attorney? But we just need a 22 procedure so once this order is issued, we have marching 23 orders. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: My recommendation, 25 let's do one at a time. Let's try to get a court order out 39 1 there, and then -- the attorney is a recommendation? Or do 2 you want the attorney's name built in the court order? 3 MS. HARDIN: Whether or not the State or the 4 County will do it, there's attorney's fees. We'll have to 5 have the name of the attorney, but whether or not we will -- 6 MR. ODOM: Whether you just give us a court 7 order now, on another agenda item right here we're going to 8 discuss this, and Sheppard Rees will come up again. So, 9 it's -- it may give us a court order, at least, issuing 10 us -- that you recommend purchasing this right-of-way so we 11 can continue on with the project. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: At least do that. 13 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah. Do we have a 14 motion, Commissioner Baldwin, to -- 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, but I'm not sure 16 of the verbiage. I'm not positive what the verbiage -- 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You limit it to the 18 purchase. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Consider appraisal for 20 Sheppard Rees right-of-way is what the agenda item says. 21 MR. ODOM: Considering issuing a court order 22 to proceed with the G.L.O. to acquire this right-of-way. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's not the agenda item; 24 that's the problem we have. 25 MR. ODOM: It's not the agenda item? 40 1 Right-of-way for Sheppard Rees, right? 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, the problem we have is 3 that the agenda item says "consider and discuss the 4 appraisal." It doesn't go on to say "acquire the 5 right-of-way." 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, let me ask you 7 this -- 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: I think we could do it. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think if we approve 10 the appraisal, which says -- I mean, that is what the 11 appraisal's all about, is that the numbers and the prices 12 are all in order. And I move that we approve the appraisal 13 for Sheppard Rees right-of-way. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Which -- 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Could I perhaps offer 16 an addition to that? 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, you may. Doesn't 18 necessarily mean that I'll agree with it, but -- 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That future purchase 20 of that right-of-way would come from the Schreiner Trust -- 21 Road Trust. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That is correct. 23 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Which I think is okay 24 with the way -- we're not doing the budget amendment now. 25 We're just saying that with the understanding -- we approve 41 1 the appraisal with the understanding that the purchase of 2 that right-of-way will come from funds that are -- 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, okay. 4 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Schreiner Trust. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sure, yeah. 6 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Does that pass muster? 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, that's a fine motion. 8 We'll act on that, but the issue is, that motion, per se -- 9 and I don't know if the Commissioner is going to make a 10 separate motion -- does not authorize the acquisition of the 11 right-of-way, unless that was done by a previous Court. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, I don't think 13 it -- I don't think that we're actually approving the -- the 14 purchase. But it kind of gives -- what I heard him say is 15 that he wants -- he wants some kind of court order so that 16 he can -- he needs to move forward with the purchase. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right, but they need -- 18 but it needs to be mentioned so they can -- so the G.L.O. 19 can take it to their board. I think we can say approve 20 appraisal, which includes authorization to proceed through 21 the G.L.O. to acquire the property. 22 MR. ODOM: That's -- 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I want to stay with my 24 original motion, I believe. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Yeah. We're kind of 42 1 hamstrung. Let me see if I can state it in a way which will 2 get us down the road a little bit, but still, you know, keep 3 us within the bounds of the agenda item. A motion's been 4 made by Commissioner Baldwin and seconded by Commissioner 5 Griffin that we approve the appraisal for Sheppard Rees 6 right-of-way in the amount of $27,798 for 13.82 acres to be 7 acquired through the Texas General Land Office, the funds 8 for which are to be taken from the Schreiner Road Trust. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I second my own 10 motion. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Commissioner Griffin seconded 12 your motion already, Commissioner Baldwin. Any further 13 discussion? 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes. It says the 15 total is 22.31 acres. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: But the right-of-way 17 acquisition is 13.82 acres. I don't know which -- which the 18 better number is, 22.31 or the 13.82. 19 MR. JOHNSTON: It's a total of 22, but we 20 already have a right-of-way that goes through there. I 21 think the net increase is 13-whatever. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any further discussion? If 25 not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 43 1 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 3 (No response.) 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carried. Now, let's 5 be clear. We need to bring it back again for the actual 6 acquisition. 7 MR. ODOM: For the actual -- 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Which you guys have all the 9 authority you need to go forward, but we -- the Court has 10 not authorized the acquisition of the right-of-way. We've 11 approved the appraisal and given you the direction to 12 proceed to talk with the G.L.O., and we've identified the 13 source of funds. But, you'll probably need to bring it back 14 next meeting with a specific -- okay? All right. 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And with the budget 16 amendment at that time. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Yes, we need a budget 18 amendment. 19 MS. HARDIN: Once the contract is written and 20 approved by the Commissioners to the G.L.O., then it comes 21 back on. Are you -- and then the Court approves the final 22 contract? 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: We don't have to approve the 24 contract. If you'll bring it back next week under an agenda 25 item that says consider and discuss acquisition of 13.82 44 1 acres for right-of-way on Sheppard Rees Road, then we can 2 approve the acquisition -- I'm fairly confident that at that 3 time Commissioners Court will authorize the County Judge to 4 negotiate and sign a contract for that acquisition. So, 5 that's kind of the procedural step we'll have to take, okay? 6 Item Number 4, consider and discuss various 7 right-of-way deeds from individuals to Kerr County and set a 8 policy for future right-of-way deeds. Franklin? 9 MR. JOHNSTON: We have an ongoing acquisition 10 of right-of-way -- we need right-of-way deeds to acquire 11 property from individuals to Kerr County for road 12 improvements. For the last few years, the Court's directed 13 us to use Tom Pollard, when he was working for the Court. 14 We have two loose ends in that regard. Witt Road in 15 Precinct 2, deeds have been prepared, but they have not been 16 executed for that piece of property. And, on McDonald Loop, 17 right-of-ways have been surveyed, and we are clearing the 18 road. We have not determined if the additional land will be 19 needed. Do we continue with using Tom Pollard or do we use 20 the County Attorney on acquisitions in that area? 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any comments? 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I have an 23 opinion. I think that they need to continue using 24 Mr. Pollard until May, until we get our third attorney 25 online. That's just my opinion. Mr. Pollard is so familiar 45 1 with these things that it's not a great deal of study for 2 him. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: He has correspondence 4 back to that family on the Witt Road project which you and I 5 have both seen recently. 6 MR. JOHNSTON: Mm-hmm. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I would be in favor 8 of him continuing with it. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Definitely on Witt Road 10 and McDonald Loop, he should stay with those two to their 11 conclusion, because this -- 12 MR. JOHNSTON: And in addition to those, we 13 have three other projects that are -- are -- they're in 14 progress or coming up. Higbee Road in Precinct 4, Wharton 15 Road in Precinct 2, and then Sheppard Rees we were talking 16 about. Do we continue on with using Tom Pollard on those? 17 Or -- 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: I think Commissioner 19 Baldwin's accurate in that the third attorney in the County 20 Attorney's office hasn't been budgeted for until May, and 21 I'm sure we don't want to wait that long to proceed with 22 these. So, I would entertain a motion to authorize the Road 23 and Bridge Department to use Mr. Pollard on the five 24 projects they've identified in Item Number 4. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So moved. 46 1 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner 3 Williams, seconded by Commissioner Griffin, that the Court 4 authorize Road and Bridge Department to use Tom Pollard as 5 the attorney on the right-of-way deeds for Witt Road, 6 McDonald Loop, Higbee Road, Wharton Road, and Sheppard Rees 7 Road. Any further discussion? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The only comment I have, 9 Sheppard Rees is going to be ongoing for a -- a long, long 10 time, and maybe we just want to limit -- I mean, on Sheppard 11 Rees, just with the G.L.O. work right now, limit it to that 12 portion of it, because -- 13 MR. ODOM: There will be -- yeah. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- it's going to be going 15 on for several years, I imagine, up there. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: Tommy? 17 MR. TOMLINSON: I don't -- this is just for 18 information purposes only, and I think it's an opportunity 19 for me to say this. And it's in relation to the purpose of 20 right-of-ways. But, the Governmental Accounting Standard 21 Board, which, I would say, was an equal to the American 22 Institute of Certified Public Accountants, has issued a -- a 23 resolution whereas governmental entities, including 24 counties, in their financial statements beginning 2002, 25 shall include the value of any property -- any and all 47 1 properties owned by the County. That includes right-of-ways 2 and -- and any roadways, so -- and, in anticipation of that, 3 when we acquire right-of-ways from this point forward, it 4 will be helpful to -- to get a value applied to -- to 5 whatever amount there is, if it's either deeded or 6 purchased. So, if we know -- if we have some -- some idea 7 of -- of what the monetary value is at that time, it would 8 be helpful. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Good. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: It's either -- and 11 it's got to be at -- in general accounting standards, then, 12 it would have to be at the purchase price, if it was -- were 13 purchased, or perhaps at an appraised value if it's -- 14 MR. TOMLINSON: If it's a deeded -- yes. 15 This is going to be a major undertaking. 16 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah, sure will. 17 MR. TOMLINSON: As -- 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Leonard turned red over 19 there. 20 MR. ODOM: You saw my face change when he 21 said that. 22 MR. TOMLINSON: And this -- not only will 23 that change have to be made, but as we know financial 24 statements for governmental entities today, you will not 25 recognize them in 2002. So, just -- just a word of caution. 48 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Good luck, Tommy. 2 MR. TOMLINSON: I hoped they would do this 3 before -- after I retire, but -- but not so lucky. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: No such luck. We have a 5 motion on the table. The issue is whether we want to 6 include Sheppard Rees, or do we want to hold off on that? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think Sheppard Rees 8 should be included through the G.L.O. portion right now 9 while they're working on that, but I just think beyond the 10 State Hospital property, we might want to have someone else 11 look at that. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll agree with that. 13 We can come back later on and do some other things. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: That portion -- 15 MR. JOHNSTON: That's the scope of what we're 16 talking about right now. 17 MR. ODOM: Just that scope, because there are 18 other phases lined up after we get this completed. 19 MR. JOHNSTON: From the city -- city limits 20 to the entrance to Reisen, that's basically the area we're 21 talking about. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Still, we have the 23 understanding that the referral to Mr. Pollard only relates 24 to the G.L.O. portion of that project. Any further 25 discussion? 49 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Paula, do you know 2 what property they're talking about? Roller Coaster Hill is 3 going away forever. 4 MS. RECTOR: Oh. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any further discussion? If 6 not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 7 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 9 (No response.) 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Carries. Item Number 5, 11 consider and discuss bid packets for the annual bids on road 12 base equipment by the hour, paving aggregate, asphalt 13 emulsions, oil, corrugated metal pipe, and approve 14 advertisement for same. 15 MR. JOHNSTON: You have in front of you 16 the -- the actual bid packet that we're going to send out to 17 advertise for bids, and want the Court to approve such and 18 approve the advertisement. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: You and I had a discussion 20 last year, Franklin, about whether the equipment by the hour 21 was a package bid or a separate item, separate equipment 22 bid. 23 MR. JOHNSTON: Right. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Did we -- did we resolve that 25 for this year? 50 1 MR. JOHNSTON: Well, if you look at that 2 part, I think we've changed it around a little bit. 3 MR. ODOM: Did you not receive that? We sent 4 that up for your review. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: I received it. I just wanted 6 to have -- make the comment and have y'all point out to me 7 or to the Court how we're going to proceed this year. So, 8 just take 30 seconds and tell me you fixed it, and is it by 9 the package or is it by the -- 10 MR. JOHNSTON: I think it's by the hour, per 11 equipment -- per piece of equipment. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's only -- to answer 13 the question, there's no more package. It's just a flat 14 bid; they bid per hour. 15 MR. ODOM: I think if you will notice the 16 contract, it's in here. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On that topic, I 18 didn't -- was going to bring it up anyway. It would seem to 19 me that -- and I know you know this, but just to acquire 20 this information at this time, put in the numbers or the 21 quantity of each of these types of equipment they have. 22 Because we get a lot more -- say, we get ten bids, as an 23 example. There are times when, say, Company X had the low 24 bid on a scraper, and they have one scraper. But, if we 25 need two scrapers, that doesn't do us any good. So, I think 51 1 that if we give an idea as to how much pieces of equipment 2 they have available, because you -- by the nature of our 3 projects, if we have a small project, you may be able to go 4 with a small contractor, like we have been, and otherwise 5 may go with a higher price to get three or four scrapers at 6 the same time. So -- I mean, so -- and I don't know, and I 7 don't think it needs to be in here, but I think there needs 8 to be an understanding that, you know, Road and Bridge has 9 to have the discretion to -- they don't want to have two 10 contractors on the same job; only have one contractor on 11 that job, and that may require -- even though the prices may 12 be a little higher to get with someone who's got enough 13 equipment to do the whole thing, as opposed to having two or 14 three different contractors working on the same project. 15 So, I'm -- there's a bunch of variables that 16 go into -- into that. Now I like the way they're doing it a 17 lot better. I thought the package was confusing, the way it 18 was done before. And, the other comment I had, to me, you 19 should have more equipment there. You don't have a D-3 20 listed on here. Occasionally we do a little light dozer 21 work. To me, you might get some of those others, such as a 22 D-3 or maybe a -- you know, maybe a larger dozer as well, 23 maybe like a D-8 or D-7. 24 MR. ODOM: Well, what we tried to do was 25 tie -- like the Judge had said, last year we tried to tie it 52 1 to a minimum bid. We could put under that -- see, I put 2 optional bid down there, which was optional; wasn't going to 3 affect the basic bid. We were going to go with the basic 4 bid. And, what we said in the notice to the contractors, to 5 bid Kerr County work, the contractor must have the minimum 6 equipment listed on the bid documents. That was to be able 7 to do the road work. That was the complaint we sort of 8 heard last year, and so we were -- it is very possible -- I 9 mean, I hadn't thought of it, but -- I guess under optional 10 bids, we could put down a D-3 and maybe a -- a 31 scraper, 11 you know, or a 631. 12 Everybody's got a little bit different, but 13 we came back with something that was basic that most people 14 should have, just to do the minimum road work. Now, if we 15 get into solid rock, we're going to need bigger dozers, of 16 course, and we just -- we just tried to make it fair for 17 what we saw. If some of the -- you know, a lot of the work 18 that we're doing for a minimum bid. We just didn't want one 19 piece of equipment or two pieces of equipment bid. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. Right. But the 21 other option -- I think it's a good idea if you put it under 22 optional, some of this other equipment we use on occasion. 23 That way, the hourly rate is at least fixed, you know. 24 MR. ODOM: Yes. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: As opposed to having to 53 1 negotiate that down the road and get into a little bit more 2 tenuous -- but, like, you know, a bigger dozer and a smaller 3 dozer, 'cause I know we use both occasionally, and then -- 4 that was the main thing that I just noticed, the size of 5 dozers. 6 MR. ODOM: Now, I always have that option to 7 rent a piece of equipment out there to keep everybody 8 honest. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 10 MR. ODOM: That's my leverage. 11 MR. JOHNSTON: We have them log the age of 12 equipment also. That distinguishes between equipment that's 13 likely to be broken down half the time or if it's newer. 14 MR. ODOM: If you're talking about a 15 brand-new piece of equipment versus somebody that's got one 16 25, 30 years old, of course, that dollar rating is in there 17 and that puts everything out of skew of what -- are they 18 capable of really doing the work that I need to be doing, or 19 are we just low-balling this thing to get it? So, I -- 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: My only comment is, add a 21 couple of those things optional, but I think this package 22 looks a lot better than before, because -- 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- it's simpler. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: A lot of good work has gone 54 1 into this. 2 MR. ODOM: What would you like for to us do? 3 Would you like to bring it -- 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Do you want to make a motion 5 that we proceed with these bid packages, give them the 6 ability to add a couple items to the optional if it's called 7 for? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. So moved. 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner Letz, 12 seconded by Commissioner Griffin, that the Court approve the 13 bid packets for annual bids on road base equipment by the 14 hour, paving aggregate, asphalt emulsions, oil, and 15 corrugated metal pipe, with the option of adding to the 16 optional equipment on equipment by the hour any additional 17 equipment they feel would be in the best interests of the 18 Road and Bridge Department in that bid, and approve 19 advertisement for the bids on these items. Any further 20 discussion? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 21 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 23 (No response.) 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. 25 MR. JOHNSTON: Thank you. 55 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, Franklin. Thank 2 you, Leonard, good work. Next item is Item Number 6, 3 consider and discuss the sale of surplus property on March 4 the 11th. 5 MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. We have set aside 6 Saturday, March the 11th, at the Ag Barn to sell surplus 7 property again. At this time I do not have a list, but I 8 wanted to get it approved so we can do some advertising and 9 publish notices in the paper between now and the 11th. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Last time you did this, 11 Tommy, it cost me a bunch of money. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Did you buy all the surplus 13 property? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I bought quite a bit. 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I would move that -- 16 that we approve March the 11th, 2000, as the date for the 17 sale of the surplus property at the Ag Barn, and -- and 18 authorize the gathering of information so it can be properly 19 advertised. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, we are approving 22 the list that he is going to put together later on? 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Approving the date. 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Approving the date of 25 March the 11th, subject to gathering of the appropriate 56 1 list. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What about the list? 3 That is -- I mean, that's what we need to be doing, is 4 approving -- 5 MR. TOMLINSON: I know that, but I wanted to 6 get this done now. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You're just interested 8 in the date? 9 MR. TOMLINSON: In the date, so that -- 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Before we proceed, Leonard, 11 you had a comment? 12 MR. ODOM: Yes. I -- we're for the sale, and 13 I guess you want us to coordinate with Tommy any excess we 14 have. But, to do that, I have to have -- do we have enough 15 time for the next Court meeting and all to -- to make that 16 list? Because we have to call it surplus, and -- for y'all 17 to give authorization to sell that. Does that give 18 everybody enough time -- not only us, but everybody else, to 19 identify it? 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Tommy, if we approve the 21 surplus list on February 28th, does that give us about three 22 weeks to advertise, or two weeks? 23 MR. TOMLINSON: Well, if we can't make the 24 list, it's a self-inflicted problem, because Glenn and I are 25 going to make the list. 57 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, but they've got some 2 things they want to add, too. 3 MR. TOMLINSON: Other than Road and Bridge, 4 so I think we can. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: February 28th. Will that be 6 enough time to advertise it, draw a crowd? 7 MR. TOMLINSON: I think we can advertise it 8 that there's going to be a sale before then. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Right, that's what we're 10 going to do today. 11 MR. ODOM: To sell anything, it has to be 12 excess equipment or has to be surplus. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Yes. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tommy's -- that's not a 15 guess. That means he's going to have a list on that date. 16 MR. TOMLINSON: I will have a list on the 17 28th. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion before us is to 19 approve the date of March the 11th, 2000, for sale of 20 surplus property at the Ag Barn, and to authorize 21 advertisement of the date. All in favor, raise your right 22 hand. 23 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 25 (No response.) 58 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Item Number 2 7, consider and discuss the employee status of the district 3 court bailiff. 4 DEPUTY BEHRENS: Well, I'll do it with you. 5 Sheriff said that -- 6 MR. TOMLINSON: I told the Sheriff that I 7 would help with this one. This is -- this request 8 originally came to my office from -- from the District 9 Judges for two reasons. One is with anticipation of two 10 full-time courtrooms, they anticipate an additional need for 11 hours for -- for a bailiff. The second one is that -- I 12 think the Treasurer may be able to help you with this, 13 too -- is that, historically, the district court bailiff has 14 worked more than -- 900 hours? Than 900 hours a year, which 15 triggers -- 900 hours triggers the need to pay retirement 16 for that person. The request is to change the status of 17 this employee from part-time to full-time part-time. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: And the impact of that is 19 that we then have to pay the benefits, correct? 20 MR. TOMLINSON: We already pay insurance. 21 The additional amount would be for -- for retirement only. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Looks like we don't have 23 any choice. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, what -- is he on a pace 25 this year to exceed the part-time ceiling? 59 1 MS. NEMEC: He has been for several years 2 already. And the only way we get away with paying part-time 3 is that when the money is budgeted, it's not foreseen that 4 he's going to go over that amount, but then the schedule 5 requires him to go over. Otherwise, if -- if they knew that 6 they were going to schedule him over that amount of hours, 7 then we would have had to budget retirement for it, but he's 8 been going -- 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, where do we find the 10 funds? 11 MR. TOMLINSON: Well, the -- the bailiff is 12 paid from Courthouse Security funds. I anticipate there to 13 be approximately $500 to $600 in retirement from this point 14 to the end of the year. I think there's sufficient funds 15 in -- in surplus funds in that fund. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: In the Courthouse Security 17 fund? 18 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: There's enough funds to take 20 care of his retirement. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have a question. 22 He's a law enforcement person, so he comes under different 23 numbers than the rest of us. Do you deal with the 900-hour 24 thing for law enforcement? You deal with -- 25 MS. NEMEC: No, not when it comes to 60 1 retirement. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 3 MS. NEMEC: Everybody -- 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Everybody's the same? 5 MS. NEMEC: Mm-hmm. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, that leads me to 7 my age-old question of why this part-time employee and 8 regular part-time employee? I just -- I think that just 9 confuses and clouds the entire program. I mean, to me -- to 10 me, you're either a part-time employee or you're a full-time 11 employee. If you work over 19 hours, you're a full-time 12 employee; if you work under 19 hours, you're a part-time 13 employee. I don't know why y'all want to keep playing with 14 that. And, I mean, I know I'm not going to get anywhere 15 here, because I've been trying this for years. But, to test 16 this thing, to see how really important this is, let's don't 17 do anything and let's let the District Judges order us to do 18 it, see how important it is to them. Which won't fly 19 either. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: My question has to do 21 with the regular part-time status and what would happen, 22 'cause regular part-time status, according to the types of 23 employment in Paragraph 6.00 -- .01, talks about those who 24 work fewer than 40 hours per week, and that puts them into a 25 regular part-time status. What happens on those occasions 61 1 when, by reason of Court's activities, that bailiff works 2 more than 40 hours per week? 3 MR. TOMLINSON: I think -- 4 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: It says on the 5 average. 6 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes. 7 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: It says on average, 8 fewer than 40 per week. 9 MR. TOMLINSON: Some weeks, I'm sure that -- 10 that a bailiff may not work at all. I mean, this is -- this 11 situation is -- is dictated, of course, by when the Court's 12 in session, and -- and so it's -- it's difficult to have an 13 employee that's scheduled for regular hours. 14 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I think even the way 15 it's written now, if he were -- if an employee exceeds 40 16 hours a week, then he's got -- he or she has to become a 17 full-time employee. But we don't have bailiffs that do 18 that, because it's on average; it's not every now and then. 19 You have to exceed 40 hours. 20 MS. NEMEC: That was the reason that several 21 years ago, this employee was given insurance benefits. And 22 this is the only employee who is a part-time employee that 23 has those benefits, and that was the reason, because it was 24 brought to the Court's attention that they don't work every 25 week, but then there may be some weeks that -- that they do 62 1 work the 40 hours. So it's a unique situation here. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, I think it's also one 3 that we will have an opportunity to address in the budget 4 cycle, about the need to have a regular full-time employee 5 as bailiff with two courtrooms going in. 6 MS. NEMEC: That would clean up things a lot. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: We would be able to justify 8 that. But, in the interim, I think we need to -- 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I would make a motion 10 that we do approve the recommended change that would include 11 him as a regular part-time. Is that what we're going for? 12 MR. TOMLINSON: Yeah. 13 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Which just means that 14 we would add the additional benefits of approximately $500, 15 which will come out of the Courthouse Security funds. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: At the beginning of the 17 next pay period? 18 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: At the beginning of 19 the next pay period. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That would make it 21 cleaner, it seems. 22 MS. NEMEC: February 16th. 23 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah, that cleans it 24 up. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 63 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Will that come out of the 2 special Courthouse Security funds? Is that correct? 3 MR. TOMLINSON: That's correct. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 5 Griffin, seconded by Commissioner Letz, that we reclassify 6 the bailiff's position for district court from part-time to 7 regular part-time, and that the additional funds for the 8 benefits come from Courthouse Security funds effective at 9 the beginning of the next pay period. Any further 10 discussion? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 11 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 13 (No response.) 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Let's do one 15 more item, and then we will take our mid-morning break. 16 Item number 8, consider and discuss request for $3,400 for 17 part-time in the County Tax Assessor/Collector's office. 18 Paula? 19 MS. RECTOR: Well, as I stated in the letter 20 that each one of you have a copy of, that have I had a 21 part-time person working in my Voter Registration department 22 since about the middle of June. She's been working 32 hours 23 a week consistently. Not only are we handling the upcoming 24 elections, but the past elections. And I remind the Court 25 that we do city and school elections also, so that has kept 64 1 us busy with the K.I.S.D. bond election, which has required 2 a lot of additional work from my office. With a mass 3 mail-out of voter registration cards, just to give you some 4 staggering figures, we mailed out over 30,000 voter 5 registration cards in December. We had over 3,000 returned 6 because of bad addresses. Each one of those we were 7 required by law to mail out a confirmation letter. Even 8 though those cards come back stating that there is no 9 forwarding address, the law requires that we do mail out 10 these confirmation letters. And, in the last three months, 11 we've mailed out 4,353 letters, which we are required by law 12 to do. My part-time person is the one that has been in 13 charge of mailing out these letters. And, as they come back 14 in, of course, all this information has to be put into the 15 computer. They all have to be coded, when these cards are 16 returned, when the confirmation letters go out, and when the 17 confirmation cards come back, or if they don't come back. 18 All of this takes additional time. 19 The total transactions that that department 20 has done, which has been new voters coming in -- we've had 21 726 new applications in the last month. We've had 334 22 people change addresses in the last month, and 1,689 various 23 other transactions that we do. And that 5,775 total 24 transactions, that keeps my other Voter Registration people 25 busy on the computer constantly, changing addresses and 65 1 entering new voters in. This is an additional request to 2 the money that was allocated in my budget for part-time, but 3 in order to see us through the upcoming election, I see no 4 way that I'm going to be able to handle it without some 5 part-time help. I did submit a letter to the State 6 requesting some additional funds, and they approved a little 7 over $1,400, which will be expended as of the 15th pay date. 8 So, that is why I'm here, is to request some additional 9 funds to help get us through the election. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: First question or comment 11 is, based on the -- whatever you call it, whatever this 12 thing -- it came out of Personnel Policy, you really want a 13 temporary person. 14 MS. RECTOR: Well, temporary, right. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Temporary. 16 MS. RECTOR: Yes, right. They call it part-time 17 in the budget. Maybe we should change that to temporary. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Probably be easier. Not 19 a bad idea, because it's confusing. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Paula, is your 21 request for $3,400, is that a gross amount or is that net? 22 You've got $1,400 from the State, you said? 23 MS. RECTOR: That's already been -- that will 24 be expended, like I said, on the 15th pay period of this 25 month. 66 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, you're asking for 2 34 on top of the 14 you got from the State? 3 MS. RECTOR: Yes, mm-hmm. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: My comment is, I mean, 5 while this may require a budget emergency if we can't find 6 the funds somewhere else, this is, to me, one of the most 7 important things we do, which is keep things accurate and 8 current and encouraging people to vote. And, I think we 9 need to find somewhere -- without question, we need to do 10 this. This is a year when we have -- like Paula said, we've 11 had more elections than we really thought because of 12 K.I.S.D., and, you know, I guess more than was anticipated 13 in the budget. 14 MS. RECTOR: Right. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: With changes and people 16 becoming registered, which is good, so I think it's 17 something we need to do. 18 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I would also -- yeah, 19 good comment. And I would add, too, that is -- is there -- 20 or ask the question, is there a way that we can anticipate 21 this in the budget process for election years? So that -- 22 so that we don't -- if we know that -- and this is just 23 estimates, I know, but we've got -- if we know there are 24 going to be a bunch of elections during an election year 25 like we have this year, I think we should, in the budget 67 1 process, forecast that and come up with more -- just put 2 some more part-time money the budget. 3 MS. RECTOR: Yeah. I think that this 4 particular year was hard for us to guesstimate, because of 5 the growth and the number of people registering to vote. 6 The number of people moving around has just been astounding. 7 And, we never know until we do our mass mail-out exactly how 8 many of those voter registration cards are going to come 9 back. And, with the Post Office changing the post office 10 boxes, with the new Post Office, they had assured us that 11 before mass mail-out they would get us a list of all those 12 people. They did not do that. This was another mail-out we 13 had to do, trying to pull everybody that had a post office 14 box that we knew was going to change, to send out a 15 confirmation letter to them asking that they give us their 16 new post office. So, that was an additional job that we had 17 to take on to try to clean up those post office boxes, also. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tommy, where do we have 19 any money? 20 MR. TOMLINSON: I don't -- I know we -- I 21 know there's funds in -- in Nondepartmental and Contingency, 22 but I -- I know that we -- we have a project going for 23 county-wide internet service for -- from the telephone 24 company. And, I know that -- that to accomplish that, we're 25 going to have to purchase some -- some hardware. I'd 68 1 like -- I'd rather reserve that contingency monies for that 2 purpose. I think this qualifies as -- as an emergency item, 3 so I would -- I would prefer to -- to just increase the 4 budget by this much. That's my recommendation. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So moved. 6 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner 8 Williams, seconded by Commissioner Griffin, that the Court 9 approve an additional $3,400 for temporary part-time help in 10 the County Tax Assessor/Collector's office relating to the 11 Voter Registration department and declare an emergency and 12 take the said funds from Surplus and increase the budget by 13 that amount. Any further discussion? 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: As per the 15 recommendation the County Auditor. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: Per the recommendation of the 17 County Auditor. If not, all in favor, raise your right 18 hand. 19 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 21 (No response.) 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. 23 MS. RECTOR: Thank you very much. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, Paula. You do 25 good work. 69 1 MS. RECTOR: Thank you. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: At this time we'll take a 3 10-minute break and reconvene at 10:32. 4 (A 10-minute recess was taken.) 5 - - - - - - - - - - 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: It's 10:32 on Monday, 7 February 14th. We'll reconvene this regular session of Kerr 8 County Commissioners Court. Next item on the agenda is Item 9 Number 9, which is consider and discuss implementing an 10 Accident Prevention Plan for the year 2000. Barbara Nemec. 11 MS. NEMEC: Well, we did adopt an Accident 12 Prevention Plan for 1999, and the Court signed off on it. 13 We are still working under that plan, but TAC has asked us 14 to sign a new resolution for the Year 2000. So, everything 15 is still the same, so this is just something that they need 16 for their files for the new year. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 18 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Let's point out that this 20 has, according to the literature in the Resolution, this 21 plan will save us almost $13,000 on Workmen's Compensation 22 costs. 23 MS. NEMEC: Right, mm-hmm. We get a 24 discount. Also, Judge, I was going to ask you, the way 25 the -- the plan reads, there is an investigation committee 70 1 that consists of Glenn Holekamp and then a representative 2 from Road and Bridge and then a representative from the 3 Sheriff's Department. Normally, what -- what they do, 4 because they can't all get together at the same time, Glenn 5 is the one that goes and investigates the accident, and then 6 gets with the rest of the committee. If we could have a 7 letter from you -- although it does state that in the 8 policy, if we could have a letter from you or if Glenn could 9 have a letter from you stating that he is authorized to 10 investigate these accidents, 'cause what's happening is he's 11 going to a department that has an accident and investigating 12 them, and then the employees are looking at him like, 13 "You're the Maintenance Supervisor. What are you doing here 14 investigating this accident?" So, that's what we're 15 coming -- running into. So, if we could have a letter from 16 you, that would be great. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Bring me what you need. 18 MS. NEMEC: Okay, thank you. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner Letz, 20 seconded by Commissioner Griffin, that we approve the 21 Accident Prevention Plan for the Year 2000. Any further 22 discussion? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just one comment. I 24 don't know if the rest of the Court has been out Highway 27 25 recently, but anyone driving from the V.A. to the Lion's 71 1 Camp needs to exercise extreme caution. That road has 2 become very, very dangerous, and that's where we have most 3 of our County offices. The Highway Department is -- I don't 4 know, it's difficult to drive down there in a pickup, as 5 narrow as that route has got, during that construction by 6 the Highway Department. Little League is getting ready to 7 start, which is going to really compound that traffic 8 problem. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any further discussion? If 10 not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 11 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 13 (No response.) 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Thank you, 15 Barbara. 16 MS. NEMEC: Thank you. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Next item is Item Number 10, 18 which is consider and discuss approving a regulation for 19 sexually-oriented businesses in the unincorporated area of 20 Kerr County, Texas, including setting a public hearing for 21 same. Commissioner Baldwin? 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. Thank you 23 very much. First of all, I wanted to let you know and the 24 public know that this is -- is not something that was just 25 done overnight. This document that we're dealing with today 72 1 was well-thought-out and a great deal of research was done 2 by the County Attorney's office. As a brief explanation, 3 I'd just like to read a couple of parts of it here on the 4 front page, a couple of paragraphs, just kind of open up 5 some thinking here and what this is really all about. 6 Down at the bottom of Page 1 of that 7 document, Chapter 243 of the Texas Local Government Code 8 authorizes counties to adopt regulations restricting the 9 location and operation of commercial enterprises whose 10 primary business is the offering of a service or the 11 selling, renting, or exhibition of devices or any other 12 items intended to provide sexual simulation or sexual 13 gratification to the customer. Chapter 243, Texas Local 14 Government Code authorizes counties to require an owner or 15 operator of sexually-oriented businesses, as defined in that 16 chapter, to obtain and maintain a permit for the operation 17 of that enterprise, and a county may provide for the denial, 18 suspension, or revocation of a permit. 19 Now, when I was at A & M over the week -- 20 last week, I visited with Jefferson County about this. They 21 have some similar things going on down there, and they 22 recommended some things that we do. But, one of their new 23 Commissioners is a -- a prior law enforcement officer, and 24 he told me, and I quote, that about 95 percent of these type 25 of businesses, a part of that business is illegal drugs and 73 1 many other things. So, I just wanted to bring that out, 2 that it's -- that on the face of -- the face of these kind 3 of businesses, there's many other things that go along with 4 it, and it's -- and it's spelled out in here. The County 5 Attorney has -- has provided a tremendous amount of 6 information. I don't know if Mr. Griffin wants to comment 7 on his activity with -- with this particular item or not, 8 but that's up to him, but that would be my comments. And -- 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Wow. Want to rephrase 10 that, Commissioner? 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, yeah, I will. I 12 will rephrase it, I'm sorry. 13 (Laughter.) 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm sorry. 15 Mr. Griffin is not getting into this kind of business. I 16 don't think. But -- 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: No. There is a -- a 18 potential business venture within Precinct 4 -- 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm sorry, Larry. 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: -- that has brought 21 this item to our immediate attention. And -- and that's not 22 the reason for this. This has been -- when did this start, 23 actually? It was in the last -- 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have been talking 25 about it for about 12 years. 74 1 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: With law enforcement 3 around here. 4 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Right. But, at any 5 rate, there is a -- there is a potential for a business in 6 Precinct 4, and that has brought our immediate attention to 7 this. And, I think that's what the Commissioner was 8 referring to. I am not involved in it. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Someone approached him 10 for -- to open a business in his precinct, and that's what 11 triggered us really jumping on this thing, getting it done. 12 I appreciate the County Attorney's office doing it, and so 13 I'll turn it over to the County Attorney at this point and 14 let her have her liberty. Thank you. 15 MS. BAILEY: Thank you, Commissioner Baldwin. 16 What I have provided to the Commissioners is this folder, 17 which has several parts to it, and I just want to tell you 18 what the parts are so that you'll know why they're in there. 19 Of course, initially, there is the proposed order for Kerr 20 County adopting regulations for sexually-oriented 21 businesses, and I'll go through that in a little bit more 22 detail in a few minutes. Then the next divider is a 23 currently existing Kerr County order which regulates and 24 controls massage and massage establishments for Kerr County, 25 Texas. This ordinance does not address sexually-oriented 75 1 businesses, but it could be interpreted by someone running a 2 massage-related sexually-oriented business to apply. 3 Therefore, I have made some reference in the proposed order 4 to this to clarify that it still is in existence, but that 5 it is superseded with respect to sexually-oriented 6 businesses by the proposed regulation. Then, finally, you 7 have a copy of Chapter 243 of the government -- of the Local 8 Government Code, which does provide for a county's ability 9 to regulate this kind of business. Now, back to the 10 proposed order. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Ms. Bailey, before we go too 12 much further, we have three individuals who are here today 13 that would like to address us on this issue, so I'd like to 14 let them come forward and address us, and then we'll go 15 through what you've proposed. 16 MS. BAILEY: All right. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: If that's all right, 18 Commissioner. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, that is fine. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Come forward, please, 21 Reverend Plumb. 22 MR. PLUMB: I'll try to speak briefly. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: If you'd give your name and 24 address for the Court. 25 MR. PLUMB: My name is Forrest Plumb, and I'm 76 1 the pastor of the Kerrville Bible Church out on the corner 2 of Harper Road and 10. I've been in the ministry for about 3 47 years. Three of those years I worked with Billy Graham, 4 so I've been pretty much around. And I say that to say 5 this: that in those 47 years, I have dealt with the law 6 enforcement agencies in several -- in several states, and we 7 have seen where the door has opened for establishments of 8 what we're talking about, and we have seen very serious 9 results. Very serious results. But what sounded good at 10 the beginning, that they will abide by this and that, turned 11 into situations where I had to deal with young people, and 12 I've had to -- I've had law enforcement agencies call on me 13 to assist them in trying to help people through their drug 14 habits and so forth, and that were all picked up from this 15 type of porno establishments. And I've seen -- I've seen 16 some very serious and sad cases. 17 I'm thinking of one boy, 17 years of age -- 18 and this is duplicated over and over again -- who came from 19 a good -- good family, good moral family. And, he was 20 attacked by one of these establishments; they enticed him 21 in, and as a result, he's thirty -- about 36 years old and 22 he still has problems coming from that situation. So, it's 23 long-range. It just doesn't -- once you open the door, 24 you're not going to be able to close it. Once the door is 25 open, you will not close it. 77 1 And, our church covers a lot -- our 2 constituency covers an awful lot of territory of Kerr 3 County, clear up into Fredericksburg and up towards Comfort, 4 and out towards Junction and Ingram. And, we have -- we 5 have business people in our church. Our church is made up, 6 probably, of 50 percent of business people, president of a 7 bank. I would call these people by name; you wouldn't know 8 who they are. And yet we have a lot of families with 9 children, and I just thought I'd throw this out. I'm in 10 favor of the open hearing, but I am against the 11 establishment, and I will fight to keep it -- Kerr County 12 clear of this kind of thing. If you want to know more, I 13 can tell you more, but I don't want to take your time. I 14 appreciate it. Thank you. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. Appreciate your 16 time. Mr. Crake, Mrs. Crake, either of you. 17 MR. CRAKE: My name -- excuse me. My name is 18 Merv Crake, and I'm here just as a concerned citizen. Saw 19 this in Sunday's paper, and just -- and I don't believe in 20 coincidences. Also in Sunday's paper was this thing of all 21 the sexual offenders running around in the area. I think we 22 don't need an establishment anywhere in Kerr County that 23 will feed the lust pattern and -- and influence and educate 24 and arouse the individuals we already know exist here and 25 create new ones. This is such a clear-cut case of good 78 1 versus evil, I can't understand that there'd be a whole lot 2 of opposition to putting either severe restrictions, and I 3 hope restrictions on even the establishment of such 4 institutions in Kerr County. This is a great county; people 5 have moved here from all over the country because it's, I 6 guess, a place they want to raise their kids, and we need to 7 protect these young people and older people from this kind 8 of evil. Thank you. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. Mrs. Crake? 10 MRS. CRAKE: Well, I hope that the paper is 11 true. I'm Maridelle Crake. I live at 395 Indian Lake 12 Drive. I hope the paper is true, that there are no 13 sexually-oriented businesses in the unincorporated areas of 14 Kerr County. And I pray and I hope that there never will 15 be. This is a very serious thing, and the decisions that 16 you all make here about this will affect generations to 17 come. There are, as I remember the paper stating, 10 sexual 18 offenders in custody now, and there are 16 listed in the 19 paper that are in our area right now. We do not need to 20 help these people ply their trade by giving them an 21 establishment which will just incite them. So, I'm sure we 22 wish that none of these offenders would be in our county, 23 but they're here, so we would not like for this to continue. 24 You would like all these kind of people to be elsewhere, and 25 you would not like that this type of sin to be here, but, 79 1 again, you -- and it scares me just a little bit when I hear 2 that we're already talking about regulating this evil, when 3 we shouldn't be talking about rules and regulations. We 4 should make a stand saying it's not going to come into our 5 area, and we will fight to keep it out. 6 So, when we start talking about should they 7 be allowed to be this far from the city or this far from a 8 school or a church, no, that's not the issue. The issue is, 9 let's not let them in at all. And there shouldn't be one in 10 the City of Kerrville, either. So, that's where I stand. I 11 am for the open hearing, but it scares me to death to even 12 kind of have an open hearing to even open it up to a 13 discussion of whether we would allow this type of thing in 14 our county. Thank you. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, ma'am, before you sit 16 down, I think you need to understand what we can do. Right 17 now, anybody could put one in that wants to. We don't have 18 the legal ability to prohibit them. We have the ability to 19 regulate and restrict them. I'm sure this Court -- 20 MRS. CRAKE: I thought -- excuse me. I 21 thought what he had read before said that you could regulate 22 whether there was one here or not. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: We can regulate the 24 establishment. We can't prohibit them. We can put 25 requirements that they be so far from the schools, so far 80 1 from church, but we can't say there cannot be any. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: We don't have that 3 option. 4 MRS. CRAKE: You don't have that option? 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: No. Legally, we do have the 6 ability to -- 7 MRS. CRAKE: This has come from the State? 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Yes, it's a State law. 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And the federal 10 reading of the Constitution status of it, so that -- it's 11 filtered from -- actually, from the Supreme Court over years 12 and years, to the states into the -- obviously, into the 13 counties, but the State has allowed us to do some 14 regulation, and that's what -- that's what the County 15 Attorney has addressed to us. This is not an opening of the 16 door. 17 MRS. CRAKE: Mm-hmm. 18 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I think that was a 19 phrase used by an earlier speaker. It's a -- it's doing 20 what we can to close the door. 21 MRS. CRAKE: Mm-hmm. 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Within the limit -- to 23 the limit of the law as far as we can close the door, but -- 24 but we do not have the option to say, "You can't put that 25 kind of business here." 81 1 MRS. CRAKE: Can you make it so severe and so 2 prohibitive that they would not come here, your regulations? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's what we -- 4 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: To the limit of the 5 law. 6 MRS. CRAKE: That's what you're talking 7 about. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's what we need to 9 talk to the attorney about. 10 MRS. CRAKE: I hope that you make it very 11 severe. Thank you. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, Ms. Crake. Okay, 13 Ilse. 14 MS. BAILEY: Thank you, Commissioners. And, 15 just to clarify, what Judge Henneke and Commissioner Griffin 16 were just remarking on is exactly correct. Up until today, 17 and even after today, until this sort of regulation is put 18 into place, the door in Kerr County is wide-open for any 19 kind of sexually-oriented business to -- to open its doors. 20 And, what we're doing -- fortunately, to date, no one has 21 walked through that wide-open door, but it has been 22 wide-open. What we're attempting to do before that door is 23 utilized is to narrow it down so that any sexually-oriented 24 business that does choose to go into effect goes into effect 25 under very restrictive guidelines, so that we protect the 82 1 other citizenry as much as possible while still protecting 2 the First Amendment rights of people to engage in business 3 and to engage in sexually-oriented activity which is not 4 prohibited by law. We may not like some of that, but people 5 do have a First Amendment right to engage in some types of 6 reprehensible behavior, as long as it doesn't conflict with 7 everyone else's rights. 8 Particularly, with respect to the first page, 9 I would draw your attention to about the third indented 10 paragraph down. And, again, I've taken most of this from a 11 Harris County ordinance regarding regulating of sexually- 12 oriented businesses. The reason I chose that particular 13 ordinance is that it has been tested in court. It has had 14 attacks mounted against it on First Amendment bases, and it 15 at least has survived those initial challenges, which makes 16 me believe that it is carefully enough drawn that it should 17 protect us and our citizens, while still leaving the door 18 open as much as is constitutionally required. And, that's 19 why this -- this third paragraph down indicates that we're 20 not only concerned about restricting the business, but we're 21 concerned about the potential for impingement upon the First 22 Amendment rights of the people who do engage in aspects of 23 sexually-oriented businesses which are not prohibited by 24 law. 25 I just want to draw your attention to a 83 1 couple of things, because I think I will probably need to 2 make a change or two to this before it is put forth for a 3 public hearing. On Page 4, what I have done in the bolded 4 part at the bottom of the page, I think we probably will 5 want to leave that in there. I just want to draw your 6 attention to it. What I've done is said that the previously 7 adopted order of Kerr County, Texas, regulating massage 8 establishments are superseded and repealed on the effective 9 date of this regulation, but only to the extent that they 10 conflict with the order. Which would mean that individuals 11 in business enterprises which offer massage services in the 12 unincorporated area of Kerr County, but are not sexually- 13 oriented businesses, this massage order remains in full 14 force and effect. But, for any businesses that are 15 sexually-oriented massage businesses, this new sexually- 16 oriented business order would be in effect for that. 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Question. Is that -- 18 what's the date on that previous order? Is that the '87, 19 '88 time frame? I couldn't find it on the order. Because I 20 understood that there was an order about '88. 21 MS. BAILEY: I think -- 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: This may be it. 23 MS. BAILEY: I think it is. I'm not exactly 24 sure, but we could check that to make certain. It's the 25 only other ordinance or order I could find at all that 84 1 related, even tangentially, to -- 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Probably, yeah. I 3 think the time frame on that was about 1988. 4 MS. BAILEY: And then I just wanted to point 5 out to you that in the Harris County ordinance, it does 6 contain a whole section, Section 9, regarding requirements 7 for existing enterprises. Since we do not have, to my 8 knowledge, any existing enterprises, my thought would be to 9 eliminate that section altogether and renumber the other 10 sections, so that we come out with only 26 sections, and not 11 have that existing enterprise regulation, unless you feel 12 that it needs to be in there. 13 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I think it should be 14 left in, and for the following reason. There may be a 15 business out there that we don't know about. 16 MS. BAILEY: We don't want to grandfather 17 them. 18 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: We don't want to 19 grandfather them. We want to be able to still get at them, 20 and I think it's important to leave that in there for that 21 reason. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree. 23 MS. BAILEY: All right. Otherwise, a couple 24 of other things just to consider. The way this particular 25 order is drafted and designed, it will put most of the 85 1 regulation policing aspect on the Sheriff's Department. I 2 haven't talked directly with Charlie Hicks about it, but I 3 have spoken to Travis Semora, who is in his department, 4 about this, and I feel as though that's the appropriate way 5 to design the regulation, and I don't anticipate the 6 Sheriff's office having much difficulty with that. But, I 7 would certainly invite their input at the public hearing as 8 to whether this would infringe on their ability to take care 9 of their jobs. 10 For instance, the Sheriff's Office, under 11 this scenario, will set hearings and keep track of permits. 12 They will have to prepare an application form for the use of 13 sexually-oriented businesses, and as Commissioner Griffin 14 has pointed out, we have already received one request for 15 that application form, and they were told that that 16 application form would be forthcoming. But, that's one of 17 the reasons we do need to address this in a pretty fast 18 process. This ordinance is designed to have Class 1 and 19 Class 2 licenses. Class 1 licenses will be for the actual 20 business establishment, itself, and Class 2 licenses will be 21 applicable to individuals; for instance, dancers or so 22 forth. They're also individually required to be licensed. 23 And, the Class 2 licensees are required to have badges, and 24 so the Sheriff's Office will have to prepare and design and 25 produce those badges for the licensees. 86 1 They'll have to prepare a tracking system for 2 inspection and licensure of these businesses, be responsible 3 for public notice of hearings, establish a format for 4 recordkeeping by the licensees, and there's a particular 5 requirement in Section 22 that requires them to provide a 6 sign to the licensee -- let's see, it's on Page 27. Each 7 Class 1 enterprise shall have the duty to post a sign 8 containing the following educational AIDS message, in 9 letters at least 1 inch tall, at eye level in each public 10 restroom and any dressing room: "STOP AIDS. AVOID 11 HIGH-RISK BEHAVIOR. AVOID CONTACT WITH SEXUAL FLUIDS OR 12 DIRTY NEEDLES. AIDS CAN BE TRANSMITTED BY SEX WITHOUT 13 CONDOMS OR BY SHARING NEEDLES." 14 I think, probably, since we're requiring that 15 that sign be posted, it will have to be provided by the 16 Sheriff's Department, so there will be some additional 17 duties on them. Now, if there's only one business in the 18 county, it's not going to be a complex recordkeeping issue, 19 but it could become something we need to be aware of, the 20 fact that we are asking to put some additional duties on the 21 Sheriff's Department. If there are any other questions 22 about particular aspects of the order at this point, I'd 23 like to address them. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I have a question, 25 Ilse. This is well-done, and you answered one of my 87 1 questions with respect to the potential of it being 2 challenged in court. And, you took this from one that you 3 believed was pretty strong in that in that regard, and I 4 commend you for doing that. To what extent does this -- 5 does this coincide with those regulations governing 6 sexually-explicit businesses under the Texas Alcohol and 7 Beverage Code? There is a separate code that deals with the 8 sale of alcohol with respect to these businesses. Am I 9 correct? 10 MS. BAILEY: I'm -- I'm -- well, I know that 11 there are certainly regulations about alcohol sales in 12 sexually-oriented businesses. I have not gone over this 13 specifically with Tommy Hall, our Alcohol and Beverage 14 Commission officer. However, my understanding from Harris 15 County is that they felt that this did comply with those, 16 but I haven't specifically checked it myself, and certainly 17 that's something that we would also want to do as part of 18 the public hearing process, or prior to that. So -- 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I would think so, 20 because they walk hand-in-hand -- 21 MS. BAILEY: Right. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- as a rule. We're 23 always seeing them on television coming out of San Antonio, 24 and all the different ways they attempt to circumvent the 25 law with respect to either the issuance of an alcohol 88 1 beverage license or the avoidance of the issuance of one. 2 MS. BAILEY: Yes. So, I will certainly 3 discuss this with -- with Tommy Hall before we get to the 4 public hearing date. 5 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I have a question. 6 And I haven't read everything you have here in a lot of 7 detail, but a question I have is, does the current draft 8 call for a licensing fee? 9 MS. BAILEY: Yes, it does. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Does it have an amount 11 in there? 12 MS. BAILEY: No, it's not in here. And I 13 would recommend that to remain that way, because that way 14 the Commissioners Court could change or amend the fee 15 without having to actually amend the ordinance. What I 16 would anticipate is you pass this order and then, once it 17 goes into -- into implementation, pass a separate order that 18 says for the Year 2000 and until it's changed, licensing fee 19 will be this amount. The renewal fee will be this amount 20 for Class 1, Class 2. That way, you can change those things 21 without going back and messing with the underlying order. 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Is there a way we can 23 get sort of a survey of what those fees may be in some of 24 the larger counties? Because I think we want to set that 25 fee absolutely as high as we can get it. But, if we -- 89 1 MS. BAILEY: Yeah. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Without being 3 something that wouldn't stand up in court, for example. 4 MS. BAILEY: Exactly. 5 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: We might get an idea 6 of some of the -- 7 MS. BAILEY: I can try to do that. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Jefferson County, 9 Harris County. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Harris County, Bexar 11 County. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Guadalupe, too. Comal. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Dallas. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Ilse, can you 15 succinctly depict for us the differences in the Class 1 and 16 Class 2 license? 17 MS. BAILEY: Yes, sir. The Class 1 is a 18 license that would be granted to a business. For instance, 19 if you have a topless bar with dancers, the actual Class 1 20 license would apply to the establishment, and then each 21 dancer would be a Class 2 licensee. That's an individual, 22 and that person would have to have his or her -- presumably 23 her license individually applied to her, and she's the one 24 that would have to obtain approval for -- and get the badge. 25 The badge has to be maintained at all times, in a manner 90 1 that's accessible to inspectors and license reviewers and to 2 the Alcohol and Beverage Commission and so forth. So, 3 that's the difference, a person versus a business. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: This is a necessary thing 5 that we need to do, and we need to do it expeditiously. We 6 want to make it as difficult as we constitutionally and 7 legally can for this type of business to find a home here in 8 Kerr County. However, I'm somewhat concerned about whether 9 the Harris County model fits Kerr County. For instance, the 10 ordinance requires that the Court appoint a Hearing Official 11 who conducts the public hearings on license applications, 12 and that person has a great deal of authority -- 13 responsibility dealing with authority to make findings of 14 fact and conclusions. Who are we going to get to do that? 15 MS. BAILEY: In this ordinance, it's not 16 clear who appoints -- 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: A large amount of 18 responsibility on the Sheriff's Department. Do we have the 19 individuals out in -- the trained individuals to do this? 20 Because you can be relatively assured that if someone goes 21 to the trouble to apply for a license in Kerr County under 22 these conditions, they also have the financial wherewithal 23 to make sure that the I's are dotted and the T's are crossed 24 as part of the licensing process. So, the procedure that we 25 establish has to be one that we can make work. Otherwise, 91 1 we're going to find ourselves unwittingly aiding and 2 abetting people who want to put this kind of business into 3 play here. 4 MS. BAILEY: Or, conversely, if we appoint 5 someone to make that decision that's not properly versed in 6 First Amendment issues, you could have someone who's trying 7 to help by keeping a business out, but acts in an arbitrary 8 capricious manner on our behalf and ends up getting us sued. 9 Even if we have a perfectly good and justifiable ordinance 10 in place, if it's not applied appropriately, we can still be 11 opening ourselves up to some issues. So, I think that's a 12 real -- that was a question I had. I didn't have another 13 way -- it didn't occur to me another good way to get that 14 process going, but you're exactly right. I think that is 15 the one area that we probably need to address, and we'll 16 probably need to amend it to fit our circumstances better. 17 I don't know if you want the Commissioners Court to be in 18 that reviewing body or -- I felt as though that probably 19 wouldn't be an appropriate alternative. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, I just -- you know, we 21 need to move forward, but we need to be careful in moving 22 forward that we set up a procedure that will work, because 23 otherwise it will come back on us, at a great deal of 24 expense, and we won't manage to accomplish what we're 25 setting out to do. So, as we take a closer look at what's 92 1 been prepared, we need to keep in mind not only is this 2 legal, but is it workable. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Public hearing time 4 frame, I still haven't found out what -- is it a 30-day -- 5 MS. BAILEY: I'm not exactly certain about 6 how long we have to -- if there's any different requirement 7 for this process than for any other public hearing process. 8 It doesn't appear to be in Chapter 243 of the Local 9 Government Code. Whatever the Commissioners Court 10 customarily does on a public hearing. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm wondering if we 12 shouldn't try to have another one of these type of -- one 13 more type of these meetings even before we set a public 14 hearing to clean up some of these thoughts -- great thoughts 15 that the Judge is having. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's probably a 17 good idea -- I mean, I think we need -- I basically share 18 what the Judge said. We need to do it as fast as we can, 19 but at the same time, we need to make sure it's going to 20 stand up legally, 'cause it would be -- the worst thing 21 would be to have something that isn't going to work. If it 22 ends up getting struck down, then you end up with basically 23 having no rules, if it gets struck down at some point. 24 So -- 25 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And realize, too, that 93 1 we don't have any rules right now, and we have a -- at least 2 one business that wants to get started. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, what I'm hearing 4 Commissioner Baldwin suggest, really, is a workshop. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, workshop kind of 6 a thing. You can do it that way. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Otherwise -- of course, the 8 problem with a workshop is we can't take any action, so 9 maybe, actually, you're talking about a special meeting just 10 to discuss this, or -- 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How long would it take 12 you to find all those little areas? That's not going to 13 create a new bureaucracy; we don't want to create a new 14 bureaucracy, and we want something that passes muster. 15 MS. BAILEY: Exactly. Someone suggested that 16 Guadalupe County has one of these ordinances or orders, and 17 they're more along the size that we are, and it may -- if 18 they have an alternative suggestion to how to approach that 19 process, we could adopt that and incorporate it. It 20 wouldn't take any time at all. If -- if none of those 21 counties that have been mentioned have a good alternative, 22 then it might take us awhile, but I'm anticipating it might 23 just take a couple days to -- to get information and 24 incorporate it, and then -- and then bring you back a 25 suggested alternative. 94 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How about areas, 2 Ilse, where there are large military establishments? El 3 Paso County, Bell County, places like that where you know 4 that there are -- 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Exactly. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Bell County might be 7 a very good one to check. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Do we have a special meeting 9 a week from today? 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: In the morning? In the 13 afternoon? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Afternoon. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Afternoon? 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Afternoon. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Morning. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: 2 o'clock? 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Whatever works. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does anyone have a -- 21 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Looks like you're 22 outvoted. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I can't believe you 24 guys. They get up at the crack of noon, whether they need 25 to or not. 95 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We got to do a full day's 2 work before we get here. 3 MS. SOVIL: It is a holiday. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What is? 5 MS. SOVIL: The 21st is President's Day. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's a holiday? 7 MS. BAILEY: I know you work 24 hours a day, 8 Buster, but -- 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I think the 22nd. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Make it the 22nd in the 11 afternoon? 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 2 o'clock? 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: 2 o'clock. We need a motion 14 to the effect -- or 1 o'clock? 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 1 o'clock. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: What time? Someone make a 17 motion. It's been suggested Tuesday, February 22nd, at 18 1 o'clock. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner -- 22 pardon? 23 MS. BAILEY: Does anyone have any other 24 concerns about -- besides the hearing officer process? 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: I've got some I'll send to 96 1 you. 2 MS. BAILEY: All right. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I would like to know 4 how we comport with the ABC law at this meeting. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner 6 Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Griffin, that we have a 7 special meeting of Commissioners Court on Tuesday, 8 February 22nd, at 1 o'clock p.m. to discuss -- 9 MS. BAILEY: 1:00 or 2:00? 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: To discuss the sexually- 11 oriented business regulation. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I would comment also. 13 Ilse, is there any way that we can -- at this time, I mean, 14 we're looking at as early as six weeks probably getting any 15 orders passed. Is there anything that we can do as a 16 moratorium or something like that to stop anything from 17 coming in in the next six weeks? Is there any -- I mean, 18 I've got a feeling it's no, but -- 19 MS. BAILEY: I don't think that there is. 20 Although, given that the applicant has come in looking for 21 an application form, I would be surprised if they would then 22 take this opportunity to open without regulations, 'cause I 23 think they're probably very well aware of the fact that the 24 law does give the County the right to regulate. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And there's no -- we 97 1 don't have to grandfather anybody, correct? 2 MS. BAILEY: Right. 3 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That's the reason I 4 thought that one thing in there is very important. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: My only -- final comment 6 is thanks to you and Commissioner Baldwin for working on 7 this. 8 MS. BAILEY: Thank you. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I still have one 10 question here, please, that related to location. It talks 11 about 1,500 feet it has to be located outside of -- 1,500 12 feet from child day care centers, schools, hospitals, parks, 13 churches, et cetera, et cetera, but a minimum of 1 mile from 14 a penal institution. And we -- 15 MS. BAILEY: As I said -- 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We don't have any of 17 those here. I guess the County Jail -- would that be 18 considered -- 19 MS. BAILEY: Could be considered a penal 20 institution. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: One mile from there, 22 but can we put one mile from any of these other places, too? 23 Or did this come straight out of the -- 24 MS. BAILEY: Well, the reason I used 1,500 25 feet is the fact that it was in the Harris County ordinance. 98 1 That ordinance has been tested in Court. I'm not certain if 2 the actual 1,500 feet was tested, but I certainly felt like 3 that's working. It is an ordinance that has passed some 4 muster, so we know that 1,500 is a number that has been 5 acceptable. I think that's one of those that the -- the 6 broader you get with that number, the more likely you are to 7 come into some problem about constitutionality. Say, for 8 instance, 10 miles from any of those. You've wiped out the 9 whole county, and I think that would not pass constitutional 10 muster. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The thing about 1,500 12 feet, though, I mean, it sounds -- 1,500 sounds like a large 13 number, but that's three city blocks. 14 MS. BAILEY: Exactly. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's an urban 16 definition, and we're a rural. 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Is there anything in 18 243 that talks about distances? Because I think some of 19 that filters down from the State law. If I -- I may be off 20 base. 21 MS. BAILEY: Well, it does say in 243.006, it 22 just says within a certain distance. And then there are 23 some annotations, in particular, a case out of Houston, 24 Lindsay vs. Papageorgiou, which does approve 1,500 feet as 25 not exceeding legislative authority. So, we do have an 99 1 actual appellate court decision that says 1,500 feet is okay 2 in the city context. Now, we might be able to make some 3 argument that in the -- in the rural context, that 1,500 4 feet is not enough, and we could talk about expanding that 5 number, but we have to have some kind of justification other 6 than we want to keep the businesses out. It has to be 7 something that is related to safety in our different 8 conditions versus the city condition. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: We still need to vote. Any 11 further discussion? 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What is the -- 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion is to set the 14 workshop. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, it's not a workshop, 17 it's a special meeting so that we can take action. That's 18 the whole purpose. If there's no further discussion, all in 19 favor, raise your right hand. 20 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 22 (No response.) 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Thank you. 24 Okay. Next item -- 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you folks. 100 1 MR. PLUMB: Thank you. Appreciate it. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Number 11 is consider and 3 discuss approving the final plans for the new section of 4 Flat Rock Lake Park and authorize additional funds for said 5 plans. Commissioner Letz. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: This is on the agenda 7 just to kind of -- last time we really talked about it, we 8 were talking about the older area, the other area, and we 9 talked in general terms about what was going to be done at 10 the new area. I passed out a hand-drawn plat as to the -- 11 kind of the layout over there of where most of the dollars 12 have been spent. A lot of this work has been done already. 13 Once we had the contractor on -- I guess, over there, he was 14 doing this, this work, or a lot of it, at least the clearing 15 portion of it. Because I think we talked about there's a 16 large loop road. The actual location of the road has 17 changed several times, but this is the most -- once you get 18 out on the site, this configuration works the best, with two 19 traffic areas. It is -- if we have the money, a guardrail 20 and cable -- or I mean a post and cable, something we put 21 along Riverside Drive, would go between the jogging track 22 and the road to totally prohibit cars from getting down next 23 to the river. From a safety standpoint, I think that's 24 necessary, and also from a -- you know, keeping people in 25 cars away from the river's edge, lake's edge. And that 101 1 distance, then, would be probably 100, 150 feet down -- for 2 people to walk down. It's not overly burdensome to people 3 trying to get close to fishing or picnic or whatever. 4 The other thing we did on this, and this came 5 out of a -- really, out of the committee that Commissioner 6 Williams and I are on regarding the Ag Barn. I changed the 7 layout slightly to facilitate parking over here. One of the 8 big problems at the Ag Barn is parking, and I think I -- the 9 idea is -- and I talked with contractors when we were doing 10 this -- is that it needs to be in the back of our minds. 11 While the primary purpose of this is not a parking lot, that 12 we need to make it accessible so we can park trailers and -- 13 as far as vehicles that are not utilized a whole lot. Maybe 14 even actually cars over here, and then have them walk across 15 the new -- some temporary bridge back to the Ag Barn. It's 16 not that long of a walk, compared to cities like San 17 Antonio. It's a very close walk where people have to park. 18 But, anyway, so we kind of -- and when I say 19 that, the reason I bring that up is that we did a little 20 more dirt work than we originally talked about. We -- the 21 whole open area that's shown on the plat is now set for 22 drainage. It's -- it falls 1 foot per 100 feet towards the 23 river, and 6 inches per 100 feet to the east. It's just the 24 natural lay of the land. It slopes that way a little bit. 25 And, even before they were finished, the rain -- I think we 102 1 had about 1 inch of rain over there, late -- well, I guess 2 first week of February, and the next day they were able to 3 work out there. It was -- the water drained that quickly 4 towards the river. Before that, we had a lot of -- there 5 was, like, a dike built across the middle of the property 6 that was holding water in. You could see it; it was like a 7 swampy area. So, we were able to totally eliminate that 8 problem. It's like a -- a golf course out there, they got 9 it so smooth. I don't see how they can do that with those 10 big machines, but they have. 11 Anyway, that's -- I just wanted to put it on 12 here to, you know, authorize expenditure of the last portion 13 of the money. All these are grant funds; it does not come 14 out of the County budget, and these are budgeted for this 15 year to be used. And, I am talking with L.C.R.A. off and on 16 about the status of it. They're happy with where we are. 17 The only thing that I will bring up that I'm going to -- I 18 have to talk to L.C.R.A., but I am going to see if they 19 would even entertain the notion of us deleting the 20 restrooms. I think those funds can probably be used 21 somewhere better if we don't need restrooms there, bring it 22 back to the Court to decide on that. So, we're holding that 23 $20,000 for restroom construction, which we -- you know, 24 once we get a little bit closer, see how much money we have, 25 I'll bring it back to the Court, we can make a decision on 103 1 that. But, just to kind of put the seed in their mind. The 2 restrooms would not be real convenient to any location in 3 the park, anyway. They're going to be up Riverside Drive, 4 just by necessity of the floodplain. So, you know, anyway, 5 it's something we -- the Court has to discuss a little bit 6 later, that $20,000 out of the $180,000 that's remaining 7 that I've pulled out for this, but let's authorize the 8 expenditure of the rest of the funds. 9 And, I might add that this is all being done 10 under the direction of the Road and Bridge Department, and 11 they're really volunteering their -- a lot of hours, 12 manhours on their part, and certainly their -- Franklin and 13 Leonard's management of what's going on out there. And, I 14 kind of would go over, give them ideas on what it would need 15 to look like, and they managed to make it happen somehow. 16 Anyway, it looks great. I hope everyone goes out there. 17 It's -- a tremendous amount of dirt's been moved. It looks 18 great, and the park -- it looks like it's almost coming 19 together and finishing up. 20 The other item which we -- one specific item 21 I was looking at, we need to apply for the permit to 22 cross -- to the construction in the floodplain of the 23 crossing of Third Creek. There has been some discussion 24 back and forth between FEMA -- Stuart Vordenbaum and FEMA, 25 Charlie Wiedenfeld, and they have come to the resolution, 104 1 from my last talking with Charlie Wiedenfeld, that we do not 2 need the lengthy permitting process with FEMA -- I don't 3 remember what the form was called -- because we are not 4 changing the flood course of the Guadalupe. We're only 5 changing -- really, we're not changing, really, Third Creek 6 too much. And, what we're changing in Third Creek is 7 overlapped by the Guadalupe, so it kind of doesn't make 8 any -- any difference. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What about the boat 10 ramp issue? 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Boat ramp is being moved 12 to the side -- I guess it's been precast. These funds were 13 also to finish up that work, get it moved to the far west 14 end of the park. It's kind of already over there. I mean, 15 at least the parking lot is, and the ramp's where it used to 16 be still; everyone's used to it. The park has been closed 17 ever since we did the work on the old area, except to the 18 boat ramp, because we're trying to let the grass get a 19 chance. And, unfortunately, we didn't get a whole lot of 20 rain, so we didn't get a whole lot of grass. People don't 21 seem to mind at all. They continue to use it, walk through 22 the park, so I -- maybe we should leave it closed all the 23 time, keep traffic out. Once we get the grass going, you 24 know, we're going to try to open up the gates in the old 25 area as well, and then also the gate will be opened up here. 105 1 Working out a plan for the maintenance of the 2 park, as to how we're going to handle it. I've been talking 3 with, you know, Glenn Holekamp. It probably fits best into 4 that department, but it's really not a whole lot of 5 maintenance out there, just a matter of picking up trash. 6 Get some dumpsters out there, and B.F.I. probably will do 7 that. And the other area -- you know, I mean, Road and 8 Bridge I think, did a great job up to this point, but they 9 can't be expected to -- certainly, out of their 10 responsibilities, to maintain the park. After -- if we do 11 get a big flood, they can certainly do the big make-up work 12 right at one time; we can ask them to help there, but I 13 think the day-to-day operations will probably come under our 14 Maintenance Department. And, Glenn and I are looking at 15 some options on how to handle that, even looking at an 16 interlocal agreement with the City on part of that, so we're 17 looking at a number of options on that portion of it. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Do you want me to make 19 a motion for -- 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 21 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Is that -- 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What was this? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: This is just discussion. 24 You make a motion -- 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I move that we approve 106 1 the final plans for the new section of Flat Rock Lake Park 2 and authorize $70,000 -- 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- from the L.C.R.A. 5 grant. 6 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Moved by Commissioner 8 Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Griffin, that we approve 9 the plans for the new section of Flat Rock Lake Park and 10 authorize expenditure of $70,000 from the L.C.R.A. grant for 11 such improvements. Any further discussion? If not, all in 12 favor, raise your right hand. 13 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 15 (No response.) 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Very good. 17 Next item is consider and discuss job description for the 18 Kerr County Purchasing Agent and approve same, and the 19 timing and strategy for appointing the Kerr County 20 Purchasing Agent. Commissioner Griffin. 21 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yes. After discussion 22 with Judge Henneke over the last several weeks about timing 23 and job descriptions and that sort of thing, I took the 24 action item to come up with a draft job description for the 25 Kerr County Purchasing Agent, and the way I did that was I 107 1 went to the State Job Classification Plan and pulled in a 2 level of purchasing agents that the State has that most 3 closely, in my personal judgment, came to the level of 4 responsibility that I see for a county like Kerr County, and 5 then I did a little cutting and pasting and changing of the 6 names and all. 7 But, this is still -- as it says, it is a 8 draft, and those drafts have been submitted to all of the 9 department heads to -- to provide comments, and so we -- I 10 will take those comments and go back and rework that draft 11 to try to incorporate as much as of those as we can and 12 negotiate in some cases. One comment goes in one direction 13 and another comment goes in another, so I'll try to 14 synthesize that to -- to clean that up and come up with a 15 draft that -- that everybody is satisfied with, or as close 16 to a good compromise, at least, or consensus. I suspect we 17 would never get total agreement out of as many people as we 18 have reviewing it. We'll probably never get total 19 agreement. We can come closer to -- certainly closer than 20 first draft. 21 We need, I guess, to discuss the timing, and 22 I think Judge Henneke has got some -- some specific thoughts 23 on when we would want to hire the purchasing agent or bring 24 that purchasing agent on board so as to have the purchasing 25 function set up at the beginning of next year, 2001. Once 108 1 we know that, then we can sort of back up from that. That 2 is the starting date that we would bring this person aboard 3 this year. We can back up from that so that we can figure 4 out how to post the opening, advertise it, et cetera, to 5 this job description, and we will have fully synthesized 6 by -- I would hope, by that time. So, Judge, could you sort 7 of go through, again -- you have discussed that, some of 8 that; I've discussed some of it with you about when you see 9 this person coming on board, so as to have things set up out 10 of first. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: My personal opinion is that 12 I'd like to have the person on board by the 1st of June at 13 the latest so that they have the intensive months that we 14 work on the budget -- June, July, and August and 15 September -- to meet with the department heads, to be an 16 observer and a resource as part of the budget process, and 17 then be able to start functioning completely on October 1st 18 when our new budget kicks in. That's just my idea. I mean, 19 I think to give a person four months to familiarize himself 20 with what we do, to sit down with all the department heads 21 as they work through their budgets and learn from them, and 22 learn from them as to how the -- the purchases need to 23 happen and the cycle and what the requirements are, and then 24 be available on October 1st to start their actual statutory 25 duties as purchasing agent would be pretty much an ideal 109 1 situation. That's my idea. And, I think Jonathan's over 2 here chomping at the bit to get involved, so why don't we 3 let you have a turn? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I'm probably not as 5 far along into this mind-set as the rest of the Court is, so 6 I'm going to probably go back a step. We've talked about 7 this for several years, and I've been kind of, "yeah," kind 8 of mediocre-warm on this whole idea. And I started reading 9 this stuff, and a couple of things really concern me about 10 it. I mean, one of them is, I see the word "shall." And 11 I'll read it under -- this is under Local Government Code. 12 This isn't anything we have any choice on if we do this. 13 This says, you know, the county purchasing agent shall 14 purchase all supplies, materials, and equipment required 15 for -- required or used, and contract for all repairs to 16 property used by the County or subdivision, blah, blah, 17 blah. That means this person is going to -- we're going to 18 have a major, major change in the way we do business in this 19 county. I mean, that's talking about every person that -- 20 Glenn Holekamp could no longer call somebody someone to fix 21 something if it breaks, you know, under this, you know. 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Unless -- if I might 23 interrupt -- unless -- he may -- the purchasing agent may 24 very well determine that the most cost-effective way of 25 setting up that kind of maintenance is on a contract. And 110 1 that -- and that contract can be -- all he does -- all the 2 purchasing agent does is do the contracting, and then the 3 person in the contract is the point of contact and liaison 4 under that contract, all the time. That's the way it works 5 in the State, for example. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I mean, you know, I 7 understand that, but -- and I think that's something that we 8 can -- another whole area that we probably need to move 9 towards doing that on contracts. I guess what I'm looking 10 at is -- I mean, it -- we don't have much flexibility if we 11 go with a purchasing agent, and I personally don't think 12 we're going to get a whole lot of -- of dollar savings or 13 benefit off of the purchasing alone side of it. I think the 14 benefits come from coordinating the contracts and other 15 County activities and helping going out for bid and things 16 like that. And, my question really is, can we accomplish a 17 lot of this without doing the purchasing agent and just have 18 a -- hire someone that works for the County rather than set 19 up another whole department? Which is going to be -- we 20 have to budget for a purchasing agent, but being realistic, 21 when I read what they have to do, they've got to have 22 clerical staff. They're going to have to -- we're looking 23 at a lot more than hiring one person here. We're looking at 24 setting up another department, and that's a lot more than I 25 was really thinking about. 111 1 And, I'm just tossing that out as to open our 2 minds a little bit and say, is there a way we can get a lot 3 of what we really need accomplished? Because I really don't 4 think it's a whole lot of savings on the purchasing end, 5 because the way -- most of our big purchasing or department 6 purchases are done under either national contracts or bid, 7 anyway. I mean, I don't see Road and Bridge -- I don't see 8 how you're going to save a whole lot, because they already 9 bid everything to everyone in the world. I think that 10 there's a -- you know, most of our office supplies are 11 bought, probably, through Office Depot; that's under a 12 national contract. So, I mean, I don't think the savings on 13 that side are tremendous. So, I just -- 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: The counter to that is you 15 don't have to have tremendous savings to break even. 16 Because I figure that out of a $17 million budget, we 17 probably buy somewhere between $7 million to $10 million a 18 year. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, our employees -- 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Everything we do is buying 21 stuff, except for -- 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Salaries. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: -- salaries. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And debt and all that 25 other stuff. But, I mean, whatever the amount is, you know, 112 1 I just question whether we can -- when we're already bidding 2 a large portion of it or going under purchasing contracts 3 that have been bid nationally, is there that much savings 4 there? I think there's a real need to have someone 5 coordinate, and right now Tommy's picking up a lot of this 6 stuff, of, you know, putting bid packages together. And, I 7 think we probably need to get in an area that we bid more of 8 our work that we're just doling out to whoever, especially 9 maintenance in the Sheriff's Department, things of that 10 nature, and repairs -- or pretty basic repair items in all 11 departments. But, I'm just wondering if it's worth it for 12 not only a purchasing agent, but a purchasing department, 13 because you can't have one without the other, and you got to 14 give the person the support staff to do their job. 15 Otherwise, there's no point in hiring them. So, you're 16 talking about two people. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Right. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: At least. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, at least. And my 20 other thought is that if we -- you know, one. Second -- my 21 second thought is, we need to, in a workshop setting, I 22 think, get the District Judges down here and visit with 23 them, because this person is going to have a say from -- as 24 I read the law, one of the District Judges will be on the 25 board that governs this person, and the Commissioners Court 113 1 will appoint the other person. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: No. No, the board that hires 3 this person is composed of the two judges and myself. 4 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That's right. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It says, on (a) -- 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: (a)? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is (a) not right that's 8 in the package? 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Counties under 150,000. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right, counties 150 or 11 less. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: The judges of the district 13 court. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Oh, okay. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: And the County Judge. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, either way, I mean, 17 I think that you need to get the District Judges on board, 18 and I -- to my knowledge, they haven't been talked to. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: They have been and they are. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Both of them? 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Mm-hmm. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I haven't heard recently, 23 but anyway, they weren't aware as of last Friday, so -- 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I suspect -- 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They've been talked 114 1 to. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But, anyway, they're 3 going to be working through this, and I just -- I see 4 putting together a department that the Commissioners Court 5 doesn't have control over. And, that -- I have a problem 6 with that, with this type of thing. That's just -- you 7 know, I'll put that out. I think that if there's a way to 8 do this and have it work for the Court, I would be far more 9 in favor of it. And, I -- granted, if you're going to have 10 a purchasing agent, you can't do that. I mean, purchasing 11 agents cannot work for Commissioners Courts under statute. 12 And, the final thing is -- and it kind of 13 ties in with both of those -- if we do go this route, which 14 I've got a feeling we're going to do whether I want to or 15 not, I would encourage us to go using the -- the Auditor's 16 office, you know, as much as possible, rather than create 17 another whole department. I mean, and increase his staff 18 and let him handle more of that, rather than set up another 19 complete department. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: I think I'd let the Auditor 21 respond to that. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: He's got to work with the 23 person. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I thought he already 25 had responded to it a couple weeks ago. 115 1 MR. TOMLINSON: Well, I did -- I did say that 2 in -- that the purchaser and my office work hand-in-hand. 3 We're -- we're almost the same thing. You know, along with 4 the Treasurer's office, because we -- we have different 5 functions, but we -- we have the same goals. And, one of 6 the benefits I can -- I can see from a purchasing agent 7 is -- is that it -- it might eliminate an additional hire in 8 my office at some point in the near future. We're -- this 9 county is growing very rapidly, and -- and the amount -- the 10 mountains of -- of invoices and vendors are, you know, 11 increasing all the time, and it's -- it's difficult at times 12 to make sure that we get all the bills paid in time, as it 13 is. And, so, I think that that -- the hiring of someone to 14 take part of the load off of the -- of my office would -- 15 would keep that from happening in the near future. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tommy, could you give -- 17 if we gave you additional staff and didn't hire a purchasing 18 agent, could you take on a lot of these functions, though? 19 I mean, the -- like, one of the things we talked about is 20 that we'd stop people, you know, buying things without money 21 in their budgets, which has happened and is probably 22 illegal. But, that could be done by court order saying you 23 have to have a purchase order to buy anything, couldn't it? 24 MR. TOMLINSON: Sure. Sure, you could 25 regulate, you know, purchasing through -- through court 116 1 order. I don't think I want the responsibility. That's not 2 my field, and I don't want to learn it. And, I think the -- 3 that the -- that the benefit that we're looking for is -- is 4 for an individual that -- that has the knowledge of -- of 5 that field, purchasing, itself. I think one of the benefits 6 that -- another benefit we might get from this is that we 7 can expand our markets. I know that -- that, from 8 experience in dealing -- in doing the limited purchasing 9 that we do in my office, that we don't have the time to -- 10 to go out and find the -- any additional markets that might 11 be available, and I think that that's -- that's an aspect 12 that I would look forward to. I simply don't have -- have 13 the time nor the desire to do that. 14 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I'd like to add a 15 thought to that, then. Once you go to a purchase order 16 system, no matter how you implement it, you've just bought 17 into about 99 percent of what the purchasing agent does 18 anyway, because that's what the purchasing agents do. They 19 administer the purchase order system. So, if -- if you did 20 that and called it something else, I suspect you wouldn't 21 have anything except lack of discipline that a purchasing 22 agent, under statute, brings to the process. And -- and 23 that's what's appeals to me as our budget grows and it gets 24 more complex and we have more procurements to go through, 25 the ability to have discipline in the system by people -- by 117 1 a person, and with some staff help, who is trained and has 2 experience in that area. I just think it -- it is good 3 fiduciary responsibility for a large budget, and as it gets 4 larger, that's much more required. And -- and, as we talked 5 about in the last Court meeting, the pencils and paper are 6 only that much of what this guy does, or gal does. It's a 7 much larger responsibility. Researching the market and all 8 of that has a lot more time consumed by the purchasing agent 9 than does purchasing pencils and paper, which he or she can 10 do under the -- under the national contract. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm convinced that a 12 county this size, with expenditures ranging $10 million for 13 goods and services, there are many dollars to be saved if 14 you have a unified method by which you purchase your goods 15 and supplies and your contracts. Every department head will 16 say, "Well, we don't spend that much time on purchasing," 17 and that very well may be true, with the exception of Road 18 and Bridge, who buys a lot of material, a lot of things, and 19 they do spend time on it. I think that the best way to 20 effect those kind of savings is somebody who is expert in 21 that field, as Tommy points out, who knows what it's all 22 about, and who -- whose principal responsibility is 23 administration of all of our purchases, goods and services 24 and contracts and so forth. 25 Also, I can't believe that we're not in 118 1 violation of bidding laws right now in some of the things we 2 do. We've probably got 40 copying machines scattered 3 throughout the county. Those could have been consolidated 4 into a contract for service or purchase or lease or 5 whatever. They weren't. Everybody went out and bought what 6 they thought they needed or contracted for what they thought 7 they needed, and they brought it back and it was approved 8 and so forth. There are dollars to be saved in that 9 context, as well. I think, as Commissioner Griffin points 10 out, if you're going to go into the system at all, whether 11 it's just by reason of court order establishing a purchase 12 order concept, once you bite the bullet, you might as well 13 get into it and set it up so you have some controls over 14 exactly what's going to happen. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We don't have the 16 controls. This Court does not have control, period. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, the Code 18 does -- the Code provides the authority. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right, the Code 20 provides -- I just want to make it clear that this Court 21 does not have any control over this person. The Judge and 22 one judge upstairs, those two individuals will control this. 23 And, once this department is started, it isn't going away. 24 We will have a new department in county government, and we 25 will have expanded county government by a good -- by, 119 1 easily, two, possibly three people, immediately. And I'm 2 just -- you know, I'm just not convinced that there's -- we 3 need to go that far right now. Some of the things, you 4 know, I think are -- you know, we do need another person to 5 help in some of these areas somewhere. I'm just not sure we 6 need a whole department to do that. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Commissioner Baldwin, you 8 haven't been heard from. You just taking a snooze? 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I was trying to be 10 above the affray. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: There's no affray, just 12 discussion. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see that little 14 German red all over you. As a matter of fact, Commissioner 15 Letz, when he and I first arrived here, if Tommy said, you 16 know, "What this will do is save me hiring a person later 17 on," Letz would immediately, back then, say, "Well, can we 18 start cutting your staff, then, if we put this in place?" is 19 the -- is his old approach. But, I personally -- you know, 20 I'm not going to fuss or fight about the thing. I -- you 21 will prove to me later on down the road that it actually 22 saves money. I don't see it as possible in any way to 23 actually save any money. But I think, more importantly, is 24 Commissioner Letz' point about being in control. Here we 25 are, and we see that over and over and in many other ways, 120 1 particularly just like our County Auditor here. He comes 2 along and does all of these budget things that -- that we 3 approve and vote on, and we have zero control over it at 4 all. He works directly for the District Judges and we don't 5 have any say-so in those kind of things. But -- and this is 6 the same thing. You know, we lose -- and here we are, 7 creating -- creating a department. And, in my mind, I mean, 8 I -- y'all can prove me wrong about the savings of it. 9 We're creating, in my mind, a new department, a new level of 10 bureaucracy, a -- a cost to the taxpayers of Kerr County, 11 and -- and then completely lose control of that, even. And, 12 it just doesn't make sense to me. 13 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Could I make a comment 14 here? 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If we're going to -- 16 if we're going to create -- if we're going to create 17 departments and levels of bureaucracy, at least -- at least 18 let us have control of it. 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I can find nothing in 20 this statute that says that the purchasing agent controls 21 the budget or any expenditure that is not approved by this 22 Court. He can't spend a nickel on his own. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Absolutely not, I 24 understand that. I understand that clearly; we have the 25 same thing with the Auditor. 121 1 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Which is exactly what 2 we've got right now, so I can't see that we're losing any 3 control at all. And, in fact, it probably gives us better 4 visibility, because this person is only interested in the 5 purchasing aspect of it, and we can require that person to 6 be in here for every Court meeting, and we can -- we can 7 have a report on where every procurement stands, every major 8 procurement or procurements above a certain level or 9 whatever we want to do. So, I don't see that we lose any 10 control. And, in fact, I think we get better visibility 11 into the process with a purchasing agent than we do without. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree with that, 13 yeah, and I don't see that we have any control -- as you use 14 the word "control," I don't see that we have it now in that 15 context. Any department head can put "X" number of dollars 16 in the budget, which we ultimately approve for the purchase 17 of goods and services. But, nowhere in the world do we say, 18 "You come in and prove to us that you bought that at the 19 best possible price," if it's not a bid situation. So, in 20 terms of control, I don't know that we have it at the 21 moment, so therefore, I don't think we're losing it. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: The purchasing officer is 23 hired for one purpose, which is to buy things, to buy things 24 professionally and at the best possible price, and also to 25 coordinate purchases so that we get the best bang for our 122 1 buck. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: This person never goes 3 and buys anything on their own. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: No, they buy things that we 5 approve -- you know, that the Court approves in the budget. 6 And, the budget's based on the requests from the department 7 heads as to what they need. Purchasing agent works through 8 us for the department heads to buy the goods and services 9 that they need to do their jobs, to buy them cheaper. If -- 10 you know, if you accept the fact that, out of $17 million, 11 that we buy $7 million worth of goods and services a year, 12 then if the purchasing agent saves us 5 percent, they've 13 saved us $350,000. If they can't save us 5 percent, then 14 they shouldn't be here. And I'm quite confident they can 15 save us at least 5 percent. When we leased the copier for 16 the Commissioners Court, we saved 22 percent with two phone 17 calls on one machine. So, there is -- there's no question 18 that this individual will be able to pay for his department 19 outs of the savings they enjoy -- they produce. 20 Yeah, we're going to have to have at least 21 two people -- probably two people to start out, see how it 22 goes. It will change the way in which goods and services 23 are procured. It will not change the way in which the 24 authorization and budgeting for goods and services is done. 25 That's still a function of this Court. If the guy wants -- 123 1 the guy or the woman -- the person wants to go pay money out 2 of -- for goods and services out of their own pocket and 3 donate them to the County, we'll certainly appreciate that, 4 but they can't buy anything we don't say they can buy. 5 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I would also -- 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: The only control -- the only 7 control issue is over who the purchasing agent is, the 8 individual. That's what the board composed of the two 9 District Judges and the County Judge is required to do, is 10 to hire that individual. And they're hired for two years, 11 and they have to be rehired based on the recommendation of 12 those individuals. I don't think the District Judges would 13 force someone down our throats if we don't want them. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They do a little bit more 15 than purchase things. Based on the job description, a lot 16 of the -- purchasing things is a small part of what they do. 17 They do a great deal. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Mm-hmm. 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: From bidding, 20 contracting -- 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's purchasing. That's 22 purchasing. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, but it's not just a 24 simple little thing that they do, is purchase -- just 25 purchase. They will affect every employee in this county a 124 1 great deal. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: No, they won't affect -- they 3 won't affect the guy who's out working on a road for 4 Franklin, 'cause all he's going to know is that the stuff he 5 needs to put on that road is there when he needs it. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, no, 'cause that 7 whole department is going to have to do a whole new system. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: It's not going to change that 9 any. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: In fact, it won't cut 11 them off from any of their suppliers that they feel 12 confidence in. They'll coordinate that with the purchasing 13 agent. All the purchasing agent is going to do in that case 14 is he's going to prepare bid packages, he's going to -- he's 15 going to make sure that he has researched the market well 16 enough to know that bid packages are going to everybody that 17 they should go to, and which may be a little bit beyond the 18 number of suppliers we have now. They're going to come 19 back, those bids are going to be evaluated by the Road and 20 Bridge Department for adequacy of meeting the need, and the 21 purchasing agent's going to help to make sure that the price 22 is negotiated as low as it can possibly be. That's not 23 unlike what we do right now, except now they've got some 24 help to do that, professional help. 25 MR. JOHNSTON: Question about the timing of 125 1 this. Say in our shop we have repair work going on. Say we 2 have a truck come in with a rear-end broken, a bunch of 3 little intricate gears is the problem. Do they have to go 4 out and put that out to bid to buy those? Now they just buy 5 them from the -- usually it's only one supplier, anyway, if 6 it's a -- 7 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That's a repair. 8 That's not a Capital Outlay, and I don't think that 9 requires -- 10 MR. JOHNSTON: Repairs, aren't involved? 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: It raises an issue. If 12 you're buying more than $25,000 worth of repairs from that 13 one individual a year, you probably ought -- you should bid. 14 MR. JOHNSTON: No, we don't do that. 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That's -- by law, you 16 have to bid that. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Like a service, if you're 18 buying $25,000 worth of repairs. 19 MR. JOHNSTON: Repairs are over that total, 20 but not from one individual. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Technically, that might be 22 bid. 23 MR. JOHNSTON: I can have a truck tied up for 24 months. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Commissioner Griffin said 126 1 if it's not Capital Outlay, you don't need to use a 2 purchasing agent. 3 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: No, that's not what I 4 said. I said what you do is that this purchasing agent may 5 very well be, on repairs, able to negotiate you a contract 6 for repairs and spare parts and replacement parts, where all 7 you would have do is tap that contract. See, we don't have 8 that now. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But -- 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: But we would have 11 that -- I think a lot of federal government, state 12 governments, and other counties buy their repairs and 13 maintenance under contract. In most cases, so that they can 14 respond very quickly. It says there will be a twenty -- in 15 the contract, it says 24-hour response is an absolute 16 requirement. So, you tap that contract. You already 17 negotiated prices, or you've negotiated generically what's 18 going to be provided, and you negotiate the price on the 19 spot on the telephone, just like you do right now. And -- 20 but it's all -- it's all done for you, and for a year in 21 advance or two years in advance or whatever kind of time 22 frame you want to have it. That's what the purchasing agent 23 does. It's not going to lengthen the time required. In 24 fact, you may just get it at a better price. 25 MR. JOHNSTON: That's what I -- there's a 127 1 time factor. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The purchasing agent is 3 going to be required to negotiate a contract based on every 4 piece of equipment we have in the county. If -- because -- 5 well, because if something breaks, I mean, most of them -- 6 like, in maintenance, if a -- a machine -- piece of 7 machinery breaks and we don't have a contract to buy that 8 replacement part, he can't buy that part. 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: He can have contracts 10 with any number of people for various kinds of things. 11 That's what's he brings to the table. What he does is he's 12 going to tap the -- he's going to tap the person or the 13 entity that has the best price that meets the need. That's 14 all he's doing. Road and Bridge is going to tell them what 15 the need is. We need a framistan (sic) to replace the 16 broken framistan we've got. And he's going to go out and 17 find it through one of his maintenance contracts, or maybe 18 it's a single buy. And, I'm sure that the board and the 19 Commissioners Court can set up procedures on where -- what 20 price level do we want. If it's less than $1,000, hey, go 21 find the best price available and do it. If it's anything 22 over $1,000, let's see if we can't have a negotiated thing 23 with Case and with Caterpillar, and we've already got some 24 other avenues set up where all we do is tap that, because we 25 know that there's a -- 128 1 MR. JOHNSTON: So, we're on a contract -- 2 certain contract, certain markup and whatever. Then we just 3 buy it; we know what the price is. 4 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: We already know what 5 the price is; it's in their catalog. And, that's 6 essentially what the State does with their qualified vendor 7 program. They already know what the prices are. All the 8 purchasing agent for the State does is go in and says, Hey, 9 I want to tap that vendor for that part, and it's already 10 negotiated what the price is. You can look up in the 11 catalog yourself and see what it is. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But if it's cheaper 13 somewhere else, you couldn't buy it. 14 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: You can. That's 15 exactly what the law says. If you can find it cheaper 16 somewhere else, you can go buy it anywhere that the State 17 can save money. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They couldn't -- they 19 have to go to the purchasing agent. 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: They go to the 21 purchasing agent and the purchasing agent goes and finds the 22 cheapest price. That's what -- 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What I'm saying is, if 24 they have a broken truck, they have to use it. They will 25 have to use the contract. They couldn't call around to find 129 1 the cheapest part. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: No, because there's a 3 time element involved. That's the reason you want to 4 pre-negotiate those kind of things as much as you can, so 5 that you don't have to go out and bid for a $500 6 transmission part or replacement or something. You've 7 already got that negotiated. Because you want the time 8 element -- if you don't have a time constraint, then on 9 things likes Capital Outlays, you can put those out for 10 bids. And that's the way the system works; that's the 11 way -- and, in fact, many larger counties in the state of 12 Texas do exactly that. Most of them buy off the State 13 catalog, because that's already been negotiated. Purchasing 14 agents will go to the State catalog because we can do 15 that -- 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We can already do that. 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Except we don't have 18 anybody that knows how to do that. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Road and Bridge does it 20 all the time. 21 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: No, no, I'm not saying 22 we don't have anybody county-wide. 23 MS. HARDIN: Hey, I have one example that was 24 just this week coming in right now. We have a water truck 25 that broke down on River Road, and we've got to get it back 130 1 in shape. It -- the bill is $1,200 for the part, which we 2 were able to go down and pick it up and bring it back and 3 put it on the water truck. But if we have a $1,000 cap, 4 what happens when a situation comes up like that and we're 5 $200 over whatever this cap is? 6 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That's a -- that's a 7 critical item need. The law allows for that. The 8 procedures ought to allow for that. Purchasing agents do it 9 all the time for major companies, for government entities, 10 for everybody. This is not something that just sprang up. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: What happens in that instance 12 is the purchasing agents, if they've done their job, have 13 gone out and negotiated a blanket contract for either 14 repairs or parts, and all they have to do is call the 15 company they've contracted with and say, We need this, this, 16 and this, that, and the other, and they deliver. 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And it's 10 percent 18 above mark-up or whatever, or above cost in their catalog. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: The whole key to this is you 20 look at what your needs are in advance, based upon what your 21 needs have been in the past, and you go out and you lock in 22 agreements to provide those needs. The guy may go out and 23 bid heavy equipment repair with three or four different 24 companies, and have a contract with the best one that's on a 25 per-hour basis, and there's some guaranteed turn-around 131 1 time. It's like Larry's talking about with the parts; you 2 may have three or four different contracts with different 3 parts, tapping into the best one. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think what we're doing, 5 though, we are forcing us to use certain people. Whereas, 6 right here, we could have gone and gotten a part here, and 7 put it on ourselves, where we -- in other words, we can no 8 longer go over here and buy the part ourselves. We have to 9 use these contracts, basically. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's right. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Which is going to cost us 12 more. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Not necessarily. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It could -- it could cost 15 us more money. 16 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: If you have a lousy 17 purchasing agent, you're right. General Motors can pay more 18 for parts than they should if they had a lousy Purchasing 19 Department. But major corporations use this process, and 20 they are for profit. They're not trying to -- they're 21 trying to make money. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The bigger you are, the 23 more -- 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: You wouldn't keep one 25 if they don't do it. 132 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The bigger you are, the 2 greater the benefit, I agree with that. I'm just not sure 3 that we are where we need it. I'm not sure we're going to 4 get the benefits that the City of Houston or, say, Harris 5 County is going to get, because they own so much or they 6 have so much, it's basically more sense to them, and they 7 can go ahead and let a truck be idle for two days. We 8 can't. We have got to keep this stuff moving or we're going 9 to start losing money. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: There's no suggestion that we 11 would do that. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I'm concerned how 13 it's going to work. I don't see that you need that many 14 contracts. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: 'Cause you anticipate -- 16 Franklin comes in and says, "I need to be able to know that 17 I can pick up the phone and call somebody to fix my water 18 truck." Then it's the purchasing agent's responsibility to 19 put a contract in place for that, that allows him to do 20 exactly that. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And cheaper than we can 22 get it done anywhere else. It's got to be cheaper. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: If you buy the theory that 24 competition brings down the price, yeah, then you're going 25 to end up doing it cheaper. 133 1 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: It's not only got to 2 be cheaper. Cost-effective, because if they need it in 24 3 hours, you may have to pay a little more. If they don't 4 need it for a week, you negotiate a different kind of deal. 5 If we have four water trucks and they only use one at a 6 time, then we can have one in long-term maintenance cycle. 7 It doesn't make any difference. That's what the purchasing 8 agent decides. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Could be three people. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Linda's been dying to talk to 11 us. 12 MS. UECKER: I just have a question. Is 13 there another county in the state of Texas as small as Kerr 14 County that has a purchasing department? Has anybody done 15 that research? You keep talking about major corporations 16 and Harris County and Tarrant County. This is a little, 17 bitty county, in the lower 10 percent in population of the 18 counties. We're not a major corporation. We're not Harris 19 County. This is a very small county, and $17 million is a 20 very small budget in comparison to what those counties that 21 have purchasing departments have. So, has anybody bothered 22 to find a county that's as small as Kerr County that has a 23 purchasing department? 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Ector County. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's a lot bigger. 134 1 That's a -- 2 MS. UECKER: Ector County is bigger. So is 3 Hays County. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What size do you 5 think we should be? 6 MS. UECKER: What size do I think we should 7 be? 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: To do this. 9 MS. UECKER: Well -- 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What would it make 11 sense, in your mind? 12 MS. UECKER: Because we need to compare to 13 see how it's working out in -- 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, what dollar 15 figure would it make sense, in your mind, in terms of goods 16 and services purchased? 17 MS. UECKER: Well, that has nothing to do 18 with my question. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: $10 million? $20 20 million? $30 million? 21 MS. UECKER: My question is, has there been a 22 comparison made? Has there been anybody that has said, 23 Let's go see if a county as small -- not as large as -- as 24 small as Kerr County has a purchasing department? 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And if there is 135 1 none -- and I haven't done that research, but if there is 2 none, my question to you is, then, what size would it be 3 practical and pragmatic for us to do that? If we're at the 4 $10 million level? Should we be at 20? Or should we wait 5 until we get a good 40? 6 MS. UECKER: It just sounds like you're 7 trying to make Kerr County this big conglomerate, when we're 8 not. We're a small county. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: $17 million is not a small 10 budget. 11 MS. UECKER: Well, in comparison, it is. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: But we're not talking about a 13 comparison. If you can save $350,000 off your purchasing 14 out of $17 million, do you want to go to the taxpayers and 15 say, "We chose not to save $350,000"? 16 MS. UECKER: Good point. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Which is only a 5 percent 18 savings on a $7 million purchase. 19 MS. UECKER: Good point. Has anybody said, 20 "Okay, here's another county over here with a $17 million 21 budget, or a proximity, and they have a purchasing agent. 22 Let's go see how much money they save"? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have a question. I 24 mean, Tommy, what percent of our budget do we spend on 25 goods? I mean, if you take out all the leases, all our 136 1 procurement -- 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: We can't take out the leases. 3 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Can't take out the 4 leases. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: It's not an annual thing. 6 Only thing we can't take -- 7 MS. UECKER: Let's take out salaries, and 8 your leases are ongoing from year to year, so you're not 9 going to get a savings every year. We bid all those big 10 things already. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: No, but when they come to 12 renew, you will. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But we still bid them. 14 We bid them to Caterpillar. Who else are you going to bid 15 them to? 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: We don't do those. He knows 17 where to go to bid them. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. What percent of 19 our budget is salaries and benefits, and debt, all things 20 that clearly are not purchasing? 21 MR. TOMLINSON: Probably at least 60 percent 22 is -- is -- 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Salaries? 24 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Seven million is 137 1 reasonable? 2 MR. TOMLINSON: I would think so. Of course, 3 there's a lot of debt payment in there, too. We have close 4 to $800,000 in debt -- debt payment -- excuse me, debt 5 payment. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, close to a million. 7 MS. HARDIN: Are we the only department that 8 has a purchase order system set up? 9 MR. HOLEKAMP: No, I do. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Maintenance does. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You're the only -- I 12 mean, your-all's department is the ones who do a lot of 13 purchasing. The only one who does a lot of purchasing, 14 probably, who doesn't is probably the Sheriff's Department. 15 I don't know how they do it at the Sheriff's Department. 16 But, I mean -- I mean, most of the departments don't do a 17 tremendous amount of purchasing, outside of office supplies 18 and a few lease copiers, so I don't think -- the effect, one 19 way or the other, isn't that great on most of the 20 departments, other than minor things. 21 MR. JOHNSTON: Can you have a purchasing 22 agent involved in building buildings? 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anything you buy. Anything 24 you buy, anything you contract for, other than professional 25 services, which they -- we can get them involved with, as 138 1 well. 2 MR. JOHNSTON: So, they'd be involved in 3 buying all of the building materials? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's under contract. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: If it wasn't under a general 6 contract, yes. General contractor's responsible for buying 7 all the stuff. 8 MR. JOHNSTON: Right. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: So, a purchasing agent 10 wouldn't be involved in that. Glenn? 11 MR. HOLEKAMP: I have a question, and I think 12 Commissioner Griffin probably researched this quite a bit. 13 Are there emergency provisions in the purview of the 14 purchasing agent, 24-hour type -- and I think that's what 15 Franklin and Truby were talking about, you know. 16 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: You'll notice -- 17 MR. HOLEKAMP: If you can get a contract with 18 an air-conditioner repair company, and he -- he guarantees 19 that he's going to provide that service for that contract 20 price -- which I look forward to the day that that happens. 21 But, if he doesn't show up is when the trouble starts, 22 because then I have to call someone else, who may not be on 23 contract. 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: In the job 25 description, you'll notice that one of the things the 139 1 purchasing agent does is prepares local and emergency 2 purchases. And, that's straight out of the State -- State 3 job description, and what that's for is if -- if all that 4 has to be done is certify that it's an emergency, and -- and 5 he has great authority to do anything, that purchasing 6 agent. 7 MR. HOLEKAMP: But he's not here at those 8 hours, is my point. 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: No, but he's no 10 farther away than a phone call. I suspect if you had -- if 11 you had an emergency of that sort that's at 2 o'clock in the 12 morning, something breaks, the first place of local purchase 13 at 2 o'clock in the morning -- it's probably pretty hard -- 14 not many of the places are available or open anyway, but -- 15 but that person has great latitude in an emergency. In a 16 bona fide emergency, all that has to be done is he pulls out 17 all the stops, he can go down to Walmart and buy it if he 18 wants to. But you can't go down to Walmart and buy it. 19 Well, Walmart may be open. But, anyway, the point is -- the 20 point is, yeah, the law allows for great latitude in any 21 kind of emergency or any kind of time-critical purchase. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is there a lot more to 23 the law than what you've given us in our packet? 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Oh, yeah. If you look 25 at the State law, I mean, there's all kind of -- this is 140 1 just setting up the purchasing -- this just relates to 2 purchasing agents. If you look at the -- if you look at all 3 of the State law with regard to purchasing, you've got 4 volumes, because it's so closely controlled. But, when it 5 comes right down to it, the purchasing agent can do whatever 6 he has to do that's needed. There's nothing in there that 7 says if there's a bona fide emergency, that he can't 8 purchase whatever's needed to get the problem fixed. And, 9 that's what we do now. If we have a bona fide emergency, we 10 do whatever we have to do to get the problem fixed, and this 11 doesn't remove that at all. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Y'all going to do 13 anything? I'm over here in the road district thing already. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm not saying any more. 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I will further 16 synthesize this job description, try to get that done, and I 17 think we can -- perhaps at the next meeting, I'll have that 18 redone by the next meeting. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And we can then 21 discuss how we want to set up for timing and whatever we do 22 for the -- seeing it forward, or cut it off at that point, 23 or whatever we do. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: We'll bring it back at the 25 next meeting. We'll make a decision then whether we want to 141 1 go forward. If we don't go forward, I'm going to challenge 2 each of the department heads and this Commissioners Court to 3 find the same savings in the budget that a purchasing agent 4 would have done. You guys better strap it on, be looking 5 for about 5 percent in your supplies and Capital Outlay that 6 you're going to get back. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, that's not fair. 8 We are targeting -- no, we are targeting a savings which we 9 will never be able to identify, and we don't know if we'll 10 ever make -- I mean, we are assuming we're going to make a 11 savings. We have no way of proving that. 'Cause once you 12 do it, you're never going to know what you would have 13 purchased without the -- 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's right. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So that -- I mean, that's 16 the kind of a challenge -- good verbiage, but it doesn't 17 mean anything. I mean, you can't prove it. 18 MS. HARDIN: Maybe we could prove what we're 19 saving now. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I mean, but the 21 other side of it is, well, you can save more. So, you 22 know -- so, I mean, that argument is a circular argument. I 23 mean, we either do it 'cause we think it's going to help the 24 county, or we don't do it, because -- or if we do, we try to 25 set it up as painlessly as possible, which is probably where 142 1 I'm going to end up. But -- 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Even if it were a 3 push, I -- I contend that -- that us, the Court, acting in a 4 fiducially responsible way and insuring that we have -- if 5 it's a push, that our responsibility is to make sure to the 6 citizens of Kerr County, the taxpayers, that we're looking 7 after the money the best way we can, and I think purchasing 8 agents are one good way of insuring that you're doing the 9 best you possibly can in spending the taxpayers' money, 10 irrespective of the savings. So, savings are great, and I 11 think we can save, but that's not the only issue involved 12 here. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll get with 14 Commissioner Griffin so we don't have to spend so much time 15 on it next time. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: The hour draws late. I think 17 we've run about all we can out of this. I'm going to 18 suggest that we adjourn until 1:15, come back and take up 19 the road district, Executive Session, and then we have our 20 workshop at 2 o'clock on the Subdivision Rules. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: How about 1:30? 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Judge, I think we 23 could -- if you want to, as an alternative, I think we can 24 dispose of Item 13 here very quickly, because we all we have 25 to do is receive it. 143 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, we can. We 2 still have to come back for the workshop and the -- 3 MS. SOVIL: Executive Session. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: But if we want to do 13 and 5 come back at 1:30, we can do that. 6 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Well, we have the -- 7 we have the package in -- in hand there, and it's in the 8 agenda item. All this is to do is to formally receive the 9 petition and to set a hearing, which I would recommend for 10 the second meeting in March, a public hearing, and set a 11 date for that so the people can come in and discuss it, pro 12 and con, if there's a desire to do that. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: The public hearing would be 14 on establishment of the road district. 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That's right. Only 16 the establishment of the road district. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: And after that, there would 18 have to be a separate procedure to do a bond election, if 19 that's what the people in the road district want to do. 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: First the district. 21 We cannot do the hearing currently, because we don't know if 22 there is a district to address. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that the motion? 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That's a motion. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 144 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Moved by -- 2 MS. SOVIL: I have a question. Who's going 3 to publish all this? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Jannett. 5 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: There's a standard -- 6 MS. SOVIL: That's an expense to the County. 7 Isn't all the -- isn't all the expense supposed to be borne 8 by the people asking for the road district? 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: No, not for the public 10 hearing. 11 MS. SOVIL: Okay. 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: For the financing of 13 the bonds, for example. Yes, that all is included in the 14 bond issue, but -- 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The cost of the 16 election is borne by Commissioners Court, if I read right. 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: That's right. And we 18 do -- 19 MS. HARDIN: Doesn't it have to be done by 20 ballot? 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes. Ultimately, 22 yes. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ultimately. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We're not there yet. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: It's been moved by 145 1 Commissioner Griffin, seconded by Commissioner Letz, that we 2 accept the petition to establish the Ingram Lake Estates 3 Road District and set a public hearing on establishment of 4 such district for 10 o'clock -- no, we already did one at 5 10 o'clock. 6 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: We did one at 10:00. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: 10:30 a.m. on Monday, March 8 27th, Year 2000. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 3/27. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: I believe that's the date. 11 Okay. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor, raise 12 your right hand. 13 (The motion was carried by unanimous vote.) 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 15 (No response.) 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just a quick note, 17 Judge. The only other one we're talking about is the Shadow 18 Lakes -- or Shadow Ridge, rather, and those folks are out 19 there now trying to -- to scurry again through the 20 neighborhood and get signatures with voter registration 21 numbers, so that's likely to come back, as well. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: All right. We stand 23 adjourned until 1:30, at which time we will go into 24 Executive Session at 1:30, and then at 2 o'clock we'll have 25 our workshop previously posted on the Subdivision Rules. 146 1 (Commissioners Court adjourned at 12:10 p.m.) 2 - - - - - - - - - - 3 4 5 6 7 8 STATE OF TEXAS | 9 COUNTY OF KERR | 10 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 11 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 12 County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 13 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 14 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 18th day of February, 15 2000. 16 17 18 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 19 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 20 Certified Shorthand Reporter 21 22 23 24 25