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KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
Special Session
Monday, December 22, 2008
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, Commissioner Pct. 2
JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3
BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 4
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I N D E X
December 22, 2008
--- Commissioners' Comments
1.1 Consider/discuss and approve, in compliance
with Local Government Code Section 151.001,
authority to appoint a deputy Constable in
Precinct 1, effective January 1, 2009
Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on
presentation of Application Under Oath of Officer
to the Commissioners Court for appointment of
deputies (Treasurer)
1.5 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on
presentation of County Treasurer's monthly report
for November 2008 for examination and acceptance
1.10 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to
authorize County Auditor to send out a letter to
all school districts requesting their population
census in order to refund the funds remaining in
the Kerr County Divide Permanent School Fund in
accordance with the determination of those funds
by David A. Anderson, General Counsel, Texas
Education Agency; authorize payment of said funds
1.2 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to
approve purchase of a 12-passenger van from
Caldwell Country Chevrolet
1.15 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to
accept a sub-grant for fiscal year 2008 Homeland
Security Grant Program from the Division of
Emergency Management
1.3 Presentation by Kerrville/Kerr County Airport
Board regarding storm water infrastructure and
taxiway relocation project
1.8 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action
regarding Application Under Oath of Officer
to Commissioners Court for appointment of
deputies for 2009-2012 term of office
(Tax Assessor/Collector)
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I N D E X (Continued)
December 22, 2008
PAGE
1.9 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on
all elected and appointed officials' bonds 42
1.16 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on
update to the Court on progress made in first
quarter of budget year in the Kerr County
Indigent Health Program
1.6 Public Hearing concerning final revision of plat
for Lots 46-A & 47-A of Cypress Springs Estates
Phase I, Precinct 4
1.7 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on
final revision of plat for Lots 46-A & 47-A of
Cypress Springs Estates, Phase I, Precinct 4
1.19 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to
appoint or reappoint members to the Board of
Commissioners for E.S.D. #2
1.17 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action
regarding health insurance
1.18 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on
H.R. capital loan
1.20 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action
regarding Applications Under Oath of Officers
for deputies of each elected and appointed
official
1.12 Presentation by Dean Danos, Deputy Director
AACOG on proposed Alamo Regional Transit (ART)
routes in Kerrville/Kerr County
1.14 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on
joint agreement between Kerr County and City
of Kerrville with the Normandy Group for
governmental relations assistance to obtain
federal government funding or other assistance
for economic development projects, and projects,
installations, infrastructure, and/or facilities
needs for Kerrville and Kerr County
1.13 Consider and discuss proposed agreement between
Kerr County Historical Commission and Schreiner
University
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I N D E X (Continued)
December 22, 2008
PAGE
4.1 Pay Bills 102
4.2 Budget Amendments ---
4.3 Late Bills ---
4.4 Approve and Accept Monthly Reports 103
5.1 Reports from Commissioners/Liaison Committee
', Assignments 103
5.2 Reports from Elected Officials/Department Heads 110
Adjourned 115
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On Monday, December 22, 2008, at 9:00 a.m., a special
meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in
the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse,
Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in
open court:
P R O C E E D I N G S
JUDGE TINLEY: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Let me call to order this regularly scheduled meeting of the
Kerr County Commissioners Court posted and scheduled for this
time and date, Monday, December 22nd, 2008, at 9 a.m. It is
that time now. If you would please rise and join me in a
moment of prayer, followed by the pledge of allegiance.
(Prayer and pledge of allegiance.)
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. At this time, if there's
any member of the public or audience that wishes to be heard
on a matter which 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 an agenda item, we'd ask that you
fill out a participation form. They can be found at the back
of the room. I think there are some there. If there are
none there, or if you just fail to fill one out and we get to
an item that you wish to be heard on, get my attention in
some manner; I'll see that you have the opportunity to be
heard on that item. But right now, if there's any member of
the public that wishes to be heard on any matter that is not
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a listed agenda item, come forward and tell us what's on your
mind. Seeing no one moving to the front, we'll move on.
Commissioner Baldwin, what do you have for us this morning?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You know, Judge, I don't --
don't have much to talk about. We'll get into some things a
little later on in the agenda, but at this time, I don't have
anything for you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Williams?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Pass.
JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Letz?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm just glad to be here today.
JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Oehler?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Not a thing, Judge.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Well, let's move right on
into our agenda. The first item on the agenda is to
consider, discuss, and approve, in compliance with Local
Government Code Section 151.001, authority to appoint a
deputy constable in Precinct 1, appointment to be effective
January 1, 2009. Constable Lavender?
MR. LAVENDER: Judge, Commissioners, good morning.
That's what this is about, is to keep the County in
compliance with Local Government Code 151, and authorize my
deputy, so I ask you to do that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll make the motion for
approval, but I -- do we need a name? Do we need to put a
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name in there?
MR. LAVENDER: Ray Garcia will continue in that
capacity.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Probably not. I guess
just -- just the deputy constable slot is what's we're
looking for.
MR. LAVENDER: That's what the code calls for.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for
approval of the agenda item. Question or discussion on that
motion? All in favor of that 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. We'll go to
Item 4; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action on
presentation of application under oath of officer to the
Commissioners Court for appointment of deputies.
MS. WILLIAMS: Morning.
JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Williams.
MS. WILLIAMS: How are you? Yes, that was brought
to my attention, along with the constable, that we needed to
put this on the agenda to have the Court approve my chief
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deputy.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for
approval. Question or discussion on that motion? All in
favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand.
~I (The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
~~ (No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry.
MS. WILLIAMS: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Don't run off.
MS. WILLIAMS: Oh, okay. Get rid of mine at one
time?
JUDGE TINLEY: I'll call Item 5; consider, discuss,
and take appropriate action on presentation of the County
Treasurer's monthly report for November 2008 to Commissioners
Court for the Court's examination and acceptance.
Ms. Williams again.
MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. This -- when I was here
at the last meeting, I had mentioned that I would try to get
this one to you guys today, so this is the November report --
Treasurer's report. If there's any questions, I'll be glad
I to answer them.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do you have any idea on the --
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the receipts, being the cash receipts? I mean, the taxes,
are they up? Same as last year? Comparable?
MS. WILLIAMS: They're about the same. It's a
little bit slower.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Little slower?
MS. WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. We just got our first check
from the Tax Office this month for November's receipts,
because the tax statements didn't go out, you know, as timely
as we had hoped they would.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right.
MS. WILLIAMS: But it's a little slow right now.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. Move approval.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Do you have any idea about
the receipts of sales tax?
MS. WILLIAMS: It's --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Is it up or down?
MS. WILLIAMS: It's down a little bit, I believe.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: We have a motion and a second for
approval. 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.)
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JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Let's move
to Item 8, if we might; consider, discuss, and take
appropriate action regarding the application under oath of
officer for the Commissioners Court for appointment of
deputies for the 2009-2012 term of office. Ms. Bolin? She's
not here yet. Well, we'll pass that item. Is Ms. Hargis --
yeah, there she is. Let's go to Item 10, if we might;
consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to authorize
County Auditor to send out a letter to all of the school
districts requesting population census in order to refund the
funds remaining in the Kerr County Divide Permanent School
Fund in accordance with the determination of those funds by
David A. Anderson, general counsel of the Texas Education
Agency, in a letter of November 24, 2008, and authorize
payment of those funds in accordance with the per-scholastic
basis as outlined in that letter. Ms. Hargis?
MS. HARGIS: I think y'all have a copy of the
letter that -- that states basically that we have a checking
account that we've had since 1985 that belongs to the school
districts, and received a legal opinion that we need to
divide that up between all the school districts. So, I just
need your permission to do that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Do you know what the
division of funds amounts to?
MS. HARGIS: Not till I get the population. It's
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about $27,000, is all it is. So --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And it's population-based?
MS. HARGIS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Division of funds is
population-based?
MS. HARGIS: All the school districts in Kerr
County.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So moved.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for
approval of the agenda item.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Where do these funds come from
originally, Ms. Hargis?
MS. HARGIS: Apparently, they've been there since
1985. We couldn't find out where they came from. That's one
of the reasons we needed to get a legal opinion. There is
some school of thought that it may have been Divide School's
money originally, but we have nothing to show that, and
because it says "Permanent School Funds," a lot of the
permanent school funds are sometimes set up for a special
gift that may be given to the County to distribute to
schools, and the County becomes the fiduciary person who
takes care of that responsibility. But in this case, we
can't find where it belongs.
JUDGE TINLEY: Further question or discussion on
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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'll move
to a timed item for 9:10. Item 2; consider, discuss, and
take appropriate action to approve the purchase of a
12-passenger van from Caldwell Country Chevrolet.
Mr. Walston?
MR. WALSTON: Yes, sir. Appreciate y'all having me
this morning. I just wanted to bring to the Court final
approval on purchasing this van. I did test drive it a week
or so ago, and looks like it'll meet the needs we need by our
Kerr County 4-H program. So, if y'all would like, it carries
along with it a three-year, 36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper
warranty, along with a five-year, 100,000 mile power train
warranty. Let me give y'all the rest of it, in case --
that's not anything different, I don't think, Judge, than
what you've probably seen. But...
JUDGE TINLEY: You say did you test drive it?
MR. WALSTON: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: And the -- you felt -- what's that
new suspension system they got called StabiliTrak or
something, that --
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MR. WALSTON: Yeah. It's -- I mean, as far as what
I could tell, it -- I think it'll work fine. You know, until
you get -- get it loaded down and -- and you can really tell
then, I mean, but --
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. But you feel like that'll
take care of the needs?
MR. WALSTON: I think so.
JUDGE TINLEY: Good enough.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
i
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for
approval of the agenda item. 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.
MR. WALSTON: Thank you, sirs.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Let's move to Item 11; presentation
of a rebate check from Buy Board in the amount of $1,037.75
for Kerr County's participation in that program.
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MS. HARGIS: I just wanted to bring this to the
Court's attention. By all of us taking that little program
with Buy Board, and more people using it, we received a
rebate back from using this service, which it saves us time
', and money by not having to bid our products, and we can get
I, them at a better price, so we do get a rebate. So, the more
people that use it, the larger our rebate will be, so this
year we got $1,000, which I thought was a pretty good check.
'~, COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Super.
JUDGE TINLEY: No action needed on that item, is
I there?
MS. HARGIS: No, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Kind of like the banker; if the
money's coming in, we don't need anything special. Going
out, it's a little different ball game; is that right?
MS. HARGIS: That's right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Thank you, ma'am. Let's move
to Item 15; consider, discuss, take appropriate action to
accept a sub-grant for the fiscal year 2008 Homeland Security
Grant Program from the Division of Emergency Management. I
put this on the agenda. We got a -- a deadline of
January 9th to -- to confirm acceptance of that. It can be
used for a number of various purposes. The Sheriff advised
me that -- that my research indicating that is not
necessarily correct. Do you want to come tell us why,
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Sheriff?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: This was a grant that the
Sheriff's Department sought and applied for a number of
months ago to assist the County in -- in replacing our car
radios with radios that are capable of going digital. The
total cost to replace all the County's radios is about
180,000. This is a 90,900-something dollar grant that we
sought seeking to help this year replace half of those
radios, and that's all it -- it will cover, is those radios.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So, next year you'll reapply
again for the other half?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's our intention. We're
getting word that, because of the economic or government,
next year it may end up having to be a matching grant. I
don't know. But either way, it's -- it's assisting the
County greatly in paying for that high cost.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: With this, then, at least half
of the -- of your deputies will be able to communicate with
the city police?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: These radios are going in the
patrol deputies' cars. They will be able to if they switch
over to the P.D.'s channel, okay? You have to actually
change the channel. If they're on our regular channel, since
ours is analog, the scanning won't pick that up. They'll
have to switch over to theirs, which is going to be digital.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, this gets the radios
compatible, but not our system.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. To get our system
compatible, we're still looking at right at a million
dollars.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Rusty, this is 90,000? This
grant's 90?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 90,000.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And what's the cost, 110?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 180 total.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 180, I see. Okay, I
misunderstood. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do we accept this, Judge? What
I do we --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move acceptance.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. And I think it would be
appropriate to authorize me to sign necessary documents,
along with Ms. Hargis as the finance officer, in connection
with it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move acceptance and
authorize the County Judge and the Auditor to sign the
appropriate documents.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for
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approval as indicated. 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 now
move to a timed 9:15 item, Item 3. This will be a
presentation by Kerrville/Kerr County Airport Board regarding
stormwater, infrastructure, and taxiway relocation project.
Commissioner Williams?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: At the request of the Board
Chairman Bobertz, I placed this on the agenda. The Court is
familiar with the quarterly reports, the first of several
quarterly reports, we anticipate, and it was very concise and
very thorough, and appreciate that very much. So, we've
asked the Airport Board to come talk to us about what's going
on out at the airport. It's been commonly known as a taxiway
relocation project, but the reality of the matter is that
it's much more extensive than just that. So, with no further
ado, I'll ask Mr. Bobertz and the Airport Manager,
Mr. McKenzie, to tell us what's going on.
MR. BOBERTZ: Thank you Commissioner. Judge,
Commissioners, appreciate this opportunity to come and talk
to you a little bit about our airport, what's going on. What
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we want to do today is explain to you what's going on now,
what's coming up, how much is it going to cost, and why is
our airport worth all that money, which is a good bit. I'm
accompanied today by one of my board members, Mark Cowden.
Fred Vogt said he was coming, but is obviously otherwise
detained. Two other members have chosen to spend this week
with their out-of-town families. I don't really understand
that, but that's what they've done. (Laughter.) So, also,
thing.
So, what we're here today to do is explain to you
those things; what's going on, what's coming up next, how
much it's going to cost, and why are we worth all that money.
And why we did this in the first place was, we had an
invitation from Guy Overby at the economic -- Economic
Development Foundation to make such a presentation to their
executive board, and Judge Tinley has actually sat through
this once already. Hope you can stand it twice, Judge.
We'll do our best to make it entertaining. So, we did it for
them, and in the process of doing that, I -- I mentioned to
Commissioner Williams that we were doing it; would the
Commissioners Court perhaps be interested in seeing what we
told these other people? And he said yeah, but let's see
what you said to the executive council first -- or executive
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committee. I think that was a very wise move, Bill.
So, I consulted with Judge Tinley afterwards, and
he said yeah, this would be a worthy thing to do, so we're
doing it here today. We have a parallel invitation from City
Council in early January, so we'll be showing to it them as
situation. We're not making any advocation of what's to be
done. We just want to highlight what we see as the realities
of the situation, and hopefully when the debate begins about
coming up with the extra money, everybody will be operating
off the same set of base information. So, without further
ado, here comes what's going on at the airport.
This is our new terminal building, and we thank the
and Bruce's office is in the far right corner, so if you're
ever out at the airport, stop by and see Bruce and he'll
explain to you what's going on, and if you like, give you a
tour around. But this is a very important front door for
Kerrville and Kerr County, and it says Kerrville/Kerr County
Airport up there. The people who come in in their own
aircraft, they're kind of the movers and shakers of the
world, and they're important to our economy for the things
and potentials that they bring with them. So, that's the --
for the Court, here's an orientation view of the airport.
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Coming around the -- the top, you see the river. Flat Rock
off. We also have a second runway, 4,000 feet long, running
perpendicular to that, which is really handy when the wind
isn't right for landing and taking off. So, that's what the
airport looks like now. It's under construction.
Here's what's going to happen. As Bill mentioned,
we originally started with the concept of relocating the
taxiway. F.A.A. standards for an airport -- that's Federal
Aviation Administration standards for an airport serving the
types of aircraft that ours -- the larger ones that our
airport serves, the business jets, their requirement is a
400-foot separation between the taxiway and the runway.
Currently we have 250 feet. So, the need was to move that
taxiway, the black stripe you see down there, 150 feet
further to the right to where the dotted black line is, and
that was the original concept. We approached TexDOT, who
gets F.A.A. grant money and they, in turn, redistribute it
for purposes like this, for the project to relocate that
taxiway. They came out and looked it over and said, "Hey,
you guys got a bigger problem than just this taxiway; you
have an erosion problem." And Bruce can give you lots of
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testimony about that if you want, because in his previous
life, Bruce was superintendent of the Streets Division for
the City of Kerrville, and he's the guy that had to come out
and fix the taxiway and the runway as the erosion problems
The way things work out there, because of the
terrain -- you see the blue arrows on the right; that's high
ground. And if it ever rains here again, the rain will come
down off that -- off that high ground across the airport and
out to the river. We have drainage in place now, drainage
facilities that try to take care of it, but they're
completely inadequate for heavy rains. So, what happens is,
the -- the water comes down from the right onto the airport
property and crosses the property. Some of it stays on the
surface, and that causes some headaches, but the real
headaches are caused by the water that percolates down
through an overburden of about 3 feet of earth, down to a
rock ledge, a rock layer. The water stays on top of that
rock layer 3 feet down and migrates under the taxiway, under
the -- the runway, and under the highway, all the way out
into the river, and it erodes beneath the surface, and that
causes potholes, cracks, uneven surfaces, and things of that
nature. We've actually had one business jet break through
that taxiway in the not too distant past because of that
erosion.
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So, the project that we're -- that's underway is to
take care of an erosion problem by producing a much better
drainage infrastructure than we have in place now, and
relocate the taxiway. What you see here is some of the work
in progress. This area right here is the intersection of the
main runway, which you can see the bottom of the picture, and
the short runway, which has been sliced off, running off the
-- the upper left-hand side. So, then -- slow down, Bruce;
you're getting ahead of me.
MR. McKENZIE: I'll back up.
MR. BOBERTZ: The area you see with the whitish
the contractors encountered a very dense rock layer, so dense
that they couldn't break it up with mechanical equipment, and
had to resort to blasting. The blasting is done. It was not
particularly spectacular. It involved fracturing the rock,
and I think Commissioner Williams was actually present for
one of the blasts, which was, I'm told, sort of a dull thud
followed by a little bit of dust, and that was it. But it
did fracture the rock and enable them to get it out. So,
what they're doing there is moving a lot of dirt to create
the proper profile to enable the drainage to take place to
run this way on the -- on the picture you see there, past the
Mooney factory, under the runway, under the highway to
Mooney, out into the spillway into the creek, and that'll run
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it into the river. So, that's the big drainage effort going
on. We're having to move -- I think it's 209,000 cubic yards
I there parallel to the top and bottom of the picture? That
separates what's now known as Phase 1, the upper part where
you see all the work being done, from Phase 2, which is the
lower part. TexDOT came in and did all this engineering to
survey what needed to be done, and they said, "Okay, this is
going to be a $14 million project, all told, and if it's okay
with you folks," TexDOT said, "we'd like to separate that
into two phases." Because they don't have all that much
money to spend on this. Their -- I think their annual budget
for things like this is in the vicinity of $20 million. If
they did this all at once, we being one of roughly 400
general aviation airports in Texas, would consume a huge part
of their budget. So, they proposed two phases, one
originally designed for fiscal '08, which is what's being
done now, and the second part, fiscal '09, which is what was
this Phase 2, which the first phase is 6 million; second
phase is 8 million.
They came back to us subsequently and said, "Hey,
we'd really like to defer Phase 2 into fiscal 2010, if that
would be all right with you folks." And we agreed to that.
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So, Phase 1 is fully funded. It's a 90/10 grant that was --
was estimated at 6 million; it came in at 5.06, the low bid.
We put up 600,000, which all came from the Economic
Improvement Corporation. We have 100,000 -- obviously,
because of the lower bid, 100,000 in excess, which is being
held by TexDOT for use as a contingency fund. The second
phase, $8 million, TexDOT money is committed. The 800,000,
10 percent match on our end is not yet committed.
I neglected to mention also, you see the blue
dotted line there on the -- just in front of the blue arrows
is where you have to relocate the Airport Loop Road as part
of this project too. That's where the new loop road will be
going. Okay, back where we were, operator. Isn't he good?
I couldn't do that. This is where that 209,000 cubic yards
of dirt is going. It's up in the northeast corner of the
airport. We're going to make a nice, smooth mound out of it,
and grass will be planted on top of it, and we're going to --
it'll look just fine. Big pieces of rock coming out -- we
like to show this picture. It's a fun -- trucks and rocks
and things, and Bruce really enjoyed that part. This is some
of the old drainage equipment taken out in the forefront,
those 12-inch diameter pipes which were part of the
inadequate prior drains -- drainage system. These huge
things are 8 feet across, and looks like about 3 feet high.
Those are the new drainage boxes, I call them. There's
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probably a better term. Those are being installed now.
More pictures of the big boxes. These are larger
diameter drainage pipes which will run parallel to the
shorter runway on both sides, empty into the main drain, and
which will run under the -- the road to Mooney and out into
the spillway into the creek. That's the collection box for
those. Here's some of the big boxes being installed. If
', your eyes are really sharp, up in the upper right-hand
corner, you can see a 1930's or '40's vintage aircraft taking
off. In spite of that appearance, this is a very recent
picture. Here's what those big boxes look like installed.
Two of them, you know, running parallel, so we have two
8-footers, 16-foot wide drainage system running under the
second runway parallel to the main runway, under the road and
out into the spillway into the creek. From this point
towards me -- toward us, that's going to be an open ditch to
handle the drainage.
Okay. That's what's going on, and what's coming
up. Now let's talk a little bit about the aircraft based
here, and why our airport is important, why it's worth all
this money. Some of this may come as a surprise to you. We
have over 180 aircraft based at our airport. Six of those
are corporate jets, six of them are helicopters, and I prefer
to think of the remaining 170 or so as proper aircraft, like
this Mooney on the runway. One of the 180-plus aircraft is
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near and dear to my heart. We average 164 take-offs and
landings every day. Multiplied by 365, that comes out to
pretty close to 60,000 take-offs and landings every year, and
80 percent of that is transients. 80 percent of those
aircraft taking off and landing are not resident at our
have corporate jets, aircraft based here. I'd like to tell
you the names of the companies, but they're not very anxious
for me to do that for their own security reasons, but a major
convenient, and, in fact, just more convivial to operate out
of Kerrville than to operate out of San Antonio.
We'd like more of that to happen, because when one
of those guys stops by or is based here, several good things
happen, one of which is fuel sales, but I'll get to the
others in a minute. The airport collects 9 cents a gallon
for every gallon of fuel sold at our airport, and that fuel
flowage fee is an important part of our revenue generation.
If you see the list of notable frequent visitor aircraft,
Lowe's, H.E.B., McCoy's, Hastings, several banks. Last, but
not least, ESPN, the sports news network. The reason they're
on the list is, one of their principals owns some land in
this vicinity, and we have heard that individual speaking
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glowingly about coming to the Kerrville airport. He finds it
a very friendly and useful place to visit. So, that's the
So, they surveyed -- I think it's 234 airports in Texas.
They used a consultant called Wilbur Smith and Associates to
do that, but it's a TexDOT study, and we just lifted out of
that 200 -- list of 284, some in our general vicinity. You
see the names of the airports on the left. On the right, you
see something called total output, total impact on the local
community coming from these airports. And you'll see on that
list, nobody even gets to half of what Kerrville is. Now,
obviously, the big reason for that is Mooney and its
pre-hibernation state. If they took Mooney out of that
picture, that number would go down by more than half on our
account; we'd start to look like the rest of them. But
Mooney is	here, and	we hope	Mooney comes	back as	it	has so
often in	the past.	But that	picture is	taken --	I'	m not done
yet, Bruce. We need a clicker or something. On past that
one -- here we go.
This study was done in -- I think it was published
in 2006; it used 2005 data, so that's a snapshot taken at
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that point in time, and that's how things looked. We came
out number 8 of 234 airports listed on that, so that puts us
in the top 4 percent in terms of total output. That's a huge
economic engine. To give you an idea, some of the ones that
outranked us, Alliance Airport in Fort Worth is not -- has no
scheduled airliner service, so it's a general aviation
airport. Addison near Dallas, and Lone Star Executive near
Houston, those are all big-time operations, and that's the
company we're in because of our economic output. Okay,
click. Another interesting statistic coming out of this
study, you see there the third column from the left,
estimated true transient arrivals, 7,865. A true transient
is an airplane that comes to our airport that started more
than 150 miles away from our airport. You may recall that
~ definition of an expert. But, anyway, those are true
I
II transient aircraft coming to our airport. They dropped off
19,000 visitors, and those visitors produced 14,000 hotel
nights, and they spent $11 million in our local economy for
room, board, and sundries. These are all ratios developed by
this consultant based on traffic numbers, but they're tried
and true, so we believe the numbers are reasonably reliable.
These -- these pictures are taken at our airport of
jets who are here. Direct employment at our airport, 509
jobs. Based on Mooney's hibernation state, you need to take
300 out of direct employment. Secondary employment, those
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jobs created in relation to other kinds of services for those
folks who want to spend their salaries in our economy. So,
the total employment impact, based on this snapshot taken in
2005, is 933 jobs. Big-time operation. If your eyes are
close enough, just a little aside here, that aircraft that
you see, the tail number's N200AP. That aircraft plane is a
frequent visitor to our airport. It's not based here, but it
spends lots of time here overnight and things. This "AP" is
celebrity value, I think, once you know that, so keep your
eye out for it. It shows up from time to time.
Payroll. Again, 2005 snapshot. $19 million direct
payroll at our airport. Secondary payroll for those jobs
created is 14 million. Total payroll produced, $34 million.
A real significant impact in our local economy. The output
numbers, again, based on payroll and other things, money
spent, and you can argue even the way some of those output
numbers were put together. The big number for Mooney is
Mooney's	gross sales.	Well,	that's	not really	economic	value
added by	Mooney; it's	Mooney'	s gross	sales, but	the --	all
the other airports that were measured the same way, so the
relativity, I think, is still appropriate. We are a big-time
operator in the Texas general aviation economy.
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Here's something I think is really interesting. It
costs about $600,000 to operate our airport every year. Now,
that's -- as I mentioned in the prior discussion before the
Judge and the executive council, most of that is Bruce's
salary. (Laughter.) We have a few hundred bucks left over to
mow the grass and change the light bulbs and things. But
$600,000 to operate and maintain the airport, excluding
capital improvement, like the big project underway, for
example. Airport produces revenues from leases and fees of
about $200,000. Part of that's the fuel flowage fee I
mentioned. We lease land to people. We lease office space,
and we have a couple of buildings that are currently
available for lease. That leaves a deficit of $400,000, and
under the interlocal agreement, that deficit is made up by
the City and the County.
But the -- the little known fact here is that this
airport generates about $400,000 in tax revenues. Part of
that, the big part of it, comes from ad valorem taxes on
these guys like you see in the picture. The large aircraft
who are based here are paying ad valorem taxes on the value
of the aircraft, those that are in business. Such taxes are
not collected on privately owned aircraft, but on
business-owned aircraft, they are. So, the tax revenue based
generated by the City and the County is about $400,000,
making this a wash. Net cost to the taxpayers is zero. And,
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revenue from leases and fees is probably going to be fairly
stable. But in 2007, actually, the revenue from leases and
fees was significantly higher than $200,000, and the tax
revenue generated by the City and County probably was higher,
too.
So, this is a good way to get -- sort of have an
for which we need to produce $800,000 between the City and
the County for fiscal year 2010. You're probably wondering,
what happens if we don't do that? Well, if we don't, TexDOT
and the Federal Aviation Administration will consider that we
have reneged on a deal. They came to us with a proposal for
a $14 million project; they split it into two pieces. We've
met the first piece. And I think, because of passage of time
and other things, the idea that this is all part of one
project may have become a little bit blurred in some people's
mind, but it is part of one project. So, they'll see us as
reneging if we don't come up with the matching funds.
And if they do come to that conclusion, then
possibly costly penalties are possible. They're not very
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if they chose to do it, would be to say, "Okay, you guys
reneged. Give us the four million bucks back that we spent
on Phase l." Or they would be equally entitled to say, "Not
only that, we want you to give back all the money we ever
spent on your airport." That would bring the tab up to over
$25 million. Neither of those is really likely to happen.
They wouldn't see that as a responsible action, I think, on
their part. But because we did back down, and because this
is a very competitive world we live in, getting these grant
funds from TexDOT, future funding for our airport would very
likely dry up from that source. We don't want that to
happen. So, those -- that's the -- that's sort of the
challenge we face.
So, the airport's very important. It's very
important to our local economy; it's very important to our
local business. It's an important strategic development
asset. The economic development strategic plan that was
recently produced pointed to our airport as a unique
development asset in this area. TexDOT sees us as an
important -- as an important airport, and they are willing to
make this huge commitment, 90 percent grant. Our 10 percent
is equally huge; it's going to be very difficult to come by;
I know that. There's bound to be some debate on it, and our
real interest today is to sort of lay out this landscape of
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information so that everybody's sort of working off the same
base of information. Our real goal is to keep these guys
flying. We want aircraft like these two to keep seeing our
airport as a good place to come, because they do good things
for us. So, with that, we'll be happy to answer any
questions you may have about the airport. Bruce is going to
take care of all the hard ones. Any questions, gentlemen?
JUDGE TINLEY: You had mentioned that a portion of
the revenue stream for that airport comes from the tax base
that is created by the basic -- or the basing of business
aircraft. One of those corporate jets, such as the one we're
looking at there, what does that go on the tax rolls for,
just to -- at what dollar value, just to give these folks an
idea of what kind of money it generates?
MR. BOBERTZ: Well, what does it cost to buy one of
those, Bruce?
MR. McKENZIE: The aircraft on the right is a
Citation, and new, that aircraft is about $6 million. The
one on the left is a G-2, with a -- actually, it's a G-2 with
a G-3 wing on it, but that aircraft new costs about
$30 million. The one that's just rotating, that's the type
of aircraft we're talking about.
MR. BOBERTZ: "Rotating" is taking off. Airplane
talk.
25 ~ JUDGE TINLEY: Also, when it comes to general
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~', aviation facilities, you indicated we hold a pretty high
priority with TexDOT Aviation. What -- what portion of the
total TexDOT Aviation budget have we been a recipient of?
MR. BOBERTZ: Well, they have about $20 million,
our understanding, to distribute among the general aviation
airports. This year we're getting 25 percent of that. And
we're going to -- the total number's about 400. This study
looked at 234, so we're -- we're getting a very large portion
of it. In 2010, if it stays at 20 million, we'll be getting
almost a third of it. Future years -- these are unusual
years. We still -- we get routine grants from them every
year of how much?
MR. McKENZIE: 50,000.
MR. BOBERTZ: 50,000.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: RAMP grant?
MR. BOBERTZ: Yeah, RAMP, routine airport
maintenance stuff. But we do get -- even in the
nonspectacular years, we are getting our fair share of that.
JUDGE TINLEY: The point is, out of as many
airports -- general aviation airports that there are in
Texas, TexDOT is putting a whole lot of eggs in this basket
right here.
MR. BOBERTZ: You bet they are, yes. We're happy
about that, and pleased that they understand things the way
they do.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One of the things, Roger,
that wasn't mentioned with respect to the infrastructure,
stormwater takeoff part of the project was the corrective
aspects of that project to the Mooney Aircraft factory
itself.
MR. BOBERTZ: Yes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Now, while you mentioned
that Mooney's in hibernation, and that's a pretty good way to
put it, we hope they wake up one of these days.
MR. BOBERTZ: We hope so too. They've made some
noises like they're going to, but --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If anybody had ever been in
that building -- or some of those buildings during a major
rain event, you would have experienced water two or
three inches deep on the floors --
MR. BOBERTZ: Yes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- inside that
manufacturing facility. Some of that area was where they did
welding. Not exactly a -- a safety-type measure. And so all
this corrects that.
MR. BOBERTZ: Yes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Takes that water out of
that building and takes it down to the creek into the river.
MR. BOBERTZ: Good point. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Roger, what -- aside from the
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$8 million continuation of the final part of this project,
is a -- a fire suppression water supply issue, which affects
the leasability of the two buildings I mentioned in passing,
and a good bit of the vacant land at the moment. The problem
is, current fire code requirements are that we produce a
water flow of 1,500 gallons per minute for an hour on that --
that whole area. Our current capacity is about 900 gallons
per minute for an hour. We need larger diameter pipes for
part of it. We need -- at the moment, we have two water
lines running out -- one runs parallel to Highway 27; one
runs parallel to that access road. They're not connected.
They're both separate. By connecting those two, we'll bring
our water flow up to close to what the minimum requirement
is; not completely, but close enough to work with it. And
that's, round numbers, $400,000. But we see continuation of
this project as so important, we've sort of eased that one
back into the background, but that's another major
infrastructure improvement that's needed out there to make
the land leasable.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: On that topic, before you go
off that, Roger, I might add that the -- the reason for that
is no one's fault. It's an unfunded mandate. The fire code
changed nationally. I don't know who does that; someone up
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in Washington, I presume. But they raised the standards, and
definite economic value, too. If we did this, and if we --
you know, unlikely, surely, but, you know, this order of
magnitude thinking if we were able to do this and
subsequently lease all of the land inside that -- that fire
protection loop, Bruce and I did some fast,
back-of-an-envelope arithmetic one day and came up with a
lease revenue of about $175,000 a year on that land if we
could lease it with the proper fire protection. So, it's --
there's a real economic payback for that, but money's tough.
JUDGE TINLEY: If you wouldn't mind, for the
members of the audience that are here, give us the roster of
your entire board, and tell us something about each of those
individuals serving on the board. I think it would be
interesting to these folks.
MR. BOBERTZ: All right. First of all, Mark Cowden
is here with us today. Mark is a relatively new addition to
the board. He was approved by the Court and the City
Council. Mark is the General Manager and vice president of a
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local bank, and he's been very active in civic affairs and
economic development activities in Kerrville for some time.
And I'm sure many of you know Mark already, but we're
delighted to have him on board. Another recent addition is
Tom Moser. Tom is a very well-respected figure in the
aerospace industry. He's a retired executive from the
engineering side of NASA, and has done consulting work in his
post-retirement life, and been a member of an organization
that was the Texas Aeronautic -- Aeronautical Commission or
something like that.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right.
MR. BOBERTZ: Which was roughly analogous to the
economic development foundation here in Kerrville. It was an
advocacy group. So, Tom is very well respected there. Some
of our longer-toothed members, Fred Vogt. Fred is a retired
navy fighter pilot, and achieved the responsibility of air
boss on an aircraft carrier, which is no small
accomplishment. When he retired from the Navy, he went to
work for the State of Tennessee, State Department of
Transportation, Aviation Division, and when he refired from
that position, he was the director of the Aviation Division.
So, Fred brings to the -- to our work a very thorough
knowledge of the government side of general aviation. He
also worked as a consultant following his experience with the
State of Tennessee, so very well versed in all of that. Our
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vice president, Steve King, is a -- how would you describe
Steve? Well, a local entrepreneur.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Entrepreneur here in the
MR. BOBERTZ: Yeah. Steve is also very active in
the affairs here in the city and county, and has been a big
help in that regard. I'm the -- mostly because nobody else
wanted to do it, I was elected president of the board about a
year ago, and I'm also retired. I worked for Scott Paper
company before I retired, and my credit card said "executive"
on it, so that's what I tell everybody I was, but mostly I
just wrote memos and worried. Part of my job. And it was a
great comfort to me to know that whenever things got really
rough, all I had to do was remind myself all I was doing was
helping to make toilet paper. (Laughter.) And that's a good
business to be in in times like this.
MS.	WILLIAMS:	Any	time.
MR.	BOBERTZ:	That'	s right. So, that's our board.
Airport Manager when Dave Pearce resigned to go on to grander
i
things, and Bruce, in his roughly one year as interim
manager, walked in there having a good idea about all the
drainage problems we had. Since that time, he's mastered a
huge array of information and knowledge, and we were just
absolutely delighted to be able to talk him into becoming
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our, so to speak, permanent Airport Manager. Took the
"interim" off his title, and Bruce is serving us very well,
and we're delighted that he's there.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Let me add one thing to that,
which was kind of passed over, but every member of the board
has aviation and business experience, or aviation and
government experience, or -- and almost all of them are
pilots. I guess they -- probably all five are pilots. And I
think it's -- we're really fortunate to be able to get
together a group that have people like Roger, who's retired
here, who brings in -- and Fred has outside experience in
other areas, and people like Mark, who is a local Kerrville
resident all his life. And I think that, you know, we really
are -- have been able to put together and assemble a board
that's phenomenal, and one of the reasons I think the
airport's progressing as rapidly as we are right now.
MR. BOBERTZ: Thank you. We're all pretty excited.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any member of the audience have any
questions in connection with our airport or this
presentation? Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you.
MR. BOBERTZ: Thank you, Commissioners.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you for coming here. Thank
you and other members of your board for your service. Bruce,
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we appreciate what you're doing.
MR. McKENZIE: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: We appreciate that.
MR. BOBERTZ: Thank you very much.
JUDGE TINLEY: Tremendous, tremendous economic
generator out there.
MR. BOBERTZ: You bet it is.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's move to Item 8, if we
might; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action
regarding application under oath of officer to the
Commissioners Court for appointment of deputies for the
2009-2012 term of office. Ms. Bolin?
', MS. BOLIN: This is -- first off, good morning,
gentlemen, and Merry Christmas. This is a requirement, so
that when I get sworn in on the 1st, I have to reswear my
deputies. It's a formality. All positions remain the same.
Nothing's changed from our last meeting.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Move approval.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for
approval of the agenda item. Question or discussion on the
that motion? All in favor of that motion, signify by raising
your right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
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(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry.
MS. BOLIN: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Let's go to Item 9, if we might.
Consider, discuss, take appropriate action on all elected and
appointed officials' bonds. Mr. Emerson?
MR. EMERSON: Judge, I think the best thing I can
say about that is, Jeannie and Jannett have been working very
diligently to get all those bonds approved, and last I heard,
they were all in the system, subject to the Court -- for the
Court's approval. Now, I don't --
MS. HARGIS: They're all here.
MR. EMERSON: So, they're all present.
MS. PIEPER: Just been handed them.
MR. EMERSON: Yeah. We would respectfully request
to approve and accept the bonds for elected officials and
appointed officials.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. The deputy clerk has given me
12 bonds, as follows: Linda Uecker, District Clerk; H.A.
Buster Baldwin, Commissioner, Precinct 1; Jonathan Letz,
Precinct 3 Commissioner; Mindy Williams, Kerr County
Treasurer; David Billeiter, Justice of the Peace, Precinct l;
John Lavender, Constable, Precinct 1; Rex Emerson, County
Attorney; Angel Garza, Constable, Precinct 3; Joel Ayala,
Constable, Precinct 2; Robert Terrill, Constable, Precinct 4;
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and two bonds for Diane Bolin, who is the Tax
Assessor/Collector. These are the bonds presented to me for
approval; is that correct, Mr. Emerson?
MR. EMERSON: Yes, Judge.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move approval of the bonds.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for
approval of the bonds as indicated. Question or discussion?
MS. HARGIS: We want to include the Sheriff's bond,
because it's a continuous bond that we didn't have to bring
you a new bond for, but he's also included in that.
JUDGE TINLEY: His is a rollover? Carry-over?
MS. HARGIS: It's a rollover, carry-over bond.
JUDGE TINLEY: And that's considered part of this
list?
MS. HARGIS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And it requires approval?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's -- unless the County
Judge cancels it, it's automatically approved every time.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Uh-huh. We've got him.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that an option?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I hope not.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Ask him.
JUDGE TINLEY: How come someone just now told me
this?
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SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We didn't want --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Too late, Judge.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We can use that at budget
time.
JUDGE TINLEY: I could have used it a whole lot
sooner than that. Any other question or discussion on the
motion?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are we going to include the
Sheriff's in there?
JUDGE TINLEY: Why don't we go ahead and include
that, just so that -- I'd rather do something twice that
didn't need to be done than not do it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: All right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll amend the motion to
include the Sheriff in all the other bonds.
JUDGE TINLEY: Further question or discussion? All
in favor, 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. Okay, let me
see where we go from here. Why don't we go to Item 16;
consider, discuss, take appropriate action on update to the
Court on progress made in the first quarter of the budget
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year in Kerr County Indigent Health Care program.
MS. LAVENDER: Good morning, gentlemen. Just to --
a real quick review. In early September, the Court decided
and in October we went to Austin for the training. And so
you have in your packet a report, and I want Dawn to kind of
tell you about what's happened with the office since she took
over, and I think you'll be very pleased with where our
MS. LANTZ: We've kind of narrowed down a little
currently we have approximately 50 indigent clients on file,
and also 19 jail indigents on file, where when I came in, it
started at about 79. We were able to get a lot of those onto
different programs, which they were unaware they qualified
for, which do help them as far as medical issues, as far as
getting health care besides with the County. So, hopefully,
we will be helping those that do need the health care, as far
as those that have just been using the program.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Would you tell -- I'm sorry
to interrupt you, but would you tell me where we -- where we
went from last year down to -- what was the numbers?
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MS. LANTZ: Last year, what we paid out in November
was $130,000, approximately, and so far in November, what
they've paid out is 32,000. Now, as far as the billing's
going, we still have some things that are going to be billed
out in December which we're trying to catch up from October
and November, but hopefully our numbers will go way down as
far as what we are paying out in indigent health care.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Wow, what a change from
what it's been with the hospital.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, incredible.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I note that the number of
individuals on the program in your report in September,
October, November, and December has reduced significantly.
In addition to that, I assume, because of these savings that
you've advised us about, not only has the number of claims --
claimants been reduced, but perhaps the number of claims that
are eligible for reimbursement; is that correct?
MS. LANTZ: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, thank you. This
reflects that, really. Good report.
MS. LANTZ: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Lantz, we also -- in addition to
a reduction on the payout or expense side, have there not
been some benefits derived on the income side?
MS. LANTZ: Yes.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Reimbursements?
MS. LANTZ: Yes, sir. We're currently working on
some reimbursements for some of the clients that did get
Social Security. We are able to recoup up to three months
back and up to a year back on some of those funds as well,
and currently I'm in the process -- and I've only gotten
2,300, but I did get another check for 7,000 back this past
Friday as recouping some of our expenses that we've paid out.
JUDGE TINLEY: When they qualify for Social
Security disability, then you can go back and recoup some of
that that was paid during the period of time that it's
retroactive to.
MS. LANTZ: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I note you have two columns
here. You have the regular indigent health care, and then
you have the jail indigents.
MS. LANTZ: Mm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, the reality is, in the
program, we take the total of those two, and that's -- that's
the numbers in the program?
MS. LANTZ: That's currently what we have in the
program.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are there any unique or
distinct differences in your approach to handling these
claims from those who are indigent and incarcerated versus
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others?
MS. LANTZ: They are both -- both -- any indigent
has the same qualifications they have to meet. They cannot
have any income. Just because they're in jail doesn't mean
they're indigent, and they can have outside resources. You
know, they are still paying the bills; they get money into a
commissary account, and that counts as income as well. So,
the qualifications for the clients are the same as if you
were outside, not incarcerated.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions?
MS. LAVENDER: We might also tell you that
everybody that's on indigent health, that was on it at the
time that we took over the program, we're in the process of
reviewing, and the policy that you all adopted two weeks ago
will go into effect the lst of February, and we're passing
out copies of that policy to our current clients. And with
my newspaper column in the coming week, we're going to be
publicizing, with the help of the media, the new policy
that'll be going into effect the lst of February, and we
expect to see some significant changes also once that's in
place.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I want to add, unless you
want to add it, that any of those -- any and all those policy
changes are in compliance with current state statutes.
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MS. LAVENDER: Absolutely. Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Any more questions for any of
these ladies?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you for your work. We
appreciate it. At this time, it is 10 o'clock, so I will
recess the Commissioners Court meeting at this time, and I
will convene a public hearing concerning the final revision
of plat for Lots 46A and 47A of Cypress Springs Estates,
Phase 1, as set forth in Volume 7, Page 126 of the Plat
Records, and located in Precinct 4 of Kerr County.
(The regular Commissioners Court meeting was closed
at 10 a.m., and a public hearing was held in open
court, as follows:)
P U B L I C H E A R I N G
JUDGE TINLEY: Is there any member of the public
that wishes to be heard concerning the final revision of plat
for Lots 46 A and 47 A of Cypress Springs Estates, Phase 1,
as set forth in Volume 7, Page 126, Plat Records? Seeing no
one seeking to be recognized, I will close the public hearing
concerning the final revision of plat for Lots 46A and 47A of
Cypress Springs Estates, Phase 1, as set forth in Volume 7,
Page 126, Plat Records.
(The public hearing was concluded at 10:01 a.m.,
and the regular Commissioners Court meeting was
reopened.)
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JUDGE TINLEY: And I will reconvene the
Commissioners Court hearing, and we'll now take up Item 7;
consider, discuss, and take appropriate action on final
revision of plat for Lots 46A and 47A of Cypress Springs
Estates, Phase 1, as set forth in Volume 7, Page 126, Plat
Records.
MS. HOFFER: Good morning.
JUDGE TINLEY: Good morning.
MS. HOFFER: Dent and Doris White would like to
combine Lot 46A, which is 1.61 acres, and Lot 47A, which is
1.77 acres, making the revised Lot 46R-1 3.38 acres. The
lots in Cypress Springs Estates, Phase 1, are served by a
central water system and individual O.S.S.F. Lee Voelkel
from Voelkel Engineering is here if you have any questions.
If not, at this time we ask that you accept the final
revision of plat for Lots 46A and 47A in Cypress Springs
Estates, Phase 1, Volume 7, Page 126, and it's in Precinct 4.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Move approval.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for
approval of the agenda item. 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.
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(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Let's move
to Item 19 on the addendum, if we might. Consider, discuss,
and take appropriate action to appoint or reappoint members
of the Board of Commissioners for Emergency Services District
Number 2. Commissioner Oehler?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yes. It's time to appoint --
or reappoint two Commissioners to the ESD Number 2. I move
that we appoint Garland Reece and Perrin Wells -- that we
reappoint them for three-year terms.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for
approval as indicated. Question or discussion on that
motion? All in favor of that motion, signify by raising your
right hand.
(The motion carried by unanimous vote.)
JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign.
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(No response.)
JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Let me call
Item 17; consider, discuss, take appropriate action regarding
health insurance. Due to lack of information -- some
information that was to be presented in connection with this
item, Ms. Hyde asked that it be passed, so we'll move to Item
18; consider, discuss, take appropriate action on H.R.
capital loan. Mr. Emerson?
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MR. EMERSON: Thank you, Judge. As I believe has
been discussed in court before, the Court approved money last
year, and we installed a teleprompter system to be used by
County Court at Law and other courts as available. That
system has very successfully been used, not only to arraign
prisoners, but to plea out prisoners in the county jail,
reducing transportation and multiple other costs associated
with it, including security issues. It has come to our
attention that the system will be much more efficient and can
be utilized by District Court if we put in a second
teleprompter system. The issue that, of course, arose was
money, and my understanding is that Ms. Hyde, in working with
Mr. Trolinger, has put together an estimated cost of
approximately 20,000 to put in a second teleprompter system.
Ms. Hyde had money. left over in the bond from last year that
was already predesignated by the Court for I.T. use, software
issues, and she was gracious enough to donate 20,000 of it to
the new project. I believe what we need from the Court today
is approval to spend that 20,000 or less for the new I.T.
system.
MS. HARGIS: I don't have 20,000; we only have 14.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I couldn't hear you.
MS. HARGIS: I don't have 20,000; I only have 14.
JUDGE TINLEY: There's 14,000 remaining in the I.T.
component of that capital project fund?
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MS. HARGIS: Not 20.
MR. EMERSON: I think what we need to do, then, is
pass it, because Ms. Hyde was actually under the impression
that she had about two and a half times this amount in her
fund. So --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree with your --
MR. EMERSON: -- I think we need to work this out
before we come back to the Court.
JUDGE TINLEY: Oh, yeah. Okay.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Doesn't surprise me.
JUDGE TINLEY: We'll bring that matter back. Why
don't we be in recess for about 20 minutes.
(Recess taken from 10:08 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.)
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, let's come back to
order, if we might. We were in recess. We do have a 10:30
timed item, and I will call that now. Item Number 20 on your
second addendum; consider, discuss, and take appropriate
action regarding applications under oath of officers for the
deputies of each elected and appointed official.
', MR. EMERSON: Judge, this is the same issue that's
been presented by three previous officials. What I tried to
do is put together a generic issue that everybody can bail in
under the same one to save time for efficiency. I have an
application in, Ms. Uecker does, and the Sheriff does. And
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I'm not sure what other elected officials --
MS. PIEPER: I do too.
MR. EMERSON: -- have submitted -- Jannett? The
from -- from '84 to '86, there was a major war brewing in a
lot of the counties between the elected officials and the
Commissioners Court over -- specifically over authority over
their individual employees. And what the Legislature did in
'87 was jump in with this statute. Well, if you look at the
statute, it's essentially all the requirements of budgeting;
it's what we already do. The only difference is that under
this one, the application has to be sworn to. So I think we
can remedy that in the future. If every elected official
will just swear to their request for budget, it'll take care
of it, 'cause it will address all the employees,
expenditures, the receipts, everything that we automatically
look at. But, in the meantime, to be compliant, the statute
says we shall submit these. So, for this budget year, we're
standing in line like everybody else requesting the Court's
approval of our submissions.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I move approval of the
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deputies of each elected official and appointed official of
all that have been presented.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded as
indicated. Question or discussion on that motion?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Those that have been presented
in addition to the ones we handled individually are the
County Attorney, Sheriff, County Clerk, and the District
Clerk, correct? Those four?
MR. EMERSON: Correct. And I need to make clear
that it's not just deputies. It's -- the code specifically
requests appointment of clerks and assistants and deputies,
so it's essentially all your employees -- employees in the
office.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, it's all employees of all
elected officials.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And department heads.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And department heads.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: And department heads?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. So, that's what we're --
JUDGE TINLEY: Further question or discussion on
that motion?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Wait, wait. Go back a minute.
Have all the department heads sworn to this?
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MR. EMERSON: I don't know.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I would suspect not.
MR. EMERSON: This issue jumped up last week, and
we researched it, responded as quickly as we could. I know
we sent out a bunch of faxes and e-mails.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll amend my --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Department heads couldn't be
included, because they're under the direction of the Court
and they're not elected.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's right. That's what I'm
saying. I would think it would just be elected officials.
But I hear a -- I hear --
MR. EMERSON: I'm sorry, I'm blind. Under 151.001,
Subsection (a), a district, county, or precinct officer who
requires the services of deputies, assistants, or clerks in
the performance of the officer's duties shall apply. It
doesn't say elected, nonelected. It's anybody and everybody
that requires employees.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll amend my motion to
authorize the County Judge to accept any others than those
mentioned today between now and the end of the year. Can I
do that?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Maybe we ought to start over.
MR. EMERSON: Well, hypothetically speaking, the
danger with doing that is, if you do that, you know, what's
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to keep a department head from all of a sudden saying, "I
need 10 more employees," and you blessed it?
MS. PIEPER: Rex, doesn't the code state it has to
be in writing and sworn to?
MR. EMERSON: Right, it has to be sworn to. So, I
mean, they really need to come back to you. They each need
to submit their applications.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Does it have to be done
before the close of this year?
MR. EMERSON: No, sir.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. But if -- if my
previous statement is in conformity with the position
schedule, which keeps the number of employees and the
salaries set -- the reason I'm saying that, I mean, we're
I not --
MR. EMERSON: What if you do this? What if you
accept the ones that are presented to you today, and then
we'll put it back on in two weeks and everybody else can come
into compliance.
', COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. We can do it after the
lst?
MR. EMERSON: Sure.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay, that's fine. Well,
that's pretty -- I'll amend the motion to approve those that
were presented, plus the ones we did individually. Okay.
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JUDGE TINLEY: We had a second?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, I seconded it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. I have a motion and a second.
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. Let's move
to Item 12, if we might. That was an 11 o'clock timed item
with Mr. Danos with AACOG. He arrived early, and asked to go
ahead on, if we would permit that. It'll be a presentation
by Dean Danos, Deputy Director of AACOG, on proposed Alamo
Regional Transit routes in Kerrville and Kerr County.
Commissioner Williams, I'll let you introduce this.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Judge. We've
been working at the AACOG level with the folks from Alamo
Regional Transit for some time in terms of restructuring the
routes, not only in Kerrville and Kerr County, but all
through the ART system, and having engaged a consultant to
work with them, we're now at the point of presenting the
various route structures to the counties that are affected.
So, I asked Mr. Danos if he'd come down and be so good as to
present this to us, show us what the routes are going to be,
and the cost and the frequency and all that good stuff.
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Mr. Danos?
MR. DANOS: Thank you Commissioner. Judge,
Commissioners, I have before you some items I passed out, the
slide presentation, a page which is blown up of the routes, a
cost area that we currently have for Kerr County, and a
couple of brochures about a couple programs that are
discussed in this presentation. First off, I want to thank
you, and happy holidays to each one of you. Before I
start -- and thank you to Commissioner Williams for inviting
me, and also to mention to you that Commissioner Williams is
Transit, and eventually for the regional planning
organization. So, Commissioner Williams will have his plate
full for the upcoming year in that exercise as the chairman
of that organization. So, we'll get up with the next slide.
And, basically, I'm going to go through these pretty quickly
until we get down to the routes.
This is just an overview of what we do, and we
provide transportation to an 11-county area. Next slide.
That is an 11-county area outside of Bexar County, which
happens to be the AACOG region. The next slide -- and,
basically, that's who can ride with ART. You need to hit it
a couple of times so it can -- come on, click, click, click.
There you go. And we're just -- we're just a service for
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everybody. And it's a demand response system; that's what
Alamo Regional Transit currently is. In other words, we --
you call, we pick you up at your doorstep and take you
wherever you want to go, and take you back to your doorstep.
It's a door-to-door assistance. Just click, click, click.
Next one, there you go. And next slide, these are just some
examples also. Just keep on clicking down till you get down
to the bottom. Those are some of the examples of ridership.
I won't read them. Just a laundry list of some of the things
that we currently do in our program. Next slide.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Danos?
MR. DANOS: Yes, sir?
JUDGE TINLEY: Do you have any numbers on what the
percentage of the ridership actually use that transportation
to go to and from their job?
MR. DANOS: Yes, sir, I do have those numbers. I
don't have them currently; I'd be glad to send it to you, but
it is somewhere in the -- upwards of -- it's very small in
the Kerr County area; it's a small area. It's something like
less than 5 percent. But, overall, it's reaching upwards of
10 to 12 percent in the entire region.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MR. DANOS: I can get you more exact figures.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's for commuting to
jobs?
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MR. DANOS: Yeah, job only. We're only talking
about jobs.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Job-related.
MR. DANOS: Yeah. The published fares, that's what
this other piece of paper is. That is our published fares as
it currently stands. And with the fuel rates very high at
one time, these rates were very attractive. With the fuel
rate coming down, they're comparable to what an individual
would have to drive back and forth. Those are from -- within
the areas. Okay, next. And part of this issue is the
Medicaid -- we do provide Medicaid services with Medicaid
clients, and those go from medical, dental, pharmacy. We
have WorkSource training, which is part of the job issue
we're talking about, Judge. We go ahead and provide
Workforce training for people who need on-the-job training.
We have Job Access Reverse Commute, which basically is taking
people from a job, and taking them back and forth to --
whether it be going to San Antonio and back, or San Antonio
out and back. And then we also provide services to the aging
population, 60 and over. That -- and those areas are
currently funded by that program, which is medical, dental,
pharmacy, and nutrition center. You went one step too far.
And then other agencies, local groups -- that's okay.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You have an amateur operator
up here.
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MR. DANOS: Now, don't move that.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'm not moving it, I promise.
MR. DANOS: Okay. Then we have the dispatchers.
This is how you would call -- an individual would call and --
basically, the prior day, an individual would call and make
the appointment, so to speak, and the ridership -- you got to
start the process, and this is basically how we do it. If
you're using wheelchairs, scooters or walkers, all our
proposed flex routes, which is the next slide and the slide
after that. I'll refer you to this large map here that you
have in front of you. Basically, there's three routes in
here that are discussed in the study that the Commissioner
had authorized as part of his role on the regional area
judges, and the consultant we hired to look at flex routes,
not only in Kerrville, but Fredericksburg, New Braunfels, and
Seguin, but the first area -- starting area in Kerrville.
And, basically, those are color-coded, Route A, B, and C.
Next slide.
And that basically was to be -- each route is a
one-hour headway. The service will do two buses, and then
A -- A and C will just have one bus sharing. And now let's
go to proposed Route A, next slide. If you look at this map,
you -- and you look at A in red, and we refer to this chart
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there, it tells you basically where it's going to begin in
Intermodal Facility for transfers. Next route travels north
on Sidney Baker and heads westbound on Schreiner Street.
This route loops around on Wallace Street, Upper Street,
Paschal Street, and then back east on Schreiner Street. Then
the route continues northeast. I'm not going to read
everything, but basically what we're trying to do is connect
the downtown, medical, shopping centers, and so forth. This
route is 5.3 miles one way. That's proposed area Route A.
Route B, which is on the same slide you have in
front of you, which is the blue one, and that route begins in
the far western end of Main Street, travels through downtown,
stopping at the transfer point, which is Kerrville Intermodal
Facility, then proceeding east on Main Street to the V.A.
Hospital. The V.A. Hospital -- Commissioner Williams and I
visited had with the V.A. Hospital to talk about their issues
and concerns with the disabled veterans -- disabled veterans.
We had a very good conversation, and we left there with their
-- in their in-basket to get back to us, hopefully after the
first of the year, about providing potential transportation
to help their veterans in Kerrville and going on to San
Antonio. This route is 6.2 miles long.
Route C is that, I guess, purple type area. This
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route begins in south central Kerrville near Peterson
Hospital Ambulatory Care Center on Cully Street and loops
around. Again, their major destination includes the downtown
area, parks, low-income housing, apartments, and the shopping
area. This route is 4.6 miles one way. These routes are --
right now, we're looking at doing it Monday through Friday
in -- in the route areas. Now, there -- if there are some
additions or deletions, we can -- as we go through this
process, obviously, we're subject to change. This is not
locked in, but this was the proposal from the consultant that
visited up here. How are we going to pay for this thing, is
the big issue.
And if you turn to the next slide, this is
basically some rough figures. This is the round trip per
bus. This is total hours, total round trips, the number of
operations per day, the operational cost per hour, total
cost, number of days of service, total cost per year, and
that's our cost. We currently have what -- through our
federal funds, 5311 funding, which is rural transportation
funding, that's the backbone of the whole operation. That
will supply about half the amount of dollars. Thanks to you,
Judge, and the Commissioners supplying dollars to the
program, those dollars will be applied to this program,
leaving a balance of about 174K. Those entities below and
others are where we will attempt to find additional funding
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for the program. My goal, as I told Commissioner Williams --
we've discussed this, that we were going to start this
program with the current funding we have, and we'll see what
we can do. So, we are going to start this program.
Obviously, we have to get to -- into the City,
because it involves the City's zoning department, so -- and
so they understand where we're going on their streets and
getting some stops. So, we have to go to their planning
department and to the City Council. We'll make those
discussions after the first of the year, so you're not
hearing this for the last time. We also have, in addition to
that, a van pool service -- on the next slide, we're starting
a van pool service. And we've been talking -- in fact,
that's what we talked to the V.A. Hospital about, was a van
pool service. We have 12-passenger vans, one primary and one
secondary driver, and the fares are determined based on the
amount of distance and so forth, but the job happens to be
what it is. The miles of vanpool will include the number of
riders.
And the next slide is talking about -- this is the
Going Your Way Care program; that's this brochure also.
Anyway, it's a guaranteed ride program. There are funding
capabilities. We have a way that we can guarantee a person
that does a van pool program, or even a person that rides a
bus, actually, going to work, a way to come home in an
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emergency situation. In other words, if a little one gets
person can come home free; we just charge a one-time fee of
$5 to get into it, and then they have four vouchers. But
they must be part of the carpool program or van pool program
or ride a bus -- it's not on here -- to a job.
The second part of this is another program we have
that we teamed up with Austin. We have a River Cities
zip codes can team up and go back and forth. It's a program
we've got. And we're also working with Kerrville Bus Company
to see if people can go back and forth, drop on a bus and,
obviously, go where they need to go. These are some of --
the next slide, that's some of the commuting benefits. And
it's just an area that helps everybody out. The tax credits
on there deals with the van pool program, especially if an
employer pays for it; they do get tax credit under the
current codes in Texas -- excuse me, the I.R.S. codes. And
the next slide is basically just a picture we already meet.
And the last slide deals with some contact information. And
that is ten minutes, Judge, and that's -- I think I met that
requirement. So, I'm now open for any kind of questions or
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answers, and from any --
JUDGE TINLEY: What information can you give us
about the employer tax credits?
MR. DANOS: If an employer will go ahead and use
this system -- an employer use this system and take it out of
employee's paycheck, that becomes before taxes then. It
becomes a before-tax issue, and so they're not paying taxes
on their ride. So, you're driving -- let's say an individual
gets in a van pool program, and it -- for that trip, it costs
them 50 bucks a month, and it's tax -- it becomes a tax issue
for them if -- if the employer does it. Now, if the
individual -- employer says, "I don't want anything to do
with it," it becomes an individual issue; it's after tax
dollars, Judge. That's in the I.R.S. codes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Dean, you gave us -- in
addition to the routes -- proposed routes for what appears to
be, for the most part, within the city.
MR. DANOS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And you also give us this
sheet telling what the --
MR. DANOS: That's demand response routes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The demand response, and
the cost to go from Point A to Point B.
MR. DANOS: Right.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: My question is -- two
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questions. First of all, what type of vehicle will you use
to service these routes within the city? And secondly, what
will be the cost to board the bus?
MR. DANOS: We're looking at a dollar charge on
that route system, on the flex route system, Commissioner,
III and that's the cost. The vehicles, we are already -- already
the van pool -- for a van pool program, they're in right now,
or coming in. We also have the current vehicles, which is a
Type 3 vehicle that can hold up to 25 people, or configured
to hold not only individuals, but A.D.A. responsibility, so
we do have a fleet available right now. We've also increased
our rates to hire people anticipating this. We've gone
from -- to $9 per hour starting lst of January for non-CDL,
to $10 an hour for CDL license. In order to drive this
vehicle will take a CDL-licensed individual, so that starting
rate will be $10 per hour.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I might note, Judge, as I'm
sure you did, we -- 'cause we had discussions about servicing
the area of the city in and around the Doyle School, and one
of these routes accomplishes that.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any questions for Mr. Danos?
Comments? Any member of the Court?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: When do you start?
MR. DANOS: We're looking at -- well, we haven't
even talked to the area judges yet. Commissioner Williams
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kind of jump-started this program by asking me to come up
here. This presentation will go to the area judges in
January for their approval, and I'm assuming that this
will -- that'll be approved, 'cause we've been working on
this for well over a year now to try to get the program
started. And once that's started, we're looking at coming
back up here to talk to the City. And then we hope by two or
three months after that -- I'm hoping by no later than June,
once we get all the pieces together, we'll come back to
Commissioners Court, that we'll be able to start this
program, because we do have to do some legwork yet with the
City.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What -- where are the
trolleys?
MR. DANOS: The trolleys were taken away from us by
TexDOT. We -- I know it. We fought that; Commissioner
I Williams can tell you that. We -- they went -- well, we --
TexDOT decided they needed them at a different place.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They went away.
MR. DANOS: And they went away.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We lost the battle of the
trolley.
MR. DANOS: We lost, right. And I -- I might add
here, now that you brought that up, the facility -- we are
now updating the facility at the -- the Kerrville Intermodal
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Facility by flooring, awnings, new sidewalk areas, and we're
also mindful of the drought system that we have in our other
regions, so we -- we've redone the landscaping to use less
water out in our facility, and I think that's beneficial,
that we're -- you know, just like anybody else, we're up here
to help and not hinder. But that is a -- a positive thing
we're doing for the facility right now.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Do they make these vehicles
or these buses that are -- that operate on alternate fuels?
MR. DANOS: Yes, they do, and we have alternate
fuel capability. We have the -- what they call the LEV,
which is low emission vehicles. We also have diesel, which
uses the clean diesel, which is the ultra low-sulfur diesel
vehicles ordered. We do have some of the propane, but the
issue with propane is finding a distributor for the propane.
We are working now to look at CNG, compressed natural gas,
but that is finding the correct plant that has to go through,
and then order the vehicles. But we are -- we are very
mindful of alternative energy.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Super. Hope we get to move
in that direction.
MR. DANOS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: This budget this past year --
MR. DANOS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- covers the routes in
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Kerrville?
MR. DANOS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's the cost of running the
routes that go inter-city?
MR. DANOS: From city to city?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right.
MR. DANOS: We have some of the -- the charges
right here on --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I see the charges are on there,
but does it cover the cost of that 100 percent? Or is
there --
MR. DANOS: No, that's not -- does not cover the
cost 100 percent. That's what the 5311 subsidy dollars do.
We get -- like a large metropolitan area, we also get subsidy
dollars. An individual may not be able to pay for -- if they
have to pay the full cost, I understand they could be very --
hit the pocketbook pretty big.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But the 5311 funds that are in
here, that 180,000, that covers part of this?
MR. DANOS: No.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're separate?
MR. DANOS: This is separate. This is a separate
issue. This will still be covered.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
MR. DANOS: Two separate issues here.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: On the 5311 funds on the
Kerrville routes, the 180,000, is that a set amount or is it
a percentage of the total? How does --
MR. DANOS: It's a percentage of the total, 50 --
the 5311, by federal law, it's only supposed to cover around
50 percent or approximately 50 percent of the cost of doing
the operation. They do not cover 100 percent. The other
dollars is supposed to come through subscribers, fares,
contributions from cities and counties, and the paying
public.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
MR. DANOS: And that's what's supposed to make up
the other dollars. And we've been fortunate in our programs
that we've been able to receive those dollars from not only
the counties and cities, but the paying public,
subscriptions, advertisements, and so forth. So, yes, we
cover the cost.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: For the benefit of the
public that may not be aware, Alamo Regional Transit provides
service in the 11 AACOG counties that surround Bexar County.
We do not provide service in Bexar County. That's through
VIA; that's their public transportation system, and we don't
get involved in that.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions for Mr. Davos?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you very much, Dean.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, Mr. Davos.
MR. DANOS: Once again, Merry Christmas, happy
holidays to you all. I'm sure we'll be seeing you after the
first of the year. Thank you very much for inviting me.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, let's go to Item 14, if we
might; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action on
joint agreement between Kerr County and the City of Kerrville
-- Kerrville with the Normandy Group for governmental
relations assistance to obtain federal government funding or
other assistance for economic development projects and
projects, installations, infrastructure, and/or facilities
needs for Kerrville and Kerr County. I put this on today's
agenda as a result of direction given at our joint meeting
with the City that occurred -- I guess it was a week ago now.
The matter was presented again at a City Council special
meeting last Thursday. They took up the matter then, and to
report to the Court, as a result of that meeting, the -- the
Council directed the mayor to get with myself, and hopefully
the mayor and I jointly would then make contact with our
elected Washington officials to ascertain what those
officials deem as the proper viability of -- of assistance
governmental relations firms. So, that's essentially where
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the City is, and -- but as -- as indicated at our meeting a
week ago jointly with the City, the matter's back on our
information and report back to the Council, yes.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: In your discussions about it, I
guess my point of view, I like the idea a little bit; I think
it's a really interesting idea. I think it has a lot of
merit, but I have three big problems with it right now. One,
it wasn't budgeted, and we really don't have $60,000, or --
you know, which would be our potential half, around. Two,
I'm not sure we have any projects that are -- you know, we
kind of rushed a little bit on this. I don't know that we
have any projects that are really ready to queue up to get
into this right now. And, three, if we were to pass those
two items, and in addition to talking with our own elected
officials -- you know, I like former Congressman Bonilla a
lot, but I think we need to do a little bit of a better
search than just hiring one -- one firm that came to us, and
see -- I mean, when I look at their list of clients, they
don't represent one entity similar to a county government.
And, you know, I'm not sure they need to, you know. So, I
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just have a concern of whether they would be the right firm,
so I'm glad it's on a little bit of a hold, because I don't
think we can go forward, at least from my standpoint, at this
point. But I think in future years, it may be something very
worth looking at. It's just kind of my -- after listening to
it and thinking about it, that's kind of my thoughts.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Go ahead, I'll wait.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. I tend to agree with
Commissioner Letz, only I've got a little bit different
slant. Over the weekend, I visited with my friend -- you
know, it seems like my friends -- the numbers of my friends
are dwindling, but my friend that has been around a while and
understands these kinds of things, and that understood and is
very familiar with L.B.J. Of course, I'm way too young to
remember any of that stuff, but the president from Johnson
City brought a lot of -- a lot of money to the state of
Texas. And President Bush, recent president -- President
Bush has also allowed a lot of money to come to the state of
Texas. And it's my understanding that those days are over;
that the moneys that Mr. Obama's talking about will more than
likely stay in the Chicago area, or anyway, the other side of
the Red River. That's one issue. Another issue is, in our
joint meeting the other day, I only had one question of -- of
Mr. Bonilla, and Councilman Hamilton asked it before I -- it
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got to me, and that was -- his question was, "Do you have any
performance-based or contingency contracts?" I can see this
thing working on a contingency type plan, where he goes and
secures the grants and grant moneys and those kinds of
things, and then takes a percentage of that, as opposed to us
just paying him a flat monthly salary of -- how much?
$10,000?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ten -- five to ten, depending
on if we submit it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, $5,000 per month from
this county to maybe or maybe not find us money. And
Mr. Bonilla's answer was that he cannot be paid from these
funds legally. Well, now, I don't think anybody ever thought
that he would rake off his up front up there, but I'm sure
through budgeting and -- and agreements and written
agreements and those kind of things, if he secured moneys for
us, then we could pay him out of that on the contingency
plan. But he -- he obviously didn't want to do that, and so
that -- that really turned me off about the whole thing, is
the fact that he wouldn't even consider -- wouldn't even
discuss the contingency plan. The third issue is that it's
not budgeted money, and that is a lot of money to be laying
out there.
You	know,	if we -	- if we	had that kind	of money
laying around,	I --	I see -	- I see	these Ingram	Lake and Flat
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Rock Lake and Ingram Dam and Flat Rock Dam almost as
emergency issues. I mean, those things have grown, in my
opinion, to the -- almost to the point of where they're truly
unsafe for our public, and if we were going to spend money,
I'd want to spend money on things like that, that's a direct
benefit -- possible direct benefit to the taxpayers of Kerr
County. So, with those thoughts and those issues, if I were
asked to vote today on this issue, I would vote no. And if
we -- if it comes up at budget time to have this same kind of
program, I'm probably going to vote no, 'cause it's too damn
much money for something that we don't know about, that we're
not sure that we're going to get any return from. That's
about it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I've had a lot of
discussions since last Monday, both voluntarily and
involuntarily, but the net result of most of those
discussions was summarized by what some folks say, "Well, I
see the County's going to hire a lobbyist." And that is an
anathema to a lot of people. That said, I can see where
there is some relative value in knowing the ropes in
Washington. I don't dispute that at all. And for most of us
who comprise local government, we don't -- we don't know that
roadmap to get things done in Washington, D.C. But be that
as it may, I kind of concur with my two colleagues with
respect to cost, and -- and the fact it's not budgeted. But
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I am -- in thinking about it, as opposed to doing something
like this directly, I would -- I would like for the City and
Economic Development Foundation being the lead pony, as
opposed to the City and/or the County. And we support KEDF,
as does the City, and Economic Improvement Corporation
supports KEDF.
And there's not a lot of reason why, if KEDF were
to be the lead pony working on behalf of the City and the
County, if there were additional fundings necessary to do
that in our next budget year, we could certainly consider
that. I would also like to remind the Court that Texas
Association of Counties was severely chastised in a lawsuit
for having hired a lobbyist. Now, the question I would
direct to the County Attorney is, was that lawsuit directed
at TAC, in which it was settled by TAC backing away from
these type of activities, was that the direct result of TAC
hiring a lobbyist to lobby the Texas Legislature, or doing
lobbying in general? I'd like to know your answer to that,
and you can figure that out by going to your many electronic
sources and looking up that litigation.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Or you can pick up a phone
and call them and ask them.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. And so I think, at
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this point in time, if we -- if we're talking about a model
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Good point.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think that's a good way to
pursue it if we're going to do that. I'm totally against
hiring a lobbyist; that is just totally absurd to me. We
have a lot of elected officials that should be helping us
when we have viable projects that need to be funded. We
ought to be able to lean on them just like our constituents
lean on us to get things done. But I do -- I do have the
thought that if we were to need a person to maybe work with
the KEDF, just like you suggested, somebody that we would
have control over dollars that we spend, expenses, those
kinds of things through -- through funding at budget time, I
wouldn't be opposed to doing something like that, but I don't
feel like that we need to contract with anybody on an
open-ended contract with no -- no fee -- or no total amount
of dollars that could be spent on expenses.
It's bad enough to give somebody $10,000 a month,
and then have expenses on top of that that you have no idea
how much that might be, and whether that person or people
that you hired were actually working on your project, and
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whether -- not that Mr. Bonilla's not honest and upright,
but, you know, how do you divide expenses when you're maybe
trying to work for one client over here, and maybe they both
do the same thing? I mean, it's just -- I can't see it. I'm
to kind of what I said earlier, and kind of what Buster
brought up about how you -- where they collect their fees.
I'm sure there are agencies -- and maybe Grantworks can do
it. Grantworks has been very successful working for us and
collecting their fees -- administrative fee kind of from the
grants we've received. Primarily, it's all through
wastewater -- Kerrville South Wastewater --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- system. And I think that
the -- you know, we may need to spend some money, but I don't
know that you can do that with a lobbyist. We have some
significant big projects on the horizon that we probably will
need some assistance in trying to figure out how to fund, and
Youth Exhibit Center, the lake issues, between repairing the
dams and cleaning them out, and the water/wastewater east
Kerr County project, but those are -- you know, aside from
that, I really don't see that we have a whole lot that we
need out of Washington. And on those, I think maybe, you
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know, we could send the Judge up there every week for
$120,000, put you up -- (Laughter.) Hey, we can put you up
there all year.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just get you a residence up
there.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Here's one other point.
Mr. -- Mr. Bonilla talked about shovel-ready projects, that
they're going to -- the Congress is going to consider
shovel-ready projects, whatever that means. Subsequent to
that meeting, however, later in the week, there was a
front-page picture and an article in the San Antonio Express
News talking about City of San Antonio readies its
shovel-ready list, right? And one of the things which tied
into what Mr. Bonilla talked about was City of San Antonio,
103.6 million for transportation projects. Well, that's the
key right there, transportation projects. We don't have
anything dealing with approaches that's in terms of
transportation that would even render us eligible to be
involved in the first wave of largesse that's coming out of
Washington.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think that we have a -- quite
a few projects in the queue with TexDOT that may enable them
to get funded if the money comes out through Washington.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That are basically
shovel-ready?
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: They are.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But they're -- you know, we've
got five bridges and -- four bridges in my precinct, a couple
in Bill's, a couple out in your area, and things of that
nature that, you know, hopefully these -- they have been held
up because of funding. And, you know, hopefully TexDOT is,
you know, communicating, as I'm sure they are, with
Washington, so --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Shovel-ready, that's
something of that Washington language. Whew.
JUDGE TINLEY: Washington-speak?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
JUDGE TINLEY: We have a participation form that
was filed for this particular agenda item. Stephanie Ertel?
MS. ERTEL: Good morning. My name is Stephanie
Ertel, and I live at 624 Wheless, and I also have property in
Precinct 4 across the river from the fish hatchery. And I'm
actually here this morning to just remind the Court, along
with some of my friends that came with me, that we have a
Democratic president elected, and the Democratic party of
Kerr County has been very active in this election time, and
we've really built a lot of confidence among Democrats in
Texas and nationally in what the people of Kerr County and
the Hill Country are interested in, and our ability to
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deliver votes and to deliver funding. So, I think that we
can be of assistance also to the Commissioners Court. If
things come up and people need contacts through some of the
representatives who are Democrats, like Ciro Rodriguez and
Chet Edwards and Sheila Jackson Lee, people like that who we
have contact with, who may be able to help us with some
things. And, in fact, in February Sheila Jackson Lee is
going to be our guest here in Kerrville of the Democratic
groups, and she'll be talking to us. So, it's just an
example of how we really try to build a little bit of a
profile of Democrats in Kerr County, so we wanted y'all to
know about that if you need our help in doing things in the
future.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's the way it should
work.
MS. ERTEL: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other member of the audience
wish to be heard concerning this particular item? Does the
Court have any direction for me in response to the Council's
direction to the mayor of last week?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think just -- I mean, I
think --
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Go if you want to.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I just need to find out what
our representatives think about firms like this, just, you
know, for what it's worth. But I also think that the message
when we're talking to our elected officials needs to be that
we expect them to do this for us. You know, or we think --
don't think we need to hire them. That's what I heard the
Court kind of say.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'd like for you to explore
with somebody, Judge, the idea that this should go through
KEDF logically, and if that's -- if that shakes itself out
that way over the next few months, then we have an
opportunity to discuss it again during budget time.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Anybody else have any more
input on that? Good enough. Thank you. Let's move on to a
timed item for 11:15. Item 13, consider and discuss the
proposed agreement between Kerr County Historical Commission
and Schreiner University. Mr. Luther -- Dr. Luther?
MR. LUTHER: Thank you, Judge.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, are the -- before he
starts, the comments in the margin in the copy that I have,
your comments?
JUDGE TINLEY: No.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: No?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: On the left over here?
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, there's a couple of
comments in here, question marks. Just wondering where they
came from, 'cause they're on my copy. If anyone knows? They
may be Mr. Luther's comments.
(Low-voice discussion off the record.)
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Oh, they may be comments that
Mr. Luther made. There's -- I was wondering who wrote the --
MR. LUTHER: Oh, on the sides?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah.
MR. LUTHER: Would you like me to go ahead and just
do that? Good morning, gentlemen. Judge Tinley,
Commissioners, my name is Joe Luther. I'm your chairman of
the county -- Kerr County Historical Commission. In response
to this, what you have is a draft, a review copy. And the
comments, I think, were marginal, with people making
suggestions.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
MR. LUTHER: We do have a final draft of this
in-hand, and we are ready to move forward with it. As you
know from remarks and discussions that we've had over the
past year, this has been a work in progress. For some time,
we've been concerned about the condition, and I might say
prognosis of the archival holdings of Kerr County. They were
scattered in several locations. In one case, they were
flooded. The boxes that they were contained in are
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water-stained. They're very valuable, one-of-a-kind
collections that were not secure, were not under lock and
key, and we were facing a tremendous problem with things
walking out the door that were essentially irreplaceable.
The situation that we had, as you know, here in the
courthouse, these documents were not in a climate-controlled
archival situation at all.
Through the good relationships that we have with
Schreiner University, particularly with Candice Scott, who's
in charge of that library operation there, we have managed to
work to this point where we have a draft of an agreement
before you to have our archival materials digitized and
stored at professional level -- professional quality archival
standards so that they will be preserved into the future.
You might say this is sort of the future history of our
archival collection. Let's see, is Fred here? No, it
doesn't look like anybody from Schreiner was able to get
through the heavy traffic this morning to get down here, so I
will -- I will speak to this, and then I'll ask Julia
Stehling to be in the on-deck box here to answer detail
questions. But I would just say to you, I think this is a
wonderful solution to our problem.
The situation that probably is most critical in
regards to the archival collection is, nobody knows what we
have. There's no good inventory of it. It's everybody's
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aunt and uncle and dog and what-have-you. It's never really
been sorted and recorded. And Julia Stehling and Jeanne
Sutton have spent long hours going through this material and
sorting it, and I've just brought another DVD this morning
for Jeanne that has probably the equivalent of three Bibles
of material that have been scanned and digitally stored on
there. By placing it into this collection in the Logan
Library, this will become accessible to the public, so we
would not have to accompany somebody here to the basement to
dig through boxes of unknown material. In fact, somebody
could just dial it up and say, "Is there anywhere I could
find a picture of Judge Tinley when he graduated from law
school?" Or Buster Baldwin when he was a young man with dark
hair and a -- and a full beard. We -- we have those sorts of
things in our collection, and a person would be able to
access them and look at them.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are those for sale, by any
chance?
MR. LUTHER: Yeah, sure. We can do 50 pocket-size.
JUDGE TINLEY: The negative is what you want,
Buster.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. Did they have cameras
back when he was in school?
MR. LUTHER: I found a picture of -- of Dell
Sheftall in 1943 at the University of Texas that I sent over
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to him the other day that was out there on the web. So, you
know, there are these amazing things that you find every day.
They go into our collection. So, unless you have more
detailed questions you wish to put to me, I'd like to ask
Julia Stehling to come up and talk about the nuts and bolts
of this operation.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Before -- before we go to
Julia, I put this on the agenda because of -- there was a
couple of my colleagues here that had been kind of hearing
about what y'all were doing --
MR. LUTHER: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- and had wanted to know
about it. So, I wanted you guys to come in to kind of
explain to them --
MR. LUTHER: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- what was going on, and I
think you have done that, in my mind. And then Rex, in the
agreement, I think, had a couple of questions, and I wanted
to get -- those are the two things I wanted to get cleared up
so that everybody at this table understands what's going on,
and as far as the agreement's concerned, that the legal
beagle signs off on it.
MR. LUTHER: Yes. And Fred Gamble was supposed to
be here this morning to answer for the university. Let me
say from the outset, it was a worse mess than you would find
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in anybody's garage or attic.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I can imagine.
MR. LUTHER: And some of it is still being hoarded
in other people's houses that we're slowly prying out of
their hands.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Couple questions I had.
MR. LUTHER: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Who owns this stuff?
MR. LUTHER: I have to assume that since we're --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: The --
MR. LUTHER: -- an agency of Kerr County and the
State, that Kerr County does, and through them, the state,
once we acquire it and enter it into our system.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Kerr County owns it?
MR. LUTHER: Yeah, that's my interpretation.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Where did it come from?
MR. LUTHER: Everywhere. People will bring things
and drop it off, and you'll end up with, you know, a
cardboard box or a garbage sack full of old photos. Nobody's
identified anything in there, and we have Raul Arreola and
Fuzzy Swayze working like crazy trying to figure out what
these buildings are and who these people are and that sort of
thing.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Swayze probably took most of
the pictures.
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MR. LUTHER: Yeah, Swayze did. Of course, as you
know, Fuzzy Swayze's collection's been lost, and we're trying
to resurrect pieces and parts of that as we find it. We are
putting on these photographs -- digital photographs an
identifier as belonging to the Kerr County Historical
Commission, and since we're one of your children, to you.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: How are you all -- or are you
going through it and determining what is worthy of keeping?
I mean, I'm -- if you acquire -- people just give this to
you, I mean, how do you decide what --
MR. LUTHER: Well, it is --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- needs to be kept?
MR. LUTHER: It is anything that can be identified.
There are a lot of pictures of a lot of pet dogs and things
of that sort that, to us, don't have significance, but do
have historical or emotional, sentimental significance to the
donor. And in many cases, we may digitize something and
return it to the owner, but we've got a -- a copy of it that
can be preserved. Schreiner University and their library
staff there have very exacting standards in terms of what's
acceptable and what's not --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
MR. LUTHER: -- acceptable.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I didn't want just a whole
bunch of stuff to be put into --
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MR. LUTHER: No, it's not going to be like my
attic. No.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The Schreiner people just
arrived, Mr. Luther.
MR. LUTHER: Okay. Well, let's --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mr. Gamble's here.
MR. LUTHER: Perhaps I can introduce them. Fred?
Good morning, sir. Just in time. Candice, just in time.
MR. GAMBLE: I'm Fred Gamble. I'm the Vice
President for Administration and Finances at Schreiner
University. This is Dr. Candice Scott. She's our chief
librarian, and recently appointed Vice President for Academic
Affairs, and she's the one who actually put together -- who
led the charge and put together the Sam Lanham Digital
Library. We're excited about the opportunity, and from what
Candice tells me, rarely does a historical society -- when I
say "rarely," as far as we know, we're probably the only one
where a historical society has really reached out and had
this kind of collaboration with somebody else. So, we think
we're pretty special to do this. Candice, if you want to
make a comment? And either one of us can answer any
questions you have. If it's technical, that has to be
Dr. Scott.
DR. SCOTT: I think we just should just answer
questions and save time. We're excited. We're very excited
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about the possibility. We want to be sure that the agreement
is crystal clear to both sides so that there's no confusion
later on; there's no question about intent or -- or purpose
at all, and so that's why we're being very picky on both
sides as far as what the agreement says. It's a temporary
loan agreement, so I guess that's -- that's where we are.
Joe? Is that --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: A question that I had, Mr.
Luther -- Mr. Luther mentioned that Schreiner has, I guess,
some precise criteria before something gets digitized and put
in. Not necessarily that you have to give it to us right
now, but I think if we were given a copy of that criteria, if
the public was aware of it, there's probably a lot of other
historical information available that fits the criteria; it'd
be a good way to get it in. I have -- I suspect, like
Mr. Luther said, that what is in the basement, primarily, and
other locations is just stuff that no one knew what else to
do with and put it in a box and brought it over here.
MR. LUTHER: People's grandparents die and we
inherit the boxes.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. So I think it would be
really helpful for the public to be aware of what the
criteria is so that other meaningful documents can find their
way into the collection.
DR. SCOTT: As far as what we would digitize?
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: As to what the -- I mean, you
want to -- if you have a picture of an old dog, do you want
that, versus -- I mean, an identifier, what all has to be on
there before it's worthwhile to -- from Schreiner's
DR. SCOTT: That's an excellent question, and it's
one that we -- we set a foundation for responding to when we
created the digital library. And what we have is an advisory
it is to be the subject experts. And so when we get a wealth
of information -- which, sadly, we don't have that problem;
that would be a wonderful problem to have. When we get that
problem, these subject specialists are the ones who will look
at it and decide whether it's something that meets the
mission of either entity, either the Historical Commission or
Schreiner University, and then that document will be added to
it. Okay. So, it's -- so we don't -- as a librarian, I know
how much space I have. I know where my immediate
constituents' interests are, but I'm -- I'm not a historian,
and so I bow to the views of the local historians, and they
would help us select that. And that's all written up under
the -- under the digital library guidelines on the website.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Dr. Scott, are we going
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into this with an inventory already prepared as to what
the -- what Schreiner University will accept and, in effect,
manage for us? Or are we just dumping boxes on your
DR. SCOTT: No, I hope you're not dumping boxes on
our doorstep. We are working on the inventory, right?
MR. LUTHER: Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to --
MS. STEHLING: No, I'm fine.
DR. SCOTT: Sara Schmidt, our collection
holding my breath. I was concerned it would be boxes and
boxes. We do have a finite amount of space, so we have to be
careful what we're committing to your folks as well. It's a
very -- right now, if we took everything that's down there,
it's very doable. It's very doable for us. I don't believe,
necessarily, that that will be the case, although the
inventory is being carefully examined. So, I think what they
have there is pretty lean and mean, and so I think it's
probably pretty relevant to our overarching umbrella of the
hill country history.
MR. GAMBLE: Also, if you look at the proposed
agreement, this will be done -- I mean, the inventory will be
updated every year. That's part of the agreement, to make
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the agreement is that every year you'll update this -- the
inventory.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have a couple of
questions. First is, are you the famous "Truck" Gamble?
DR. SCOTT: I think I'll sit down on that one.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I can verify that.
MR. GAMBLE: I have been called that as well as
many other things, as you well know, Commissioner.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I do know that, as a matter
of fact. Good to see you. My real question -- there's two
real questions. One is -- goes to ownership. I'm not real
clear what -- like, in the final analysis, when we're all
gone and this thing -- this program's rocking along, who owns
all of this material?
MR. GAMBLE: The material is -- will belong to the
Historical Society. It is theirs; it is on loan. And so it
could be on permanent loan, but even permanent loan can be
withdrawn within -- within time parameters, or it can be
temporarily withdrawn. But it -- it belongs to the
Historical Society.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. Historical
Commission.
MR. GAMBLE: Historical Commission, yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And -- and then there was
some questions about some cost of -- I don't know what all,
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but one of the recent things, you're going -- we're going to
DR. SCOTT: We hope there's no bugs in it to begin
MS. STERLING: Correct.
DR. SCOTT: Yeah. And we've never actually had
that problem as a -- as an archive, and so I -- I don't have
a ready cost for you. I did consult our library consortium,
which is -- it's the Southwest Regional Consortium. They
aren't willing to say it's going to cost 5 cents a document
or 10 cents a document either, so while that's a very
legitimate question on your part, I -- I would suggest that
what we put into the document is simply that nothing will be
done without consulting the Commission, and then you'll know
-- you'll know what it costs up front if we have to do it,
because right now we just can't predict.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, my real question is --
is that who -- regardless of what it costs, who's going to
pay for it? And these guys are tightwads, you know? I'm --
I'm here; I like to -- I like to help people and spend money
and do the right thing. These guys are tough to get along
with. So, I think -- I think that that's the real question.
Are we going to pay for it, or is historical -- Historical
Commission going to?
MR. GAMBLE: Well, I think -- I think whether or
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not it is you or the Historical Commission will be between
you guys. I mean, our option would be to either not accept
it -- because we're not saying we're going to accept anything
that you give us, obviously. So, if it was infested, we
would say, you know, "We can't accept it in that condition."
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm.
MR. GAMBLE: And you can decide at that time
whether or not it was important enough to have it out there.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm, good.
MR. GAMBLE: And whether or not the cost of -- of
cleaning up infestation was worth having it out there. I
mean, it's not -- I think that decision could be made later.
But it would -- it would, I would think, be done by the
Historical Commission, or -- or maybe this body.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: All right.
MR. GAMBLE: But I do know that the County Judge is
hesitant ever to spend county money, so --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
MR. LUTHER: At this time -- I'm sorry. At this
time, I think we can absorb that cost into the archive
section of our budget.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Kathy, did you get that in
the record?
MR. LUTHER: Without coming back to you in this
cycle or in the future. I don't see it as being very
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expensive. I did have one collection that I immediately put
in a big plastic bag, because I could see things crawling
around in it. And I consulted with the staff at Schreiner,
and they said put it in the freezer. Boy, you should have
heard my wife. (Laughter.) The meat section, she found this
photographic album with all these big white bugs crawling
around. But I -- I do think that we'll be able to -- to deal
with this adequately within the confines of our budget. I
don't see this as being a large item at all, and would be
covered by what money we have budgeted for archive of the
collections.
JUDGE TINLEY: Where is the County Attorney with
respect to this process? I understand that what we're
looking at now is a draft document, but I heard some mention
about that it's, quote, now in final form, I believe I heard.
MR. LUTHER: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Emerson, where are you with
respect to this process?
MR. EMERSON: Essentially, I just received the
document and have a bunch of comments written all over it.
Probably be better if I had time to discuss that later.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: While you're going through it,
one of the questions that I have is, who owns the digitized
items? I mean, if you have the originals and you have the
digitized copies of them, is the copies the property of
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Schreiner?
DR. SCOTT: No, it would still -- we would house it
on our server, because we back up the server and take care of
it, but the -- the Historical Commission would continue to
own every format, every version.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I would ask the County
Attorney a question with respect to the signatories on this
agreement. Mr. County Attorney, the one I'm looking at talks
about Mr. Luther, as chairman of the Historical Commission,
signing on behalf of the County. It would be my preference
that the County Judge, since this is county property, be the
signator.
	MR. EMERSON:	The County	Judge or the Court are the
only on	es that have aut	hority to ap	prove a contract.
	MS. STEHLING:	I'm sorry,	who did you say?
	MR. EMERSON:	The only --	the only person, per se,
that ha	s the authority	to approve a	contract on behalf of the
County	is the Court.		
	MS. STEHLING:	Okay.	
	COMMISSIONER	LETZ: So, t	he actual signature is the
County	Judge or -- you	know, or the	-- the Court designates
it, and	then Mr. Luther	can kind of	be just a --
	COMMISSIONER	WILLIAMS: O	n behalf of the
Commission.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: On behalf of the Commission,
not as a signatory, per se. Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything further with regard to this
particular agenda item?
MR. LUTHER: I'd just like to say one other thing,
Judge, and that is that this is a wonderful opportunity, just
a wonderful opportunity, and serves both our interests very
well. I happen to go into the web page for the
Fredericksburg Historical Preservation Society. They've got
80,000 digital photographs, but the public can't get access
to them. It's like a book that's misshelved in the library.
You know, if you can't see it, you can't use it. If you
don't know what's there, it's of no value to you. So, this
certainly, I think, will enhance the ability of the people
and the students in Kerr County to -- to realize their
history.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm in love with what's
going on. I think it's one of the neatest things we've ever
done, but I just wanted to make sure that all the players are
doing their job, and we're -- particularly we're doing our
', part, and I just wanted to make sure of all that. That's the
reason I brought it here today. Are you going to get with
somebody later on and ask your questions?
MR. EMERSON: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just not going to answer
them.
MS. STEHLING: What is the next step?
JUDGE TINLEY: My thinking is the next step is to
continue to work with the County Attorney to come up with a
final document that's acceptable to you folks, and which he
can recommend to the Court as being proper from the County's
perspective, and then it'll come back here, and if the Court
feels that way, it'll get finalized and -- and we'll enter
into that agreement. That's my thinking.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree with you.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah.
MS. STEHLING: Thank you.
DR. SCOTT: When is your next meeting?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: January 12th.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Next year.
JUDGE TINLEY: You guys are really excited about
this. That's wonderful.
DR. SCOTT: That's right.
MR. LUTHER: That's great.
DR. SCOTT: Okay. Thank you for your time.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Candice.
JUDGE TINLEY: Everybody in the world will see our
history.
DR. SCOTT: That's right.
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COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: If we may, let's go back to Item 18
and recall that item. Consider, discuss, take appropriate
action on H.R. capital loan. I understand there's been some
work done on that during the recess, and that maybe we've got
some kinks worked out and some more definitive information.
MR. EMERSON: I think the proper answer to that is
yes and no. There were some kinks worked out. Jeannie did
locate funding, but part of that funding would be wiping out
the last of Human Resources' funding in that category, and
I'm not comfortable doing that until --
JUDGE TINLEY: Without her.
MR. EMERSON: -- we talk to Eva and make sure she
doesn't need that money.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Well, we'll just pass --
continue to pass on that for now, then. Okay. That brings
us down to, unless I missed something, gentlemen, Section 4,
payment of the bills.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Move we pay the bills.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded to pay the
', bills. Question or discussion on the motion? All in favor
of the motion, 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: That motion does carry. Do we have
any budget amendments?
MS. HARGIS: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any late bills?
MS. HARGIS: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: I've been presented with monthly
reports from Justice of the Peace, Precinct l; Justice of the
Peace, Precinct 4; Justice of the Peace, Precinct 2; and the
District Clerk. Do I hear a motion that these reports be
approved as presented?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second.
JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded to approve
the designated reports as presented. 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.)
~i JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Do we have
~I any reports from any of the Commissioners with regard to
liaison or committee assignments? Commissioner Baldwin?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, sir.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Williams?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, sir, couple things
here dealing with AACOG.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is it going to be a bus tour
of Kerrville?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No bus. You mentioned the
I bus .
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thirty bucks to ride to
I Comfort.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You missed the bus; it
left. This is just for your information, gentlemen. It's
the AACOG Board as it is currently constituted, and the most
recent Kerr County job report, but I would hasten to say to
you that the Mooney layoff is not reflected in that
4.4 percent unemployment rate. It'll be shown -- it will
show up in the next one of these that we get, and that's kind
of it. As the -- just as Mr. Danos acknowledged -- or
advised you, I'll be heading the rural judges group section
of the -- of the AACOG Board, and Judge Tinley and I have
talked about a couple items that come before -- are going to
routinely come before the rural judges. Not only are they in
charge of oversight in the transportation program, but there
I~ is formin a rural tannin or anization to com lement the
g p g g P
metropolitan planning organization, and the rural judges will
be the oversight board for rural planning of transportation
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issues within the 11 counties that surround Bexar County.
Our plate's going to be full next year.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It is, and that's a huge
responsibility you're taking on. Good. Thank you for doing
that.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're welcome.
JUDGE TINLEY: Bill's done a great job down
there --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Truly has. Obviously has.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- being our continuous voice on
that entire organization, being on the executive board, board
of directors, you know, heading up the rural judges. Are
there any other commissioners on that group?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, one, Commissioner
Millican out of Comal County.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And he also is moving up in
the hierarchy. He's on the management committee with me,
which is the equivalent of the executive committee, and he's
the new vice chair of AACOG, and he'll take the chair over in
'10. So --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's good.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. Commissioner Letz?
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just kind of two things.
the Vlasek property, Comanche Caves. Charlie Digges prepares
all that as to what needs to be on that. I advised him,
since this was not a revision of plat, just a separate item,
that my thought would be that only the County Judge, Mr.
Digges as the surveyor-slash-engineer, and the subdivision
administrator, and then the two parties to the deal are the
contact Road and Bridge. I would not know why we would need
anybody -- I mean, all the others that have to normally file
plats that -- 911, utilities and all, that I just think --
floodplain, all that stuff, to me, was irrelevant.
One other thing. Region J met last week in
Bandera. Region J also is going to file an appeal on the
actions taken by GMA-9 related to Edwards-Trinity. And I
found it very interesting that right after that, I received
some calls from -- well, a call from Kendall County
representative, very concerned about that decision and what
the reason was, and I explained it to him and I said, well,
evidently, we're -- this will be the first appeal filed in
the GMA process, and the thought is a lot of people are going
to be looking at what we're doing. I said, "Well, fine, if
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they want to look at what we're doing." But I said my
overall view was that if the GMA process is going to set
desired future conditions, the public needs to be aware of
what those conditions are, what was done by GMA-9. No one
can tell me, including the members that were present at that
-- on GMA-9 can't agree as to what was set. So, I said,
"These things needs to be clear to the public." And they
cannot be arbitrarily debatable down the road, so we'll see
where that all ends up. The Water Development Board's trying
to figure out, you know, how to walk through the appeal
process, exactly how we do it, so they'll be coming back, I'm
sure, in January.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Oehler?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just one short thing. We --
Road and Bridge has been doing some cleanout work in on
Ingram Lake. I got ahold of the school, and they were
getting a place that was closer to dump some of that
material, because we lost our spot to dump we've been using
for years when Vlasek built a building in the hole we used to
dump in, and so we needed to get a place to get rid of some
of that. And the school had a little pit that needed to be
filled. It's just close by. I got their permission for the
Road and Bridge employees to put some of that material in
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there. It's a lot of gravel, and most of it's gravel-like;
it's not as much of that silt material, where they've been
cleaning the channel out between the boat dock and the main
already paid for those guys to be on equipment, and the
manpower is budgeted, so they didn't really have anything
i that was pressing, so they -- they've been up there working
on what they can get out of that lake before we plug it.
Hopefully -- hopefully, they'll get quite a bit of that. The
hole at the school is real big, 'cause that's only a very
short haul. Maybe where they're driving now is less than a
mile round trip, so that will end -- that will do well. And
the main reason that we decided to go ahead and -- and try to
get some of that out, this is the very first time we've ever
drained that thing when we had dry conditions like this, to
where you can actually get in there and move a lot of
material that wasn't wet.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm.
they're going to -- I think they're going to try to get out
all they can get, you know, while they have time to do it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think that's it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, I do have -- I was
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109
checking my e-mail. I got one from Grantworks there. We
were talking about the next round of colonia fundings, and
the deadline for that is in March. And they're talking to us
about the possibility of applying for half a million dollar
grant, which would do a couple things, some in your precinct,
some ramp-up on Kerrville South. The current Phase 4 in
Kerrville South goes down to Ranchero Road, picks up those
duplexes and quads, all that kind of stuff, and then the --
Southwind, isn't it, Buster?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Southwind Mobile Home Park.
There still remains down there an apartment complex that --
that someday we'd like to hook up, and so this is a little
ramp-up work. Also, we're talking about the possibility of
finishing out Blue Ridge and that mobile home park, which are
the two of those that were started by the City and didn't get
finished.
JUDGE TINLEY: Blue Ridge.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Blue Ridge.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So we would be picking that
up. So, I'll come back to the Court with it in January and
see where that takes us.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I also think they made some
progress -- I haven't gotten to meet with the Ingram City
Manager yet, but there's a real interest in the City taking
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some sewer for those businesses along 27, taking it right on
down and treating them. That would really be a wonderful
thing, and looking real forward to getting that done.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I queried Grantworks about
whether or not there are any funds available for that
purpose, Bruce, and because they're businesses and they --
you know, they're well above the threshold. There's probably
no funding through any of these sources for that purpose.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Right.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They can do it on their
own.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think most of the
businesses along there will be more than willing to pay
whatever the expense is to get on that line, get rid of those
septics.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Increases the amount of
property available. But we can't discuss it.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So, that's all I have.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Do we have any reports from
elected officials or department heads?
MR. EMERSON: Just -- just one comment, going back
to Commissioner 1's comments earlier when he was talking
about funding for lobbyists. Just to make one thing clear,
as far as I know, this Court does not have any notice of
imminent failure of either one of those dams, just to make
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sure that's on the record.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. No, there are not.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's true.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's true. Repairs
needed, but not imminent failure.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And I didn't say that,
either, though.
MR. EMERSON: You were walking the top of the fence
very carefully.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, no, I --
MR. EMERSON: Just to clarify the record. I
understood what you were saying.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You lawyers can take it to
mean anything, but I didn't come anywhere near that. But,
anyway, thank you for clearing that up.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Barton?
MR. BARYON: Thank you. Merry Christmas. I would
like to take just a minute and give you an update on some
good things that are happening at our office. We have taken
some of the approvals in the budget that you guys made
earlier this year, and we have kind of revamped our staff.
We've brought on -- we'll now have three certified peace
officers on staff. With the -- one of the positions that we
budgeted for was an office manager. That title's been
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changed to Office Director now, and we have brought in
we're kind of getting two for one there. I'm kind of proud
we were able to get that guy on board.
I've hired an assistant district attorney,
seven-year veteran prosecutor. His name's Brad McCullough.
For those of you that will be at the swearing-in ceremony on
the 1st, you'll have an opportunity to meet him. He's a
fantastic guy. Like I say, seven years prosecutorial
experience in a jurisdiction that's similar in size to ours,
so he's -- he's good at handling small city and -- and rural
aspects of our district. We have, at no taxpayer expense and
no cost to this county, initiated a -- the acquisition of a
computer system for the office. We're going to get brought
up into at least this decade with regard to case management
software, archival, and -- and also integrate with the
various law enforcement agencies on submitting cases to the
District Attorney's office with our agencies that are here,
the Sheriff's Office, the police department, and Ingram.
It's pretty easy. You know, I can just run over
there and pick up reports from them, but what we're doing
with our western counties is giving them a portal into our
server where they can upload their cases through a web
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interface. That's something Mr. Trolinger and -- and my I.T.
guys will hopefully be conferencing on here in the near
future so that we don't compromise any of the county's
security, 'cause we -- we will have two systems that are tied
together, Kerr County and then the D.A.'s office. And also,
I just wanted to be available to answer any questions, if you
have any -- any questions. Another person that we've hired,
a receptionist position, is Jeri Causey. She was L.D.
Brinkman's personal assistant for many, many, many years, so
she comes on board ready to hit the ground running. So,
we're going to have a staff that's ready to go, I think, day
one. We will have a few growing pains as we switch over to
the new computer system and the new software, but other than
that, you'll have a fully ready to run D.A.'s office
January 1.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, you use the same --
basically the same kind of system that we have?
MR. BARYON: Odyssey?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
MR. BARYON: We're unable to use Odyssey.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's a blessing.
(Laughter.)
I MR. BARYON: Actually, one of the things that the
I, I.T. guys need to get with Mr. Trolinger on is the ability to
pull or mine data out of Odyssey and plug it into our
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program. The reason that we can't do it is 'cause we have
four other counties that aren't on Odyssey, so we -- and
Mr. Trolinger and I have talked about a few things where that
might be an option, but really, I'd rather Kerr County not
have to house all the records for four other counties, and
the attendant expenses associated with that. So --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's exciting.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Sounds good.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. Any other elected
officials, department heads have reports? Anything else?
Last chance for the year.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Merry Christmas.
JUDGE TINLEY: Likewise.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: When is that, tomorrow?
Tomorrow is the Christmas party.
JUDGE TINLEY: Tomorrow at noon. Yes, it is.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Tomorrow is the Christmas
party, and I understand that the real Santa Claus is going to
be there.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Really?
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. Yeah, that's what I've heard.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Long gray beard and
everything.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's kind of scary.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And then January 1 at
10 o'clock upstairs is the swearing-in ceremony.
JUDGE TINLEY: Is the real Santa Claus going to be
there too?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes. He's going to be
dressed a little bit differently.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think I told y'all I will not
be at that ceremony. I'll be sworn in right -- probably on
the 3rd or 4th.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: You're taking applications for
interim, Commissioner? Is that it?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
JUDGE TINLEY: For that three-day period there?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. Let's see. Is that
appointment for sale, by any chance? (Laughter.)
JUDGE TINLEY: How can you get in on that, right?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You couldn't pay anybody to
take it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, enough. We're adjourned.
(Commissioners Court adjourned at 11:48 a.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 30th day of December,
2008.
JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk
~ ;,
BY : ___ ~~ f~2-ut.G%__ ___ ____
Kathy~Fik, Deputy County Clerk
Certified Shorthand Reporter
12-22-08
ORDER NO. 31132
APPOINTMENT OF DEPUTY CONSTABLE IN PRECINCT 1
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Letz, unanimously approved by a
vote of 4-0-0 to:
Approve appointment of a Deputy Constable in Precinct 1, with the appointment to be
effective January 1, 2009.
ORDER NO. 31133
KERR COUNTY TREASURER APPOINTMENT OF DEPUTIES
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Letz, seconded by Commissioner Williams, the Court Lmanimously
approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to:
Approve Kerr County Treasurer's Application Under Oath of Officer for Appointment of
Deputies.
ORDER NO. 31134
KERR COUNTY TREASURF_,R' S MONTHLY REPORT
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Letz, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin, the Court unanimously
approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to:
Approve Kerr County Treasurer's Monthly Report for November, 2008.
ORDER NO. 31135
REFUND KERR COUNTY DIVIDE PERMANENT SCHOOL FiJND
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Oehler, seconded by Commissioner Letz, the Court unanimously
approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to:
Authorize County Auditor to send out a letter to all of the school districts requesting their
population census in order to refund the funds remaining in the Kerr County Divide
Permanent School Fund in accordance with the determination of those funds by David A.
Anderson, General Counsel, Texas Education Agency, in his letter of November 24,
2008, and to authorize payment of said funds in accordance with the per scholastic basis
as outlined in Mr. Anderson's letter.
ORDER NO. 31136
PURCHASE OF VAN BY AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION OFFICE
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Baldwin, seconded by Commissioners Williams/Letz, the Court
unanimously approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to:
Approve purchase of 12 passenger van by the Agricultural Extension Office from
Caldwell Country Chevrolet.
ORDER NO. 31137
SUB-GRANT FOR FY 2008 HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Williams, seconded by Commissioner Letz, the Court unanimo~isly
approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to:
Accept asub-grant for the Fiscal Year 2008 Homeland Security Grant Program from the
Division of Emergency Management, and authorize County Judge and the Auditor to sign
the appropriate documents.
ORDER NO. 31138
KERR COUNTY TAX ASSESSOR-COLLEC"TOR APPLICATION UNDER OATI1 OF
OFFICER FOR APPOINTMENT OF DEPUTIES FOR 2009-2012 TERM OF OFFICE
FOR
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Letz, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin, the Court unanimously
approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to:
Approve Kerr County Tax Assessor/Collector's Application Under Oath of Officer for
Appointment of Deputies for 2009-2012 term of office.
ORDER NO. 31139
ELECTED AND APPOINTED OFFICIALS' BONDS
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Williams, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin, the Court unanimously
approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to:
Approve Elected and Appointed Officials' Bonds, including the Sheriff's and all other
bonds:
Linda Uecker, District Clerk
H. A. Buster Baldwin, Commissioner Precinct 1
Jonathan Letz, Commissioner Precinct 3
Mindy Williams, Kerr County Treasurer
David Billeiter, Justice of the Peace, Precinct 1
John Lavender, Constable Precinct 1
Rex Emerson, County Attorney
Angel Garza, Constable Precinct 3
Joel Ayala, Constable Precinct 2
Robert Terrill, Constable Precinct 4
Diane Bolin, Tax Assessor/Collector -two bonds
W. R. Rusty Hierholzer, Sheriff -- Continuous Bond (Rollover/Carry-over Bond)
ORDER NO. 31140
FINAL REVISION OF PLAT FOR LOTS 46-A & 47-A OF CYPRESS SPRINGS
ESTATES, PHASE 1
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Oehler, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin, the Court unanimously
approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to:
Approve Final Revision of Plat for Lots 46-A & 47-A of Cypress Springs Estates, Phase
I, Volume 7, Page 126, located in Precinct 4.
ORDER NO. 31141
APPOINTMENTS TO BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR EMERGENCY
SERVICES DISTRICT #2 (ESD #2)
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Oehler, seconded by Commissio~~er Williams_ the Col~rt unanimoLlsly
approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to:
Reappoint Garland Reece and Perrin Wells for 3 year terms to the Board of
Commissioners for Emergency Services District #2 (ESD #2).
ORDER NO. 31142
APPLICATIONS UNDER OATH OFFICERS FOR THE DEPUTIES OF EACH
ELECTED AND APPOINTED OFFICIAL
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Letz, seconded by Commissioner Williams, the Court unanimously
approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to:
Approve the Applications Under Oath of Officers for the Deputies of each Elected and
Appointed Official as presented, (plus the ones we did individually):
County Clerk
County Attorney
Sheriff
District Clerk
ORDER NO. 31143
CLAIMS AND ACCOUNTS
Came to be heard this the 22"d day of September, 2008, came to be considered by the
Court various Commissioners Precincts, which said Claims and Accounts are:
Accounts Expense
10-General	$	340,617.73
15-Road & Bridge	$	37,441.28
18-County Law Library	$	2,263.93
21-Title IV-E	$	18.50
27-Juv Intensive Prog-State	$	3,250.00
28-Records Mgmt & Preservation	$	1,375.81
35-JPO Grant G	$	1,480.50
39-Grant H-Misdeamor Div	$	9,346.41
50-Indigent Health Care	$	48,324.68
62-1994 Jail Bond	$	375.00
70-Permanent Improvement	$	4,283.15
76-Juv Detention Facility	$	809.54
83-216` District Attorney	$	2,670.11
86-216` CSCD	$	2,791.89
87-Community Service	$	667.05
TOTAL $ 455,715.58
Upon motion made by Commissioner Letz, seconded by Commissioner Baldwin, the
Court unanimously approved by vote of 4-0-0 to pay the claims and accounts.
ORDER NO. 31 144
MONTHLY REPORTS
Came to be heard this the 22nd day of September, 2008, with a motion made by
Commissioner Baldwin, seconded by Commissioner Williams, the Court unanimously
approved by a vote of 4-0-0 to:
Approve the Monthly Reports from:
JP # 1
JP #4
JP #2
District Clerk