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KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
Special Meeting and Emergency Meeting
Monday, February 5, 2007
9:00 p.m.
Commissioners' Courtroom
Kerr County Courthouse
Kerrville, Texas
PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge
H A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1
WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2
JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3
BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 4
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I N D E X
February 5, 2007
PAGE
SPECIAL MEETING
1.1 Consider, discuss, and take appropriate action on
resignation tendered by Kerr County Treasurer 1
1.2 Consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to
designate an acting Kerr County Treasurer who will
serve until the appointment, by Kerr County
Commissioners' Court, of the Kerr County Treasurer
who will serve until the next general election
(Executive Session, as necessary) 5
EMERGENCY MEETING
1.1 Consider, discuss, and take appropriate action
to fill vacancy in the office of Kerr County
Treasurer in accordance with section 87.041 of
the Texas Local Government Code
(Executive Session, as necessary) 5
3.1 Action as may be required on matters discussed
in Executive Session g
--- Adjourned 16
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On Monday, February 5, 2007, at 4:00 p.m., an emergency
Texas, and the following proceedings were had in open court:
P R O C E E D I N G S
JUDGE TINLEY: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Let me call to order this special Commissioners Court meeting
scheduled and posted for this time and date, Monday, February
posted and scheduled for this time and date, Monday,
February 5th, 2007 at 4 p.m. The first item on the agenda is
to consider, discuss, and take appropriate action on
resignation tendered by Kerr County Treasurer. For the
record, on February the 2nd, 2007, addressed to Kerr County
Commissioners Court, reference, resignation as Kerr County
Treasurer, as follows: "To the honorable members of the Kerr
County Commissioners Court, I am resigning as Kerr County
Treasurer effective immediately. For nearly two years, I have
struggled with several serious medical problems. My health
has now declined to the point that I am no longer able to
discharge my duties and responsibilities without serious
medical consequences. My physician has recommended that I
resign to alleviate the stress created by my duties and the
circumstances in which I perform those duties. This has been
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an extremely difficult decision to make. However, after much
consultation with my family, I believe that this is the best
decision for both me and my family. Therefore, I ask that the
Commissioners Court accept this letter of resignation. It has
been a privilege and an honor to serve as Kerr County
Treasurer for the past 14 years. I am very grateful for the
confidence the citizens of Kerr County have shown in me during
my tenure, and I also appreciate the faith they have had in
me. I thank the citizens of Kerr County and the Commissicners I'
Court for their continued support over the years. Sincerely,"
signed Barbara Nemec, Kerr County Treasurer.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, I move for approval.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: There's been a motion and a second
for approval of the agenda item. I assume that's acceptance
of the resignation as tendered?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Correct.
JUDGE TINLEY: Very well. Any -- 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.
I (NO response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Because they
I
~I are closely allied items, I'm going to call the second item on
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the special Commissioners Court agenda -- agenda, and also the
item as specified on the emergency Commissioners Court agenda
together. They are as follows: Consider, discuss, and take
appropriate action to designate an acting Kerr County
Treasurer who will serve until the appointment by Kerr County
Commissioners Court of the Kerr County Treasurer who will
serve until the next general election. The agenda item as
specified on the other agenda, the emergency agenda, is to
consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to fill vacancy
in the office of County Treasurer in accordance with Section
87.041 of the Texas Local Government Code. Mr. Emerson, I
think that it would be appropriate, would it not, if
particular individuals were being considered and discussed,
that it would be appropriate for that to be done in executive
session, if that's what the Court chooses?
MR. EMERSON: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: All right. What's your pleasure,
~ gentlemen?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move we go into executive
session to discuss the issue.
JUDGE TINLEY: All right. Anybody have any serious
objection or want to have anything in the open, public
session, before we go into executive session, of a generalized
nature?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I would ask the County Attorney
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to give us an update of the process, to make sure -- I mean, I
know I've read through it. I think I understand it, but I'd
like to hear it from him so it's real clear, and also to the
public, as to what the process is. You know, such things as a
-- you know, your agenda item refers to an interim
appointment. Is there such a thing as an interim appointment,
or is there only an appointment, and things of that nature.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Would you care to address
those, Mr. Emerson?
MR. EMERSON: Sure.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you.
MR. EMERSON: Local Government Code 83.004,
gentlemen, specifically addresses filling of vacancies. And
what it says under Subsection (c) is that a vacancy in the
office of County Treasurer shall be filled as provided by
Section 87.041. The person appointed to fill the vacancy
shall, on or before entering upon discharge of the duties of
office, take the official oath and obtain the same surety bond
as required of an elected County Treasurer. And if you look
at 87.041, vacancies filled by appointment of Commissioners
Court, Subsection (a)(6), the County Treasurer is one of them.
And what it states is that the Commissioners Court, under
Subsection (b), shall fill a vacancy by a majority vote of the
members of the Court who are present and voting. Under
Subsection (c), the person appointed by the Commissioners
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Court to fill the vacancy shall hold office until the next
Now, in this particular case, Barbara had just
public will have an opportunity to elect the Treasurer. That
Treasurer will serve a two-year term instead of a four-year
term to put it back on the original cycle for the County
Treasurer, so in 2010, there'll be another election right
behind the 2008 one. The reason you cannot appoint an interim
Treasurer until you make a long-term decision is under Article
16, Section 17 of the Texas Constitution, wherein all officers
within the state shall continue to perform the duties of their
offices until their successor shall be duly qualified. And
the issue that you have before you that I know you're familiar
with -- the public may not be -- is the -- are the multiple
receivables and payables issues, as well as investments of the
county that would all basically be frozen up until you appoint
somebody new. It also means that under the holdover provision
of the Texas Constitution, that although Barbara has tendered
her resignation, under Article 16, Section 27, she has to
serve her term until you appoint somebody, whether she wants
to be there or not. So, it's not a good situation for her or
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for the County to try to pursue any other means than to
appoint somebody that would be in place until the 2008 general
election.
JUDGE TINLEY: Do you have any questions for the
County Attorney? Thank you, sir. We appreciate it.
MR. EMERSON: You're welcome.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other general comments,
inquiries, or other matters to be discussed of a general
nature before we go into executive or closed session?
MR. PEARSON: Judge? That conflicts with -- what
the County Attorney just said conflicts with the way the
agenda is written.
JUDGE TINLEY: We've got two agenda items,
Mr. Pearson. I called two of them.
MR. PEARSON: You've got a different agenda than
I've got.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, there's an additional emergency
agenda posted this afternoon.
MR. PEARSON: Oh, okay.
I JUDGE TINLEY: Because of the legalities that were
discovered to be involved.
MR. PEARSON: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay? We will go out of open or
public session at 4:08, to go into executive session or closed
session to discuss personnel matters, as specified previously.
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If we could ask all of y'all to vacate the room. I -- I
apologize to you. You just barely got here, and now we're --
we're getting you back out. We need the County Attorney here,
(The open session was closed at 4:08 p.m., and an
executive session was held, the transcript of which
is contained in a separate document.)
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. It is -- it's 4:39. Let's
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Maybe you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Well, okay. It occurs to me
that there certainly should be some consideration given to
someone who has risked their time, their resources, their
reputation, their skills, their capabilities, to achieve this
office, and I think that counts for something. You know, we
get to a point where it's open, like it is now, and you
potentially have a lot of folks coming forward and saying,
"Well, I'd like to be considered." It wouldn't be required
that I put myself at risk, either my time, my resources, my
reputation and so forth. So, for someone who has done that
specifically, I think you've got to give due consideration.
Having said that, we have a situation in this office
that we don't know what lays in front of us, and to expose
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someone to the kind of risks and unknown factors that might be
there, and I suspect there are several, probably wouldn't be
fair to any individual. County government accounting is not
Auditor's office. And at this stage of Kerr County's
situation, not knowing what we have down there, I think it's
extremely important that we put someone in that office that
is, to the best we can find at this point, ramped up and
capable of handling it. That's what the taxpayers of this
county deserve in order that that office be capable of
functioning immediately and on an ongoing basis.
We have an individual that is presently in the
individual's time during the past two years, in a fashion at
least, working with and functioning with the County
Treasurer's office. That is probably the best qualified
individual right now to hold that office, and that's our
Assistant Auditor, Ms. Mindy Williams, who works for Tommy
Tomlinson, our Auditor. Probably not totally fair to him, but
I think to do otherwise would be unfair to someone who was not
familiar with the operations of that office. And all things
considered, I think we should probably give consideration to
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Ms. Williams.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Are you finished, Judge?
JUDGE TINLEY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I concur with everything the
Judge said. And many of you know, that doesn't always happen,
and the Judge and I are at odds on occasion. In this
situation, I do. I think -- and I've talked to some of the
people in the audience on the phone. Running for public
office takes a lot for a person to do. And I -- you know,
Ms. Rust, when she ran, I think she -- she definitely merits
great consideration, and if circumstances in that office right
now would be different, I would -- my feeling right now would
be to go with her as the Treasurer. The other thing that
hasn't -- the Judge didn't say is that there is no set person
there. There's no deputy currently. There is nobody down
there to help learn what needs to be done. And we have about
a $20 million budget and we have reports and we have payrolls
that we have a huge amount that we just don't have time to
train. And there's no one in that office right now that can
help bring someone up to speed, which would have been ideally
the way I would have liked to have gone.
But, you know, we don't live in a world of -- where
we can dictate the hands that are dealt. And we're dealt with
a -- a bad hand right now, from the Court's standpoint, in my
mind, that we have to make a decision and we have to look
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after the taxpayers of Kerr County, and we need to get that
office up and running tomorrow morning. And I think the only
viable option is to go with what the Judge has said, is that
Mindy Williams. And I -- and I think I should also say, to my
knowledge, she has no political aspirations. She's never run
y other office. I think, hopefully,
The Auditor has visited with her about
this as a favor to the County and to the citizens, not because
she wants to get in to become an elected official. That's the
only comment I have.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'd like to express some
of Judge Tinley and Commissioner Letz. I appreciate, as does
everybody, I believe, the fortitude and willingness of anybody
who's willing to put themselves up for public office and
endure a political campaign for that purpose. There's much to
be said for that. But I think I'd like to make the public
aware that my thoughts on this subject are, hopefully, to set
political considerations -- any political considerations to
the contrary notwithstanding, our obligation is to do what's
best for Kerr County. A lot of folks don't realize that there
are -- there is, every day, millions and millions of dollars
of Kerr County money that has to be managed and accounted for,
scrupulously. Not to suggest that anybody coming in the
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office wouldn't do that, but it does require a good bit of
experience to be able to manage money and to make certain that
our obligations are met, forthright and completely. And I
don't want to put anybody in a position of failure, and I
the future some of the things we've experienced over the last
I8 to 24 months. Not good. Not good for the County, not good
for the taxpayers, not good for the individual entrusted with
the responsibility.
So, I believe that the solution of appointing Mindy
Williams -- Mindy L. Williams is a good solution. She's a
tried and true, dedicated, competent public servant who has
never opted to get into the political arena, who comes to work
every single day, has her fingers on the pulse, knows exactly
what takes place with respect to Kerr County's business, knows
exactly what's needed in terms of the relationship between the
County Treasurer and the County Auditor and all the
responsibilities that go with that. I think all of you are
here today because you want us to do what's best for Kerr
County. I'm going to support, and if the Court asks --
wishes, I will offer a motion at this point to appoint Mindy
L. Williams Treasurer of Kerr County, subject to the results
of the primary and general election of 2008.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: We have a motion and a second. Any
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question or discussion on that motion?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd like to make a comment.
I'm -- I'm just going to say it, just as plain and simple and
bottom line as I possibly can. We have a major, major problem
down there, and I don't know the -- the extent. I purposely
stayed away from Rusty and Rex and all of that side of the
issue throughout this circus. But, you know, I feel like -- I
know that there's -- there's a storm down there around that
office, and I wouldn't ever ask anybody -- I certainly
wouldn't ask a member of my family to go down there and go to
work. It's not fair to our county, and it's certainly not
fair to the individual that's going down there. It is not
fair to them. So, the -- you know, and we have -- I think
Commissioner Letz mentioned a $20 million budget, and it's
20-plus. And we have a lot of that money invested out there
in -- in the market here and there. And at this juncture, in
county government, it just -- we have to have somebody that is
really in tune with that -- that type of thing, and so I'm
going to support Mindy Williams as well.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, I kind of have to -- to
echo what the rest of the Commissioners and Judge have said.
It is a very difficult time. You know, any -- any elected
official that comes into a situation of serving, they need to
at least have a clean slate. Things need to be running fairly
and -- and on the up-and-up and everything be representative
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of what it is. And I totally agree with Buster; I would never
ask somebody to do this that did not have the knowledge it
takes to go through what is probably coming in the next year
or so. We don't know how long it's going to last. We don't
really know what it is, but we do know there's problems. And
I just think it's the right thing to do to put an experienced
person who has knowledge in that position, and that's really
all I have to say.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other questions or comments from
anybody?
MS. DAMS: I just wanted to ask you --
JUDGE TINLEY: Please come forward and give us your
name and address, please.
MS. DAMS: Sure. Hi, I'm Marie Davis. I just
basically wanted to ask, does -- is Mindy ready to take this
position without any schooling or anything? She can start
tomorrow and handle this position?
JUDGE TINLEY: Yes, ma'am.
MS. DAMS: Okay, thank you. I concur with what you
all have said. Understand it. Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think I indicated that Ms. Williams
has been actively working on matters dealing with the
Treasurer's office for the last year and a half, two years.
Probably spending the majority of her time, I would say, on
those matters.
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MS. DAMS: Good.
JUDGE TINLEY: Certainly in the last year, without
question. Anything further? 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. Gentlemen,
that's all we have on the agenda today. If we have nothing
~ further, we will stand adjourned.
(Commissioners Court adjourned at 4:52 p.m.)
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 6th day of
February, 2007.
JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk
Kathy B~nik, Deputy County Clerk
Certified Shorthand Reporter
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ORDER NO. 30124
RESIGNATION OF KERR COUNTY TREASURER
Came to be heard this the 5th day of February, 2007, with a motion made by
Commissioner Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Williams. The Court
unanimously approved by vote of 4-0-0 to:
Accept the Letter of Resignation as tendered by the Kerr County Treasurer,
Barbara Nemec.
ORDER NO. 30125
APPOINTMENT OF KERR COUNTY TREASURER
Came to be heard this the 5th day of February, 2007, with a motion made by
Commissioner Williams, seconded by Commissioner Letz. The Court
unanimously approved by vote of 4-0-0 to:
Appoint Mindy L. Williams as Treasurer of Kerr County, subject to the
results of the Primary and General Election of 2008.