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KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
Workshop
Monday, May 12, 2008
1:50 p.m.
Commissioners' Courtroom
Kerr County Courthouse
Kerrville, Texas
Transportation Priorities Planning Workshop
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
~O
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On Monday, May 12, 2008, at 1:50 p.m., a workshop 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: I will now call to order
Commissioners Court workshop agenda scheduled for this date
and time, Monday, May 12th, 2008, at 1:30 p.m. It's a few
minutes past that time now. Mr. Coward? Where'd Mike go?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We lost him.
JUDGE TINLEY: Did that get your people enough time
to get here, Mike?
MR. COWARD: We're all here.
JUDGE TINLEY: Great.
MR. COWARD: Just like we planned it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Super. Okay. Where do we start,
gentlemen? Are you the lead, Mike?
MR. COWARD: I'm -- well, I couldn't really call
myself a leader, but I'll be glad to get it started.
JUDGE TINLEY: Come ahead.
MR. COWARD: I'm tallest, so we'll take it from
there.
JUDGE TINLEY: You're the easiest to see. Biggest
target, I think is what we look at.
MR. COWARD: Slowest runner, that's why. For the
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interested in transportation across the county. He comes by
probably about -- what? Every four or five months we get
together and talk about some idea or another. And I'm -- one
thing we had been recently talking about was a project that
can maybe connect up 173 and State Highway 27, how you might
get that done. And from those discussions, we started
talking about, as you look around Kerrville, a lot of the --
the projects that people always talked about that we needed
to get done. One was to build a new bridge over the
Guadalupe River on Spur 98, so, check. The other one was we
needed to get Holdsworth Drive done, so now it's -- check.
We got the project underway which connects Holdsworth Drive
up with Tivy Street, and really, that kind of connects it up
with the loop, so that one's started, and check. And then
Sidney Baker; I don't know if anybody asked for it, but you
got it, and it's a -- it's coming down to the finish line
too, so we're just doing some of the fun stuff at the end.
So -- but what we realized is that if you look
beyond this little window here, you know, gosh, what are we
going to be doing, you know, five years from now or 10 years
from now or 20 years from now? 'Cause I think most of y'all
could probably remember when we first started talking about
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take projects from a good idea to people driving on pavement
probably really takes 8, 10, 12 years under good
circumstances. Under kind of the more typical circumstances,
it really ends up taking longer than that, and so we kind of
got a gap coming up on any big projects.
I think one thing we'd like to talk about a little
bit -- and I am not prepared to talk for two hours, so I'm
almost running out of material here in just a minute. But
one thing I thought, while we had y'all's attention, is maybe
Clay could talk a little bit about funding. I mean, I think
that the -- we're really starting to see the funding change.
You know, to put it bluntly, I mean, you know, if you read
the paper, the -- the state deals, your state DOT is having
some real funding challenges right now. I don't want to
steal Clay's thunder, but, I mean, gas tax is flat; been the
same since 1991. We got 1,000 to 1,500 people moving into
Texas every day. I think that the days are probably just
about gone where your Texas Department of Transportation is
going to be able to fund local roads in their entirety. I
mean, we can talk a little bit about that. I prepared, under
this format -- I'm not sure what the best format would be,
but we did prepare some information for y'all to look at.
About four years ago, Judge Tinley and Commissioner Williams
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at that time worked with the then District Engineer, David
Casteel, on a group that I think was called the South Central
MR. COWARD: Something like that. And from that,
rural. Now, that includes Comal County, which you can
probably argue about how rural Comal is, but it also includes
McMullen County, and you can't argue much about how rural
McMullen County is. But we got all them together, and we had
them look at kind of our pot of money that we had, and we
basically -- Mr. Casteel said, "Here's how much money we have
over the next four or five years. Help us plan how to best
spend it." And that's what we did. And out of that effort,
I think really the projects -- only projects they were able
to fund and move forward were some projects like some
pass-throughs	and some	stuff	out	on 46, and so	there's just
not that much	money.	But out	of	that effort,	we identified
three potential projects in Kerr County.
Let's see. Number one priority at that time was to
brought out to	be the	number	one project.	Number	two would
be to extend -	- expand	Spur	98 over to Bear	Creek	Road, and
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then number three would be to go from Bear Creek Road over to
Indian Creek Road. So, these were kind of brought forward.
Those were the number one, two, and three priorities in Kerr
County about three or four years ago. All that ever really
happened with those projects is that they were -- I mean,
they were duly noted, but they were not funded, and we have
not done anything, to be very brutally honest. I mean, we
have done very little with them, because there is no money
allocated to build those projects.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mike, before you -- are you
going to go into -- I don't know how long ago; it was several
~~ years ago, there was a report that came out with TexDOT that
talked about other highway upgrades, district highway
upgrades, and part of that, I know, was on Highway 27 going
to four lanes from Center Point to Kerrville. And that was
at a future date, maybe 20 years down the road. It was
long-term. Is there any change on that? Because, you know,
27 is becoming -- more and more accidents, and more and more
traffic.
MR. COWARD: I think that's something -- I mean, I
think one thing we have to -- at least I have to be careful
of, too, is that there's all kinds of plans. I mean, you
know, if you go into my office, there's a map and there's a
blackboard, and there's plans on that at any given time. I
don't have a lot of money to implement those, but certainly,
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when you start getting compared to the New Braunfels of the
world or, you know, some of those.
But, you know, as far as I know -- I mean, you
know, we do a couple things. One is, we have a three-year
plan that's basically we know how we're going to pay for, and
it's not on that plan. We have a 10-year plan -- right? -- a
10-year plan which we're not sure how we're going to pay for,
but we think it's somewhere within the total amount of money
we're going to have, and it's not on that plan. And then
there's the 20-year that Mike Coward keeps, you know, and
it's on that plan. Which would be -- it's to expand it out,
but -- so I guess the answer is, nothing's changed, but it's
never really been on a true, funded plan. I mean, it's been
identified by multiple people, just one of the higher
priorities for Kerr County, but by any -- almost any
objective means that you would give to rate that project, it
would rate pretty low, given the group of counties that we're
in.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mike, would the fact that
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moving that highway during that stretch, would that have any
bearing on -- on the improvements that you were just talking
about?
MR. COWARD: I don't know. I don't think it
impacts it one way or the other. I think that if, indeed --
we were going to have to steal money from somebody else or
some other project in Kerr County to fund those improvements
at the airport, if they were ever done. Anyway, there is no
additional money, so we would have to look out and maybe
defer doing other projects in Kerr County we'd planned to do
if we decided we needed to fund that work in front of the
airport as number one. So, I don't think it changes anything
at all. It just allows you to continue forward like we
planned on doing.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What's the status of the
widening 39 from the light out to the dam? You knew I was
going to ask you that, didn't you?
MR. COWARD: Yeah. That's good. We're actively
working on plans. Those plans are being done by the San
Angelo district. We don't have -- I can give you a letting
date, but I wouldn't put a lot of faith in it right now. I
know that it's not going to be until 2010 or later, 'cause I
know -- I know what I'm going to do the rest of this year. I
think I know what I'm going to do in 2009 -- our fiscal year
2009. So, the earliest it would be was 2010. That one's got
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a little kicker, 'cause it's got some work at Cade Loop we'd
also like to get done in there.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's part of it.
MR. COWARD: Clay is aware of that, and Julie's
aware of that.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So, Clay's under the noose
again.
MR. SMITH: Always. Some things never change.
MR. COWARD: I guess, you know, I'll just do my
little -- you know, I will have the plans ready.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So, actually, that is going
to be delayed until past 2011?
MR. COWARD: At this moment, it sure looks like
that.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What about the traffic light
at -- at Goat Creek Cutoff and 27?
MR. COWARD: That one's going to go. We've got the
-- we've got -- that is let. It's funded. We were reviewing
construction diagrams for it the other day. We expect that,
you know, it will be construction-type delays. I mean, it
won't be any -- it's a real project that's got real dollars,
with a real contractor that is going to come here and do real
work.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay. Clay, you don't have
to get on the horse yet.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mike, going back to the Highway
39, the other bridges in the eastern part of the county are
tied to that same project, I take it?
MR. COWARD: Not -- just kind of ancillary. I
mean, the Cade Loop is kind of an interesting deal. But, I
mean, we've got a deal worked out with Kerr County to -- that
was part of your match for these other ones. They can be let
at any given time. What's happened -- and I'm going to steal
more of Clay's thunder. I try not to do that, but what has
happened is part of this budget crunch -- and I don't want --
didn't want to stand up here, and nobody wants to hear about
how broke we are. I mean, we got a budget of $4 billion a
year, so it's really hard to stand in front of Kerr County
and tell y'all how broke we are. But, you know, we're broke
enough that we -- we're mowing our own grass. We're cleaning
our own toilets. I mean, we have fired almost every surveyor
that we used to contract a lot of this work out. I say --
"fired" is not a good word. We have let go almost every
contracted surveyor that we had on contract. We have let go
almost every consultant engineer that we had under contract
because we can't pay the bills and still move forward. And,
so, we're -- to fill this void, we're doing this work
in-house.
One thing that using consultant surveyors and
consultant engineers allowed us to do was to move quickly.
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But we're still moving; we're just not moving at the same
pace. I mean, so we're -- we're still -- I guess, you know,
I would say instead of rushing forward, now we are stumbling
forward. We will -- we still think sometime in 2009 -- I
think we said late 2009, that we'll be ready with those
bridges. I know they were out surveying on Cypress Creek
Road the other day, 'cause I got a call from Milton Dietert,
who lives next to it. I know we're out doing something out
there. And so I think, you know, we are -- we are moving
forward. We're just not -- I got kind of used to moving
forward at a break-neck speed, but we're not going to move
quite as fast right now, 'cause --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're moving forward also
on the Government Crossing; is that correct?
MR. COWARD: Yeah, I've got a set of plans just
about done for Government Crossing. Don't have any money for
it, but I've got the plans done. We had Childress district
do the plans for us.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't know what
impression the Commissioners have, but when Mike and I first
talked -- we've been talking for some time about another
river crossing, and those discussions led us to working out
the details for having the transportation priority planning
workshop this afternoon, and I want to express my
appreciation to you for that. To the extent that you may --
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you and I may be prepared to talk about it, is now the time
to talk about what we were suggesting as a possibility for a
river crossing? Notwithstanding the fact that I know the
City has proposed in its comprehensive plan another river
crossing somewhere in the vicinity of Guadalupe Heights; I'm
not exactly sure where. But my thought to you, and what we
have talked about was a crossing that would take us from
Highway 173, probably somewhere in the area of where -- was
it 2771? Is that Lower Turtle Creek Road, 2771?
MR. COWARD:	Yes, sir.	I'm	sorry,	yeah.
COMMISSIONER	WILLIAMS:	That	comes	from that
Road at Highway 27.
MR. COWARD: Yes. And, you know, I think that --
well, this is y'all's meeting, and we will handle it however
y'all would like it handled.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It's on the table.
MR. COWARD: Now, I -- we had visited before this,
you know, and I think, again, Clay, if you can maybe talk
about the pass-through, or Julie, whoever is going to talk,
will talk about how, you know, those type projects could move
forward if the County wants to move forward, or the City. I
think one thing I'd like to also mention, though, is one
thing I think that is -- I think this should be the first of
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a series of meetings that we talk about transportation
priorities. Certainly, in two hours today, it's not in our
expectation that we're going to walk out with a
Hofmann and Charlie are here, and the mayor's here, and they
certainly have a -- you know, some things, you know, that
also we'd like to talk about. But I think, you know, as
to -- I think that when funds are very, very tight, it's
going to probably be more important than ever that we have a
very unified voice in Kerr County.
I can recall in years past -- and, oh, I bet you
Bruce can, maybe, when we had these TIP meetings, we would
walk in, and the worst years, every commissioner would have a
list of prioritized projects for their precinct, and then the
City would come in with their list of prioritized projects,
and there would not be any real sync. And I think that, you
know, the goal, in my opinion, should be, you know, one
county, you know, one plan. Because it all -- it all fits
together, and I think that will help us compete for those
increasingly scarce dollars. And through having a series of
meetings, this one just kind of being the kickoff, but we can
identify projects, Commissioners -- we got Mike and Claire
both taking notes. You know, we'll do -- and maybe it would
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just be part of the gathering of input, of maybe a map we can
kind of keep updated towards maybe coming toward some sort of
comprehensive plan that fits in with all the work that the
City does, 'cause the City's done quite a bit of work inside
the city limits, I know, also. So, I think I've already
talked about 10 minutes, 15 minutes more than I intended to.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mike, before you --
MR. COWARD: But I'll be --
JUDGE TINLEY: Before you turn it over to someone,
I want to thank you for all that you've done for Kerr County.
You look around, and we're pretty doggone fortunate. It
occurs to me that through your leadership and your efforts,
that we may have gotten, at least these last several years,
more than our fair share. You look at the new bridge, look
at Sidney Baker, you look at Holdsworth participation, and
then 1341 coming in there. You've got a tremendous amount of
activity that's been going on here with state dollars, and we
appreciate it. We appreciate what you're doing.
MR. COWARD: I'll accept the compliment. I know I
don't deserve them myself; there are a lot of folks involved.
But, I mean, it just -- I think it comes down to having a
plan and being ready to execute it when the time is right.
We appreciate the compliment. And --
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I --
MR. COWARD: -- I'll take it back home.
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JUDGE TINLEY: I've heard a lot of comments from my
counterparts out in other areas, in other counties, and
frankly, most of them are petty doggone jealous, because they
said, "How did you get all that TexDOT money and all those
projects going on in your county?" And, "Boy, we're just
', getting a little dribble every now and then." So, believe
me, folks outside this county have noticed it too.
MR. COWARD: We appreciate the compliment, and like
I said, I'm one very, very small piece.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mike, what you do is, when
it's a compliment, you accept that, but when there's a
problem, then you point to these people. (Laughter.)
JUDGE TINLEY: And the corollary of that, Mike, is,
you know, having done what you've done for the last several
years, you got a big-time act to follow here.
MR. COWARD: Yeah.
JUDGE TINLEY: For the next 10, 12 years.
MR. COWARD: So, I'll --
JUDGE TINLEY: And we're counting on you. I want
you to know that.
MR. COWARD: The bar has been set way too high, I
can tell you that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And, Mike, I attempted in
court this morning to talk about -- talk about Lemos Street
Bridge, and I'm working off of a letter from you all -- or
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from CEC Engineering folks.
MR. COWARD: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That said that construction
would begin in late August or September of 2008, and it would
possibly be closed for 12 months.
MR. COWARD: Actually, that's still pretty good
information.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
MR. COWARD: Commissioner, we're taking bids on
that project in August of this year. We may -- depends on
the -- a couple things; how quickly -- when we shut it down,
we want to be ready to go to work. So, I mean, whether we
shut it down in September or October, we'll have to wait and
see how quick we can get all the materials we need, but we're
thinking it's about a year or so project, maybe a little bit
less. But that's pretty good information.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, we want to help you
start getting people's minds ready, I guess.
MR. COWARD: And we will -- Guy Overby, who's here,
has volunteered to help. We're going to start having some
meetings here, kind of like we did with Sidney Baker; we told
people for a year how horrible it was going to be. And they
still tell us that we underestimated how -- but then we met
with them every year, or every -- so we had almost four years
worth of meetings, I think.
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MR. OVERBY: 2004 on.
MR. COWARD: And we're going to do the same thing
it'll be -- in some ways, it'll be better; some ways, it's
going to be a lot worse, 'cause we all know what Sidney Baker
looks like when Lemos Street's closed, and it's going to look
that way for a year. So, we did have Spur 98, and I think we
do have some signals on 16 that are starting to turn green in
front of you. I don't know if y'all have noticed that, but
I'm starting to see where -- we still got a little bit of
work to do, but the signals on 16 are starting to work the
way they're supposed to work with the new system. We got
some other things we can do, but it'll -- it'll be ugly for a
while. But it will -- when it's over with, it's going to be
worth it.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: At least you can shut it down
and work on it without having interference from traffic.
MR. COWARD: It will be scheduled instead of just
emergency. So, I'm going to, I guess, turn it over to -- do
y'all know everybody in this room? I've been here enough.
This is Clay Smith. Clay is the Director of Planning and
Transportation Development for the San Antonio district. And
over on -- sitting next to him is Mike Boyd, who works for us
in Kerrville, and then next to him is Julie Brown. Julie
Brown is the Interim District Engineer for the San Antonio
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MR. SMITH: Good afternoon, and it's good to be
here as quick as we could. And Julie probably wanted to jump
in too. We've been involved with a lot of meetings over the
last couple months, and listening to our Highway Commission
go through some more cash flow issues, and if I could just
take a few moments and kind of give you a little history and
background of kind of where we are today, because I think it
sets forth kind of what we can be looking forward to. Julie
and I serve on the Metropolitan Planning Organization in San
'I Antonio, a 19-member body, and we made a presentation a
little over a week ago to the body there to let them know
kind of what to be expecting and kind of where we are in
terms of funding. But over the last ten years, the highway
cost index has gone up 100 percent. So, 10 years ago, 1998,
what used to cost a dollar today costs $2, so when we begin
to look at planning, it has a huge effect on us. You know,
so projects that we thought we would be able to implement now
are having to be pushed further out.
In fact, in San Antonio, just this -- in the last
year, we've had to move out of our 10-year plan about
$419 million worth of projects there. And no one likes it,
but that's just -- that's just what we've had to do, because
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of some of these factors, getting ready to go over, and then
the highway cost index. The other is the fuel efficiency of
the vehicles, and people look at us with this frown on their
face, "Well, how does that affect you?" Well, the -- our
since 1990, and it hasn't changed, even though each of us, as
we keep filling up with gasoline -- as we were coming out, I
saw $3.60 at the gas pump. It's still the same fixed price
it was in terms of the gas tax as it was in 1990. On the
state side, that's 20 cents. On the federal side, that's
18.4 cents. On the state side, of that 20 cents, one-fourth
of it is dedicated to the public school system, and that's
what voters voted on about 40 years ago, I believe. I was
too young to remember that vote, but they did, and it goes to
the public school system.
And then we do have some other areas that the
important things, and one of them's the Department of Public
Safety. We need to have the enforcement on the roadways, and
so they moved some of the dollars there of that remaining 15
cents. On the federal side, 18.4. We're considered a donor
state, and so for every dollar that the State of Texas sends
to Washington, we get back about 70 cents or so on the
dollar. Other states that get back a little bit more, such
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bit more. So, we don't get back everything of that full 38.4
cents. But on the fuel efficiency side, the more efficient
vehicles get, the less they have to stop and -- and fuel, and
what we're seeing over the next -- today the efficiency
continues to increase, and then over the next 20 years,
they're expecting it to probably double.
Today, they figure about 20 cents -- about 20 miles
per gallon on the average. And I saw an article recently in
California; I think the governor there is saying they need to
be up around 40, 45 miles per gallon here in the next ten
years or so, and I think we're going to be seeing the same
thing here. People are driving hybrids and other cars to get
better fuel efficiency. So, what we're seeing is, even
though on the state side they're saying about 1,500 new
Texans coming to Texas every day, whether they're born or
whether they're coming here because of the economy and
because it is pretty, even with that increase, we're still
seeing a decrease -- a net decrease in the fuel coming in in
the gas tax area. So, coupled with higher costs and less
revenue, we're chasing a curve that we're just having
difficulty catching up to, and know we're not going to.
The other is, on the federal side, we've had
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states, they've actually begun to see that they were going to
go into deficit spending there, and so they began to rescind
dollars, and right now we're about a billion dollars in
rescissions just to Texas alone. And in talking to some of
the transportation officials in Washington, we're thinking
we're going to see about another billion over the next couple
years before it's over. And, again, that gets into your
planning, just like we're talking to Mike here about what we
can plan for the future. That kind of -- it affects our
future in terms of what we can begin to reasonably plan for.
So, our -- our commission set out with David
Casteel, who was with us for about four years here in San
Antonio, and -- and because of the smart person he is -- and
he's now in Austin, and he's taken on some of the reins here
of looking at our budget, looking at all the districts, the
25 districts out there. And he and John Barton, who is the
District Engineer in Beaumont, who's now David's counterpart
there, put together a funding plan looking at over the next
11 years, from 2009 to 19, what can we expect? And what they
did was go in and say, "We're not going to incur any debt."
So, any bonds that we have out there right now, we're going
to pay them off; we're going to go with a baseline budget.
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Let's not go in with a lot of assumptions, a lot of moving
parts, so if something doesn't happen, then we have to scale
back. Let's go in there with a base, a minimum base, and
this would be no new debt. Let's pay off the debt that we
have currently on some of the bonds and Prop 14, but no new
Let's also assume that there's not going to be a
and yet there hasn't been one, so we can probably expect that
right now that are saying -- running for office that are
saying we want to raise the gasoline tax, and expect to win
that race. We're also not assuming any federal gas tax
increase. Even though they are talking about it on the
federal side, we're assuming none, so if those things happen,
then those are things that will add into the budget and will
be -- and that will be better for us, but we're not going to
assume those are in there at this time. The other thing that
we're not going to assume right now, and that's Proposition
12. Last November, the voters in the state of Texas voted
for Proposition 12, and by a pretty good margin, but it's not
funded at this time until the Legislature comes back and
meets and puts -- puts money in it, and we can bond up to
about $5 billion for that. And so that will come out of the
general revenue fund, and so that'll be -- that will be an
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extra insert if they -- if they fund that, but we're not
going to assume, because today it's not, so we're assuming
still a baseline. That's not in our budget.
So, when we take all these considerations in,
they're looking at about $28 billion over the next 11 years,
or about two and a half billion a year. To kind of give you
an idea, over the last four years, using some of the tools
the Legislature gave us to House Bill 3588, 2702, where we
were able to accelerate and bond to do some things, and then
this -- before the rescissions -- federal rescissions, we
were doing about five to six billion dollars a year in there.
And a lot of the work Mike was talking about and y'all were
mentioning that he put on the shelf and got ready to go, and
so we got those going. That was our -- that was our peak
years. And so now we're looking at about two and a half
billion over the next 11 years, and so almost 50 percent less
over what we had before. Well, the Commission then was
looking at those parts of our budget that are fixed. Some of
it is fixed in state law. That says we have to have minimum
allocations in certain areas. And the federal government
does the same thing when they send the money back. They want
to make sure some of it goes to certain programs, like the
off-system bridge program, or we have the counterpart, the
on-system bridge program. They don't want to neglect those
things.
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They also have -- in your metropolitan areas,
there's a certain allocation that goes to the cities of over
200,000 in population. We have eight of those -- nine of
those in Texas. The one we deal with is San Antonio, so they
get an allocation. And those areas that are considered
non-attainment, because of air pollution, air quality,
there's a certain amount of money that's set aside for those
areas. They have a certain amount of money that's set aside,
oh, for safety improvement type projects, and so when you
take all those, we basically said we have to meet those
minimums. And so they kind of carved that out and said,
"Okay, we have 28 billion. We have to meet the minimums."
We have commitments that we've already made, like on the
pass-through agreements, just for instance our communities
here, our 12 counties. Bexar County had a pass-through
agreement with the Commission. The City of New Braunfels,
Comal County had a pass-through agreement that they had put
together. And so those commitments, they're going to still
honor those, so those were pulled out; said we have to honor
those commitments.
So, when it was all said, out of that 28 billion,
they were left with 17 billion over the 11 years as, let's
say, discretionary. When the -- so that came down to, does
the Commission put it in mobility, to add more lanes? Or
does the Commission put it in preserve -- or maintenance, to
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preserve our highway system itself? To look at the 80,000
center line miles that make up the state highway system in
Texas, and we are the largest of all the states. And I want
to say California is maybe second, and they're, like, maybe
half of what we have in terms of center line miles.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait. Does that exclude
interstates?
MR. SMITH: No, that includes interstate, 80,000
center line miles. Includes the interstate system itself.
When you look at the roadway system today, to keep it in
pretty much the condition that we have today -- let's not
degrade it any more; let's take the roadway conditions we
have today and let's keep it where it is today -- that would
take about $23 billion over that same time period. So, we've
only got 17 that we can use, and we know to keep it at the
same condition, it needs about 23 billion. When we look at
our historical figures, we look at our roadways that are out
there, and most of our roads, or many of them, are about 80
years old, and so we know up front we're not going to meet
all of them. We're going to have to do a lot of things
better and cheaper, and try and stretch that dollar, Bruce,
as far as we can go out there.
So, the Commission said, "Well, we've got the 17
billion, so we can put all of that in maintenance," in our
maintenance area. That would cover sealcoats and overlays
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and rehabilitation of our roadways, maybe some widenings in
there, and we know we're going to be short. We also have
some major congestion in some of our metropolitan areas,
those same eight metropolitan areas. And many of those
communities, like San Antonio and Houston and Dallas, Austin,
are taking some -- were taking -- originally in their plan
were taking some of their dollars, mobility dollars that they
had been allocated, and they were going to leverage it by
doing some bonding to build toll lanes, new toll lanes. Some
people say, "Oh, we don't want you converting those lanes."
Well they weren't. They were taking the existing lanes and
leaving them, and adding the new capacity -- the new lanes
and adding toll lanes, so that whatever lanes you drive on
today, you can continue to drive on them. But you might go
through, like -- like San Antonio on 281 North, they go
through a whole bunch of traffic lights. You can continue to
go through traffic lights, or you can build express lanes and
go through quicker and relieve the congestion.
What the Commission decided to do was to take -- of
that 17, they were going to take four and a half of that --
about four and a half or four of that and put that in
mobility, and fund about 80 percent of what they said they
were going to fund in those metropolitan areas. And, like,
in San Antonio, the money that they have, they can bond about
another $800 million worth of work, so that the 200 million
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that they would get from mobility, they would bond another
800,000 -- 800 million to build their system that they have
there. So, what we end up with, the bottom line, is the --
we end up with about 12 billion dollars over that 11 years,
or about a billion dollars a year in the preservation or
maintenance area.
They did carve out a little bit of money, and
that's what Mike wanted me to talk about, pass-through. They
did -- they put on it hold right now, but they did carve out
a little bit of money to put in pass-through financing to
work with communities, just like they worked with city of New
Braunfels and Bexar County before, for communities that were
looking at some economic development, looking at congestion
relief, that they would go in and partner with those -- with
those dollars. And, basically, on the pass-through, what it
would do is the local government comes in and fronts the --
the project, basically construction of the project, and then
our Commission pays back a certain amount of money over a
period of time, depending on how much traffic is on that
road. And they -- they work out the calculations on that.
And so a lot of communities have gone in and done that.
Bexar County actually has one sitting up there right now
that's been put on hold.
The other funding that we don't know about yet as
we go back in is that Proposition 12. That's $5 billion
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there. And you can see out of the 28 that we have over 11
years, 5 billion isn't a lot, but it is some extra money that
the Legislature does capitalize on that, and puts money there
for the general revenue that will add some more dollars into
our -- into our program. And, Julie, were they going to make
a presentation this month on that at the Commission, or next
month, on the scenario with Proposition 12? Do you remember?
MS. BROWN: I don't know if they're going to do it
this month or not.
MR. SMITH: Okay, over the next couple months.
They're kind of running through the scenarios, because they
don't -- they don't want us to be caught off guard; they want
us to be prepared, so they want the Commission to -- as we
work with the Legislature, to come up with some kind of
strategy. Does -- does it all go to -- does it go into some
of it mobility and some of it preservation? Kind of work up
some scenarios so they have some idea of working with the
Legislature on that. So, that's kind of where we are on our
-- on our budget. Over the next couple years, our budget is
really focusing on preventive maintenance. Over the next
couple years, we have a lot of bridges, as Mike talked about,
we'll be working on. There -- we have -- some of our other
districts are down pretty low in their work, and so actually
they're helping us with some of the bridge design. And at
the peak, Mike, how much work did you have going on?
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MR. COWARD: Including Bandera County, about $104
I million.
MR. SMITH: $104 million. Which was a lot more
than probably about four -- four of our other west Texas
districts put together. The amount of work was just right
here, and you noted that. Mike did have a lot of work going
on -- both Mikes, and so they're -- many of them are wrapping
up. I know we were up here for the ribbon cutting on
Holdsworth Drive. Big congestion relief, gives you another
route around the downtown. Spur 98 bridge, getting that also
helped out there. And so that's kind of where we are. We
have some ongoing projects that we have funded. We -- or we
identified an allocation of funds, because things get slowed
down. Some of those we haven't dropped, like on, I know,
some of the low-water crossings on 39, some of the lanes
we're looking at on 39 itself with -- with the off-system
route in there. We're not dropping those. It will take us a
little bit longer to get to them because of our cash flow
issue. And if Proposition 12 comes up -- that's why we're
going to keep moving, keep the plans -- get them backlogged
and ready to go, 'cause if Proposition 12 comes through and
the Legislature gives us the green light to move forward,
then we'll have some of those ready to go as well.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Seems like to me that you're
bringing somewhat of a gloomy report. You know, I mean --
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MR. SMITH: That's why Mike went first.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are we -- are we going to be
able to get our children into town so they can have milk, or
are we going to all starve to death? And then on top of
that, you see -- you see the NAFTA highways -- I was out on
Highway 83 the other day; it's out in the middle of nowhere.
Y'all are spending tons of money out there widening that
thing. I don't care what it is. There's a bunch of money
being spent out there, and then, you know, the 35 corridor
and, you know, all this talk with Trans-Texas Corridor and
all of those things, there's lots of damn money going through
there. And then you're painting this ugly thing happening
around here.
MR. SMITH: Well, I think even in San Antonio, just
like you're seeing, there's -- there was a lot of money
spent. A lot of it was using the propositions that we were
able to use and bond and to move forward with. What we
didn't have was the rescissions that were upon us, that are
there today, and so we're having to take those into account.
The gasoline tax, or the -- the fuel efficiency is having a
big effect on us, and along with the highway construction
index, is -- it was -- there's 100 percent over 10. It was
actually 60 over 3. It just went up very, very high, so
projects -- we had two projects; we can only let one of them,
because we did get a lot on the ground. We're going to have
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to do a lot with our maintenance forces. I've been talking
here about roadway construction. We're going to be -- we're
going to do a lot with buying material for maintenance forces
to get out and help keep maintaining our roadways. Years
ago, I know, as we would travel across the state, you could
close your eyes and you could tell when you crossed the state
lines. Didn't matter if you were going into Mexico or
Oklahoma or Louisiana -- really, Louisiana.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
MR. SMITH: And what we're seeing is -- is that,
unfortunately, our roadways will probably drop down, some of
the things. We're focusing all of our resources into the
roadway. Years ago, we used to mow about every two weeks,
and then we cut back to about three and four times a year.
So, you might end up seeing some areas that we might have to
just put further out, certain rural areas that we may have to
reduce our mowing in some of those instances. We're having
to look at all of our budgets, and so some of the things that
we took for granted that made the highway corridor really
nice, we're going to -- we're going to put all of our
attention in the roadway bed, Commissioner, to make sure that
the roadway bed stays -- stays good. There might be some
things out here that we might have to cut back on.
Unfortunately, there might be some things in litter pickup
out in our rural areas where we pick it up, pick up litter,
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That's kind of where we are in this cross-section
of time. Things might change if -- you know, it's kind of a
baseline. If the gasoline tax came in, and that's extra, it
will bump us up. That will help us out. If Proposition 12
comes in, that will bump us up. That's kind of where we
stand right now. And Amadeo Saenz, our new Engineer
Director, along with David Casteel, they told Julie and I to
go out and just tell everybody the truth. Folks aren't going
to like it, but do you know what? It's -- we can come in
here today and say it's not going to change, the road's still
going to look nice, but that's not -- that's not fair,
because it's -- it's -- it is going to change. Because
that 38.4 cents we've been banking on for the last -- since
1990 is not the -- doesn't have the same buying power today
as it did, and it's still the same for us.
And, so, it is -- it's gloomy. It's not doom and
gloom, but it's gloomy, 'cause it's not -- we're -- we have a
lot of pride in our roadway systems, and we want our roadway
systems to look good, and we want people to have a good
experience as they drive through the state and drive through
the county and in the city. But we know, at this present
time, with the cash flow that we have, we're not going to be
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able to maintain it to the same degree we did, that you
expected us to, as we used to. Plus, some of the economic
things that we used to do in terms of getting some of these
projects, some of these bigger projects today, it doesn't
look like we're going to be able to get them to the table and
open them up as quick as we used to.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But we'll still be able to
get to the store and get some beer?
MR. SMITH: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Beer and --
MR. SMITH: We can get you there. Milk and beer.
We'll get you there.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Milk and beer.
MR. SMITH: Just don't drive.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just don't drive.
JUDGE TINLEY: How far into the future do you see
pass-through financing being authorized?
MR. SMITH: I would say that they have them on
hold, and they haven't released them yet to start
reconsidering them again. I think if you have some ideas,
I'd say let's start working on them right now, and -- and
begin to put some thought in that. It doesn't mean that
it'll happen. But I think whatever window will open up will
be very small, 'cause you take $400,000 and divide it by 11,
it's not very much. $400 million, I'm sorry. $400 million.
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400,000.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah.
MR. SMITH: $400 million divided over 11 years,
it's about $4 million a year, about, so it's pretty low --
pretty small amount. So, if you're -- if you want to
consider that or look at -- look at that, we definitely will.
We can work with you and help run some numbers out and think
about some of the innovations that you might be able to look
at.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What is the percentage of
reimbursement that a county could expect on a pass-through
contract?
MR. SMITH: There's different percentages, and I'm
going to speak mainly from what we had before. The financing
they looked at the local government to pick that up, or the
local entity to pick that up, they had three ranges. They
had more of a statewide impact, more of a regional, and more
of a local. So, they looked at the roads to see what they --
what kind of improvements -- for instance, an interstate
would have a statewide impact. Then you get into -- it's
easy to drop down and look at local, 'cause you could just
look at a local street. Holdsworth would be a local street.
And somewhere in between -- there's a lot of discussions as
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I to, well, what is regional and what is local? I think on
State Highway 46, they kind of looked at that more
regionally, because it went beyond multiple counties, even
though it wasn't something that had some statewide reaches
with it. At the -- at the statewide, they were looking at
one about 90 percent in their discussions, down to around 50
or 60 percent, I think, on the local. And then the regional
was somewhere in between that, 75 percent, 65 percent,
somewhere in there. But I don't know, with the -- the new
funds, the way they're -- with the program coming back out
again, if they'll redefine those lines, but that's where they
were, somewhere between 90 to -- to 50, 60 percent.
MS. BROWN: There's a lot of competition, so
probably leveraging and impact would be considered.
MR. SMITH: Right. What -- how much, what could be
brought to the table in order to implement the projects, and
then what are the -- of course, the more the traffic, the --
the better it looks in terms of -- 'cause that's how they --
that's how they measure, is in terms of traffic.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That means we have to be
focusing on projects that are much more needy, for a larger
number of people. How many years are those bonds issued for
on the Proposition 12?
MR. SMITH: When?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No, how many years?
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MR. SMITH: How many years?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What's the payback on them?
MR. SMITH: I think they were looking at them over
the -- the entire life of the 11 years. Now, the -- our
understanding is that the bonds would actually be paid back
out of the general revenue fund, and not out of our funding
of our highway. But they are looking at -- in order to get
them out, they're talking about, between right-of-way, it may
be using some consultants to accelerate them, 'cause we're
going to be paid up in our other core projects, that they
might use some of those dollars to hire consultants to get
those projects done as well. So, they do have some -- some
bonds in there. They -- they also had some Prop 14 they
could use to accelerate them, so they were actually looking
at over about 11 years time frame.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you.
MR. SMITH: Okay, thank you very much.
MR. COWARD: I think what I would like to do -- or
y'all tell me what you want me to do, but I have some
handouts that we made. Nothing real fancy, but they have
kind of a history of some traffic counts. We'll go over a
couple things on those. We're probably -- Mike, would you
hand some out in the back, please?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We'll pass them.
MR. COWARD: All right.
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COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Don't want you to wear
yourself out.
MR. COWARD: Just real quick, let me just tell you
what I put in here for y'all to look at. I mean, I think,
hopefully, it's somewhat self-explanatory, but the first
sheet is ADT, or average daily traffic counts, and this will
be the 1990 one, so 18 years ago, this will be throughout
Kerr County. What's kind of interesting to me, if you take
it to -- the next sheet kind of zooms in on the City of
Kerrville, and then it kind of illustrates what I like to
call the Walmart factor. Then you go -- when you look out on
State Highway 27 out by Goat Creek Road, there was 15,500
cars a day traveling that piece of 27 in 1990. If you flip
two additional sheets back and look at that same piece of
road in 2005, so in 15 years, the traffic count there in
front of Walmart has just about doubled, 30,940 cars a day.
If you look back over where the Walmart used to be in 1990,
there was about 17,400 cars a day, and over that same 15
years, it only went up by about 4,000 cars a day.
Well, now, if you look -- you know, when you take
the time to look at this, and it's kind of interesting to
look, it will show you what you -- kind of common sense tells
you, is there's more people on the roads today, and quite a
few more. And what it probably also does is start to kind of
-- you kind of -- maybe it starts to alarm you a little bit,
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'cause when you start looking at 27 with 31,000 cars, and
that's over 15 years, and then you kind of wonder, "Golly,
what's that going to be like in 20 more years?" And can you
imagine 27 with maybe 45,000 or 50,000 cars a day on it?
Wouldn't that be nice?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: May be bicycles by then.
MR. COWARD: Yeah, that could be. There's -- real
quick, the other day I went to a meeting with Commissioner
Oehler, and he came driving up in a minivan. I said, "What
in the world are you doing driving a minivan?" And he said
he can't hardly -- 22 miles a gallon versus 12 miles a
gallon. So, we're still getting around. This next sheet's
kind of small; I apologize. And, you know, we can certainly
get you a better copy, but what this kind of shows you is --
it's a table, but it kind of shows you -- I guess, one, it
shows you that over the past -- oh, I guess what the first
little group of projects shows you is that we're in various
states of completion on about $46 million worth of projects
throughout Kerr County, so that includes Holdsworth Drive,
which is just about done, and a couple other ones. So, about
$46 million worth of projects, we're coming down to the tail
end.
We have, or are going to, let $14 million, almost
$15 million worth of projects this year. If you read over
there to the right, though, you kind of see that we're --
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it's not as impressive as it looks, because it's a lot of
bridges, and it's building some parking lots at the Kerrville
State Hospital, and then building a parking lot up at the
wildlife management area with Texas Parks and Wildlife money;
it just goes through our process. And the next little group
of projects is kind of what we're -- we're working on. Some
of these projects, we've got the plans done, but they're
called pending, because we don't know exactly how we're going
to pay for them at the moment. And there's a group of about
another 22 -- $21 million worth of projects. And then below
that are the bridges that we're working on for y'all, the
Cade Loop and Cypress Creek and all those. That's a total of
about another $3,500,000 worth of projects, and I think we do
know how we're going to pay for those. We got agreements
done; it's just a matter of working out the schedule, and I
think on there, we're putting on there a late 2009 letting
date. So, when you add all that up, that comes up to about
85, $86 million worth of stuff that we either finished in the
last year or we're working on.
And the next page is -- it's the cover sheet of an
effort that Judge Tinley and Commissioner Williams was sure
we'll remember. We went through, and it's just kind of a
summary of the effort we did last time, and some background
information of what were the three top projects in Kerr
County back then, and we did not update these estimates.
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About the only thing I can tell you for sure is that they are
way too low. I would just tell you that we did them about
three years ago, so we could probably add 30 percent or more
project, Spur 98, we originally estimated $3 million. That's
a $4 million project today. The other one was a $5 million
project; well, that's a six and a half million dollar project
today. Of course, the $10 million project's a $13 million
project, et cetera. And I don't think anything else on there
is -- probably, when y'all have some time, if you want to
look or have any questions, and then there's some statistics
that were furnished by the state kind of showing relative
population growth. Commissioner Williams, what I was
thinking is that maybe TexDOT's talked plenty and maybe we
should listen for a while and get some input and answer
questions. I don't know if you had --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: By all means, Mike.
MR. COWARD: It's 2:48, and I know some people had
some deadlines and some other stuff. So, I think, Mike, if
you could maybe help keep notes, and we'll be glad to answer
questions, or just get out of the way and let y'all talk,
whatever you want us to do.
JUDGE TINLEY: What are we going to do right out
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JUDGE TINLEY: Right next to Sidney Baker, the
MR. COWARD: Oh, I'm sorry.
JUDGE TINLEY: Many months ago, you and I were
standing out there and looked at that.
MR. COWARD: Yeah. We're going to do it.
JUDGE TINLEY: We'll figure out something?
MR. COWARD: Yeah.
JUDGE TINLEY: I didn't know what you'd figured
out.
MR. COWARD: No. What we're wanting to do --
Judge, you may have been contacted by somebody to ask you
what we were going to do, but what we wanted to do was to
build a sidewalk, put an extra band of -- we got -- oh, you
can see little bits and pieces, but we're going to have some
stained concrete that runs along there. And so right next to
the curb, we got 10 inches of stained concrete. Down here on
the block between Jefferson and -- and 16, we'd like to put
an extra band down near the front of the courthouse, and then
we'd like to -- if we got a little bit of grade difference,
we would like to grade that and block sod that for y'all.
But we -- I don't want to build -- it's cheaper to put in
block sod than it is to build retaining walls like we did on
John Miller's side. We'd like to slope that back nicely,
make sure you can maintain it like you always have, but then
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we would block sod it in that area and have a nice area there
by the courthouse.
JUDGE TINLEY: The grade variation there is not
going to be so severe that they can't get there in and mow
it.
MR. COWARD: There's one area we may have to build
a little tiny bit of wall, one little unit. Everywhere else,
we can make it to where you'll barely know we were ever
there.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That last block between
Water Street and the bridge, is that -- you're obviously
going to resurface it, 'cause you've milled it.
MR. COWARD: No.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No?
MR. COWARD: No. It will -- we're going to seal it
when we get a chance. We came in there on a Sunday and we
just basically -- I was getting -- we get people that go out
and rate our pavements, okay, and that little 400 feet in
there was probably one of the worst single pieces of pavement
I have. And so Troy and his guys got out -- got out there
one Sunday morning early -- and we didn't mill it. I mean,
that's actually cold mix that's blade-laid in there. And
we'll come in and seal that and cover it up, but it rides
quite a bit better. But it wasn't milled; it was all --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: A lot better, not just a
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little bit.
MR. COWARD: -- all brought up.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah.
MR. COWARD: I wanted them to get that done before
we shut Lemos Street off.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good idea.
MR. COWARD: Yeah. You only have to beat me in the
head eight or ten times before I take action.
JUDGE TINLEY: They do teach lots of things up in
Lubbock, don't they, Mike?
MR. COWARD: They do. They do. After 25 years,
I'm almost done leaning whenever I walk. So --
JUDGE TINLEY: Have they let you in the door yet,
Mike?
MR. COWARD: What -- which door?
JUDGE TINLEY: The Aggie door.
MR. COWARD: The Aggie door? I'm an honorary Aggie
thanks to David Casteel.
JUDGE TINLEY: If they let you in the door, that's
good.
MR. COWARD: They let me in the door, long as I
keep quiet.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. Come in the back door,
though.
25 ~ COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The back door.
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MR. COWARD: Well, I guess I don't know what the
model should be. I think this should be -- I mean, I don't
know if the workshop is the best forum, but I'd like to maybe
find us a forum where maybe the next time we got together, we
were sitting with maps. 'Cause I think I want -- I asked --
specifically asked Clay to give what we think is a very
truthful -- it's much easier to come in here and to blow
smoke, and -- you know, and my job is much easier if I can
say yes to everything, to be honest with you. And it's --
but we felt like it was very important that we give you our
honest assessment. I don't think that that means that we
should stop planning. It may mean that we're going to change
our model. But I think whether -- you know, whether the next
20 years of projects are funded exactly like they were over
the past 20 years, I guess time -- time will tell. But
whether the cities and counties are going to have to pick up
a bigger portion of the tab in the future, if that's the
model, I'd still like for Kerr County to be in a position to
move forward.
The time it takes from the time we can all agree
that this is a project we want to do to the day we get it on
the ground is so long, that if -- if we spend five or six
years arguing about the fact that we have to deal with
financing, that that's going to be five or six years more
that we're going to go out. So, I guess I was just hoping
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that, you know, we could start moving -- talk about how we
would move forward, you know, work together with the County
and the City. You know, kind of maybe a comprehensive plan
for the County where we can give a true list of priorities.
And I'm thinking, I don't know -- you know, Commissioner, you
help me out -- is where I'd like to get us in a format where
we can have some maps and sit around tables and -- and do
that kind of stuff, if that's appropriate.
JUDGE TINLEY: Possibly a joint workshop with both
the City and the County.
MR. COWARD: Yeah. And we're --
JUDGE TINLEY: With your guys.
MR. COWARD: And I think it would probably be
appropriate, Judge -- we'll -- we'll assist in any way we
can, but I think that, you know, it's probably -- because
it's a local issue, maybe y'all could lead the effort, and
you just tell us how to support you, and we will be there to
support in any way we can. I mean, every -- every resource
that I have can help out.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mike, the -- I know the City
has a -- I say "I know." I think they have a master road
plan as part of the comprehensive plan. I know they did in
2000; I presume they still have that. The County doesn't
really have a master road plan, per se. Is that something
that would help TexDOT, if we did something like that? We've
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talked about some of these roads.
MR. COWARD: No, I'm not sure if, like, the Comal
Countys and things like that of the world is -- do they have
tools like that, Clay?
MR. SMITH: Yeah. The -- I think that's real good.
I think what Mike is wanting to do is very -- has a lot of
foresight, and I know the City has looked before, and there's
a lot of priorities. I know in the information that he
passed out, there were some things that we talked about four
years ago, and I think some of the things that -- maybe some
of the funding is a little different, but I think we still
want -- we want to plan. We want to make sure what the
priority is as we move forward, and there's some planning
that we can do. The city of Comal -- or Comal County and the
city, they do have a -- they do have a needs list. And they
look at -- they're looking at their roads and asking us,
there's some areas where maybe the -- some of the roads need
to be widened, but we're going in and looking at adding
passing lanes. It used to be we'd add passing lanes whenever
it was a hill, but you can also do it on a -- I don't think
there's any flat land up here, but you can do it --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Houston.
MR. SMITH: -- you can do it for trying to
prevent -- for safety purposes, trying to prevent cars from
trying to pass on that double -- that yellow. And if you
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periodically add a passing lane, and they know it's going to
be every 3 miles, then -- or 4 miles, then instead of trying
to take a risk and going out into the opposing traffic to
pass, they'll wait for the passing lanes instead of a
climbing lane. And so we've worked with them, so they're out
looking. Say we've got development here, or we have a long
stretch, we have a lot of traffic here, we'd like to see some
things done, so I think that's kind of some of the stuff that
Mike would like to see and make sure that we're moving in the
direction that -- that you want us to in the future. And we
know we have limited funds, but maybe we can prioritize it
and still make sure we're moving toward those goals. And
those areas where we need some innovative financing, maybe
the pass-through is one of them, and we'll be sure and put
some numbers to those, and try and work with us -- with the
City and/or and the County, whoever might take the lead on
that.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mike, on the safety issue, do we
have anything concrete on the on 16 North to Fredericksburg?
MR. COWARD: We do not, Judge. I mean, the -- you
know, Kerr County's section, to be honest with you, is fairly
well suited with passing lanes and such right now. And we
have had some discussions with Gillespie County over the
years, but, you know, I think that it just never has been a
priority, but I think there was another bad accident over
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the -- it was either Friday or Monday, but there was a bad
accident out there; they had traffic blocked off for quite a
while.
JUDGE TINLEY: But Gillespie is over in another
district.
MR. COWARD: Gillespie is actually in the Austin
district.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Would it be a fair assumption
to say that in the future, the counties and the cities that
have projects that they really think to be a priority would
be expected to fund a larger part of the match?
MR. COWARD: I'll let Clay answer. But I'll answer
that the more you leverage a project, the less that we have
to -- state dollars we have to come up with, and it's -- it
certainly shows a true commitment when you have your dollars
involved.
MR. SMITH: Yeah. Some of the other communities
are trying to figure out ways that they can do things, like
the city of San Antonio that actually increased their --
their sales tax one-eighth of a cent -- a quarter of a cent,
and took that -- they call it advance transportation district
', funds, and they went through the Legislature and got that
passed so that they could actually raise some additional
dollars in their community for transportation. And in their
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cities down there are looking at some things they can do as
well to help supplement some of their -- their -- knowing
that the State has only -- has a fixed one, and then they're
a single project that they both deemed to be of major or
number one priority, the fact that you got two jurisdictions
that are pushing it, would that give it a competitive
advantage relative to the others in the district?
MR. SMITH: Well, it definitely -- it doesn't
change the amount of money that we have, but it definitely
helps us to pursue a single project that would work -- that
would be compatible for both the city and county, so we can
focus on one rather than trying to have two of them. And
Comal and the City of New Braunfels and their Chamber of
Commerce have worked trying to do that over the years to make
sure they kind of focus on one rather than maybe three
different ones. They kind of work together to -- to the best
they can. Each of them still have projects that are needs,
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but they do try and focus on one of them. Usually there's
one kind of in the -- the ETJ of the city that's very
important. It's -- the City's growing; they recognize it.
It's right there with the county, and they usually try and
come up with a common -- even though they each have their own
separate one you can look at, number one, if it's the same
one, it makes it easier for their engineers and us to focus
on those.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions for these
gentlemen and lady? We thank you for being here. We
appreciate all of it. And we'll review your materials and
look forward to meeting with you again. Do our counterparts
from the City have any --
MR. COWARD: I know the mayor --
JUDGE TINLEY: -- questions or comments?
MR. COWARD: I know the mayor had mentioned earlier
he had something he'd like to talk about.
JUDGE TINLEY: The mayor had something to say?
MAYOR SMITH: I only have eight days to have any
authority to say anything. But as mayor, I would like to --
to second your remarks -- complimentary remarks for Mike
Coward and TexDOT. I think they've done an excellent job in
this area, and I don't think we could expect any more. Now,
as a private citizen, not as mayor, I've been working, trying
to get the speed limit reduced on 173 for at least eight
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51
But I
(Laughter.) But I have a suggestion that wouldn't cost
hardly anything, maybe changing a few signs. I think that if
we had more businesses along 173, a theater, some more
or whatever that is there -- there's been a lot of activity
along there, and the speed limit is 50 miles an hour. I
drive 50 miles an hour, set my speedometer to 50, and people
go past me like -- like crazy. But I look -- observe the
skid marks on there, and you have skid marks that are -- that
are over 100, 150 feet long, so people are -- those were
accidents that didn't happen because somebody was alert
enough to stop before they hit somebody. But I think it
would be probably really a good safety factor and save lives
without costing any money to lower the speed limit from
Veterans Highway or 534 around to G Street, and out 16 just
past 173. If all that was 35 miles an hour, it would allow
for better law enforcement there, because in talking to the
Texas Highway Patrol, they said they -- they don't give
tickets along there because it's unsafe. Well, if it's
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unsafe for a highway patrolman with a light to stop there,
how about the people there? So, anyway, I'm -- this is
y'all's show. It's -- but I heard there was going to be some
TexDOT people here, so this is addressed to them, but also to
you, because I'm a citizen of Kerr County also.
JUDGE TINLEY: Gene, always a pleasure to have you,
you and the folks from the City. I know we've also got some
of our neighbors from U.G.R.A. and Headwaters with us, and
we're happy to have them.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, now that you
mentioned U.G.R.A., I want to throw one picture up on the
screen. It doesn't have anything to do with transportation,
but it does have something to do with long-range planning.
Take me two minutes.
JUDGE TINLEY: Better hurry.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm going to do it --
JUDGE TINLEY: Can we pass around the --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Do you have a bucket full of
dirt big enough to fill that?
JUDGE TINLEY: -- the picture of the official Kerr
County solid waste hauler?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In this county, we've
talked for many, many years about the need for -- potential
need for an off-channel reservoir to take care of flood
waters on the Guadalupe River on those occasions when God
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sends us rain in any kind of quantity. I want to show you a
picture, and I want somebody at U.G.R.A. to start thinking
about, would this be a good place for an off-channel
reservoir? As soon as this thing warms up. Where's our I.T.
guy when I need him?
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I remember, I witnessed it. He
said push one button.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I did. I pushed that
button.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Here it comes. No, it's
coming. I see something --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Getting something. But I
don't see the picture here.
JUDGE TINLEY: It's searching. Just --
Mr. Overby's got considerable expertise. We'll press him
into service.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Track him. It's tracking
blood right now.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Searching. If I don't get
it up on the screen, stay with me and I'll give it to you in
person.
MR. BUCK: I think I've already reviewed that,
Bill.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I just want everybody to
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see it. Looks like I can't get the picture up, Judge, so --
JUDGE TINLEY: It will jump up there in a minute.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Still blinking.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What this would be, if it
as an area which has been mined considerably, and this
picture, if it were to come up, would show you how
extensively it has been mined. If you think about the
long-term, when the mining ceases and all that heavy
equipment is out of there, you have an area of the county in
which it is -- for lack of a better word, it has been raped,
and it's not going to get better. But it is an area, when
you think about it, because of its proximity to the Guadalupe
River and the ability to take flood waters and divert them
off the Guadalupe into this area, with some work, this could
become an off-channel reservoir. We've talked about it for a
long time in this county, and nobody seems to know an area
where an off-channel reservoir would be appropriate. This
would be. I'm sorry the picture didn't come up, but that's
what I wanted to talk about. I wanted you to think about it,
particularly our friends from U.G.R.A.
JUDGE TINLEY: Probably about five minutes after
the meeting is over, it's going to come up there.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It will. And the I.T. guy
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, Paul? I'm sorry.
I might just add to what our -- our mayor said, and echoing a
lot of what you said, Judge, and other County Commissioners,
and what Mr. Coward spoke to about the importance of regional
transportation planning and the -- the positive benefit of
jointly suggesting projects to TexDOT and the Highway
Commission. And to echo that, there were a couple comments
made about how the City of Kerrville goes about doing its
transportation planning, and specifically our thoroughfare
plan. And Commissioner Letz spoke to this, and I know
Commissioner Letz was deeply involved in this several years
ago. We do have a thoroughfare plan. That thoroughfare plan
has been amended a few times in the seven or eight years that
it's been in existence. That is a part of the comprehensive
transportation plan is a part of that.
And what we do with that thoroughfare plan is -- is
really two things. We use it to identify our transportation
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priorities central to the city of Kerrville from a capital
planning perspective. If we're going to recommend a -- a
capacity-related roadway improvement through our capital
plan, we like to be able to point to that thoroughfare plan.
And the other thing we do with that thoroughfare plan is, it
state law drives how all of this works, and case law drives
how all of this works, but essentially, if there's a new
development out there that is going to impact or be impacted
by something that's in our thoroughfare plan, we have an
ability to insure that that's taken care of during that
subdivision planning process. And -- and, again, state law
drives what we can do with this, but we have an ability to
insure that that development takes care of its own
transportation needs, again, within the constraints of the
law.
We are focusing our priorities right now, City of
complaints too, that if there's a number one concern about
the services the City provides right now, it's not about
roadway capacity. It's about roadway maintenance. And we
are working towards and have had several discussions with the
City Council about a bond program this November that will
include a significant amount of money; five or six million is
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the number we're looking at right now, not to do anything
with regard to capacity, but it would be all about roadway
rehabilitation. And I say that because, from the City of
Kerrville's perspective right now, our focus is on
maintenance more than it is capacity.
Of the projects that Mr. Coward spoke about
earlier, we do have in our CIP a project, and this is the --
of all the projects on that -- of all the lines on the map
that are on that thoroughfare plan, the only one that comes
close to a bona fide City of Kerrville project right now is
that Highway 98 to G Street extension, and that is shown as
future unfunded. So, when the City of Kerrville looks --
right now, when the City of Kerrville looks at what we think
we can afford and what we plan to pay for over the next five
years, it's all going to maintenance. All that -- and I just
say that just to make sure you have a sense for where the
City of Kerrville is. And I certainly agree with what Mike
Coward said earlier; we should be planning for capacity
improvements. We should be planning for capacity needs. We
ought to be looking at data like capacity to volume and
projected volume, even in light of the shortage of dollars.
And from the City of Kerrville's perspective, we have no
capacity projects that we're looking at right now.
I heard what Commissioner Williams said earlier
about the status of Highway 27. A few months ago, yeah, we
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were looking at maybe -- and had a lot of conversations with
Mike about potentially moving Highway 27, and in conjunction
with a highway widening project. But, yes, sir, you're
I! right, that seems to be off the table right now. So, I think
from a capacity planning standpoint, we're essentially
starting from a blank slate. And I haven't had this specific
conversation with Mike or with my City Council, but I think
I'm safe in saying that if we're looking at recurring
meetings like this, we are more than happy to participate.
We don't do a lot of thinking from a regional transportation
planning standpoint with the City of Kerrville, but see its
value and would love to participate.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Excellent. What did he say?
JUDGE TINLEY: You rascal. Anything else we need
to pitch out at this time? Why don't we adjourn?
(Workshop adjourned at 3:13 p.m.)
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STATE OF TEXAS ~
COUNTY OF KERR ~
The above and foregoing is a true and complete
transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as
County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County,
Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth.
DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 21st day of May, 2008.
JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk
Kathy B ik, Deputy County Clerk
Certified Shorthand Reporter
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