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KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
Special Session
Monday, November 27, 2006
9:00 a.m.
Commissioners' Courtroom
Kerr County Courthouse
Kerrville, Texas
PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge
H A."BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1
WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, CommissionerPCt. 2
DAVE NICHOLSON, Commissioner Pct. 4
ABSENT: JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3
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I N D E X
November 27, 2006
PAGE
--- Commissioners' Comments 4
1.1 Consider/discuss report from Butt-Holdsworth
Library Advisory Board president g
1.2 Consider, take appropriate action on Kerr County
member(s) of Butt Holdsworth Library Advisory Board 32
1.3 Consider/discuss approval of bids for electrical,
plumbing, HvAC, and pest control 33
35
1.5 Consider/discuss/approve new contract with Five
Star Wireless for better rate, authorize County
Judge to sign same 38
1.6 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on
proposed policy to allow county employees to waive
participation in employee medical benefits plan,
establish county contribution to employee's cafeteria
plan or flexible medical spending account for 2007 40
1.7 Receipt of responses from County Treasurer with
respect to various IRS issues, appropriate action
concerning such responses 58
1.8 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to set
amount of Kerr County Treasurer's official bond,
effective January 1, 2007, in accordance with
provisions of ~ 83.002, Texas Local Government Code 65
78
1.10 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action for
concept of revision of Plat for Lot 1, Heartland
Acres; set public hearing for same 83
1.11 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to
consider division of property and septic for
Lot 248A, B&R Ranches, Precinct 2 84
1.12 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action for
concept of revision of Plat for Lots 12, 13A & 13B,
Riverside Park; set public hearing for same 94
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I N D E X (Continued)
November 27, 2006
PAGE
1.13	Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to purchase	
	three pieces of equipment at the expiration of their	
	leases	94
1.14	Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to adopt	
	a companion resolution acknowledging UGRA's	
	participation in Kerrville South Wastewater Project,	
	Phase IV	gg
1.15	Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on report	
	and recommendations of TCEQ Dam Safety Division	
	regarding Flat Rock Lake Dam	100
1.16	Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to adopt	
	a Resolution of Commendation for the service and	
	sacrifice of Naval Petty Officer Charles Komppa,	
	formerly of Ingram, Texas	108
1.17	Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on	
	proposed interlocal agreement between Kerr County	
	and City of Ingram with regard to OSSF jurisdiction	
	and services	111
1.18	Consider/discuss appointment of Jennifer Correa-	
	Knoulton to the Kerr County Child Service Board	120
4.1	Pay Bills	121
4.2	Budget Amendments	124
4.3	Late Bills	---
4.4	Approve and Accept Monthly Reports	129
5.1	Reports from Commissioners/Liaison Committee	
	Assignments	129
---	Adjourned	138
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On Monday, November 27, 2006, at 9:00 a.m., a special
JUDGE TINLEY: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Let me call to order this regular meeting of the Kerr County
Commissioners Court scheduled and posted for this time and
date, Monday, November the 27th, 2006, at 9 a.m. It's just a
bit past that now. Commissioner Baldwin?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. Would you please
rise and join me in a word of prayer and the pledge of
allegiance, please.
(Prayer and pledge of allegiance.)
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. Please be seated. At
this time, if there's any member of the public that wishes to
be heard concerning any matter that is not a listed agenda
item, feel free to come forward at this time and tell us
what's on your mind. If you wish to be heard on a listed
agenda item, we'd ask that you fill out a participation form
at the back of the room and get that to us up here. It's not
essential that you do that; it just helps me to have some sort
of notice when we get to that agenda item that there's an
individual that wishes to be heard on that item, and hopefully
not miss you. If, however, you wish to be heard when we get
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to a listed agenda item and you've not filled out a
participation form, just get my attention in some manner, and
I'll be happy to recognize you and give you the opportunity to
be heard. But at this time, if there's any member of the
public that wishes to be heard on any matter that is not a
listed agenda item, feel free to come forward at this time.
Seeing no one coming forward, we'll move on. Commissioner
Baldwin, what do you have for us?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir, I have a couple of
things. I had a -- my family and I had a great Thanksgiving
time, saw lots of stuff, did a lot of things, ate a lot of
food. And -- but one of the most exciting things that
happened is -- I think it was the day before Thanksgiving, on
Wednesday, I was watching the San Antonio news, and they were
talking about the rush -- shopping rush and travels and all
that, and all of a sudden, my entire television screen was
filled up with my good friend Bill Williams' face, the San
Antonio airport. Just like that. (Laughter.) I mean, that's
the campaign look.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I remember the camera being
there, and I thought that'll never make it. It made it?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It made it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Did it say "vote for" on the
bottom?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, but I got to tell you, my
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first thought was, god, can't I get away from that guy?
(Laughter.) My whole family had to look at it. It was -- but
the Thanksgiving holiday got better, thank you. And I wanted
to announce that this Thursday is the birthday of one of our
foundered fathers, our fearless leaders here in the county
family. Our illustrious Sheriff has a birthday this coming
Thursday, the 30th. And -- didn't think I knew that, did you?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I didn't think you knew that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I've got kidneys too, buddy.
That's all.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. Commissioner Williams?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, I didn't know I made
the big screen in Buster's house, but that's good. We -- we
did do a little traveling; went up to the Dallas area to have
Thanksgiving with our son and his family. And I thought, oh,
why would I choose to fly on a weekend when they're saying
that 59 zillion people -- turned out it was a snap. I
couldn't believe it. It was an absolute snap getting through
security on both ends. A lot of turkey, had a good time with
family, got to hold a couple grandbabies, and back in time to
do the County's business.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, sir. Commissioner Letz
has notified us he's not going to be able to be with us today.
He is encumbered with two sick children that he's going to
have to tend to their health needs, so he's not going to be
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with us. Commissioner Nicholson?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Some sad news. A life-long
friend of Buster Baldwin and a 25-year friend of mine, T.D.
Hall, died this weekend. And he's one of the heroes in west
Kerr County. He and his family have contributed a lot to us,
so his passing is a sad time. I think he was -- I told
Buster, I think he was the first man I met when -- 25 years
ago when I first started coming out to west Kerr County. He's
a good man. Let's see. We got a little rain in Ingram and
Hunt this morning, but not -- not in the western part of the
county. Very dry, and conditions are rife for wildfires, so
still urging everybody to be careful about that. A lot of
discussion occurring in west Kerr County, particularly Ingram
and Hunt, about the proposed TexDOT project to raise -- I
think it's seven low-water crossings. Concerned about the
i environmental impact and -- and other concerns, and I'm going
to arrange for that issue to be heard at the next meeting,
first meeting in December. That's all I've got.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. I too was sorry to hear
of the passing of T.D. Hall, deputy constable, longtime family
here in Kerr County. When I heard of his passing, it occurred
to me that it's really somewhat the end of an era and the old
school of law enforcement. I think that the Sheriff probably
may have some of those feelings also. I, too, had the
opportunity to view our Precinct 2 Commissioner on the big
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screen, and the impression that I got from -- from the shot
that they made of him there was that -- a question and
frustration whether or not he was going to get through all
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, you know that he's a
camera. Did you see that part?
JUDGE TINLEY: No, I didn't see that part of it. I
come in a little late. I'd like to give recognition
notification from the State of Texas that our local County
Clerk's office was recognized as a five-star local registrar
for vital statistics; that's birth and death records. Some of
you may know, even though you -- you weren't born in this
county and you want to get a birth record, they have the
capability through their system of getting a certified copy of
your birth record from Montague County, E1 Paso County,
wherever else, which is really a time-saving situation. But
there were a few counties that received five-star recognition
that were given exemplary status, and I'm proud to report
that -- that Kerr County was one of those that received
exemplary status recognition. And our clerk here, Cheryl
Thompson, of course, is one of the deputies there in that
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office that devotes a lot of her time to birth and death
records. So, our -- our congratulations to them on achieving
that status.
Let's get on with the agenda. We've got a number of
items to consider, and hopefully we can move through them
reasonably quickly. First item on the agenda is to consider
and discuss a report from the Butt-Holdsworth Library Advisory
Board president, Mr. John David Lipscomb, presenting the
Board's position on the issue of a library taxing district.
Commissioner Nicholson, I believe you, in conjunction with
Mr. Lipscomb, had asked that this be put on the agenda. Do
you have any preliminary remarks?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: No, sir. Go ahead, Mr.
Lipscomb.
MR. LIPSCOMB: Thank you. Excuse me. Morning,
Judge and Commissioners. Thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you and relay the results of our study on a
taxing district for the Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library. I
assume that everyone has the packet of information. I -- if
it's agreeable, I thought I might just go through some of the
key points.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, we don't have it.
MR. LIPSCOMB: You didn't get a copy of this?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Kathy Mitchell got copies a
couple weeks ago and should have distributed them to you.
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JUDGE TINLEY: May have gotten them in advance of
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I guess we did.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Probably.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's when I recall seeing it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
MR. LIPSCOMB: But let me just bring -- like I say,
bring a couple of -- a few of the major points here. You may
recall during a joint meeting in August with the City and the
County officials, it was brought up, I believe by Commissioner
Letz, about looking into a taxing district for the library.
So, the Library Advisory Board, since we are an advisory
board, took that in hand and -- and our bylaws dictate that we
make recommendations to both City and County officials on
library matters, so we took -- undertook this task. And
that's why I'm here today, to report on that. First thing I
want to bring up is, there's a couple of Local Government Code
legislations that's important. Chapter 326, which is some
older legislation, allowed a taxing district for libraries
with revenues funded through sales tax, and as of '05, there
were 14 taxing districts that had been created under that
legislation.	In fact,	in November of	this	year,	there was at
least one more	that I'	m aware of that	was	created	in eastern
Travis County, so that's been a very successful program. But,
unfortunately, because of our sales tax set at the maximum
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So, what we'd have to do if a taxing district was
ad valorem property tax and/or a combination with sales tax.
So, that's what we really looked at, was -- was how the
library could be organized under Chapter 336. Which I might
point out, to date, far as I know, there is no library
district that's currently organized under 336. Okay. Of
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course, the taxing district would have to be approved by the
voters, and the taxing district would operate with -- with
seven members similar to the way the Advisory Board operates
now. But these members would have total control over the
members representing the County, assuming that the library
district would encompass just Kerr County as -- as
Butt-Holdsworth serves now.
That's not to say that the district couldn't extend
would envision -- I think the Board envisioned that it would
be -- that's the responsibility of the lead government entity,
and that's defined as the government entity that provides over
50 percent of the assets for the district. And since
Kerrville -- City of Kerrville owns the building and maintains
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it, it seemed logical that they would be the -- the lead
government entity. Creating a taxing district would not be a
simple task. There's really a wealth of information. The
Westbank Community Library District, which was one of the
district on the web, and anybody can go there. I'll be glad
to provide that web site. It was in this packet. And you can
go to it and really inspect and see the amount of work and
effort that's required to -- to put a taxing district
together.
The other thing that was a consideration was under
formed, it can't be dissolved. And so that -- that's kind of
a scary situation that you can't reverse something if it -- if
it didn't work out. Another item that came up is voters would
have to approve this taxing district, and it would be run by
appointed members, and that seemed a little strange in light
of other agencies that operate on property taxes in Kerr
County are elected; Commissioners Court, Kerrville City
Council, K.I.S.D., Headwaters, and then there's -- I believe
there's a couple of emergency districts out in -- in the
western part of Kerr County that also operate under elected.
So, I guess it boiled down to a question of how would the
voters feel about entrusting appointed members using revenues
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from property taxes?
The one good plus, I think, about a library taxing
district is it would provide the library with a stable source
of funding, and that's something that the library desperately
needs. It's tough to plan if you don't know where your next
dollar is coming up. And -- and we really don't have --
although there's been some efforts made recently, we really
don't have a capital improvements budget, and with a nearly
40-year-old building, that's an important issue too. The --
some of the problems, I think, with a taxing district is --
excuse me -- it's going to cost more. If you think about it,
currently the library, since it's a City-owned facility and
the staff are City employees, payroll, human service functions
are performed by the City just as a matter of course. But if
a taxing district is formed, then the taxing district library
would have to contract with someone to do payroll or hire
someone to do it, so that's extra expense. And then, of
course, Chapter 336 dedicates -- or requires that a taxing
district would have to come up with additional costs; for
instance, elections would have to be paid for by the district,
and then audits -- annual audits, since you're -- since it
would be an organization that receives public funds, they'd
have to do an annul audit. That's something that's currently
not paid for sure.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You were saying -- let's see.
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You were talking a few minutes ago about the public maybe not
being in favor of an appointed group running the operation.
Now you're talking about elections. Would they be appointed
first and then elected after that --
MR. LIPSCOMB: No.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- first year?
MR. LIPSCOMB: No. Under Chapter 326, the old
legislation that operates under sales taxes, they are elected.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You jumped into another piece
of law; is that what just happened?
MR. LIPSCOMB: Right.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
MR. LIPSCOMB: But under 336, which is where this
district would have to function, they are appointed.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, thank you.
MR. LIPSCOMB: Sure. Sorry for the confusion.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's all right.
MR. LIPSCOMB: And, of course, if voters approved a
district, the initial rate would be set, and you could have
possible elections later on if that rate needed to be changed.
And, again, if -- if you didn't do good planning and you
didn't have good P.R., voters could turn you down, and now
you're back kind of in the same situation. You're operating
with maybe insufficient funds, and -- and, again, you can't --
you can't dissolve it, so you're stuck with it. The other
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thing about a taxing district, it would really shift the
burden of funding. Let me see if I can explain. Right now,
you think about some -- take me, for example. I live in the
County operation and the City operation would no longer be
funding the library, so that means that that portion of the
city funds that are put in would have to be re -- excuse me --
redistributed over the entire county's residents. And so it
', would shift from Kerrville residents paying kind of twice to
everyone in the county paying a little bit more, because
they'd have to assume that portion that the City's currently
paying.
So, in a way, all county residents, even though all
county residents really probably don't use the library as much
as I do, because I'm right here in the city and it's very
convenient for me, they're going to end up paying a little bit
more for it. And the other thing about additional costs, one
thing you'd want to build in too is this capital funding issue
that I brought up a minute ago. So, in summary, getting to
the bottom line, on October 17th, after some study, the
Library Advisory Board voted to recommend not to create a
library taxing district for the Butt-Holdsworth Memorial
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committee composed of The Friends of the Library organization.
They also studied it, and October 23rd, they reached the same
decision, not to recommend a library district. If there are
any questions, I'll be glad to try to respond.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I have some questions.
MR. LIPSCOMB: Sure.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, David, for your
Board, for taking this matter under study. It's an important
issue. It's an important issue to the taxpayers of the county
who are residents of the city, and it's an important issue to
all those who use the library. I'm puzzled, to say the least.
If one of your conclusions is that it truly is a -- a
mechanism to establish a stable source of income, which it
would be, spread across the tax base county-wide, it seems to
me that some of the other issues that the Board discussed and
opined against are excuses rather than reasons. For example,
administrative costs, audit costs, election costs, those items
that you talk about are already paid for by the City, there's
nothing gratis out there. Nowhere is there anything gratis.
Those things are assumed. Those costs are assumed by the City
right now. The fact that you would have to pay for
administrative services or provide them yourself seems to me
not to be a reason to move forward; it seems to me to be an
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Revenue shifting, I don't follow that logic at all.
County pays. The city people -- as you point out, city people
pay twice. Maybe yes, maybe no. Both the City and the County
would have to back out the equivalent amount of dollars out of
their respective line item -- budget line item if this were to
pass. That's the only way I would support it, and that's what
I said early on when we talked about this. Both the City and
County would have to do that. That means you're creating one
source of funding. One source of funding. Whether the City
redistributes its funds that they used to use for the library,
or the County redistributes its funds that it used to use for
the library for other purposes or took them totally out of
their budget is not a matter at this point for -- for debate.
It can and will happen, depending on the circumstances of both
budgets at the time. As far as I'm concerned, it should be
backed out totally, and that amount -- that tax rate should be
reduced, and I hope the City would see it the same way. So, I
don't follow the logic involved in revenue shifting. If
you're going to create a library district and we're going to
say it's one penny or two pennies or whatever per hundred,
spread county-wide, that's it. That's it. There is no
revenue shifting, so I don't understand that logic. Maybe
somebody can enlighten me. So, in conclusion, I would ask you
a question. What's the answer?
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MR. LIPSCOMB: I wish I had an answer for you. And
in response to your comments, I'll say this. The Board -- and
I assume The Friends did too; I'm not really privy to what
issues they looked at. But I know for the Board, we really
looked at the taxing district issue. We didn't look at the
other issues. And -- and maybe if we'd done that as an
all-encompassing thing, maybe we would have reached a
different conclusion. I guess what I'm saying is, at this
point in time, given what we know now, a library district is
not recommended. Now, what are the options? We can continue
as we are, City and County sharing the cost. The taxing
district which we've been talking about this morning, or
totally municipal library. To me, personally speaking, I
think -- believe those are the three options that we have.
So, I guess what I'm saying is, we really haven't looked at
the municipal situation, and -- and perhaps a continued look
at the sharing situation. But just looking at the taxing
district, we didn't feel like it was a good solution. The --
the comment about the stable revenue source is the only real
positive issue that came out of it. The rest of them were
perhaps question marks.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In my view, that's what --
that's the issue that should drive the train.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I'll make some comments.
And for those of you who don't know, I'm the Court-appointed
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member of the Library Advisory Board. And I'm not going to go
back over the arguments. You've been very articulate in
expressing the Library Board's reasoning behind the
I also share your belief that a steady source of revenue is a
-- is a positive, something that would be very desirable. And
I want to talk about two reasons why I object to the library
district. And, by the way, the -- the Library Board did a
very thorough discussion of these issues, and the vote to
recommend against it was unanimous. The first and foremost
thing is, I don't -- I don't have confidence in appointed
boards. I see that in Kerr County, we've got a number of
taxing districts, and one of those districts is an appointed
board and the other is elected, and I have more confidence
in -- in the functioning capability of the elected board.
Maybe -- maybe that confidence is not completely deserved, but
that's been my -- my experience.
The second thing is, I don't have any confidence
that total taxes will -- won't go up by more than a million
dollars if we form a -- a library district. I don't have
confidence that either the City or the County will not use
that -- that -- will really take that money out of their total
budgets. I believe that it will be -- it will be used, and
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that the average taxpayer will see an increase in their total
property taxes to the tune of more than a million dollars.
So, those are my reasons for thinking that that's not the best
solution. And I also agree with Mr. Lipscomb that the only
three obvious solutions are a municipal library, a -- a
cost-sharing between the County, or a library district. None
of them are perfect, but one of them is the way that it's
going to have to go.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other member of the Court have
any questions or comments?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just have a couple of
comments, Judge. Thank you. I'm in agreement with almost
everything said here today. Appointed boards are bad when
they -- when you're dealing with public money. We should
never approach that, and I did not know that. And, as well,
once the board is in place -- voted in place, you cannot
remove it. That's a horrible thing to get into, and I would
never support anything like that. I'm not questioning your
ability to read the law, but I -- I never heard that before,
and I really would like to know a little bit more about that.
And as far as capital improvements, you brought that up twice,
and I'm glad you did. But that's a totally -- in my opinion,
a City function. The City owns the place. They need to
capital-improve the thing. You know, that's -- that shouldn't
be an issue that's brought to this Court in any way, in my
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opinion. Appreciate your time, and very well-done
presentation, by the way.
MR. LIPSCOMB: Thank you very much.
JODGE TINLEY: Thank you for your work,
Mr. Lipscomb. Appreciate it. Let's move on to -- let me
first ask if Mr. Benham, as Friends of the Library, wants to
weigh in on this issue.
MR. BENHAM: Yes. Thank you, Judge. I turned in a
form when I came in. Let me first apologize for my voice. I
was forced to go to Houston over the weekend, and down there
they have pine pollen. Here we have cedar pollen, and that's
a pretty deadly combination, but I'll do my best. Let me,
with your kind permission, weigh in on two or three things.
First of all, I give the Library Advisory Board the highest
possible marks for the thoroughness with which they've looked
into this. And I agree with some of their conclusions, but I
believe some of them, with all due respect to them and to your
long and serious study of library -- the library situation and
the options and so forth, Commissioner, deserve some more
study. Let me say, first of all, that I hope that every
member of this Court, every member of the City Council, is
convinced by now of the importance of having the best library
system we possibly can have to serve the people. I won't go
back over all the statistics that I've shared with you in the
'i past, but I'll just mention two.
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First of all, more people use this library in a
given year than live in Kerr County. It's one of the most
heavily used libraries in the state of Texas. And you can
verify that, by the way. That's not just a figure I pulled
out of the air. Secondly, when the good folks like
yourselves, who often, at considerable sacrifice, in other
counties -- in adjoining counties in the hill country,
adjoining communities in the hill country, look at their
libraries, they see a need that not only requires operating
money, but they see a need that calls for capital investment
and growth. Commissioner Letz' constituents down in
Comfort -- or some of them are in Kendall County, but in
Comfort, they've doubled the size of their library in the last
couple of years. Harper, with, I'm proud to say, some
assistance from The Friends of the Library here, among others,
has opened a new library. Junction has moved into larger
quarters. And perhaps the most striking one is in
Fredericksburg, where the Gillespie County Commissioners last
year came up with over a million dollars to upgrade their
library. That's in addition to operating funds. So, you're
in good company if you see the importance of supporting the
library. I won't -- don't -- I won't dwell on that further.
Secondly, on the issue of not being able to dissolve
the district once it has been formed, I certainly am not in
favor of irrevocable actions. As some of you know, I, with
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and I have some experience in this. You can set the tax rate
j at zero, and give all of your -- the people that you're
paying -- you've been paying anything, notice that they aren't
going to get paid once the amount of money that's in the till
is gone, and you've pretty well solved your problem. We did
that when the City of Houston was taking over utility
districts in the area where I lived, the suburbs. And one of
the reasons they wanted to was that we had some very
substantial reserves, money set aside to pay off our bonded
indebtedness, which allowed us, by the way, to lower the tax
rate every two years as we paid off our debt.
Well, the city -- "Oh, man, look at all that money,"
in the area. Well, the -- the board that I was on lowered the
I tax rate to exactly the amount required to pay off that
remaining debt, and the City couldn't get its hands on that
money when they did annex us. And that was one of the few
good things about it. So, you can -- you cannot totally
resolve the issue of something you're stuck with, but you can
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get about 90 percent of the -- 95 percent of the way to it not
being such a problem.
On the issue of appointed versus elected boards,
I've served on both kinds. I was secretary and director of a
public utility district for 12 years before I moved up here.
I had to stand for election for that job. And I'm proud to
say I never lost an election. Some of my colleagues got voted
out; I didn't. I don't know why they chose to put up with me
when they wanted to get rid of others, but they did. I also
was a director and then president for 12 years of a property
owners' association, a rather large one in suburban Houston,
for which, again, I had to be elected every two years, so I
know what that's about. However, I was at one time a
director, and subsequently vice chairman of one of the largest
fire departments -- on the board of one of the largest fire
departments in the state, and that was an appointed job. And
I was appointed to fill a vacancy on a school board years ago,
for which -- to which I was subsequently elected. I've seen
it from both sides.
I certainly would prefer an elected board of
anything, just about. But I would point out to you that most
of our state government operates on the basis of appointed
positions. TexDOT, Department of Corrections, all of the
university Boards of Regents, and thousands of districts -- I
don't know why they made an exception for library districts,
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they have to be bonded, and they are subject to accountability
in the area that if they are found to be doing anything wrong,
they can be sent to one of the Department of Criminal Justice
facilities just like any other criminal. But they -- they are
appointed. They aren't elected, so it's not the worst thing
in the world that could happen, even though, as I say, I
believe in elected boards, and I commend you gentlemen for
making the sacrifices you do to stand for election and to
serve once you are elected. I'm going to miss you, by the
way. I have developed an enormous respect for you since we
got acquainted, and I'm sorry you're leaving this --
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: You too, sir.
MR. BENHAM: Thank you, I appreciate that. I would
prefer, frankly, to see the City/County partnership continue.
I think it's important to have as much oversight as possible.
Again, I think the -- I think Commissioner Nicholson,
Commissioner Williams before him, and perhaps some of the rest
of you before I came on board, have done a commendable job of
representing the County's interest on the Friends of the
Library, and more recently, the Library Advisory -- I'm sorry,
the earlier Library Advisory Board and the new Library
Advisory Board that was recently set up. By and large, the
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City -- City Council representatives have -- have done a good
say it was a, hopefully, respectful debate every year over how
much it's going to cost and who's going to pay for it -- is to
the benefit of either the County or the City.
I can tell you from spending a lot of time at the
library and talking to the staff, it certainly doesn't help
you keep a competent staff. These people say, "I don't know
whether I'm going to have a job a year from now. I'm looking
around. I might take a job somewhere else," and some of them
have. Some of them, I'm happy to say, are committed enough,
they're staying on. It does -- it is disastrous from the
standpoint of morale. It doesn't give you the kind of capital
money that you need. I'm not in sympathy with the idea of
building an entire new library, although some people propose
that. I think the existing building, with some adjustments to
accommodate those of us who don't get around very well any
more, and who prefer restrooms that are designed for the
handicapped and so forth, I think that building could be good
for a long time. Parking needs some improvement. But I -- I
don't sympathize with the idea of building an entire new
library. However, there are definitely some serious capital
needs in that building. I mentioned restrooms, lighting. The
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wiring is 40 years old, so forth. And for us to have to ao
around with our hand out saying, "Please give us some money
from various sources, mainly our book sales, to the library to
cover what you folks can't find the money and the Council
can't find the money for. We raised $400,000 to build -- to
buy that building between the library and the history center
to protect it for future use as part of the library operation.
We do what we can, but our resources are finite. We -- we
And
not fly, that there will be a further serious, responsible
effort to come up with a system that will avoid this annual
row over the library.
I don't believe that it should pit the city and
of all, a lot of the people that use that library live outside
the city limits. Secondly, as all of you know, much of the
growth in Kerr County is taking place outside the city limits
of Kerrville. Saddlewood, those beautiful subdivisions that
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limits of Kerrville, because City of Ingram is between
So, I hope you will -- let me say one other thing,
in terms of the -- I'm sorry, two. I'll be as quick
exists.	However, I	would remind	you gentlemen that	-- pardon
me. I	would remind	you gentlemen	that our governor,	now that
property values -- taxes on property caused by increased
values. I, frankly, am dubious that the governor and his task
force will find a way to repeal the law of supply and demand,
which is what the price of real estate is governed by, but
II he's going to give it a try, and so it's not inconceivable.
It won't happen tomorrow. It may not happen for a couple of
years. It may never happen, but it's conceivable that that
sales tax cap may go up, which would give -- put the option
out there of funding a -- a library through sales tax.
Another plus in that is that, finally, the people in
Washington have realized that people pay taxes whether they
live in a state with state income tax or not, and our sales
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Finally, on the question of going to the voters with
this, I know that Kerrville, at least -- I can't speak for the
County. Kerrville, at least, are -- and K.I.S. D. have a
history of voting down the first bond issue -- bond issue the
first time it comes around. I was on the committee that tried
to convince the voters that we needed a new ag barn, and tnat
failed, as you know. I haven't heard whether that's going to
be resurrected. But the history in other areas of this state
is that libraries help sell bond issues. The County
Commissioners in Harris County and the City Commissioners in
Harris County, whenever they wanted to sell a bond issue to
the voters, they made sure there was some money there for
libraries. There was a need, anyway, with the growth, always
of trying to catch up with -- with demand for library
services. But the fact was that they made a point of -- in
that laundry list of projects, of having libraries, and there
was good, solid research that said that helped sell the voters
on voting for that particular bond issue.
So, the public does support libraries. They
certainly support this one. And I would urge you to keep
looking, but I would also -- with all due respect to my good
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friend, John David here, I would also urge you to continue,
with -- with the help of your County Attorney, exploring the
possibilities of a -- of a district. I don't think it's the
perfect option, particularly as it's now constituted, as it
would have to be constituted under the current law. But laws
can be amended, and are. And so I would hope you won't -- I
was delighted to hear what -- what Commissioner Williams had
to say. I'm sorry, one more thing. This really is the last
one, on the question of how you're going to pay for it.
That utility district that I mentioned earlier,
which served a population about the size of -- that of
Kerrville, we had one part-time employee. We contracted for
everything. We contracted with a consulting engineer to make
sure it was being run right. We contracted with a company
which operated our wells and our water treatment and our
sewage treatment facilities. We hired a lawyer by the hour
when we needed legal work done. We hired an auditor to do our
annual audit. We didn't keep an auditor on the payroll
year-round; we hired them. They did their work, they got
paid, and they left for another year. We had a bookkeeper.
We paid a certain amount of money each month. None of these
people got any benefits. None of them had any job security.
They were there at the pleasure of the Board.
So, you can have a district which can function. If
I do say so, we functioned rather well. Our charges to our
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Houston for water and sewer service after they got annexed.
It can be done. It can be done efficiently, and at a
reasonable cost to the taxpayers, to the citizenry, if it's
done right. So, I would hope you'll continue looking at the
district along with your other options. You've been very
generous in letting me growl here this morning, and I
appreciate that. If I could answer any questions, I would be
happy to. If not, I'll again thank you for your time and
commend you for your service. Yes, sir?
JUDGE TINLEY: Any member of the Court have any
questions or comments as a result of --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just one comment, Judge.
Following up on what Commissioner Baldwin made mention of,
it's been some time since we've looked at both chapters of the
law, so it's not fresh in my mind, but even though the law may
provide for the appointment of the initial board, does the law
that has been cited by Mr. Lipscomb prohibit subsequent
election of trustees? That's my question to you. Not today.
MR. EMERSON:	Thank	you.	
JUDGE TINLEY:	Any	other -	- any other questions or
comments as a result of Mr. Benham's presentation today?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you, Mr. Benham.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, sir. We appreciate it.
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MR. BENHAM: Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any member of the Court have anything
further to offer in connection with the Agenda Item 1? Let's
move on, then, to Agenda Item 2. Consider and take
appropriate action on Kerr County appointed members of the
Butt-Holdsworth Library Advisory Board. Commissioner
Nicholson.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: There's one, perhaps two
pieces of business that needs to be handled under this agenda
item. We need to reappoint Reverend Bruce Baker, who was an
interim appointment to -- to fill in for the vacancy created
by the resignation of Reverend Shults, and I'm going to -- I'm
going to make a motion here in a minute that we reappoint
Mr. Baker for a two-year term. You will also have a vacancy
come January 1 on the required appointment of a Commissioners
Court member. I'm expecting that you'd like to wait until
January to deal with that, or the way this is worded, if you
wanted to, you could deal with it today.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd be happy to appoint Bruce
Oehler to that board. I think it would be wise to -- for the
chair to carry on.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay with me.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What do you think, Number 4?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I'm going to have to
continue to live in Precinct 4. (Laughter.) I will make a
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motion that we appoint -- reappoint Mr. Bruce Baker to serve a
full two-year term, and that that appointment be effective
immediately and continue through the end of 2008.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded as
indicated. Any question or comment on the motion? All in
favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(NO response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Any further
action to be taken in connection with Agenda Item Number 2?
Let's move, then, to Agenda Item 3, if we might. Consider and
discuss approval of bids for electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and
pest control. We received bids and referred them to our
Maintenance folks for review, recommendation -- and
recommendation. What do we have here, folks?
MS. DAVIDSON: Well, we know we'll go with Whelan's,
'cause they were the only one that went, and Compton's for
HVAC. So, now we're going to electrical, which was D.W.
Electric or Guadalupe Electric.
JODGE TINLEY: Question on that. What percentage of
the calls only require the services of a single electrician,
as opposed to an electrician and helper? Do you have a
ballpark estimate on that?
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MS. DAVIDSON: No. Usually -- do they have just one
person come when they're --
MR. BOLLIER: Most of the time they bring two.
MS. DAVIDSON: Okay.
MR. BOLLIER: They always bring two. They always
have.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I have just one quick
question on the plumbing summary.
MS. DAVIDSON: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: At the bottom, you're
talking about it being a bid from Whelan, and I understand at
the bottom -- is this just a typographical, where it says
"Compton's charges"?
MS. DAVIDSON: Oh, yes, I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. That should be
"Whelan's charges."
MS. DAVIDSON: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think our procedure here in the
past is not to exclusively select one prospective provider,
but to direct -- to approve the bids, with the direction that
you prioritize; when service is needed, that you first call
the low bidder for that particular type of situation, and if
that provider is unavailable, then you -- and you need that
service to be performed at that time, you call the second, I
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believe has been the procedure, has it not?
MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir.
MS. DAVIDSON: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Which I move that we do.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for approval
of the bids as indicated. Any further question or discussion
on that motion? All in favor of the motion, signify by
raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(NO response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Let's move
to Item 4; consider, discuss, approve replacing old vending
machine with new, improved ones. Ms. Davidson brought this to
the agenda. Do you want to tell us quickly what you got hire?
MS. DAVIDSON: Major upgrade. Compared to what we
have upstairs, these look tremendously awesome.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Who's the vendor?
MS. DAVIDSON: The vendor that we have now? Or that
is coming?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, what's your proposal?
Who is that?
MS. DAVIDSON: They go by -- Refreshment Specialists
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is the name of it, and they are statewide. They have a person
here that services out of Kerrville. He called me this
morning and said he is willing to come twice a week to fill
up. We have a large variety compared to what we have up there
right now. There's a whole list, front and back, of these
that we can swap out at any time, and two machines with Coke
or refreshments. It's water also, cappuccino, juices, and
snacks. Two machines up there -- varieties will fit up there.
So --
	COMMISSIONER	WILLIAMS:	Move approval.
	COMMISSIONER	BALDWIN:	Second.
	JODGE TINLEY:	Motion m	ade and seconded for approval
of the	agenda item, to	provide a	-- put in place a new vending
machine	provider. Any	question o	r discussion on the motion?
	COMMISSIONER	WILLIAMS:	One question -- go ahead.
	COMMISSIONER	BALDWIN:	One question. If I remember
correct	ly, this particu	lar -- it'	s a small, compact machine.
	MS. DAVIDSON:	Very sma	ll.
	COMMISSIONER	BALDWIN:	Doesn't take up much room.
Are you	going to consid	er putting	one on the lower level as
well?			
MS. DAVIDSON: I want to do two upstairs and one
down on the lower level. And we can add and take away as many
as we want. We have no contracts; there's no money involved.
They put it in. If we don't want it tomorrow, they'll take it
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back out. There's no obligations whatsoever. And we can put
in as many as we want.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This probably answers my
question. Do we get a piece of the action?
MS. DAVIDSON: You want me to ask?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm not sure about that.
Probably, without a contract, none of those conditions, we
probably don't.
MS. DAVIDSON: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: That was going to be my question.
And -- and if that has not been decided, I would strongly urge
you to inquire what is the standard split for the proceeds on
this kind of an arrangement.
MS. DAVIDSON: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: And --
MS. DAVIDSON: Will do.
JODGE TINLEY: -- I'll be real interested to learn
that every place they got machines, that they're not paying
any portion of the proceeds.
MS. DAVIDSON: Okay, I'll do it.
JUDGE TINLEY: I would find that hard to believe, as
a matter of fact. And whatever the standard split is, why,
that's what we ought to get.
MS. DAVIDSON: That's right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
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MS. DAVIDSON: Okay, I'll check into it. Thanks.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any further question or discussion on
the motion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising
your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Let's move to
Item 5; consider, discuss, and approve a new contract with
Five Star Wireless for a better rate. Existing contract with
same provider is 800 minutes at a cost of $99.85. New
proposed contract, same time, with a cost of $69.85, and
authorize County Judge to sign the same.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I move to approve.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for approval
of the agenda item. Any question or discussion?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The only question I have, is
I thought that we were trying to round up the entire county
system to do it one -- all of -- everybody at one time. I
didn't know we were going to continue piecemealing this thing.
I mean, this is a whale of a deal. It's a great deal. ~i
DODGE TINLEY: Yeah, that's a 30 percent reduction.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We talked about a master
contract, but I guess the various phones expire at certain ~,
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times. Those programs are -- whenever you start, that's when
they -- two years later or whatever.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is this ballpark same as
yours, or exactly the same?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's -- we have a lot more
minutes, of course, so the figures are a little bit different,
but I believe it's pretty close to exactly the same.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Good deal.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I know ours went down a couple
hundred dollars.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, if we stay at it, maybe
we'll get everybody on the same horse here.
JUDGE TINLEY: Like you, Commissioner, I -- I
thought we were trying to move to -- trying to consolidate a
lot of these ones, and to try and get the best rate possible
by virtue of having a larger contract. But I realize it may
be difficult.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Kind of like insurance.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm, yeah. Any further question
or discussion on the motion? All in favor of the motion,
signify by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(NO response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Job well done, Miguel.
MR. ARREOLA: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Good presentation.
JUDGE TINLEY: Let's move to Item 6; consider,
discuss, and take appropriate action on the proposed policy to
allow Kerr County employees to waive participation in employee
medical benefits plan and establish County contribution to
employees' cafeteria plan or flexible medical spending account
for the year 2007. Mr. Looney?
MR. LOONEY: Good morning, Judge, Commissioners.
I'm sorry I missed Mr. Williams on the -- on the TV screen. I
have to go back and connect my TiVo, see if it recorded it by
some chance.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: He won't care; you're not a
registered Kerr County voter.
MR. LOONEY: Oh. If I may put on my risk management
hat real quick before I talk about the one particular subject,
if, in fact, you do decide you want to take a share of the
proceeds from your vending machines, be sure that you check
with the contract that you have certificates of insurance from
the provider of that service so that y'all are covered from
the liability side of it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's probably pretty good
advice.
MR. LOONEY: Sorry about that, but my risk
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But what we did at
suggest that we create a process by which an employee who had
coverage from another source for their medical insurance be
allowed to waive participation in the County-paid plan. So,
we have put together a -- what we call policies and
procedures, which essentially you have at this point. What we
did in this policy and procedure process is create a means in
which an employee must provide information to Human Resources
Department that shows that they have insurance from a
reliable, financially stable source that would replace and be
reasonably equivalent to or equal to what the County was
providing for that employee currently. That way, to insure
that you have individuals that have coverage, because that's
the responsibility you're taking, is to provide health
insurance coverage for every employee. If they waive
participation, they need to provide certain documentation to
the Human Resources Department that then will be reviewed and
a waiver be granted for a one-year period.
Now, during that plan year -- during that policy
year, if that person's individual status changes and they have
a loss of coverage for any reason other than for the
nonpayment of premium for their insurance policy, then you
fall under what we call the Health Insurance Portability and
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Accountability Act, which is HIPAA, which then says that
individual can come back on the county plan if, in fact, they
do meet the requirements under the HIPAA certification
process. There are three kinds of open-ended generic terms in
the -- in this agreement -- or the policies and procedures.
One is the identity of the individual that has the
responsibility for granting the waiver, and that's placed with
Human Resources Department for verification, and there are
outlined in here the items that need to be provided. The
second portion of that is the county Commissioners Court being
able to set the amount of the waiver of premium contribution.
Then that's paid back to the employee who waives participation
in the plan.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's the part I'm -- you're
losing me a little bit. Why, if a -- if an employee takes the
option to leave our program and go on their own, why would we
pay any at that point?
MR. LOONEY: Well, the cost that we identified is
the cost that you would have been paying for --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 600?
MR. LOONEY: -- for the employee on the fixed basis
of their expenses only, and that amounts to $105 a month, is
what you would pay for administrative services, stop loss
insurance, all those other fixed costs, which you are no
longer obligated to pay, but you are not responsible for the
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. Are you going to talk
about the savings account? Later on?
MR. LOONEY: That was the other -- other piece, was
And under the cafeteria plan, you have a process by which you
have a salary reduction agreement under the cafeteria plan,
and the individual can use those funds, that $105 a month, can
use those funds as allocated under the cafeteria plan. If
those funds are not used during the plan year, then you lose
those funds. There's no accumulation moving forward on any of
that accounting asset, so it's strictly an amount determined
once a year by the Commissioners Court, paid on a monthly
basis for that individual that waives, and then that can be
reset on an annual basis. The option to waive out only occurs
once a year. Potential for coming back on the plan is there
if they qualify under HIPAA, but it doesn't qualify just
because they decided they wanted to change their mind and
participate in the county plan again.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This would be -- just to be
sure I understand, I was looking at the draft you gave us
versus what's in our packet. The only change I see is in Item
Number 5, in which you have eliminated the reference to
"medical flexible spending accounts."
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MR. LOONEY: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In the earlier draft.
MR. LOONEY: It allows them the full option under
the plan, as opposed to being directed to that one specific
account.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: The difference between a medical
spending -- a spending account would be that whatever is not
i used by the employee that receives that allocation of fixed
costs would remain with the employee, whereas under a
cafeteria plan, whatever is not utilized of that same amount
by the end of the -- end of the year would go back to the
County as unused.
MR. LOONEY: Let me make sure we've got it correct.
The cafeteria plan is a generic term which encompasses salary
reduction amounts that are used to pay premium. It could
potentially be a child care reimbursement account, and it
could potentially be a medical flexible savings account, any
one of those three items. "Cafeteria plan" is a generic term
meaning all three of those potential items. The HRA, the
health reimbursement arrangement that you have, is cumulative.
Anything under the cafeteria plan is noncumulative, so that
any of that contribution that's made is not -- it's either use
it or lose it during that annual period of time.
i COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Of course, we've understood
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MR. LOONEY
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I've got three observations
to me, and the procedures seem to be a little bureaucratic.
Why not let an employee opt out for any reason? Why does an
employee have to prove that he has other insurance to be able
to opt out? The second one is sort of like the first one.
Why offer the cafeteria plan to those who opt out? Why not
just let them opt out altogether?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Good questions.
MR. LOONEY: Well, first of all, why can't an
reasons. One is that the assumption is that the County has
accepted responsibility of providing a health insurance plan
for all employees, the basic assumption. The other part of
that is that for the health insurance plan to function
properly, the number of employees in the plan, the number of
participants in the plan on a group basis when you're
self-insured, if you allow for total waivers out of the plan,
you get into a downward spiraling effect in the funding
process, and you end up in potentially a negative funding
process. The -- I think the second -- what was the second
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question?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Bureaucratic.
MR. LOONEY: Oh, bureaucratic. Very bureaucratic,
there's no question about it. Because we want very much to
develop a policy and procedure that we can then take to our
providers and say, okay, this is not an open-ended risk. This
is -- this is the way that we have assumed the risk to occur.
That way we sell that back to our stop loss carriers and to
our reinsurance people, that it is not an open-ended process
for them for risk reward circumstances.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Good answers. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Good answer. Good question.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think his third question related
to, why make any contribution to the employee?
MR. LOONEY: Oh, to the cafeteria plan?
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah.
MR. LOONEY: The cafeteria plan is a situation where
there is no cumulation of the contribution by the employee.
They have to use it during that time frame. And that amount
of -- of premium or that amount of reimbursement or whatever
you want to call it can change each year, and needs to be set
by the Court each year. So that it can fluctuate; it's not a
guaranteed number moving forward. It's based on the cost
that's identified in the plan for that particular waiver
option.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Any other questions or comments
concerning the presentation?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, we need to adopt this as
a policy? Is that the issue of the day?
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, that's certainly before us at
this point in time. If we're going to have that in place for
'07, it certainly needs to be done today, I would think.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I would move adoption of the
Kerr County policies and procedures as presented by
Mr. Looney, the revised document presented today.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded to approve
the latest draft of policies and procedures concerning opting
out of the -- by employees of the county health benefits
program, as presented. Any question or further discussion on
the motion?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Couple questions. Do we have
-- have we had requests from employees to put this thing in
place so that -- they wanted to opt out of our program?
MR. LOONEY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that what's created
this --
MR. LOONEY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And, number two, I'd have to
-- I'd have to look at it a little closer, but number two is,
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does this affect the budget in some way?
MR. LOONEY: No.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: At all?
MR. LOONEY: No, because we've -- actually, we've
reduced it to its basic fixed cost, which was in the budget.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
MR. LOONEY: And the people that have asked for the
I waivers are people such as retired teachers; the Sheriff hires
individuals that have also come out of the military in some
cases with -- they have military coverage. There's some of
those that have insurance that's provided to them at either no
cost or minimal cost, and in some cases, because they're an
employee, they become primary under our plan, whereas it would
be more beneficial to them to be secondary, or be primary
under the plan that they have from the retiree standpoint.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Very good. So the Sheriff is
driving the thing? Is that --
MR. LOONEY: Yeah, it's always his fault.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: A lot of my -- I'll be -- I've
got a lot of retired D.P.S. people, military and teachers, and
there's a lot of them that don't want to have part of this
plan.
MR. LOONEY: Now, one thing that it does not affect;
they could -- the policy and procedures says specifically that
it affects the medical portion of the plan. The group term
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life insurance plan -- the group term life insurance portion
of it still remains in effect. They do not waive out of that.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: So they still get that?
MR. LOONEY: They still receive that. That's only
that group medical portion of it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: When we started this entire
program three years ago now -- is it three? -- there was a lot
of gnashing of teeth and -- and threats of committing suicide
over this thing and all that, and I think we've turned the
corner. I think we're in -- we've hung in there, and we're --
we have a good program here. And I think that the number-one
issue is that we're doing everything we can to meet the needs
of the employees, and that's -- that's what we do, and that's
the important part of it. I appreciate you two guys.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a good assessment of
it. We have turned the corner.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, thank you, sir.
Channel 5.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thanks.
MR. LOONEY: Thank you very much.
DODGE TINLEY: Any other question or comment on the
-- on the motion? Ms. Hyde?
MS. HYDE: There's more -- there's a little bit more
li to that. We also went ahead and did some investigation and
some cost analysis for the extra plans that employees can get,
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and Mr. Wallace has given us some very good pricing that we're
going to allow our employees to choose from as well for an
open enrollment.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We have copies of that?
MS. HYDE: You can have copies of that, yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: That will be voluntary coverage?
MS. HYDE: This is voluntary coverage, that's right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Strictly voluntary on that, right?
MS. HYDE: Absolutely.
JUDGE TINLEY: Kerr County is not underwriting or
participating in in any manner? Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you, Mr. Wallace.
MR. WALLACE: You're welcome. Do you y'all want to
talk about this? Or --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. This is great, though.
MR. WALLACE: Do you want me to discuss it?
MS. HYDE: It's -- it's extremely good insurance and
additional insurance for the employees. If you look under Met
Life especially, it's fairly inexpensive during the highest
percentile. Not to be confused, as Mr. Looney reminded me
this morning, with, you know, percentage effective. This is
just telling us where they stand in the percentile for this.
The other thing that we can also look at is down on the
bottom, our employees -- all employees, whether they pay for
Met Life or not, can use the Met Life discounts for vision
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free of charge.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Question.
MS. HYDE: All County employees.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are these -- are these
dental and vision available to all employees for an extra
premium?
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
MR. WALLACE: Yes.
MS. HYDE: And the vision for Met Life is free; it's
just a discount plan. The employees don't have to pay for
that at all.
MR. WALLACE: You have a $60 allowance in your
health plan for an eye exam. I don't know if you remembered
that or not. So you really don't need eye exams covered under
a vision plan, since you already have that. This would cover
your hardware, your glasses.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Really?
MR. WALLACE: I can give you more detail on that,
too. I'll hand that out to you before I leave.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Please do.
MR. WALLACE: And it just gives you some ideas on
that. The -- one thing about -- if you look here, I need to
point out to you that that's very important under the Met
Life. If you'll look under the waiting period, you'll see
0-12 or a 0-3-12 or so on. "Zero" means on your Type 1
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category of -- of, like, cleanings, if you have no deductible.
Type -- Type 2, you'd have a three-month waiting period, and
is open, you can go get your major dental work done. No
waiting periods. There's two different plans. My -- I want
some guidance from y'all on whether to offer one with ortho or
one without orthodontia. Naturally, it's a little bit higher
for the orthodontia. The employee-only cost is about the
same. I don't know why it's a penny difference. But so far
as those that qualify for ortho, the premium would be higher
for those that want to cover children or that want to cover
the whole family. The price would be higher. It's, like, $75
for the whole family without orthodontia, and with orthodontia
it's, like, $81. Let me hand that out right quick.
JUDGE TINLEY: That would be something that each
particular employee could -- could elect? Or --
MR. WALLACE: Right.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- is it required that we make an
MR. WALLACE: I personally think offering the ortho
know, you might as well. If they want it, they can
r not. If you look there on that first page, you'll
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see that is without orthodontia; you'll see that, and if you
turn over about two pages, you'll see the costs with
orthodontia. For an employee and children without it, it's
51.91, and with it it's 58.02. And the family, 75.33 or
81.42. Anybody have any objections to offering it with
orthodontia?
JUDGE TINLEY: If you're willing to offer those
options, if I understand you correctly, we have the ability to
limit what you offer, but we can permit you to offer the whole
gamut.
MR. WALLACE: Right.
JUDGE TINLEY: And --
MR. WALLACE: We -- we can't offer it -- we can't
offer it to you without orthodontia and to you with
orthodontia.
JUDGE TINLEY: I understand.
MR. WALLACE: Either has to be one way or the other.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think the maximum range of
coverages available to allow each employee or their dependents
to select is certainly what's in the best interests of our
employees.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure.
MR. WALLACE: And then the last two pages over
there, you'll see the vision allowances, for the vision
coverage.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, Lasik surgery has become
a part of our program for -- the option to -- that's
fantastic.
MR. EMERSON: Can I ask a quick question?
MR. WALLACE: Sure.
MR. EMERSON: Is the money that was discussed
earlier, the flexible medical spending account, eligible to be
used on this?
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, it could be.
MR. EMERSON: Okay. I was just trying to figure out
how we squeezed into this agenda item, but now I understand.
Thank you.
MS. HYDE: I tried to cover it correctly, --
JUDGE TINLEY: That's how you get there.
MS. HYDE: -- Mr. Emerson.
MR. WALLACE: Your $105 can be used to buy this
plan.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That annual max, is that --
what is that? Out-of-pocket or what?
MR. WALLACE: That's the annual max that Met Life
will pay towards your dental care. You can raise that to
1,200 and 1,500, 2,000, but the rates are going to go up.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: So, the most they're going to
pay for any one employee per year is going to be $1,000?
MR. WALLACE: Well, one participant, let's put it
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that way, whether it's a child -- and they pay up to $1,000
max on ortho.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This talks about the monthly
premium for the employee. What is the monthly premium for an
employee's dependent? Same?
MR. WALLACE: For an employee's dependent?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah.
MR. WALLACE: Well, the rates are --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm talking about this first
sheet.
MR. WALLACE: Oh. I just put the employee rates on
there.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
MR. WALLACE: That's just to show you what it would
cost just for the employees.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The answer's on this sheet;
I see it.
MR. WALLACE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, thank you. I see it.
MR. WALLACE: That was just a brief outline to show
you the different carriers and the different costs.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I see it.
MR. WALLACE: So you can compare the costs there.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And the cost to Kerr County
is zero.
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MR. WALLACE: Payroll deduction.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a win-win situation.
MR. WALLACE: If they don't have the $105.
JUDGE TINLEY: Did you have anything else on this
agenda item, Ms. Hyde?
MS. HYDE: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other questions or comments with
regard to the motion that's pending with respect to the opting
out policy? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising
your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. I guess now
it's appropriate to consider the -- the County contribution to
the cafeteria plan for the calendar year '07 under those
procedures. The procedures which were presented did not have
a fixed amount, but rather prescribed that that's done on an
annual basis by the Commissioners Court.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You -- you're saying somebody
on this -- at this table make a motion to approve this? Is
that what you're saying?
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, we've approved the policy.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Right.
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JUDGE TINLEY: But the policy provides that the
Court should, on an annual basis, determine the -- the amount
to be contributed to the opting out employee's cafeteria plan
that we heard in connection with the presentation.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is today the proper time to
do that? Or is January the proper time to do that?
MR. LOONEY: No, today.
MS. HYDE: Today.
JUDGE TINLEY: You need to do it today, because
otherwise, there's some preliminary things that have to be
done in connection with the opting out.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You don't have to get mad.
JUDGE TINLEY: Just giving you my opinion.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So tell us again what the
amount is. Somebody?
MS. HYDE: 105.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How much?
MS. HYDE: $105.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Per employee?
JUDGE TINLEY: Per month, per employee.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 105 per month.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I move for approval.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for the
approval of the county contribution to the opted out
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employees' cafeteria plan for 2007 to be the amount of $105
per month. Any question or discussion on the motion? All in
favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. We're about
at our mid-morning break period. Why don't we take about a
15-minute recess and come back and resume business.
(Recess taken from 10:23 a.m. to new 10:40 A.M.)
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, let's come back to order, if we
might. We were in recess, our mid-morning break. That brings
us to Item 7; receipt of responses from County Treasurer with
respect to various I.R.S. issues as set forth in memos from
County Judge to County Treasurer dated September 18, 2006,
October 27, 2006, and November 2, 2006, and appropriate action
concerning such responses. I put this on the agenda because I
had previously forwarded memorandums to the County Treasurer
in connection with some I.R.S. difficulties that I know all
the members of the Court are aware of, and I had received
notice from the I.R.S. of certain documents, and I inquired of
the County Treasurer in those various memos for certain
answers to certain questions. And the -- I think most of
those, if not all of those, were copied to the Commissioners
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Court at or about the time that -- that they were made. I
have not received any responses to those inquiries. The first
one, of course, is more than 60 days old. The other one --
next one is 30 days old, and the other one is slightly less
than that. The answers, of course, I wanted to provide to the
Court for the benefit of their knowledge and guidance in
connection with future matters. Ms. Nemec, do you have
answers to these items?
MS. NEMEC: Of course, all those issues I believe
that y'all are aware of that have been taken care of. The
first memo that I received was September the 18th, at which
time I sent a memo to the Judge explaining that during this
time, I was moving my office. I also did not have a clerk at
this time. I -- my assistant had quit, and I was in the
process of moving my office, doing payroll, closing the end of
the month, and closing the end of the year. And I explained
that to the Judge and told him that as soon as I would move
and get settled in, that I would provide him that information.
And the next memo was on October the 27th, and he sent me
another memo stating that now that I had moved and was settled
in, that he was wanting that information. How he knew that I
was settled in at that time, I don't know, but that's the memo
that I received from him.
Five days later, he sent me another memo. And then
on November the 21st, he -- no, November the 16th, he sent me
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a memo. I got back on the 21st, stating that I had received
responded at 1:15 to his memo, stating that I did not receive
his memo until then. Around 3 o'clock November the 21st, he
stated that because I did not respond to his memo by November
the 21st at 12 o'clock, that he put it on the agenda, and at
that time, I explained to him that I would have a response to
him by Tuesday, which is tomorrow. And he stated that because
I had not responded to him by noon, that he had put it on the
agenda, and requested that I be here to respond to those
questions. And, like I said, all this has been taken care of,
and especially the number -- number two item. I have already
discussed this with you all. You know that it has been taken
care of.
The Judge gets -- I talked to I.R.S.; he gets copies
of everything that I send to I.R.S. per his request in talking
to the I.R.S. They get sent to his address at his law office.
Anything that I send to I.R.S., anything that I.R.S. sends to
me, because he's asked them to do that, so he is aware of
anything that -- any correspondence between me and the I.R.S.
So, he knows everything that goes on. Again, this is just to
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harass me. I am sick and tired of the harassment that he
is -- that's been going on between him for the past years, and
I'm -- I'm very tired of it. I have responded to him that he
would receive, and that you would all receive this information
by tomorrow, and I have no further comments on this or any
other matter on the agenda today. Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: You don't have any responses to the
items as set forth in the memos, Ms. Nemec?
MS. NEMEC: As I stated, you will receive them
tomorrow. Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Let me clear up one thing, if I
might. She's correct that I do get, as this Court authorized
me to get, communications from the Internal Revenue Service on
matters that are forwarded to Kerr County from the I.R.S. Why
they elected to send them down to 611 Sidney Baker is beyond
me. The matter that we turned in for -- for me to have access
to those items, as the Auditor knows, clearly indicates this ~
address, but that's where they're sending them. I do not get
copies of anything that the Treasurer forwards to I.R.S.,
contrary to her assertion. I don't know whether I.R.S. feels
no obligation to do that, but it's not covered by what they
receive. I don't know, but I don't get that. I -- I want
answers to my questions. I think the public and this Court is
entitled to know the answers to the questions. They were very
simple. They were very direct. I've not heard any question
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raised about the ability to understand or not understand the
questions. I've just gotten stonewalled. The last time I
tried to get information out of the Treasurer, it took me over
a year. I finally noted that I filed an Open Records request,
somewhat at the -- I'll call it a facetious suggestion, for
lack of a better term, by Commissioner 4, that it's unusual
that the public can get information out of the Treasurer's
office and I can't. And so I filed that Open Records request,
and was finally given access to some of the records. I would
note that some of the early tax levies, for some reason, .were
not present in those files. I don't know why they weren't,
but they weren't. But it appears that we're not going to get
answers to those questions today. Yes, sir? Do you have --
you had -- you had a comment you wanted to make?
MR. TRIGO: I have a question for you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Please come to the microphone.
MR. TRIGO: I just have one question for you. Do '~
you not have an office here?
JUDGE TINLEY: Give your name --
MR. TRIGO: My name is Steve Trigo.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MR. TRIGO: You just stated that I.R.S. is sending
all your -- whatever you're requesting to your office --
personal office.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm.
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MR. TRIGO: Do you not have an office here in this
building?
JUDGE TINLEY: Of course I do, Mr. Trigo.
MR. TRIGO: Why haven't you corrected that with the
I I.R.S.?
JUDGE TINLEY: I have suggested that to the Auditor,
and I don't know what he's done, because he's the one that
forwarded that. I'll let him answer that question.
MR. TRIGO: Okay. I need an answer.
MR. TOMLINSON: I have not talked to the I.R.S.
I about it.
MR. TRIGO: Why not?
JUDGE TINLEY: Have you and I had a discussion that
we need to change --
MR. TOMLINSON: Yes, we did.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- where they're sending those to me
in care of this address at 700 Main?
MR. TOMLINSON: That's right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Thank you, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just a comment or two,
Judge. I don't -- I don't think we want to get caught up in a
back-and-forth debate about memorandums and who sent what to
whom and when we got a response. There are some legitimate
questions here that need to be responded to, and there are
some things that are confusing that need to be responded to.
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And I hope that your response, Ms. Nemec, will provide some
enlightenment in terms of some of the issues that are conveyed
to us, some of the points or -- that are made in these I.R.S.
documents. For example, a net adjustment credit of 7,279.
How did that come about, and why did it create an overpayment?
And the most recent document that I see here -- where is
it? -- dated October 30, 2006, why are we receiving a notice
from the Internal Revenue Service saying we changed your tax
return because we found a calculation error? What does that
mean? What was the error? Is the error in favor of Uncle
Sam, or is the error in favor of Kerr County? Will there be a
penalty assessed because they found an error, or not? I hope
your memorandum clarifies some of these issues that would
leave this Commissioner in the dark.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other questions or comments?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, yeah. I --
personally, I think that we should -- because of the
importance of this issue, I think that we should recess this
Commissioners Court and come back in tomorrow and let the
presentation be made in front of the full Court at that time.
JUDGE TINLEY: Certainly one alternative, one
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Commissioner, with regard to
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the October 30, 2006 notification, that, of course, indicates
something wrong with the Schedule B. It either wasn't there
or it was defective in some manner. I'm not -- that,
And if so, when? Any other questions or comments?
Let's move on to Item 8, if we might. Consider,
discuss, and take appropriate action to set amount of Kerr
County Treasurer's official bond effective January 1, 2007, in
accordance with provisions of Section 83.002 of the Texas
Local Government Code. As indicated in the backup, the last
Legislature authorized the -- a new methodology for
establishing the amount of the Treasurer's bond in an amount
not to exceed one-half of 1 percent of the largest amount
budgeted for general county maintenance and operations for any
fiscal year of the county, beginning during the term of office
preceding the term for which the bond to be given, with a --
with caps at 5,000 on the low end and 500,000 on the high end.
In looking at the previous budget summaries that
were provided, I note that the 'O5-'06, which, of course,
would be the previous term in this case -- I'm not sure
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whether that's limited only to the general fund, or to a
number of other items; fire protection, public library, parks,
indigent health, and juvenile facility, which would be part of
general operation also, whether it's limited to that. If
that's the case, why, it -- if it's limited only to the
general fund, one-half of 1 percent is something in excess of
$65,000, and if the others are included, it is just short of
~I $80,000. I calculate $79,913.22. But the section does
provide that we -- by virtue of the new legislation that was
done last session, that this Court set the amount of the bond
for the coming fiscal year.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What is the amount of the
JUDGE TINLEY: $15,000. And that is a four-year
bond. That is in place and will expire December 31, 2006.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that amount standard for
for Commissioners. Ours is less.
JUDGE TINLEY: No, it is not. The -- we just
recently received from Texas Association of Counties the --
the various oath and bond requirements for specific County
officers, and some of them are -- they're all set out, and
most of them are for specific dollar amounts. The Treasurer
is -- is different. The Tax Assessor is different. The -- I
believe the District Clerk, as a fee officer, is a little bit
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different, if I'm not mistaken. County Clerk, I believe, as a
fee officer, is -- it has a parameter on -- a percentage
amount it deals with. Most of those deal with 20 -- a
20 percent of an annual fee collection basis. Most -- most of
the others are set on specific dollar amounts. But I've got
the publication, if anybody wishes to take a look at it. The
-- the ones for the Treasurer and the -- or, excuse me, the
District Clerk and County Clerk and so forth, I think are
specific enough that -- that require them just to comply with
the statutory provisions. That's my understanding. The
County Attorney may have a different one.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, currently, we're -- the
bond is 15,000, and some would think that it should be 65,000?
JUDGE TINLEY: 65 to near 80, in that range, yeah.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And you suggest 79?
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, no. I said that if you
include --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, you do include.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- as part of the general fund
expenditures.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Correct.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's part of the -- that's part of
the operations, general county maintenance and operations for
a fiscal year. Of course, we would exclude any -- any
long-term indebtedness, C.O.'s or bonds, things of that
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nature, the jail bonds that are outstanding.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, Tommy, the fire safety,
or whatever those things are, are included in the M & 0?
MR. TOMLINSON: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, it would be -- so your
assessment, then, is correct. According to that, it should be
79-something.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Well, it --
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, up to that amount.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: -- doesn't say should be.
That's the cap.
JUDGE TINLEY: Up to that amount.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: My question I have is, the
County pays for a bond for officials.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: And the larger the amount
of bond, the more it costs to get a bond.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Is it prudent and needed
that we incur additional cost for bonds, above the bond --
$15,000 bond we're already paying for?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That would kind of be my
question. What would be the need to -- to do that?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Because the law says so.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, I know we have to
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follow the law.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: It's a cap, Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I understand cap.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, anywhere between 15 and
80 is my understanding. Correct? Is that permissible?
JUDGE TINLEY: Actually, we could go as low as
5,000, under the statute.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: From 5 to 500.
JUDGE TINLEY: Five to 500. But it cannot exceed
one-half of 1 percent of the -- of the general maintenance and
operation expenditures during a fiscal year during the
preceding term of office, which gets it to just under 80,000.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do you have a
recommendation?
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, based upon what I've seen in
this last year, a $15,000 bond for a four-year term would not
seem to me to be appropriate.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What do you think is
appropriate?
JUDGE TINLEY: 65 to 75.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What does the County
Attorney -- does he have a thought on this at all?
JUDGE TINLEY: He had earlier done some research
about the new provision at my request, and I don't know that
he -- he just responded by saying, "Here's the procedures and
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parameters for the bond."
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, in this documentation
that was provided, the backup on Local Government Code, under
83.002, Subparagraph B, in my copy it's been underlined that
the Commissioners Court may at any time require the Treasurer
to obtain a new or additional bond if the Court considers
existing bond insufficient or doubtful. Have we arrived at
that point?
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, the agenda item provides for --
for the new term beginning January 1, '07, and the Court needs
to set the bond for that in some amount at some time prior to
the beginning of that term. The agenda item that I've placed
is not for the purpose of -- for the Court to differentially
make a finding that the coverage under the existing bond is
insufficient or doubtful, and to raise it immediately. This
is something the Court's going to have to do prior to
January 1, anyway.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And you're -- you're
basing -- you're basing your recommendation to increase the
bond by a considerable amount --
JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- on the actions of the --
of the Treasurer in the past? These issues that we just
talked about, about the --
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JUDGE TINLEY: Among others, yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- I.R.S. And tell me and
the general public, what -- what would happen -- I mean, give
me a scenario that would get us caught in too low of a bond.
Is -- what is the bond for? Is it -- would it be for -- if I
were -- if I were the County Auditor and I had a low bond of
15,000 -- a $15,000 bond, and I took off with all the county
money, is that something that would -- is that one of the
reasons that you'd want to have a higher bond, is to cover --
cover that?
JUDGE TINLEY: Certainly, that would be one.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: A theft issue would be one --
one issue, or a reason. What -- what else?
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, we had a nonperformance or a
late performance issue, if you'll recall, that I came to the
Court with with regard to an item that I was seeking the
Court's permission to file a claim on the Treasurer's bond,
and that was averted by virtue of the fact that the Treasurer
stepped up and covered that with personal funds.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm.
JUDGE TINLEY: As I'm sure you can recall, -- kind
of hard to forget -- there's a $12,000 penalty hanging out
there somewhere that we still don't know the answer to.
MR. TRIGO: That's unalleged.
JUDGE TINLEY: That issue is -- to my knowledge, is
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as yet unresolved, and that may be the result of another claim
potentially. The -- if you coupled that amount with the --
with the prior amount, you can see that those two items alone
would have -- would have pretty well capped out the $15,000
bond that -- that was in place.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Isn't the claim against the
bond somewhat similar to a claim against any other insurance?
In that these issues are outstanding right now. Hopefully
they'll be resolved favorably to Kerr County. They're
outstanding, but if a claim were lodged against a future bond
of a larger amount, would those claims be allowed? 'Cause
they're already outstanding.
JUDGE TINLEY: No. No. It -- the bond that's in
place at the time of the -- the act, commission or omission,
is going to be the bond that determines whether or not there's
coverage.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: All right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Now, on an ongoing basis, I don't
know what's going to happen. I do know that that there are
substantial sums of money that -- that moves through the --
the Treasurer's office. There -- there are substantial
reporting requirements that will continue to be handled by the
Treasurer's office. You know, the only -- the only cost
benefit analysis that I see you got to do is -- has to do with
the point that Commissioner Nicholson raised. Certainly, a
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higher bond will cost more premium, but I guess it's one of
those things, you pay your money and you take your choice.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, your -- your thinking
is that these issues hopefully that will be taken care of
tomorrow -- be addressed tomorrow, and hopefully be taken care
of, you don't -- you see a -- first of all, your whole motive
here is to protect the County.
JUDGE TINLEY: County and the taxpayers of this
county, certainly.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, that's what I meant.
The taxpayers of the county, yeah. That's your utmost motive.
But you don't -- you think that there's a possibility that
this doesn't end tomorrow; that there's a possibility that it
may continue through next year, and -- or --
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, this bond, if approved in
whatever amount, will become effective for any occurrences
that take place on or after January 1, 2007. This bond will
not be applicable to anything that occurs prior to the
effective date of the bond.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. Well, my final
question is, how much does the damn thing cost?
JUDGE TINLEY: That I can't tell you. We'd have to
-- we'd have to get the input from those that are in the
business of -- of writing those bonds.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I've got one other
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question. I'm bonded; we all are. I don't know for how much
or how much it costs. Does the fact that I'm bonded offer any
protection to me? Does it limit any personal liability that I
have for errors or omissions or acts that I might commit that
would cost the County money?
JUDGE TINLEY: To the extent your bonding company
has to respond on your bond, I think, under the terms of most
suretyship arrangements, they would have recourse against you
individually. That's the normal law of suretyship.
Mr. Auditor?
MR. TOMLINSON: You might talk to somebody about the
cost. If you could get the District Clerk to tell us how much
her bond is, I don't -- I don't recall. I'm not -- hers is
about 250,000, I think.
MS. UECKER: 250,000, my bond, and it costs about
$500 a year.
JUDGE TINLEY: How much is yours, Linda?
MS. DECKER: 250,000.
MR. TOMLINSON: The -- the basis for establishing a
bond amount for the two clerks through Texas Association of
Counties is that they -- they want an amount close to the
amount that each office would have on hand at any given time,
have within their office. To me, that's a rule of thumb as to
how to establish the amount. There's probably some exclusions
to that.
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JUDGE TINLEY: On the District Clerk, for example,
the bond to be approved by the Commissioners Court shall be an
amount of not less than 20 percent of the maximum amount cf
fees collected in any year during the term of office
immediately preceding the term of office for which the bond is
given, with a -- with a low end of 5,000, upper end of
100,000. Now, there's some insurance requirements that come
in on top of that, dealing with some other -- other situations
there, and that may be the reason that you've got a total --
MS. DECKER: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- of 250,000 coverage in place.
That may not be all the bond coverage.
MS. DECKER: It is. It's the maximum of a hundred
I and --
MR. TOMLINSON: That's -- I mean, that's inexpensive
coverage, in my mind.
JUDGE TINLEY: And yours was five?
MS. DECKER: I think it's between five -- maybe it's
as high as 600, but I don't think so.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MS. DECKER: Five-something.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, can I go back over one
thing again here?
JUDGE TINLEY: Sure.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It says not to exceed
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one-half of 1 percent of the largest amount budgeted for
general county maintenance and operation for any fiscal year,
and there's some handwritten notes here at the bottom, and I'm
assuming that that would be $65,000.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. That's the general fund only.
The 13 million, when you add these other categories that are
actually part of general fund maintenance and operation
expenditures, the total amount is just under 16 million, which
brings it down to that figure just under 80,000.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, the 79,913.22.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, mm-hmm. Yeah.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, not to exceed that
~ number.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That would be the cap.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Mm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, we need to hit somewhere
between the 15 -- maybe. Currently at 15, and the cap is 79.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's the way I calculate it, yes,
sir.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, somebody -- somebody
throw out a number that is -- what we should -- a
recommendation. What should we do?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The Judge wants to go up to
the limit of the cap.
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JUDGE TINLEY: I said 65 to 75. That wouldn't be
the cap, but it would certainly put it up there in the range
of what the statute contemplates.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, 65 is a nice number.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, if we're going to
recess this -- if there's a possibility of recessing this
meeting to learn, in essence, of the report from the
Treasurer, why can't we, in the interim, find out what the
cost is between now and then, and take up both issues
tomorrow?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm there.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's certainly a viable option.
I Good.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Somebody can give us a
quote.
JUDGE TINLEY: Good thought.
MS. DECKER: Mine is -- if you're interested, mine's
through First Insurance.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yours is what?
MS. DECKER: First Insurance.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do you know what the amount
is, the dollar amount? The cost?
MS. DECKER: It's between 500 and 600 a year.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's 100,000, probably.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, do we ask the question,
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we want a bond for 65,000? Do we ask the question, do we want
a bond for 79,000? I mean, what --
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, we can get some benchmark
figures and then the Court can make a decision, sure.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And go from there, all right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anybody got anything further to offer
on that item?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, are we going to recess?
Is that going to be the --
JUDGE TINLEY: If that's the Court's desire, we can
sure do that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think it would be wise,
personally. Just as my personal thinking.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, looks like we're going to play
I tomorrow.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just need to set the time.
JUDGE TINLEY: So we'll defer on those items, okay.
We'll figure out the time later. Let's move, then, if there's
nothing further on that one, to Item 9; consider, discuss, and
take appropriate action to set up Texas Automated Vehicle
Inspection System. Mr. Odom.
MR. ODOM: Yes, sir, thank you. I'd just like to
tell the Court, Texas A & M, 12; Texas, 7. (Laughter.)
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Nothing personal.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The guy you want to talk to
is missing.
MR. ODOM: This year -- I'm on the Judge's bad side.
I'd better get another -- my bond's only for a very small
amount.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that why Lee Voelkel's
been sitting here all morning?
MR. ODOM: That's it. He had to hear that.
MR. VOELKEL: I was waiting for that.
MR. ODOM: He even had his hat this morning. This
year, the Texas Department of Public Safety is implementing a
mandatory automatic system for our inspection station. We
have one in our shop which facilitates having our equipment
done, and to save some money, but they're implementing this as
mandatory and they're charging an extra fee for this. The
equipment's being furnished free and the training is free, but
there's a fee, and associated with that, they need an
automated draft authority. So, we're asking the Court at this
time to give the County Auditor permission to set up an
automatic draft to comply with the new state law.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Move to approve.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for approval
of the agenda item, and to approve a draft on the County as
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indicated. Any question or discussion on the motion?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Question. How does this
benefit the County?
MR. ODOM: I don't think that it -- it benefits the
State of Texas, and I guess it -- what they're trying to do is
to -- my understanding is, reading the whole synopsis of
everything, that they're probably cutting manpower; they're
making it a little bit less people-oriented, where the
individual from D.P.S. has to come to our office and check
everything and do the -- the count and inventory on our
stickers and all like that. This way it's automatically done.
We have a phone line; it`s plugged in, and they supposedly
keep up with it under the system, and they suppose that it
will save them money over the long-term, reduce manpower
statewide,
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We inspect -- we just inspect
our own vehicles? I don't -- you're not inspecting mine, are
~ You?
MR. ODOM: No.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You inspect your own vehicles
i only?
MR. ODOM: That's correct, only the county vehicles.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And how long have we been
doing that? Forever.
MR, ODOM: For a very -- for a very long time. I
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don't know. I don't recall; 10 years or more. Basically,
what we tried to do was go to -- we had to go outside vendors.
And to get that, they may or may not get us in. Plus we're
paying a little bit of profit, so we wanted control of it,
and --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sure, I understand. I
understand. So, suddenly, we're -- we're going to start
sending the $2.25 to the State for every vehicle.
MR. ODOM: Plus the cost of the inspection sticker.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. And then -- and I
understand that. But I happen to kind of understand the
mind-set up in Austin. I wonder what's next. It's 2.25 this
year. What's it going to be next year and the year after for
us? I know you're not --
MR. ODOM: I haven't --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You don't know the answer to
I that.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We may have an understanding
about May of this coming year.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But I will almost guarantee
you that that number is going -- not going to remain very
long.
MR. ODOM: Well, you know, that's -- setting us up
is a little bit facetious anyway on a yearly basis. Taxation
without representation, if you want to ask me, but that's just
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my opinion.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That sounds like a good
bumper sticker to me.
MR. ODOM: And, you know, I think that could be
covered in the gas -- the price of gasoline. So, like
insurance, too. There's a lot of different ways to skin a
cat. But I think it could be a penny or something a gallon,
or half a cent, something like that, and you wouldn't have to
worry about this. People that drive pay for it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do you do the Sheriff's
vehicles, or just Road and Bridge? Do you do it?
MR. ODOM: I haven't, no.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Why don't we do all county
vehicles through your shop?
MR. ODOM: Well, I guess we could. I don't know.
You'd have to ask the Sheriff's Department about that.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think his are exempt.
MR. ODOM: I don't know if they have one. I don't
I know.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are they exempt from state
inspection?
JUDGE TINLEY: They're certainly exempt from
selectively enforcing that requirement, if they so choose, on
each other.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, we have --
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MR. ODOM: I don't have an answer for you, sir,
other than that we just take care of ours. And if it was in
there, I think we probably take care of Animal Control. I'm
just not for sure.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Environmental Health has
vehicles also.
MR. ODOM: Pardon?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Environmental Health,
likewise, has vehicles.
MR. ODOM: May have, and they probably come in.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just a question. If we're
going to do it, why not do it for all of them?
MR. ODOM: Road and Bridge takes care of Road and
Bridge. If it's outside that, we -- you know, we're not
opposed to them just coming in, working it out.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Trying desperately to be
other than that maroon island unto yourself.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other questions or comments on
the motion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising
your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(NO response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Let's move to
Item 10; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action for
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concept of revision of plat for Lot 1, Heartland Acres, as set
forth in Volume 7, Page 322, Plat Records, to set a public
hearing for same, and located in Precinct 2. Just need a
public hearing on that?
MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. I'm sorry, I had the wrong
I Page.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move a public hearing for
January 7, 2007, at 10:20 a.m.
MR. ODOM: 8th, right?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Second.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: January 8.
MR. ODOM: At 10:20.
JUDGE TINLEY: I have a motion and second for a
public hearing on the agenda item for January 8, 2007, for
10:20 a.m. Any question or discussion on the motion? All in
favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Let's move
to Item 11; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to
consider division of property and septic for Lot 248A, B & R
Ranches, and located in Precinct 2.
MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. We have received a letter from
Environmental Health concerning an illegal division of
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property when the owner applied for a septic permit. Mr. Owen
purchased 2 acres of a 15.11 lot in December of -- 17th, 2001.
Survey was done by Guadalupe Survey, and the title was done
through Kerr County Abstract. Mr. Owen recently got a permit
through Headwaters and had a well drilled, because their
grandfather date is June 10, 2002 from Headwaters. Our
question is, is this something we want to pursue for platting,
to replat this, if water is already available and the septic
can meet the requirements? If Miguel does that, would this
individual -- and if we are to pursue it, are we to go ask the
seller to do this, the responsible party? Or the owner -- the
young man that bought that? To me, it's already done, so the
question is, what's the direction the Court wants Road and
Bridge to go?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What's illegal?
MR. ODOM: December the 11th, 2000, is the
as far as we're concerned, of not having something platted..
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Whose responsibility is it
to plat? The seller, right?
MR. EMERSON: Subdivider.
MR. ODOM: The subdivider. But under this case,
Is the owner --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The subdivider is one and
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the same with the -- the owner at the time? The person
desiring to sell the land is subdividing it, and therefore
it's his responsibility to plat or replat. Would that not be
the case?
MR. EMERSON: That's my understanding.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And so, because of
Headwaters' --
MR. ODOM: Already got a well drilled.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- issue, their permit to
drill a well, and --
MR. ODOM: So, there will be two things. One would
be, well, would this individual get water, and could this
individual put a septic in? Apparently he can do the well,
'cause they've allowed him to drill it. The other question
is, can Miguel fit it into this 2 acres to make it work with
that well? I don't know about that. But --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's the answer, Miguel?
MR. ARREOLA: It's possible. It's possible. But
the platting materials that we have for the septic, it will
meet all the state requirements, so we will hold the permit
until the subdivision is approved or not. But it is -- the
septic can be in there with the well.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, we're talking about --
just a second, Judge. We're talking about we're going to
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require them to go ahead and plat? Or that's your question?
MR. ODOM: That's my question. Should we do it? Or
this is already a --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Or should we just turn our
heads at anybody that comes along and drills a water well, and
just turn our heads and let them go ahead and do it and get
away with it?
MR. ODOM: Well, if they have a permit. The
question would be "permitted," the permitted septic system or
permitted water system, and this was grandfathered by
Headwaters. They know what our policy is, I think.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, see, that's the point
that really kind of ticks me off, is that we're basing our
operation on what Headwaters say, and I really don't care what
Headwaters says.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mr. County Attorney has
something to say.
MR. EMERSON: I think my train of thought is
probably along what you were fixing to get to, Commissioner
Baldwin.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I appreciate you stopping me,
'cause I was going to use some curse words.
MR. EMERSON: The subdivision and the approval and
regulation of subdivision is not based on water and
environmental health. Water and environmental health only
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comes into effect on the size of the lot --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Correct.
MR. EMERSON: -- that's subdivided, but the purpose
and the intent of the Subdivision Rules is to regulate the
plats so that the general public is informed and has an
accurate place to go to for land descriptions.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Correct.
MR. EMERSON: So, the fact that it already has a
well or qualified for septic is a whole different issue.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Odom, I gather that the purchaser
of this 2-acre tract, Mr. Owen, owned other adjacent property
to this 2 acres at the time he purchased this 2 acres to
combine with it?
MR. ODOM: Well, to my knowledge, the answer is no,
that he just bought that 2 acres.
JUDGE TINLEY: How would Headwaters give him a
permit without having 5 acres?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Grandfathered.
JUDGE TINLEY: Or do they care?
MR. ODOM: Well, to my -- my understanding from
Headwaters is that they had a grandfather date. If they --
people had been doing this, and the Court has decided that we
were going to plat everything. Apparently they had a
grandfather clause that if you had bought a piece of property
prior to that date, that they would grant a permit, and this
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young man had bought this land prior to that grandfather
clause, even though it wasn't platted.
JUDGE TINLEY: Apparently, that means, then, that he
had it under contract prior to July 24, '06.
MR. ODOM: That's right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Which is the date that he got his
deed. He would have had to have a contract to purchase that
property prior to the grandfather date. But, to your
knowledge, he had no other property?
MR. ODOM: To my knowledge, he had no other
property; he had just bought this 2 acres from this 15-acre
tract, and an individual had sold it to him. He had it, and
he had a permit to -- went to Headwaters; he wanted to build a
home.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, the date, Judge, that
appears to be in the field notes by Mr. Digges, "This
description is a companion to a plat of survey dated
December 17, 2001," and so forth and so on.
MR. ODOM: Yeah, prior to the --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, it gets me back to my
question. I understand the point, but if there's any fault
here, it's not the fault of the purchaser; it's the fault of
the seller.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm.
MR. ODOM: That's true.
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MR. EMERSON: I don't have Chapter 232 in front of
me, but if I'm not mistaken, under Chapter 232 -- I think it's
.035 or .025; anyway, it's the subdivider's responsibility.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, what's the issue before
I us?
MR. EMERSON: We can --
MR. ODOM: The issue is, if we go ahead, we'll
contact the -- we'll contact this young man and tell him he
needs to get with the seller and, I guess, try to get this
thing platted so he can get on trying to build his home.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, apparently Headwaters made some
sort of conscious election to go with the executory contract
date back in 'O1, which, if it's like most contracts, the rest
of the world had no notice of.
MR. ODOM: Sure.
JUDGE TINLEY: Rather than the conveyance of title
in '06, which, of course, when recorded, the entire world has
notice of. So, you know, how many more of these ambushes are
out there awaiting us?
MR. ODOM: I don't know. We try to address the ones
that are brought. We have no earthly idea.
JUDGE TINLEY: Some of these -- some of these
contracts are 10-, 15-, 20-, 30-year contracts. By that
rationale, we could be seeing these things crop up and
permitted by Headwaters 25 years from now.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's true.
JUDGE TINLEY: And somebody claiming "King's X"
because Headwaters elected to go with an executory contract
date that the world didn't have notice of, because it was not
recorded, as opposed to the actual conveyance of title. I
think that's a real, real compelling issue here.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I do too.
i MR. ODOM: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wish I'd have said that.
MR. ODOM: Basically, we're still going with our
December of 2000 date that we have. If it's after that day --
time, it's not grandfathered.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, that prompts the question, are
we bound by the contract date, or are we bound by the
conveyance of title date? You know, it would be real easy in
this situation for the seller, knowing what he's facing, to go
-- to go back to the buyer, Mr. Owen in this case, and say,
"We need to enter into a new contract dated 1989," or 1994, or
something to precede our grandfather date. And what kind of
position are we in to -- to say you can't do that? That --
you know, we don't have this information. The information we
get is the same information the public gets when something
goes of record in this courthouse. That's why it goes of
record.
MR. ODOM: Okay.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, the course of -- the
remedy, course of remedy would be to notify the seller that
we're going to require him to prepare a division of --
division of property, a new plat, plat revision. Right?
MR. ODOM: For that 2 acres.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And come before the Court
for a variance, is what he'd be coming for.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, he can do whatever he chooses,
but I think it falls under our -- our Subdivision Rules
requirements. Now, he's got his buyer in a switch, but --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, I was just going to
make that point.
JUDGE TINLEY: We're not party to that transaction,
i see.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: He's hanging this young
~ man --
MR. ODOM: He's hanging the young man out.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- out to dry in terms of
building a home and whatever, because the seller didn't do
what he should have done. Is that correct, Mr. County
Attorney?
MR. EMERSON: You're correct, but there are civil
and criminal penalties associated with violation of
Subdivision Rules.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure, I understand.
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MR. EMERSON: So there is some leverage there to get
the seller to take care of his business.
MR. ODOM: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Let's notify the seller that
he's got a problem and see where it takes us.
MR. ODOM: All right, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think the issue here is whether or
not Mr. Arreola goes forward with approving the septic system.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No.
JODGE TINLEY: And I think he's gotten his answer.
MR. ARREOLA: Yeah.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think he clearly understands.
Okay. Anything else on that agenda item?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just wanted to say one more
thing; that I think -- I think Mr. Digges clearly understands
this entire issue, and should have never, ever let this thing
happen like this. And I hope that we don't have another one
coming through here like it with his name on it.
MR. ODOM: And the title company.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, and the title company
too. I agree. I agree.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And Headwaters. And I think
Headwaters gets caught up in this too by reason of its
arbitrary date that, as you point out, Judge, nobody in the
world knew about except them.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Everybody but us.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, everybody in the world
knew except us.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a good way to put it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's move on to Item 12;
consider, discuss, and take appropriate action for a concept
of revision of plat for Lots 12, 13A and 13B, Riverside Park,
as set forth in Volume 1, Page 70, and Volume 4, Page 261 of
Plat Records, and set a public hearing for the same. You need
a public hearing on this item, Mr. Odom?
MR. ODOM: Yes, sir, for January the 8th, 2007, at
10:25 a.m.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I move that we set that
public hearing for January 8 at 10:25 a.m.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: I have a motion and a second for
setting of the public hearing as indicated. Any question or
comment on the motion? All in favor of the motion, signify by
raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Let's move to
Item 13; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to
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purchase three pieces of equipment at the expiration of their
leases. Mr. Odom?
And, basically, what we've decided is, looking at the best
interests of the county, since the lease would almost double
compared to what we've been doing over the last 10 years, and
that we have very few hours -- when I say that in relation to
that piece of equipment, most of them are running 1,700 hours
on maintainers and all. I think it's in the best interests of
the County to purchase that. We have a balloon, and I
believe -- talking to Tommy, I don't believe that there would
be a problem. Of course, it has to do with amortization and
the interest rate, but we believe that we can amortize this --
I would like to amortize it over 84. I believe that's what
Tommy -- but I will be having -- over the next two years, be
paying off the distributor, the chip spreader, and the zipper,
and that I -- my intent is to make -- make the payments, and
they'll be almost where my lease agreement's at, and that I
would pay this off, I think, within four years; at least five
years, but four years, depending upon having some capital
outlay still left, and in case an emergency came up for
another vehicle. That's one thing that I need to keep is my
rolling stock, those trucks going all the time. But I believe
we can do this and not hurt me. Budget-wise, I'll pay it off
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early.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think it was wise of you to get the
purchase options in those lease agreements. And --
MR. ODOM: There was a day --
JUDGE TINLEY: -- the obvious benefit is what you
discovered. It's going to cost you about twice what your
lease costs now --
MR. ODOM: Mm-hmm.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- to keep that equipment. You, of
course, had kept it in good shape; it's not worn out?
MR. ODOM: Not worn out.
JUDGE TINLEY: And --
MR. ODOM: All the tests have been done on it that
was required for the -- the lease, and so we know where it's
at. There was a day, and that day is 10 years later, where --
where we were going to be, and there is an opportunity to
continue on and still have the equipment. And five years down
the road, we'll -- we'll look at something again. It will be
10 years old.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do you know what the
interest rate would be on a seven-year note?
MR. ODOM: I believe it was quoted -- Cat Financial
said it was five and a half, so I'm not quite sure. But Tommy
hasn't looked into it, but I think that I'm going to be in
that neighborhood, between five and a half and six and a half
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percent, probably.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, you're asking for
approval of a -- of a plan that would be to purchase this --
MR. ODOM: The purchase of this vehicle.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Purchase over a seven-year
payback amortization schedule, with an "on or before" so you
can pay it off earlier if you --
MR. ODOM: If I choose. I hate to say that the
court order would say just 84. I have -- I need to let Tommy
take a look at it and see. But I feel like if I did my
amortization on this thing, that I'm running very close to
what I'm originally paying right now, so I believe 89 would
give me that option. I can pay it off early.
JUDGE TINLEY: What you're seeking, then, is
authorization to -- to elect the purchase option for these
three pieces of equipment, and to obtain the appropriate
finances --
MR. ODOM: Finances.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- with the assistance of the
Auditor?
MR. ODOM: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. I thought that was a
motion.
JUDGE TINLEY: I don't think so.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I make that motion.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. I have a motion and a second
for approval of the agenda item. Any question or discussion
on the motion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising
your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Good work,
Leonard. Appreciate it.
MR. ODOM: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Even though it was done by an Aggie.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh.
MR. ODOM: Do I need -- pardon me? I'm sorry?
JUDGE TINLEY: You didn't catch that one, Leonard?
MR. ODOM: I didn't catch it; I'm hard of hearing.
Something about maroon. I didn't --
JUDGE TINLEY: Didn't use that term.
MR. ODOM: Do I need -- may I ask -- I'm sorry.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yes, sir?
MR. ODOM: Do I need to stay for one of the --
Bill's got -- do I need to stay on this dam?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: Probably wouldn't be a bad idea.
We'll get to it pretty quick.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, you need to listen to
it and pick up a copy of the report. Is it in your backap
material?
MR. ODOM: I haven't received it; it wasn't on my
desk, unless they had it this morning and I didn't see it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's -- let's move to Item
14; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to adopt a
companion resolution acknowledging U.G.R.A.'s participation in I
the Kerrville South Wastewater Project, Phase IV.
Commissioner Williams.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That -- that's what this
', would be, Judge, a companion resolution acknowledging their
participation and willingness to put up a grant match in
Budget Year '07, I believe. And also our party's intention to
enter into an interlocal agreement to set out the conditions
of the grant, and to agree to convey ownership upon completion
of the project. I so move the resolution.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for approval
of the resolution as indicated. Any question or discussion on
that motion?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Once again, thank you to
I U.G.R.A.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, indeed.
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COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: And thanks to Commissioner
Williams for taking the lead on these kind of things. This
probably wouldn't have happened without him.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Probably wouldn't.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, I want to echo both of those
thoughts. Made a good effort. This is essentially going to
be a continuing operation, and we appreciate that.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other questions or comments? All
in favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. We'll move to
Item 15; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action on
report and recommendations of T.C.E.Q. Dam Safety Division
regarding the Flat Rock Lake Dam. Commissioner Williams.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I've included in your packet
a report from the Dam Safety folks, part of T.C.E.Q. Just to
bring the Court -- refresh the Court's memory, we received a
report from Head -- from U.G.R.A. that somebody reported to
them that they could see the leak. And they took some
pictures, and we went out -- Leonard and I went out, and got
one or others of his men, went out and looked at it. I didn't
find the particular leak, but we did see some other areas that
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were problematic. The result of that first visit was that we
then contacted the Dam Safety Program and reported it all to
them, and they -- they told us to take some pictures. We did
that; we sent it back, and then they finally agreed that
they'd come out themselves and do a second inspection. They
did that about two weeks ago, I guess, or three weeks ago.
Right, Leonard, something like that?
MR. ODOM: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And two fellows from the Dam
Safety Division came, two engineers, and one other gentleman
from the Water Division of T.C.E.Q., and they did a real, real
thorough walkover, and pounding and looking at the dam. To
cut to the bottom, you saw the pictures. If those are not
visible or good enough for you, I've got the color photos that
they sent me. But the bottom line is, there are some problems
with it. Now, they'll be very quick to tell you that the
problems at the dam that are evident by inspecting are not of
a tremendously serious nature, and that even if there was a
dam failure, which nobody's predicting would be the case,
that's a recreational dam, and the result of that doesn't pose
any threat to life and safety and properties downstream,
because it -- because the volume of water that it impounds is
not that great.
But in looking at the dam and walking over it and
checking it from both -- in all aspects of it on the outflow
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side and on the ends, the end and the cap, they discovered
that there are some -- some breaches in the dam. And
probably retain an engineer to go out and take a good look at
it and give us some assessment of what kind of course of
action would be required to remedy any deficiencies or -- or
structural problems that might occur. We couldn't tell
what -- what's taking place on the -- on the side that
impounds the water. We could only inspect very carefully the
outflow side and the ends and the cap, and these are what
their findings were, if you've read the entire report.
Leonard, do you need to add something to that? You were there
with your fellow.
MR. ODOM: No, sir, I think you've covered
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, the recommendation would
be to find us an engineer who deals in dams and dam
construction, and get that individual out to take a look and
see this report and these pictures, and get that individual to
go out and take a closer look and come back and tell us what
the remedy might be.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think the perfect world
would be to figure out a way to drain that thing and get all
the trash off the front end of it, and so you can really take
a serious look at it, as opposed to this bandaid approach.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're absolutely right.
You're absolutely right, and that would require -- I'm sorry,
that would require going down there and -- and pulling that
balloon device that's covering the outflow -- the outflow
pipe, and letting the water down so you can see. That's
another -- that's another element and another cost.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I understand. And in my
mind, it would be worth those dollars to do it right the first
time. Although that report didn't -- there was -- the word
"emergency" or "hysterical" or none of those things were used
in there, which surprised me.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, me too.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. But it needs to be
done.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. There was no --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just can't imagine doing --
doing it piecemeal.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Unless -- I'm sorry. Let me
interrupt you one more time.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Go ahead.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Unless we're just talking
about this concrete cap that goes on top of the dam. I think
we're talking about more than that. I think we're talking
about cavities and cracks and those kinds of things that could
be dangerous.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're absolutely right.
And they did not try to convey any sense of hysteria and get
everybody alarmed that we have this problem impending -- big
problem, impending danger. But when you've got water going
over the outflow and it's going in a hole, it's going down
inside where all the dirt is and so forth, that -- the berm
inside.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sure.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And they were quick to tell
us, "We don't know what that means," and -- but you need to
take a look at it. So, my thought is that we need to locate
an engineer, and they give us a list of engineers that might
be available to be retained. So, if the Court has no
objection, I'll contact some of those and bring back some cost
estimates and time estimates and -- and maybe get somebody
here to talk to us about how we do the whole thing, and what
the differences in cost would be.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It would be wise.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think that's where we need to go.
On the issue of dropping that thing down to the lower inlet, I
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note in the report it shows in Photo 9, "The control for the
low-flow inlet, now inoperable," which means that in order to
open that low-flow valve, as indicated in the diagram,
that's -- it would indicate that there's going to have to be
some manual effort made to go underwater to do that,
apparently. Is this similar to the problem we've had out at
Ingram Dam?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It is, Judge.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Similar. A little different.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This lake was lowered or.e
other time, and that device -- whether it worked or failed,
I'm not sure. Do you remember, Leonard? But the net result
was that device no longer pulls that cap up over off that
inflow. There is a huge -- I guess a large --
MR. ODOM: Propane ball.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- propane tank that's
plugging that hole. And so that -- so the pressure of the
water holds that tank in place. You know, somebody would have
to go down there and get that --
MR. ODOM: Scuba diver.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- get that out.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's actually more than that,
actually. You -- they have removed that before one time, and
you have to clear all the silt and gravel and rocks and trees
and all of that off of it, and you can hook onto it with your
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cranes and bulldozers and all that, but the way they did it
before, someone crawled -- my friend Ray Crooks crawled up --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Inside.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- from the -- crawled up
from the lower end through that pipe and set an explosive
charge.
MR. ODOM: Tommy Taylor.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Tommy Taylor.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Threw it out.
MR. ODOM: Threw it out. That's where the propane
ball came back.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Probably the only way to get
that thing out of there.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
MR. ODOM: It works.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But it would be worth it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, I agree with you,
Commissioner. It would be.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Well, when you start --
when you get it drained, you start cleaning it up, there's a
cost there that you probably don't think much about. You're
probably going to tie up Leonard's crews for a period of days
on that silt, disposing of it in accordance with T.C.E.Q.
requirements.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm.
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COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: It's a heck of a project.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, it is.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Silt. And I recall -- it is
a heck of a project, and I recall -- I'm not sure whether it
was the flood of 2002; it might have been earlier when the
intake on U.G.R.A. Lake got loaded with silt and debris and so
forth, and they had to go in there with a drag line and get
all that stuff out, let it dry, let it de -- de-water. It
took a lot of time and a good bit of bucks to get it done.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I guess my point in mentioning
that thing being inoperable was that part of the assessment by
the engineer would be whether it's necessary that we do that,
or necessary or appropriate --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- under the circumstances. But the
result is still the same. We need to have somebody that has
more expertise than we do to take a look at this thing, and we
need to find out who they are.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Why don't I make some calls
and see who's available and send them a copy of this report,
and we'll go from there.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, I think that's a good solution.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: You're going to try to hire
a dam engineer?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Pardon?
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COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON
a dam engineer?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN:
you don't.
You're going to try to hire
Yeah, a dam engineer.
Damned if you do, damned if
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Out at the Ingram Dam,
we've got the dam lawyer.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The Dam Store.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: That's on his sign up there
above his office.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I want to remind you, too,
years ago we went through this exact same thing, and we had --
and I believe it -- the Schlumberger Company is the company
that came out and actually X-rayed Ingram and Flat Rock, and
found large cavities where the dirt -- where the water had
seeped in and the dirt had actually gone out some way or
another. And that was dangerous.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, that -- we've
discovered, by walking the cap -- Leonard had one of his guys
with a huge sledgehammer tapping on that cap, and we'd come
across hollow areas, which tells you that it's settled in
certain areas in the berm inside that cap, and that there's
some problems -- potential problems. Okay, we'll proceed with
it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's move on to Item 16;
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consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to adopt a
resolution of commendation for the service and sacrifice of
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. First of all, I
putting this resolution together and using proper English.
But I'll read the resolution. "Whereas, Naval Petty Officer
Charles Komppa, a 1990 graduate of Ingram Tom Moore High
School, was killed in Iraq Tuesday, October 24th, 2006, while
serving with his unit, the 3rd Naval Construction Regiment;
and Whereas Charles Komppa, a stellar student at Ingram Tom
Moore High School, who participated in football and
cross-country track and was a member of the 1989 state
runner-up cross-country team; and Whereas Charles was married
to the former Delisa Dewey, a 1989 ITM graduate, had two
children, Alicia, age 14, and Gary, age 11; and Whereas,
Charles joined the United States Navy after high school,
served a five-year term, and reenlisted as a reservist whose
unit was then deployed to Iraq; and Whereas Charles was known
as a caring community member while living in Absarokee,
Montana, using his technical skills for the betterment of his
adopted community; Now, therefore, be it resolved that the
Kerr County Commissioners Court commends Navy Petty Officer
Charles Komppa for his service to his country, and ultimate
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sacrifice, and extends its sympathy and condolences to his
family and friends. Adopted this 27th day of November, 2006,"
and signed by every member of the Commissioners Court. I move
that resolution.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for the
adoption of the resolution. Any question or discussion?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: The West Kerr Current
reporter pointed out to me that Komppa has been spelled a
different way in some -- some other documents or publications,
so we need to check out the spelling, whether it's one P or
two P's. Unless you know?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We got this information from
the West Kerr Current.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This is the information we
got from West Kerr Current.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's the way it was
spelled.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Let's go and doublecheck.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We will.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, thank you. With that caveat,
any question or discussion? All in favor of the resolution,
signify by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
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JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, when we get this typed
and cleaned up and done properly, I will seek out the -- I
guess the wife and children to get this to.
JUDGE TINLEY: I'd appreciate that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Let's move to Item 17; consider,
discuss, and take appropriate action on proposed interlocal
agreement between Kerr County and the City of Ingram with
regard to O.S.S.F. jurisdiction and services. I put this on
the agenda. We initially started considering this, oh, a
number of months ago. Mayor Jackson and City Attorney Danny
Edwards initially had a discussion about this. It went
through the Environmental Services department here, and
needless to say, it's not going to be a money-maker for us,
but I think we can do this more efficiently in Ingram, Texas
than they can in the city of Ingram, and it'll give us
uniformity of -- of purpose and -- and the licensing and
enforcement, and I think it's a good thing. The County
Attorney has approved the interlocal agreement.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Judge, earlier, the
Environmental Health Director said that -- that there would be
budget consequences to taking this action. Do we have some
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feel for what those budget consequences are?
JUDGE TINLEY: My understanding -- and, of course,
Miguel can probably be a little bit more informative on
this -- was that there was a concern about -- obviously, this
department doesn't make money. It's health and safety issues
that they -- that they keep track of. But the -- the number
of actual cases that we're going to be involved in for
licensing are going to be quite small; probably three to five
a year, is what I've been hearing, which should have minimal
impact. Now, the greater impact may be on the enforcement end
of it, and I suspect Mr. Arreola can tell us more about that.
MR. ARREOLA: That's what I was going -- the revenue
side is going to be low. The resources needed for enforcement
is where the greatest expense is going to be. So it's a
little unbalanced. I think it's good for the environment, but
that's it's going to take some of our resources, plus the data
entry and the -- all the recordkeeping. It's different. So,
we're going to have to -- for T.C.E.Q. audits and
informational purposes, we're going to have to convert all of
that into our system, which is going to take extra -- extra
efforts.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: What is that recordkeeping
and enforcement going to cost?
MR. ARREOLA: I don't have numbers. I don't know
how many we're going to be actually enforcing. But, you know,
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we didn't budget for none, so it'll be, you know, outside.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's the history --
Ingram's history in terms of volume over the years past? Do
you have some sense of it that way?
MR. ARREOLA: Yes, sir. New permitting, we have
some numbers, and I think probably three, four a year. TNe
have no records of enforcement. They don't have them, so we
don't -- we don't know what's -- what's there. There's a part
of the state law that says we have to do maintenance on a
unit. It's not going on in the county right now -- in the
city, so we're going to have to implement that from scratch.
And all that will take -- you know.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, those numbers will have to be
developed, 'cause we don't have any historical numbers.
MR. ARREOLA: Right.
JUDGE TINLEY: From the prosecution and judicial
resources, those are -- we already do those, --
MR. ARREOLA: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- obviously. It's the
administrative out of your office that we're talking about.
MR. ARREOLA: Correct.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's the question mark.
MR. ARREOLA: Mm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I wanted to -- that was my
only comment, is this one sentence here in the City's
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responsibilities. Section 4B, The City will, at the request
of the County, have its City Attorney file in the Ingram
Municipal Court any complaints or causes of action as
necessary for the enforcement of the rules and regulations.
So, that sounds like to me that if we ask them to, then they
will handle all -- all of that.
MR. ARREOLA: They will handle the court side, but
all the investigation and all the resources come from us
first.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, I understand that now.
So, while I'm there, the only comment -- and I see Howard back
there -- the only comment I have about this, if it -- if the
-- if it does go into the courtroom in the City of Ingram, and
if they don't take care of business out there, then I -- this
Commissioner will take another hard look at it immediately.
MR. ARREOLA: Okay. I was going to ask, and
probably to the attorney's office, if I could -- 'cause I
didn't see anything anywhere in here that I cannot take it to
the J.P. court. If I could take it to the J.P. court instead
of municipal court. I don't know if the J.P. will take it, if
it's overlapping jurisdiction. But we -- you know, the J.P.'s
know the rules; we've been working with them. They've been
good to us. So --
JUDGE TINLEY: Mayor Walker, did you have a --
MAYOR JACKSON: I was just going to say, the City
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does have some extra power as far as enforcement.
JUDGE TINLEY: Not Walker, Jackson. Excuse me.
MAYOR JACKSON: I knew you knew who I was.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: He's getting confused.
JUDGE TINLEY: This is not the first time I've done
this, either. There is a Howard Walker, pretty good mandolin
player; I'm sure you know him.
MAYOR JACKSON: No, not really.
JUDGE TINLEY: He played with the Poverty Playboys.
MAYOR JACKSON: Anyway, back to the subject,
there -- there are some additional enforcement actions that
the City can take that the County cannot, over and above the
actual technical -- whatever, as far as the O.S.S.F. rules.
In other words, we can use nuisances, we can use a lot of
things that we have in our little repertoire that -- that you
guys don't.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think Commissioner
Baldwin's point is really valid, in that we're expending the
time and the effort to -- to address failing septics or
correct problems, and if the City doesn't follow up with
that, --
MAYOR JACKSON: Well, all I can say --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- then that's a wasted
effort.
MAYOR JACKSON: All I can say is as long as I'm
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there, I guarantee it will be. And beyond that, I can't -- of
course, I can't promise. But --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
MAYOR JACKSON: -- I think once it's up and rolling,
though, I think -- I don't think anything's really going to
change, to be honest with you.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that good or bad?
MAYOR JACKSON: That's good.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
MAYOR JACKSON: In other words, the enforcement is
going to be pretty strong. I live there, and that's -- and
water and wastewater is my business. Environment's my
business. So -- and I think if we can get this thing set up
and get it going, I don't think it's going to change. I mean,
I can't imagine anybody sitting where I'm sitting now and
taking a contrary action. I just --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Looking ahead to the future,
in terms of Ingram and its centralized sewer system, have you
adopted an ordinance that will require people living within
your city limits to hook up to that sewer system?
MAYOR JACKSON: Yes, definitely.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a real plus.
MAYOR JACKSON: Yes, that's going to happen. And
there also -- there have been several people from outside the
city express interest in being annexed and tying on, and I
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asked this last council meeting for a consensus on -- we're
going to concentrate on taking care of the city first, what's
there now. Now, if somebody wants to come in from the outside
and they want to pay the full cost, then more power to them,
but we're not going to subsidize. We're going to take care of
our own first.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just think you got to
prosecute them to the hilt, especially in the beginning, to
get the attention and let people know that you're there on
base.
MAYOR JACKSON: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That is, if Miguel chooses to
use the City of Ingram. We know what our J.P.'s will do.
MAYOR JACKSON: If we know of a problem within the
city, what I'm saying is, I guarantee you that any -- any
other resources we can bring to bear will happen, 'cause this
is -- well, this affects everybody.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
MAYOR JACKSON: And we're right on the river too,
just like everybody else. The old -- the common misconception
about septic systems is, if it's not bubbling up out of the
ground, it's working. Well, I beg to differ in this part of
the world.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What authority does Ingram
have -- the City have over a county function?
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MAYOR JACKSON: Well, we're -- we just have a lot
more leeway in defining nuisances, and just -- there's a lot
of things we can do.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
MAYOR JACKSON: Where -- where county governments
are just not empowered to do. You guys can enforce the state
rules, but we can add onto them; we can make them more strict
if we desire. We don't have to actually attack it from the
O.S.S.F. standpoint; we can attack it from an impact on a
neighbor or something like -- like a nuisance, or there's
probably some other lawyerly terms that you can use. But --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, shouldn't that be done
before we adopt this?
MAYOR JACKSON: Well, I'd kind of like to see what
-- what we run into. We can handle things.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
MAYOR JACKSON: I'm no fan of overregulation.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
MAYOR JACKSON: Let's see how it works, and if we
need to do some things, then we can make that happen.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, very good.
MR. ARREOLA: My question then is, we're going to be
enforcing state law or any county rules more stringent than
the state law in the City of Ingram; is that correct?
MAYOR JACKSON: No. What we want you guys to do is
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enforce the state law. If -- if there's a situation where
maybe the state law doesn't contemplate a certain thing, then
there's some things that we can probably do to address that.
MR. ARREOLA: So, we just bring it to your
~ attention?
MAYOR JACKSON: As long as we know it, correct.
MR. ARREOLA: All right.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Okay. I'm going to move we
approve the proposed interlocal agreement between Kerr County
and the City of Ingram with regard to O.S.S.F. jurisdiction
and services, and authorize County Judge to sign same.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for approval
of the agenda item as indicated. Any further question or
discussion?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Yes, I've got a couple
comments. One, I think y'all are aware that I believe that
any time that government entities like the county and cities
can combine services and effectively avoid duplication and
take advantage of those economies of scales and synergies, I
want to do that, and there are other opportunities that we
haven't looked at. For that reason, I think this is a good
piece of business. I also think that next summer or sooner,
that the -- the Environmental Health Director's going to come
to you and say, "I need some more money because of that Ingram
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contract," so we'll wait and see.
JUDGE TINLEY: For --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is this a one-year
agreement?
JUDGE TINLEY: One year or subject to 90 days
cancellation, I believe it is.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Yeah, by either party.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. It's automatically renewable
for one -- one-year terms, unless specific notice of
nonrenewal is given, or 90 days cancellation. Any other
questions or comments? All in favor of the motion, signify by
raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(NO response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Let's go to
Item 18; consider/discuss the appointment of Jennifer
Correa-Knoulton to the Kerr County Child Service Board.
Commissioner Baldwin.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. We have a slot --
or actually several slots, and the present board has met with
Ms. Knoulton and decided that she would be a good candidate
for the Child Service Board. And after reading her
information here, I'm in agreement, and I'd like to move that
we approve Jennifer Correa-Knoulton as a member of the County
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Child Service Board.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for approval
as indicated. Any question or discussion? All in favor of
the motion, signify by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Does any
member of the Court have anything to -- that they want to
offer in closed or executive session with regard to the -- to
any of the agenda items? If not, we will move forward. Let's
go to the approval agenda, payment of the bills.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Move we pay the bills.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for payment
of the bills. Any question or discussion? I had a couple of
items marked here that -- I'm not sure how many of you noticed
that our Court-Appointed Services in the 216th District Court
probably went down the tube for the entire year with the
payment to the psychiatrist.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What page are you on?
JUDGE TINLEY: Page 12. Almost $20,000. That's one
of the psychiatrists.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Hmm.
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JUDGE TINLEY: I don't recall what we budgeted,
but --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that for Mr. -- for --
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Seard?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- Mr. Seard?
JUDGE TINLEY: I'm not sure if it was that one or --
it probably had to do with the Hernandez case, in which there
was a question raised by the Mexican government.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
DODGE TINLEY: On a post-conviction remedy that was
asserted here locally.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, in one fell swoop, it's
i over.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I don't recall the exact amount
we budgeted, but if it didn't wipe it out, it took a nice
chunk of it, and we've got some more coming. This same
psychiatrist testified in the Seard case here last week or
week before, whichever it was.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Which there were four of
those guys
JUDGE TINLEY: We had -- we had another competency
issue in the Ligon case, which was, I guess, last week, where
there were some psychiatrists. This was over in the 198th,
though. I guess we're going to wipe out that budget there.
The Seard case, however, is in the 216th, so we may see a
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budget amendment there. The next item that I'd like to go to
is Page 24, if we could. And maybe -- maybe this is not as it
appears. There's, in the Tax Assessor's budget, a payment to
Diane Bolin, Tax Assessor, for reimbursement of postage for
almost $6,800.
MR. TOMLINSON: She wrote -- apparently wrote a
check out of her account.
JUDGE TINLEY: Out of her Tax Office account?
MR. TOMLINSON: Tax Office account.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. It is not as it appears, then.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Would you like to look at the
bill?
JUDGE TINLEY: No.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Say yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: No.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: They're not here. We don't
have bills in here, and I'm really uncomfortable not having
the bills down here.
JUDGE TINLEY: But she wrote it out of her Tax
Office account, not her personal account?
MR. TOMLINSON: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: He thinks.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Very good.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, that's all the questions I got.
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Any other questions? All in favor of the motion, signify by
raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion carries. Let's go to
budget amendments. Budget Amendment Request Number 1.
MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. Number 1 is for Election
Expenses. This is from the County Clerk, to transfer $52.55
from Signs to Election Supplies.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Move to approve.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for
approval. Any question or discussion? All in favor of the
motion, signify by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion carried. Budget Amendment
~ Request 2.
MR. TOMLINSON: Two is from the Treasurer's office,
to transfer $260 from Office Supplies to Machine Repairs.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move approval.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. What kind of
machine?
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JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for approval
of Budget Amendment Request 2. Any question or discussion?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What kind of machine?
MR. TOMLINSON: It was a printer. It's an HP-1320.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: He's so good.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other questions or comments?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How'd you do that without
looking at the bills?
MR. TOMLINSON: I have copies of them in here.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Ah-hah.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're cheating.
JUDGE TINLEY: All in favor of the motion, signify
by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion carried. Budget Amendment
Request 3.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON:
throw-aways. When mine breaks, I
another one for about 59.95.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN:
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS:
more than the printer.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON:
I thought printers were
throw it away and go get
Yeah.
Because the cartridges cost
It does.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: $260.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Go ahead, excuse me.
MR. TOMLINSON: Number 3 is --
DODGE TINLEY: Yeah.
MR. TOMLINSON: -- for the Sheriff's Department.
And, actually, it's to recognize or include the grant -- the
VINE grant, victims grant from the state, $7,548.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for
approval. Any question or discussion? All in favor of the
motion, signify by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion carried. Budget
Amendment 4.
MR. TOMLINSON: This is also for the Sheriff, and
this is to increase the budget by the amount of -- of
insurance on a vehicle in the amount of $2,581.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move approval.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and sectioned for
approval of Budget Amendment Request 4. Any question or
discussion?
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: This is -- we are declaring
an emergency?
MR. TOMLINSON: No. No.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: You note that we had to expend the
deductible, however, as opposed to laying claim for the entire
amount on the third party's carrier. Any other question or
comments? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising your
right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Budget
Amendment Request 5.
MR. TOMLINSON: Okay, 5 is for Elections. The Clerk
handed me this this morning, and we -- we have an invoice from
Hart on ballots. In order to pay this, we need to transfer
2,738.88 into the Ballot Expense line item. There is not
anything -- not any excess funds in the Clerk's budget or the
Elections budget, so I'm recommending that we transfer that
from Nondepartmental out of the insurance -- the Liability
Insurance line item. There's $17,710 excess funds in that
line item.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's because of that credit that we
got from Texas Association of Counties?
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MR. TOMLINSON: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: Because of our good experience
rating, and -- that we were notified here just -- that was
50-some-odd thousand dollars worth, as I recall.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think the check is right
over there against the wall. I think.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Do we have a motion? I
move to approve.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for approval
of Budget Amendment Request 5. Any question or discussion?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We don't have any more
elections this budget cycle, is there?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't think so.
MR. TOMLINSON: I don't think so.
MS. THOMPSON: No.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other questions or comments? All
in favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Do we have
any late bills?
MR. TOMLINSON: No.
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JUDGE TINLEY: I've been presented with monthly
reports from the District Clerk for October '06, and the
County Clerk General and Trust Fund for September '06, and
Justice of the Peace, Precinct 1. Do I hear a motion that
these reports be approved as presented?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: So moved.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You moved? Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for approval
of the reports as presented. Any question or discussion on
the motion? All in favor of the motion signify by raids can
your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
(No response.)
~ JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Do we have
li any reports from any of the Commissioners on their liaison or
I committee assignments?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I have none.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any -- any reports from elected
officials or department heads? Let me throw an issue out an
the table here. This is certainly not going to place me in
good stead with some of the elected officials, but as this
j Court will recall, we set the holiday schedule for the -- for
~ the coming -- the current fiscal year, and we authorized
I
Thanksgiving and the day following Thanksgiving. There were
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early on the Wednesday preceding the holidays authorized by
this Court. As best I can tell, there have not been any
indications that there was any sort of an emergency status, as
is sometimes anticipated by the A.G. opinions that allow the
early. I'm sure the Court will recall here several years ago,
there was an issue about employees needing to be released
early because of impending drastic weather conditions; icing,
storms, things of that nature. I think years earlier, there
was an issue of -- of some toxic fumes that got into one of
the offices, health and safety issues, and that's certainly
understandable. But rather, just, I guess, declaring an early
holiday to some degree for that particular office. The issue
arises, how are we going to handle that for payroll purposes'?
I -- you know, I see -- I see the people we work for, the
taxpayers and citizens of this county, as losing in two
respects when that happens. Number one is, they will not be
getting the service of employees that they have, through us,
agreed to pay for their work. And secondly, when they come to
do business at the courthouse at these offices that have
elected to close early, there's no one there with whom they
can do their business. So, I see it as a double whammy that
the -- that the people that employ us are getting on this
deal. What we elect to do about it, do you penalize the
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that elected official for the cumulative number of hours lost
by the employees that were released early. Frankly, I happen
to believe that option is probably the most appropriate. That
elected official made the call without justification, other
than maybe wanting to curry favor with employees. It's not an
agenda item; obviously, we can't do anything about it, but I
don't think it's right. I don't think it should have
happened, and I think the Court needs to take some action on
it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm almost there, Judge. I'm
that -- that that should be a -- a policy amendment. I think
we need to make an amendment to our policy and add that in, if
in the future that happens. I don't know that -- I don't know
that we should do it this time. I mean, I don't know the
offices	that	closed.	I	didn't watch that kind	of thing.	I'm
taking	your	word for	it.	I don't know that we	could do -	- not
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could. Should. I don't know that we should do that this
time. But I think that it would be very appropriate to make a
policy saying that any time it happens from this point on,
that it'll happen.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, Commissioner, maybe the failure
was that this kind of thing was not raised before, because my
best understanding is that virtually this same identical thing
occurred last year.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: On Thanksgiving? Or some
~ other --
JUDGE TINLEY: I believe it was immediately prior to
Thanksgiving. And I've heard instances where -- where there
was an issue with regard to prior to Christmas. But it's --
it's difficult for me to explain when citizens come out to the
courthouse and -- and they end up coming to our office.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm.
JUDGE TINLEY: And they have some business they want
to transact, and they've come from out of town or from some
rural location in the county where they live, and they're here
to do business, and they see a sign on the door that says we
closed at 3 o'clock. And here they are here at 3:30 or 4:30.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, what prerogatives do
the law give elected officials in this regard? I kind of ask
the County Attorney through you.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Well, this issue came up, as I
recall, four or five years ago. And -- and I believe there's
some A.G. opinions that support that there's some autonomy,
but that there be an emergency or exigent circumstances,
generally involving health or safety type issues, not just
unilaterally giving the employees additional time off contrary
to the policy which we set.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let me ask --
JUDGE TINLEY: He may be able to find something in
addition to that. I don't know.
MR. EMERSON: I'd be happy to look. I don't know
the answer to that off the top of my head. I will tell you,
though, as one of the departments affected, that I left after
lunch to go home; my family -- 'cause I had family coming in.
And a little after 3 o'clock, I got a call from my office
saying, "We're the only department open in the courthouse.
Can we close?"
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, the elected official, of
course, is -- is an exempt employee.
MR. EMERSON: So --
JUDGE TINLEY: And that's fine. But closing down
the office --
MR. EMERSON: Well --
JUDGE TINLEY: -- is where I have a problem, where
the employees are released.
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MR. EMERSON: I can't disagree with what you're
saying, but I guess what I'm saying from my perspective is, I
gave them permission to go home, because everybody else was
allegedly already gone. Now, I did qualify that with the
So --
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, you got yourself covered there,
as far as I can tell. Now, if --
MR. EMERSON: But as for --
JUDGE TINLEY: -- other elected officials did the
"If y'all would like, I will shut down the office, but I want
all of you to understand it's vacation time." But still, that
doesn't cover the negative of citizens coming to do business.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think we also have a --
maybe a corollary issue developing or brewing out there right
now with respect to shutting down earlier Christmas Eve and
attending the luncheon, where I'm hearing that there's some
that say, "Well, you know, we're going to shut down; we're not
going to go to the luncheon." And therefore, you know, that's
sort of in the same ball game, same thing.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I was going to bring that up.
not, but we close at noon on that day; that the courthouse is
closed, which we declare that. That means that the place is
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closed, that people cannot come and do business. And we try
to have -- we're going to, this year -- and I've tried in the
past, and I can't seem to get this together, but this year
we're going to have lunch at 11 o'clock, eat at 11 o'clock, so
these people can eat, we can say thank you, Merry Christmas,
here's your 15-year pin, and then come back to the courthouse,
get their purse, and they can be out of here by noon if they
choose. Now, is that -- I don't know that we've officially
closed down the courthouse at noon that day.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, the holiday schedule, of
And --
Yeah. I don't -- that's what
I'm saying. I don't know what that says, but that's kind of
what we've always done. Maybe we need to get a little more
specific with that. I don't know. We've been too loose, I
agree. And the main primary concern is the taxpayers needing
to do business in the courthouse.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, and not getting their money's
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
JUDGE TINLEY: You know, and at budget time, they
hear elected officials come in and say, "I'm just overwhelmed;
I don't have enough people," and so forth, and -- and I don't
know what the productivity index could be if all these folks
had been working those extra two or three or four hours, but I
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dare say it could have	knocked a	hole	in something.	
COMMISSIONER	BALDWIN:	You'	ve turned into	a grinch.
You're a mean --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This is the season.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- mean old judge, isn't he?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Last Friday, I leapt out of
bed at the crack of dawn and drove to the courthouse to do
some business, and the courthouse was locked up, and I don't
have a key. I didn't know we had Friday off. That's true.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I can tell you who, according
to my knowledge, was around here Friday afternoon at
5 o'clock. Representatives of the Commissioners Court were
here, court administrator and myself. And I think some of
y'all had come in during the day.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Commissioner Williams might
have been here, too. I thought I saw his truck.
JUDGE TINLEY: I'm talking about Wednesday, not
Friday.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I'm talking Friday.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Talking about Wednesday?
JUDGE TINLEY: The Auditor was here, 'cause I did
some business with the Auditor. District Clerk's Office was
functional. I had some business that I did with Ms. Hyde,
Human Resources; that was functional. Maintenance people were
here, 'cause I had some contact with them. But beyond that, I
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-- you know, I can't speak to who was here, other than the
signs that were seen on the doors that spoke for themselves.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Maybe the Attorney General
can give us a couple opinions we can read and help us
understand what's allowable and what's not.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, like I say, it's not going to
endear me a great deal with elected officials.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No. As a matter of fact, I
think I see somebody going out and going to hang you in
effigy.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, that's fine. That's fine.
Anybody else want to throw anything sweet and nice out on the
table?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We want to recess?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Tar and feathers out of
stock these days?
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Now, we're looking at meeting
in the morning; to consider, at a minimum, recessing until in
the morning --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How about in the afternoon?
JUDGE TINLEY: -- on Item 7 and 8.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do you have juvies in the
afternoon?
JUDGE TINLEY: No, I don't. No, I don't. I will be
available 10:30 in the morning.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Now, the -- tomorrow is the
insurance --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Signup.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- meetings and signup dates
and all that stuff. I don't know how many days they're doing
it, but I know I'm scheduled in the morning for it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm scheduled in the
I afternoon.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 10:30 is cool with me.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't care.
JUDGE TINLEY: That work for you, Commissioner?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll come back in from
Center Point. I'm usually in Center Point.
JUDGE TINLEY: Oh, okay.
MR. EMERSON: What time?
JUDGE TINLEY: 10:30 is what I'm hearing.
MR. EMERSON: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's good. That's fine.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Can do.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, we will stand in recess until
10:30 tomorrow, November the 28th.
(Commissioners Court recessed at 12:28 p.m.)
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STATE OF TEXAS
COUNTY OF KERR
The above and foregoing is a true and complete
transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my
capacity as County Clerk of the Commissioners Court
of Kerr County, Texas, at the time and place
heretofore set forth.
DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this lst day of
December, 2006.
JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk
Kathy Ba k, Deputy County Clerk
Certified Shorthand Reporter
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ORDER NO. 30031
BUTT HOLDSWORTH LIBRARY ADVISORY BOARD
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Nicholson, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Re-appoint Reverend Bruce Baker to serve a full two year term, effective
immediately and continue through the end of 2008.
ORDER NO. 30032
BIDS FOR ELECTRICAL, PLUMBING, HVAC AND PEST CONTROL
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Nicholson. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Approve the bids, with the direction that the bids be prioritized; when
service is needed, the low bidder will be called first, for that particular type
of situation, and if that provider is unavailable, and the service needs to be
performed at that time, then the second lowest bidder will be contacted.
DW Electric -Electric
Guadalupe Electric -Electric
Whelan Plumbing -Plumbing
Compton's of Kerrville -HVAC
Terminix -Pest Control
Starkey -Pest Control
Hill County Pest Control -Pest Control
ORDER NO. 30033
REPLACEMENT OF VENDING MACHINE
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Williams, seconded by Commissioners Baldwin. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Approve replacing old vending machine with a new vending machine
provider.
ORDER NO. 30034
FIVE STAR WIRELESS CONTRACT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL
HEALTH DEPARTMENT
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Nicholson, seconded by Commissioner Williams. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Approve a new contract with Five Star Wireless for the Environmental
Health Department, and authorize County Judge to sign same.
ORDER NO. 30035
KERB COUNTY EMPLOYEE MEDICAL BENEFITS
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Williams, seconded by Commissioner Nicholson. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Adopt the latest draft of the Kerr County Policies & Procedures, as presented
by Mr. Looney, concerning opting out by the employee of the County Health
Benefits Program.
ORDER NO. 30036
KERB COUNTY EMPLOYEE MEDICAL BENEFITS
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Williams. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Approve the County contribution to the opted out employees' Cafeteria Plan
for 2007 to be in the amount of $105.00 per month per employee.
ORDER NO. 30037
TEXAS AUTOMATED VEHICLE INSPECTION SYSTEM
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Nicholson, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Approve setting up of the Texas Automated Vehicle Inspection System, and
approve setting up an automated draft on the County, to comply with the
new state law, as indicated.
ORDER NO. 30038
HEARTLAND ACRES
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Williams, seconded by Commissioner Nicholson. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Approve the concept of revision of Plat for Lot 1, Heartland Acres, Vol 7,
Page 322, and set public hearing for January 8, 2007 at 10:20 a.m.
ORDER NO. 30039
RIVERSIDE PARK
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Nicholson, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin. The
Court unanimously approved by Record vote of 3-0-0 to:
Approve the concept of revision of Plat for Lots 12, 13A & 13B, Riverside
Park, Vol 1, Page 70 & Vol 4, Page 261, and set public hearing for January
8, 2007 at 10:25 a.m.
ORDER NO. 30040
PURCHASE OF EQUIPMENT BY ROAD & BRIDGE DEPARTMENT
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Nicholson, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Authorize to elect purchase option for the three pieces of equipment, and to
obtain the appropriate finances with the assistance of the Auditor.
2 - 12-H Maintainers
1 - 924 Loader
ORDER NO. 30041
ADOPT COMPANION RESOLUTION ON KERRVILLE SOUTH
WASTEWATER PROJECT, PHASE IV
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Williams, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin. The court
unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Approve the Companion Resolution acknowledging UGRA's participation in
the Kerrville South Wastewater Project, Phase IV.
ORDER NO. 30042
ADOPT RESOLUTION OF COMMENDATION OF NAVAL PETTY
OFFICER CHARLES KOMPPA
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Williams. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Adopt Resolution of Commendation for the service and sacrifice of Naval
Petty Officer Charles Komppa, formerly of Ingram, Texas.
ORDER NO. 30043
INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT WITH CITY OF INGRAM FOR OSSF
JURISDICTION
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Nicholson, seconded by Commissioner Williams. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Adopt proposed Interlocal Agreement between Kerr County and the City of
Ingram with regard to OSSF jurisdiction and services, and authorize County
Judge to sign same.
ORDER NO. 30044
APPOINTMENT OF JENNIFER CORREA-KNOULTON TO KERB
COUNTY CHILD SERVICE BOARD
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Williams. The
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to:
Approve the appointment of Jennifer Correa-Knoulton as a member of the
Kerr County Child Service Board.
ORDER NO. 30045
CLAIMS AND ACCOUNTS
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, came to be
considered by the Court various Commissioners Precincts, which said
Claims and Accounts are:
Accounts Expense
10-General	$	149,337.31
15-Road 8 Bridge	$	29,097.23
18-County Law Library	$	187.00
50-Indigent Health Care	$	47,052.82
76-Juv Detention Facility	$	2,502.77
TOTAL
$ 228,177 13
Upon motion made by Commissioner Nicholson, seconded by
Commissioner Baldwin, the Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0
to pay the claims and accounts.
ORDER NO. 30046
BUDGET AMENDMENT # 1
ELECTION EXPENSE
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Nicholson, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin, the
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to transfer the following
expense codes:
Expense Code Description
10-402-330 Election Supplies
10-402-457 Signs
Amendment
Increase/()Decrease
+ $52.55
- ($52.55)
ORDER NO. 30047
BUDGET AMENDMENT #2
COUNTY TREASURER
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Williams, seconded by Commissioners Baldwin, the Court
unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to transfer the following expense
codes:
Expense Code Description
10-497-456 Machine Repairs
10-497-310 Office Supplies
Amendment
Increase/QDecrease
+ $260.00
- ($260.00)
ORDER NO. 30048
BUDGET AMENDMENT #3
GENERAL REVENUES
SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Baldwin, seconded by Commissioners Williams, the Court
unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to transfer the following expense
codes:
Expense Code Description
10-370-200 V.I.N. E. Proceeds
10-560-427 V I.N.E. Expenditures
Amendment
Increase/()Decrease
+ $7,548.00*
*-To recognize funds received from State Comptroller for payment of
V.I.N.E. maintenance fee. (Maintenance fee coverage period: 03/01/06 -
08/31/06)
ORDER NO. 30049
BUDGET AMENDMENT #4
GENERAL FUND
SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Nicholson, the
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to transfer the following
expense codes:
Expense Code Description
10-370-300 Various Refunds
10-560-570 Capital Outlay
Amendment
Increase/()Decrease
+ $2,581.00'
+ $2,581.00'
*-To recognize funds received from TAC for payment on totaled S.O.
vehicle (DOL: 10/06/06)
ORDER NO. 30050
BUDGET AMENDMENT #5
COUNTY CLERK
ELECTIONS
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Nicholson, seconded by Commissioner Williams, the
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 to transfer the following
expense codes:
Expense Code Description
10-402-210 Ballot Expense
10-409-205 Insurance Liability
Amendment
Increase/QDecrease

*-Per County Auditor.
ORDER NO. 30051
MONTHLY REPORTS
Came to be heard this the 27th day of November, 2006, with a motion made
by Commissioner Nicholson, seconded by Commissioner Williams, the
Court unanimously approved by vote of 3-0-0 the following monthly
reports:
District Clerk -October, 2006
County Clerk -General & Trust Fund for September, 2006
JP # 1