1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Special Session 10 Monday, August 26, 2002 11 6:30 p.m. 12 Commissioners' Courtroom 13 Kerr County Courthouse 14 Kerrville, Texas 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: FREDERICK L. HENNEKE, Kerr County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 LARRY GRIFFIN, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X August 26, 2002 2 PAGE --- Commissioners Comments 4 3 1.1 Pay Bills 7 1.2 Budget Amendments 8 4 1.3 Late Bills 19 1.4 Approve and Accept Monthly Reports 20 5 2.1 Presentation by Kerrville Christmas Lighting 6 Corporation on upcoming Courthouse lighting and planned electrical upgrade for courthouse lawn 21 7 2.2 Request for additional funds for Kerr County Child Service Board, discuss bill payment and 8 sanctioned expenses 28 2.3 Consider commercial warehouse lease agreement 9 with Triad Manufacturing, Ltd. 42 2.4 Consider requesting K.C.A.D. to reappraise 10 property damaged in flood 45 2.5 Discuss County participation in Hazard 11 Mitigation Grant Program 52 2.6 Discuss payment of fees to Voelkel Surveying 12 for establishing debris line elevation in Verde Park 60 13 2.7 Discuss proposed Letter of Intent agreement with Texas Arts and Crafts Foundation 62 14 2.8 Consider releasing Letter of Credit for Twin Springs Ranch II 71 15 2.9 Consider name change for privately-maintained road in platted subdivision, Y.O. Ranchlands 72 16 2.10 Preliminary Revision of Plat for Tracts 17, 18, & 19 of Y.O. Ranchlands, set public hearing 74 17 2.11 Consider Agreement to Contribute Funds for right-of-way of High Water Bridge, authorize 18 County Judge to sign same, authorize hand check 79 2.12 Consider submitting application for funds from 19 Emergency Watershed Protection Program 80 2.13 Final Concept Plan for Hill Country Youth 20 Exhibition Center, authorize Court to proceed with bond election 85 21 2.14 Discuss status of 911 Address Coordinator for Kerr County 92 22 2.15 Resolution authorizing application for Indigent Defense Grant 99 23 2.16 Approval of FY 02-03 budget, set public hearing for Monday, September 9, 2002, at 10 a.m. 100 24 2.17 Approval of FY 02-03 tax rate, set public hearing for Monday, September 9, 2002, at 10:30 a.m. 109 25 --- Adjourned 111 3 1 On Monday, August 26, 2002, at 6:30 p.m., a special 2 session of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in 3 the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, 4 Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in 5 open court: 6 P R O C E E D I N G S 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Good evening, everyone. We 8 have a full agenda tonight. Let's go ahead and -- that's 9 County property. 10 MR. COATES: I'll pay for it if I break it, 11 Judge. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: We'll call the meeting to 13 order at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, August 26th, Year 2002. We'll 14 call to order this regular special session of the Kerr 15 County Commissioners Court. Commissioner Baldwin, you're up 16 tonight. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I am, sir. I have a 18 special friend I'd like to introduce to you, Phil Bob 19 Borman, and he's a friend of mine; I use that very loosely. 20 Phil Bob just recently moved to Kerrville from New Mexico, 21 and he's part of the Westwood Ministries, a counseling-type 22 service for hurting church leaders that come to Kerrville, 23 and Phil Bob is a part of that. And I've asked him to come 24 and pray for the Commissioners Court tonight. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Please stand. 8-26-02 4 1 (Prayer and pledge of allegiance.) 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you, Phil Bob. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, Commissioner. At 4 this time, any citizen wishing to address the Court on an 5 item not listed on the regular agenda may come forward and 6 do so. Is there any citizen who wishes to address the Court 7 on an item not listed on the regular agenda? Seeing none, 8 we'll move to the Commissioners' comments. Commissioner 9 Baldwin? 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. I'd like to 11 -- I know it's going to shock you; I'm going to talk about 12 high school football just for a moment. Not this last 13 Saturday, the Saturday before, our fighting Tivy Antlers 14 went to Austin and scrimmaged the number 8 team in the 15 United States of America, and did very, very, very well with 16 them. Last Saturday, we had a 5A school, Warren High School 17 from San Antonio, in our stadium, and I don't remember -- I 18 saw something in the paper. What was it, eight touchdowns 19 to nothing or something? We did pretty well. They are 20 using a lot of ice in San Antonio after that, I can tell you 21 that. And then September the 6th, coming up, we have a 22 football game with San Antonio Jay, and we're playing in the 23 Alamodome. So, if anybody wants to go enjoy some good old 24 Texas high school football, which there's not many things 25 better, September the 6th would be a good time. I also 8-26-02 5 1 would like to announce that on September 11th, that would be 2 9/11, is going to be a -- I think they call it a time of 3 reflection, maybe, out at the Point Theatre. A lot of 4 churches and different folks around town that are meeting 5 out at the Point Theatre to have a time of reflection. So, 6 pray for America on 9/11. That's all. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. Commissioner 8 Williams? 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I want to express 10 thanks and appreciation today to the Butt-Holdsworth 11 Library, its administration, staff, all the people who, 12 through the years, have made up 35 years of great service to 13 the citizens of Kerr County in that small, round domicile of 14 knowledge on the riverbank. A lot of people have been 15 well-served through these years, and a lot of people have 16 provided that service. I think it would behoove us, 17 however, having said all that, to think about how that 18 library in that location is going to take care and service 19 the needs of the good folks of Kerr County in the future. 20 That's something we're not going to talk about at great 21 length tonight, or maybe anytime soon, but certainly is 22 something to be thought about, because there's too much good 23 that comes from that building for too many people for it to 24 not be able to take care of our needs. So, thanks for what 25 you've done, and we'll be looking forward to all the things 8-26-02 6 1 you can do for us in the future at the Butt-Holdsworth 2 Library. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, Commissioner. 4 Commissioner Letz? 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I just have one comment. 6 It's on not such a good note, really. Several weeks ago, I 7 got a call about an illegal dumping in the eastern part of 8 the county, and it -- some residents -- an individual 9 called. Anyway, the good news of it is that, through 10 T.N.R.C.C. and Ed North, our representative, it was promptly 11 shut down and is being cleaned up. It's gone on for a 12 couple weeks, it appears. But, anyway, hats off to 13 T.N.R.C.C.'s folks out of San Antonio, who came up almost 14 instantly, shut it down, cited the individual, and they are 15 really overseeing the cleanup of it, primarily. We really 16 are not real involved, other than we're going to be copied 17 on some of the correspondence for that. But they're set up 18 to take care of it, and did. But I just brought it up, more 19 than anything else, to emphasize that dumping is illegal in 20 the county. There's only one designated spot; that's the 21 B.F.I. city dump off Loop 534. At least in my precinct, 22 we're not going to put up with it. If we can catch the 23 people that do it, anyway. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Commissioner Griffin? 25 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I just want to 8-26-02 7 1 congratulate everybody in Kerr County for getting us through 2 another safe camping season out in the west end of the 3 county. We had no major accidents or anything with those 4 heavy traffic days and all, and it was -- that's good, 5 'cause it really gets crowded out there, you know, when you 6 have a couple of camps open, a couple camps closing at the 7 same time. And -- and traffic control was good, and the 8 citizens took care of it and we had a good, safe season. 9 So, congratulations to everybody. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Well, I'm just glad to 11 see so many people here tonight interested in the courthouse 12 lighting project. 13 (Laughter.) 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: I think that's good 15 government at work. So, without any further ado, let's 16 start in with the approval agenda and pay some bills. 17 Tommy? Does anyone have any questions regarding the bills 18 as presented and recommended by the Auditor? 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, I move we pay 20 the bills. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 23 Baldwin, second by Commissioner Williams, that the Court 24 approve payment of the bills as presented and recommended by 25 the Auditor. Any other questions or comments? If not, all 8-26-02 8 1 in favor, raise your right hand. 2 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 4 (No response.) 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Budget 6 amendments. Budget Amendment Number 1 is for Indigent 7 Health Care. 8 MR. TOMLINSON: This is an amendment I 9 brought to the Court last meeting. At that time, we weren't 10 sure about the extent of Indigent Health Care costs we would 11 have for the remainder of the year. I think we're safe now 12 to -- to make this amendment and move $2,082.57 from 13 Eligible Expenses to the Administrative line item. That's 14 the amount that -- that Kerr County shares with -- for the 15 administrative costs of this service with Sid Peterson 16 Hospital. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 18 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 20 Baldwin, second by Commissioner Griffin, that the Court 21 approve Budget Amendment Request Number 1. Any questions or 22 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 23 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 25 (No response.) 8-26-02 9 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Amendment 2 Number 2 is for the Jail Maintenance and Courthouse and 3 Related Buildings. 4 MR. TOMLINSON: This request comes from Glenn 5 Holekamp. His request is to transfer $3,300 from Major 6 Repairs in the Courthouse and Related Buildings, $2,500 from 7 the Maintenance and Custodial Supplies from the Jail 8 Maintenance Department. He's asking that $2,500 go to 9 Supplies in the jail, $300 to Vehicle Repairs and 10 Maintenance for the jail, and $3,000 to Jail Repairs for the 11 jail. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So moved. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 15 Williams, second by Commissioner Letz, that the Court 16 approve Budget Amendment Request Number 2. Any questions or 17 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 18 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 20 (No response.) 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Budget 22 Amendment Request Number 3 for the 216th Adult Probation. 23 MR. TOMLINSON: This request is to transfer 24 $373.06 from the D.O.E.P. Instructor's line item to 25 Telephone. 8-26-02 10 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Tommy, do we not have 2 a D.O.E.P. instructor any longer, or you just haven't been 3 using as much? This is a contract-type thing, isn't it? 4 MR. TOMLINSON: Kerr County has a contract 5 with -- with Adult Probation to furnish an instructor for 6 that program. We budgeted originally $14,000 for -- for 7 that person, and in the past we've used -- I think we've 8 used two people, and we're down to one. So, the -- the 9 monthly expense for that is approximately $575 a month. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So moved. 11 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 13 Baldwin, second by Commissioner Griffin, that the Court 14 approve Budget Amendment Request Number 3. Any questions or 15 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 16 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 18 (No response.) 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Request 20 Number 4 is for Commissioners Court. 21 MR. TOMLINSON: This amendment is to pay for 22 professional services to Thomas, Hudson and Nelson, 23 Attorneys at Law, for the Nancy Cavazos litigation. This -- 24 this item comes from Professional Services for the 25 Commissioners Court budget. There's no funds available in 8-26-02 11 1 that budget for this, so I'm recommending that we declare an 2 emergency and pay this from surplus funds. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll make a motion we pay 4 it, but I have a question, too. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 6 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: What was the motion? 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: The motion is to pay it. 8 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Oh, all right. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Do we have a second? 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner Letz, 12 second by Commissioner Griffin, that the Court declare an 13 emergency and increase the budget for Line Item 10-401-486 14 by the amount of $616.69, and authorize expenditure of such 15 sum. Questions? 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tommy, I know what the 17 lawsuit's for, but what's the status -- or who can we get at 18 our next Commissioners Court to give us an update of it? 19 Because this is one that -- I know the situation is related 20 to a subdivision, and I know the suit's related, because I 21 -- I don't really know what the suit -- I know why they're 22 suing, but I don't really know the details of it. I know 23 who's suing. But I don't see why the thing is dragging on. 24 It seems like for the past three or four times this summer, 25 we've had to pay a bill on this lawsuit. I know I hear the 8-26-02 12 1 name come up. So, can we get -- or how do we go about 2 getting the attorney that represents us to come give us an 3 update on this lawsuit? 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: If I remember right, this -- 5 we were just dismissed from this lawsuit. 6 MR. TOMLINSON: I think that's correct. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: So this -- hopefully, this 8 will be the last bill. I think we were just dismissed from 9 this lawsuit. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's really what my 11 question was going to be. Thank you. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Why can't we take 13 Items 4, 5, 6, and 7 together? They're all the same things, 14 all court-appointed attorneys, all coming out of the same 15 fund. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, they're from different 17 departments. Okay. Any other questions or comments 18 regarding Budget Amendment Request Number 4? All in favor, 19 raise your right hand. 20 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 22 (No response.) 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Number 5 is 24 for County Court. 25 MR. TOMLINSON: This amendment is to pay 8-26-02 13 1 court-appointed attorneys for mental health patients out of 2 the County Court. It's for $102.09. There are no funds 3 available in that budget for that purpose, either. We've -- 4 we've transferred all the funds available for 5 court-appointed attorneys from County Court to County Court 6 at Law, and now we're out of money in the County Court for 7 that purpose. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So moved. 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second, with a 10 question. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 12 Williams, second by Commissioner Griffin, that the Court 13 declare an emergency, increase the budget for the expense 14 code 10-426-402 by the amount of $102.09, and authorize 15 expenditure of that sum for court-appointed attorneys. 16 Questions? 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Isn't there a little 18 money left in Commissioners Court travel? That -- 'cause 19 I -- I didn't do all my travel and there should be a little 20 something in there. For some of these piddly ones, maybe we 21 can zero out those funds. 22 MR. TOMLINSON: I think there may be. I can 23 look. 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: 'Cause it just keeps 25 us from having to take it out of surplus. I mean, it's -- 8-26-02 14 1 money is money, but -- I think we'll go ahead and do this 2 one, but if we look at these, we may have some of these over 3 the next couple of sessions, till -- 4 MR. TOMLINSON: Next one is for $37,000. 5 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah. So, what I mean 6 is some of these nitpickers, we could probably take care of 7 with some residual funds in some of these small funds. 8 MR. TOMLINSON: I agree. We'll try. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions? 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have the same comment. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: If not, all in favor, raise 12 your right hand. 13 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 15 (No response.) 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Item Number 17 6 is for County Court at Law. 18 MR. TOMLINSON: This -- this amendment is to 19 pay -- also to pay court-appointed attorneys, and it's for 20 County Court at Law. I have bills from four -- for four 21 different defendants totaling $800, so I'm recommending that 22 we declare an emergency and pay this bill out of surplus. 23 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: So moved. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 8-26-02 15 1 Griffin, second by Commissioner Letz, that the Court declare 2 an emergency and increase expense code 10-427-402 by the 3 amount of $800, authorize payment of outstanding invoices 4 from such amount. Any questions or comments? If not, all 5 in favor, raise your right hand. 6 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 8 (No response.) 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Item Number 10 7 is for the 198th and 216th District Courts. 11 MR. TOMLINSON: This amendment totals 12 $37,393.21. I have -- I have court-appointed attorneys 13 invoices for the 216th Court for $7,575. I have 14 court-appointed attorneys invoices totaling $1,470 from the 15 198th Court, invoices totaling $28,091.21 for Special 16 Trials, which is related to our most recent murder trial. 17 Also requesting we add $16 to Books, Publications, and Dues 18 for the 216th Court, and $241 out of the 198th Court. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Somebody step up to bat. 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: How much did we have 21 in this Special Trials line item? Did we have -- 22 MR. TOMLINSON: I don't remember the original 23 amount, but we've used all of what was there for 24 court-appointed attorneys. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: In essence, what we did was 8-26-02 16 1 deplete the Special Trials items to pay Court-Appointed 2 Attorneys, and then all of a sudden, we had a special trial. 3 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: We've got a murder 4 trial. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't -- if we could 6 split this up, it would be easier, in my mind, because to 7 me, court-appointed attorneys and special trials are an 8 emergency. Books, publications, and dues, while the amounts 9 are not very much, that's pretty discretionary, in my mind. 10 I don't see how you can legally declare an emergency and buy 11 books, I mean, unless there's some kind of a special book 12 that we really need. I think we need to find somewhere else 13 in the budget to cover that expense. 14 MR. TOMLINSON: I'll try. Have to come out 15 of someone else's budget, but -- 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But we've got the money 17 in D.O.E.P. Instructor. I mean, didn't you say you were 18 only going to use another $500 out of that $5,000 in that 19 line item? I just think it's a matter of -- 20 MR. TOMLINSON: We can do that. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Is there a second? 23 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner Letz, 25 second by Commissioner Griffin, that the Court declare an 8-26-02 17 1 emergency, increase the budget in Line Item 10-435-402, 2 Court-Appointed Attorneys, by $7,575; increase the budget in 3 Line Item 10-436-402, Court-Appointed Attorneys, by the 4 amount of $1,470; increase the amount of the budget in Line 5 Item 10-436-417 by the amount of $28,091.21. Any questions 6 or comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 7 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 9 (No response.) 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Budget 11 Amendment Request Number 8 is for the Jail and the Sheriff's 12 Department. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, we need to do -- 14 on the last two, take them out of the other -- 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: I don't know if Tommy has a 16 source for them, if he wants us to come back to them. 17 MR. TOMLINSON: I could come back to it later 18 if you want to hold that one. Come back later. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Number 8. 20 MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. Number 8 is for the 21 Sheriff's Department and the Jail. The request is to 22 transfer $3,782.62 from Secretary's Salary line item in the 23 Sheriff's Office, $3,516.50 from the Nurse's Salary line 24 item for -- in the Jail, transferring $48.10 to the Trash 25 Service for the Jail, $3,468.40 for Prisoner Medical for the 8-26-02 18 1 Jail, and $3,782.62 for Vehicle Repairs and Maintenance for 2 the Sheriff's Office. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How come we have so 4 much left in that secretary line item at this late stage? 5 Have we been running without a secretary or two, or what? 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, I haven't run off 7 one, but we did end up with a personnel clerk that went on 8 family medical leave for a while. It's all in that -- that 9 same line item. And it was a little bit before we got her 10 replaced, so it left us some extra money there. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So moved. 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 14 Williams, second by Commissioner Griffin, that the Court 15 approve Budget Amendment Request Number 8. Any questions or 16 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 17 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 19 (No response.) 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Number 9 is 21 for the Collections Department. 22 MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. This request is to 23 transfer $100 from Credit History Report account and $109 24 from Books, Publications, and Dues, to move that into Office 25 Supplies, totaling $209. 8-26-02 19 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 4 Baldwin, second by Commissioner Griffin, that the Court 5 approve Budget Amendment Request Number 9. Any questions or 6 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 7 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 9 (No response.) 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Are there 11 any late bills, Tommy? 12 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes, I have two. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: All right. 14 MR. TOMLINSON: One is to H.E.B. Grocery 15 Company for $103.61. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's for which department? 17 MR. TOMLINSON: It's for the Jail. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: So moved. Move we pay 20 it. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 23 Griffin, second by Commissioner Baldwin, that the Court 24 authorize a late bill and hand check in the amount of 25 $103.61 payable to H.E.B. Grocery Store for food supplies 8-26-02 20 1 for the Jail. Any other questions or comments? If not, all 2 in favor, raise your right hand. 3 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 5 (No response.) 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. 7 MR. TOMLINSON: Okay. The last one is for 8 $30.96 to Reliable Office Supplies for J.P. 1. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 12 Baldwin, second by Commissioner Griffin, that the Court 13 authorize a late bill and hand check in the amount of $30.96 14 payable to Reliable Office Supplies for office supplies for 15 J.P. 1. Any questions or comments? If not, all in favor, 16 raise your right hand. 17 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 19 (No response.) 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Thank you, 21 Tommy. At this time, I would entertain a motion to approve 22 and accept the monthly reports as presented. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 8-26-02 21 1 Baldwin, second by Commissioner Williams, that the Court 2 approve and accept the monthly reports as presented. Any 3 questions or comments? If not, all in favor, raise your 4 right hand. 5 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 7 (No response.) 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. That 9 concludes the approval agenda. We'll now move directly into 10 the consideration agenda. The first item for consideration 11 is a presentation by General Walter Schellhase, the 12 president of the Kerrville Christmas Lighting Corporation, 13 on planned activity for the courthouse Christmas lighting 14 for coming season and planned electrical upgrade for the 15 courthouse lawn. General Schellhase? 16 MR. SCHELLHASE: Walter Schellhase, 529 Water 17 Street, Kerrville. Judge, Commissioners, what I'd like to 18 do is take a couple minutes to update you on the planning 19 for this year for the lighting of the Christmas courthouse 20 and activities related to that, and also brief you on the 21 improvements being made down in the basement of the 22 courthouse, where all these items are being stored and 23 inventoried. We owe that primarily to two people, Dick 24 Lehmann and Dick Elman, that have spent a lot of hours down 25 there getting it blocked off, getting the lighting in that 8-26-02 22 1 closed area, getting all of our lighting displays that have 2 been purchased over the years on racks hanging in there so 3 they can be accessed very, very easily. 4 In your packets, you have this document, 5 which is an individual breakdown of each area that we 6 display in the courtyard, in the courthouse yard, and what 7 we've done is itemize every item that we could possibly put 8 in that area in a long-range plan. Not that we intend to 9 put these in right now, but that's the long-range plan. To 10 support that plan, we have to do some electrical work, and 11 this is what we would like to do in the courthouse grounds, 12 pending the availability of the money to do this. This is 13 your primary transformer outside the building, 300 TVA 14 transformer. The max number the courthouse uses is 270, in 15 a high month, so there's plenty of power in this unit. We 16 would like to run underground wiring to these major areas 17 that you see the large line on, inside the courthouse off 18 that transformer, and then from that, run all the wire of 19 our displays from these recess boxes, putting everything 20 underground, so we no longer have any extension cords laying 21 on top of the ground. We're running a little over 22 2,000 feet of extension cords out on the courthouse, and 23 we'd like to get away from that. 24 Each of the dotted lines are underground 25 services out of these terminals that we would like to put 8-26-02 23 1 the power to the trees that are there now. We already have 2 a receptacle on there; that power is buried. We're not for 3 sure where it all comes from. We've traced it all down to 4 try to hook those to these terminals so we'll know where the 5 power is. Outside, in conjunction with KPUB, we've worked 6 out an arrangement where we can set a small pedestal-type 7 meter at the corner, and at this corner where the two red 8 lights are, and then in the rear of the building, and run 9 the power on the east side down this way and west side down 10 this way. That will put everything underground. Not that 11 we're going to use all of this right now, but we would like 12 to have it all done at one time. 13 The list that we gave you on the projected 14 displays that could be put up, we have them listed on that 15 list so you have some idea of what we could do over the 16 long-range. For this year, the courthouse -- we're not 17 doing anything with that. That's all taken care of. Over 18 the last three years, we've got all the electrical in place. 19 We've gone over this with Glenn Holekamp. He supports what 20 we're trying to do here, especially to get us out of the 21 panel that's in the basement of this building, where we 22 always have trouble with these breakers out here in the 23 front that keep going off and on all during the year. Plus 24 it would bring us down to just four timers on the whole set, 25 so we'd only have to have four guys running around setting 8-26-02 24 1 timers instead of what we have now. 2 We estimate this cost will be somewhere in 3 the neighborhood of $23,000, and this is what our budget 4 looks like for this year to support that program. We've 5 made some grant applications, and hopefully we will be able 6 to get this underway in time to secure that for this year's 7 program. The overall cost, like I said, will be about 8 $23,000, and we have it broken down in phases. And the 9 reason we did it this way is so this can be done in phases 10 in the event we do not collect enough money or obtain enough 11 money to do all of it at one time. We would like to do the 12 inside courtyard for sure this year, if we can, so that 13 we'll be away from that project. One of the approaches 14 we're taking for this is the fact that we do not have to do 15 any busting up; we can tunnel under the sidewalk in front, 16 which is relatively small, and this small drive in the back. 17 Therefore, everything in the back will not affect any of the 18 pavement or anything. We won't be doing any destructive 19 installation, so that's kind of the approach to it. We'd 20 like to have your approval to proceed with that plan, 21 pending the collection of moneys. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone have any questions for 23 General Schellhase? Is Glenn here? Glenn, General 24 Schellhase has just presented the courthouse lighting master 25 plan and electrical, and as the head of Maintenance, I'd 8-26-02 25 1 like your input as to the viability and the benefits of the 2 plan. 3 MR. HOLEKAMP: Well, I had visited with 4 General Schellhase this afternoon just briefly on it. I 5 think it's a very doable plan. The only one -- and we have 6 one issue that he might have described to you where we come 7 out of the transformer. I prefer to do it a stand-alone and 8 not bring it into the courthouse and then dispense the 9 electricity out again. I would really like for it to be 10 stand-alone out in the -- the courtyard. And then the -- I 11 think the plan that they have -- they have on this 12 particular plan here is very workable, very doable. 13 MR. SCHELLHASE: What Glenn's making 14 reference to is, KPUB suggested that we come in and, instead 15 of going to the expense of putting this wiring underground, 16 that we come out of this transformer and rewire the main 17 wire into the courthouse, and leave this service that we 18 have out here now. And I didn't bother to bring that up to 19 you, because I'd already discussed it with Glenn and he 20 didn't think that's a very good idea, so we kind of dropped 21 it. The problem exists where the panel that we have down 22 there in the courthouse will not carry what we're now 23 putting out here, and that breaker continues to break. So, 24 we'd like to get it out of there altogether so he doesn't 25 have to do that. The only -- that way we could leave just 8-26-02 26 1 the fountain that runs off of that circuit out there. You 2 don't have the -- when you're not running the fountain, we 3 can run one display. When we hook up the second display, we 4 really overload it. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: General, are the plugs or 6 the -- whatever's underground, the receptacles, are those 7 locked, or how are they protected? How would they -- 8 MR. SCHELLHASE: They can be locked, yes, 9 uh-huh. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: To me, it would be 11 preferable. While you're going to the expense, it doesn't 12 cost much more to make it so they're all basically 13 childproof locks so people can't get to them. 14 MR. SCHELLHASE: Yes, and they're all 15 recessed. We have them down in the park now on Tranquility 16 Island, where they're recessed in the bottom. I'm not for 17 sure that one's looked, but I don't know that anyone ever 18 messed with it. Usually what happens once they're closed 19 up, after, like, Christmas, you know, they get grown over 20 with grass nearly immediately. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 22 MR. HOLEKAMP: And all the breaker boxes are 23 locked -- closed once they're shut off. 24 MR. SCHELLHASE: This would be a 400-amp 25 panel here next to the transformer that would handle all 8-26-02 27 1 this in here, and once that turned off, there wouldn't be 2 any power to anything out in the yard at all. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Walter, is this a 4 plan you hope to accomplish all at one time, in one sitting? 5 MR. SCHELLHASE: We would like to, pending 6 the receipt of funds. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If the Court gives 8 the nod of approval to the plan, I assume it does not mean 9 nodding approval to this budget sheet that you gave us? 10 MR. SCHELLHASE: No, that's our proposed 11 budget. I thought you'd like to see it so you have some 12 idea what our planning is. I'll be at City Hall tomorrow 13 night, so -- 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good luck. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions or 16 comments for General Schellhase or Mr. Holekamp on the 17 proposed master lighting plan for the Christmas courthouse? 18 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I move we approve the 19 plan as presented. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 22 Griffin, second by Commissioner Williams, that the 23 Commissioners Court approve the master plan for lighting the 24 Kerr County Courthouse as presented. Any questions or 25 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 8-26-02 28 1 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 3 (No response.) 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Thank you, 5 General. Appreciate it. 6 MR. SCHELLHASE: Thank you. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Next item for consideration 8 is Item Number 2, consider and discuss additional funds for 9 the Kerr County Child Service Board and bill payment for 10 sanctioned expenses. Commissioner Baldwin. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. I think we 12 have some folks here from the Kerr County Child Service 13 Board to make a presentation. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Morning, Mr. Pickens. 15 MR. PICKENS: Good evening. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Morning, evening. 17 MR. PICKENS: Good evening, Commissioners 18 Court and County Judge. I'd like to thank you personally 19 for allowing us to come in this evening to discuss an issue 20 that has come up unexpectedly. First, I would like to say 21 for the record that the Kerr County Child Service Board, in 22 the last six years, has never really come before the Court 23 to ask for additional funds. And I know they've -- you're 24 at the time that you're getting ready to adopt the budget, 25 but at this time we are asking for some assistance on some 8-26-02 29 1 emergency funds for some things that have come up 2 unexpectedly. What I've handed you is a packet. The first 3 sheet is the functions of the -- of what the County will pay 4 for the -- to the Child Service Board. The second one is 5 our statistic report. As of August the 19th of this year, 6 we're up to 52 kids that are in need of services; 46 Of 7 those are in foster care as we speak. 8 If you look at the next sheet, you'll see 9 where we had an average of 33 kids for the year of 2001, and 10 then the next sheet was the year 2000, we had an average of 11 26 kids. In Kerr County services, for needs overall, 12 we've -- in the last two, going on three years, we've 13 averaged 13 kids every year, using up our expenses. The 14 last sheet of the packet is our -- our current balance. 15 What the Commissioners Court gracefully gave us was $5,000 a 16 year. We're now down to $338.03. What we're asking for is 17 that we still have eight kids for birthdays for August and 18 September, which is allocated at $25 a child, so we're 19 needing $200 there for birthdays. We have 10 kids that I -- 20 at our board meeting last Monday night, we found out we have 21 10 more kids that have come into emergency placement. 22 That's $50 each; that's an additional $500. We also have 23 supplemented school supplies where, if you look back on your 24 first sheet, we had allocated $75. And I had a discussion 25 with Commissioner Baldwin as far as school supplies. At our 8-26-02 30 1 board meeting, we had to cut that down to $60 a child, $15 2 short on each child, and we had 39 kids that we had to buy 3 school supplies for. The fourth one is -- we have two new 4 kids that just come in for school supplies, so that's 5 another $150, and on Number 3 was $585, which we -- for 6 these 39 kids to get some additional school supplies. So, 7 we gracefully ask for -- we're requesting on your behalf 8 $1,100 just to cover us till the end of September for this 9 budget year. I know that it's bad timing, but this is 10 something that has just been unforeseen. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Bobby, can you explain 12 again, maybe refresh the Court's mind on what kind of kids 13 these are and why -- why we are using local tax dollars in 14 helping them? 15 MR. PICKENS: These are needy children here 16 in Kerr County. They've either been mentally abused, 17 sexually abused, physically abused. They've been taken away 18 from their parents and placed in foster care, in emergency 19 shelters by Child Protective Services. We work in 20 conjunction with them, whereas they will come and provide us 21 a list of children that they have in their control and care. 22 As far as who's needing what as far as clothes, again, the 23 school supplies, if they're in graduation and so forth. We 24 also help provide the -- when C.P.S. has to take pictures of 25 situations at home on the children, we help pay for the film 8-26-02 31 1 at the local film developer, whoever we choose to -- that 2 will help us out there. In the years past, though, since 3 I've been on the board since '96, and serving as president 4 the last two years, we have gracefully returned anywhere 5 from $200 to almost $900 back to the Court that was not 6 spent during our budget year. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's your main source 8 of revenue, or other source of revenue? 9 MR. PICKENS: Right now, it's what the Court 10 gives us, and we also hold some fundraisers for scholarships 11 for these needy children when they graduate from high 12 school. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think, by law, we're 14 required to have a Child Services Board. I don't know what, 15 by law, we're required to participate in financially, but 16 Kerr County's always been good to help in this. Many of 17 these kids are -- C.P.S. takes them out of the -- takes them 18 away from their parents in an ugly, ugly situation, and they 19 simply don't have a shirt on their back, and they don't have 20 a shirt or a pair of underwear. So, that's what we do. 21 MR. PICKENS: What is -- the downfall right 22 here is that last year, we bought Christmas gifts for these 23 children for 29 kids, and we allocated -- we still had, 24 like, $2,600 left over in our budget. Well, unfortunately, 25 we have jumped 23 kids since December of last year, and 8-26-02 32 1 that's why our numbers have grown. Sherry can fill in some 2 other information -- she's the vice president of the 3 board -- as far as we have seen an increase of the kids; 4 it's been averaging anywhere from three to six kids per 5 month. Is that right, Sherry? 6 MS. COWELL: Let me just add some additional 7 information. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Give the reporter your 9 name. 10 MS. COWELL: Sherry Cowell. I retired from 11 C.P.S. last year, having worked for the department in C.P.S. 12 for 23 years, so I've removed my share of kids in emergency 13 situations. When these kids come to the foster care, when 14 they're removed by the State, they're coming out of a bad 15 situation. Their parents are not happy with the fact that 16 their children are being taken away involuntarily, so 17 they're not real thrilled about packing bags for these kids, 18 and we've got kids that come into foster care that have 19 literally the clothes on their back. So, when they come 20 into a foster home, the State pays for the foster care 21 payment to help with the foster care expenses; you know, 22 food, clothing, shelter, that kind of thing. But it comes 23 after the fact, after the children have been in care for at 24 least a month. If everything goes through the computer on 25 time, which is pretty rare, the foster parents then get paid 8-26-02 33 1 from money they've already spent. 2 Well, most of the kids coming into foster 3 care don't come in ones. Most of these kids have siblings, 4 so these kids are coming into care two or three kids at a 5 time. And we try to keep siblings together, so they go into 6 a foster home two or three kids at a time, and that's a lot 7 of money for the foster parents to have to outlay. That's 8 why the board felt it was important for us to be able to 9 allocate $50 per child to help with toothbrushes, 10 hairbrushes, usually underclothing, shoes, a change of 11 clothes, that kind of thing. The 10 children that we have 12 that we're needing the $500 for emergency placement 13 expenses, these are kids that came in within the last three 14 months that C.P.S. had not informed us of, because the kids 15 are in shelters. Once they go into a foster home, that's 16 when they want the money to help the foster family, because 17 if they bought anything for the children while they were in 18 shelters, more than likely that won't go on with them; that 19 would stay in the shelter. Does that make sense? 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sort of. 21 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Bobby, I'm just 23 curious about one thing here. Maybe you just took a page 24 out of the book to show us as an example, but you're talking 25 about cases investigated, and I only see -- well, I think 8-26-02 34 1 there are two precincts listed, Precincts 1 and 2. 2 MS. COWELL: No, that's Priority 1 and 2. 3 Priority 1 has to be -- 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I thought maybe you 5 and I had all the bad situations. 6 MS. COWELL: No, Priority 1 has to be 7 investigated within 24 hours. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Thank you for 9 clarifying that. 10 MS. COWELL: Priority 2 has to be 11 investigated within 10 days. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I've got a motion to 13 make. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I move that we take 16 $1,096.97 from the Constable 1 salary -- that would be Line 17 Item 10-551-101 -- and move it to the Child Service Board. 18 That would be 10-630-212. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll second that. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 21 Baldwin, second by Commissioner Williams, that the Court 22 transfer 1,091 -- 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: $1,096.97. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: $1,096.97 from the line item 25 for Constable, Precinct 1 salary to the Child Services Board 8-26-02 35 1 line item. 2 MS. NEMEC: Do we need a hand check, 3 Commissioner? Hand check, or save it for the next time we 4 pay bills? 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Next time. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Next time? I mean -- 7 MS. COWELL: Yes, that's fine. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions or comments? 9 If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 10 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 12 (No response.) 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Thank you 14 all. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, I think Sherry had 16 one other item here on the agenda to discuss, the bill 17 payment for sanctioned expenses. There's a bit of confusion 18 in the community with some of their charge accounts, and 19 they want to know if we could help. 20 MR. PICKENS: What we've had in the past is, 21 we've had an agreement with Walmart where we could go and 22 set up an account with them, and where Child Protective 23 Services -- we would provide a list to the employees at 24 Walmart of who can charge on the account as far as getting 25 necessary supplies, baby formula, diapers, clothes for these 8-26-02 36 1 children, from infants up to teenagers, whereas they could 2 just go in, sign for the clothes or merchandise they bought. 3 And, in turn, Walmart would send us a bill, and we in turn 4 would send to it the Court to get paid. What has happened 5 in the past is where a bill would come to us, we'd bring it 6 to y'all. We might miss y'all's court date as far as 7 meeting, and then it would sit for a couple weeks, and then 8 a late charge would be assessed to us. This last incident 9 we had with Walmart was that I think we owed, like, $13 in 10 late charges. They wouldn't work with us. And we all 11 offered to pay out of our own pockets; they wouldn't do it. 12 I understand y'all's reasons for not wanting 13 to pay the late charges. Therefore, we -- we're in dire 14 need of the items. I mean, so we went to K-Mart. K-Mart 15 picked us up right away. We're spending, like, anywhere 16 from $700 to $1,000 a year in Christmas gifts alone. K-Mart 17 didn't have a problem picking us up. Unfortunately, they 18 closed their doors. So, now I've gone to H.E.B., talked to 19 Mr. Greg Nichols, who's the director of the store. He's 20 willing to open up an in-store account so we can get items 21 from there. I've gone to Burke's Outlet, who has just 22 opened up. I'm waiting on a reply from them this week about 23 setting up an in-store account. But, again, when it gets 24 right down to coming Christmastime, the one we're really 25 going to have to go to is back to Walmart. I've tried 8-26-02 37 1 calling the manager there to see if he could come here 2 tonight, see if we can maybe work out some type of agreement 3 as far as getting these bills paid. What we're asking for 4 the Court to do is that, when this next budget comes up, as 5 far as -- I don't know how much you'll have allocated us, 6 'cause I wasn't invited to the last workshop this past 7 summer. That we -- let's just say, for example, if you can 8 give us $5,000, if you would just give us the money, where 9 -- where we can -- 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Can't do that. We can not do 11 that. We can only pay against invoices. 12 MR. PICKENS: I understand that. Then, if 13 that's the case, then if we could just maybe ask for $1,000, 14 we can set up a special account and go ahead and pay it out 15 of that $1,000. We'd submit all the bills; you're welcome 16 to an audit. And that way these bills get paid on time, and 17 then we can ask for reimbursement back into that account, so 18 we can get something started up with Walmart. We're keeping 19 the money here locally; we don't go outside of the county to 20 spend the money. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There's an old saying 22 in town; when all else fails, go to Gibsons. Have you gone 23 there? 24 MR. PICKENS: I haven't talked to them, but 25 I'm hitting every store that I can. 8-26-02 38 1 MS. COWELL: The problem is, when we went 2 Christmas shopping, we tried to go Christmas shopping the 3 day after Thanksgiving, which Walmart has all its wonderful 4 sales on. We can't do that unless we know that that account 5 is paid in full. Like Bobby said, when there's a late 6 charge on there, they won't accept payment from us. They 7 won't accept payment here locally; it has to go through 8 their corporate office out of state. And with the lag time, 9 you're talking at least two weeks lag time with that. In 10 the meantime, we're on a time schedule, too, because we have 11 to get those gifts bought, wrapped, and to the caseworkers 12 so the caseworkers can get those gifts to the children in 13 early December, as they're making their rounds. 'Cause some 14 of these kids -- some of the Kerr County kids, 15 unfortunately, are placed out of town, sometimes quite far 16 away if they're in a residential treatment facility. So, 17 we've got to do this in a very timely fashion. 18 And, quite honestly, I go to Gibsons all the 19 time, but I just can't see that little store meeting the 20 needs that we have for these children. We had 29 gifts to 21 purchase one evening for Christmas last year, and -- and 22 K-Mart filled the bill. It was a little difficult, 'cause 23 they didn't have the selection that we would like, but they 24 were wonderful. We got it done. But with this many more 25 kids that we're looking at, and I don't see the numbers 8-26-02 39 1 going down, we really need to get -- be able to use -- 2 facilitate -- you know, use Walmart again. So, it's just a 3 payment problem. 4 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: The Sheriff has 5 something to say. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Sheriff? 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Judge, the Sheriff's 8 Department does have an account at Walmart, and what we have 9 is a Walmart credit card. It is community business for the 10 Sheriff's Office. We haven't had any problem at all. We do 11 get our bills over here in a timely fashion when we get 12 them, when we receive them from Walmart, but I haven't had 13 any problem from Walmart. 14 MS. COWELL: We've had -- we've had a problem 15 with the late fees on more than one occasion. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: So, do your people bring you 17 the receipts the same day that they buy something, and you 18 then turn around and bring them to the County for 19 processing? 20 MS. COWELL: We get a bill from Walmart and 21 then we turn around and give that to you. Don't we? 22 MR. PICKENS: Yes, we give it to Barbara at 23 C.P.S., which in turn is forwarded over to Mindy. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: There's -- the problem is in 25 the timing of presentation of the bills. I mean, if you 8-26-02 40 1 have to run it from C.P.S. -- 2 MS. COWELL: Well, the board meets once a 3 month. We're all volunteers; we don't have offices that the 4 workers can track us down at, so we meet once a month, so 5 that's when we get the bills presented to us. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: I don't know -- 7 MR. PICKENS: I'll give you an example. This 8 weekend I just got a bill from H.E.B. on the two charge 9 accounts. And -- I mean, I got it this weekend. Well, I 10 mean, it was too late to present it, you know. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: What's the due date? 12 MR. PICKENS: One of them was the end of 13 July, and one's -- I went and signed the other day on August 14 the 12th -- no, the 13th, and then they sent it to me this 15 past weekend, which I'm going to get it to y'all for the 16 next -- you know, for the next Commissioners Court to be 17 paid. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We -- could y'all's board 19 not delegate to one of your board members, or someone who -- 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Picks up mail. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- whoever gets the mail 22 and can get the bill -- the invoice over to the County more 23 timely? 24 MR. PICKENS: What has happened is, we have a 25 new whole board, and I'm the one who's taking responsibility 8-26-02 41 1 for getting the mail picked up every day, 'cause I have a 2 post office box there also. And -- but prior to that, we've 3 had past members who are no longer on the board that were 4 telling us they were checking the mail, and it turned out 5 they weren't. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It sounds really like 7 it's more an internal problem in y'all's board to figure out 8 how to get the invoices to us, rather than the County not 9 paying timely. 10 MR. PICKENS: I understand, but what I'm 11 trying to get at, Commissioner Letz, is that has been 12 resolved now. I check the mail every day now. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: I don't think we can find a 14 solution to this this evening, because I think you're going 15 to have to discover legally whether we can provide you with 16 funds against invoices, and I think you're going to find the 17 answer is no, which means then you need to present to us a 18 solution to the problem. Because -- 19 MR. PICKENS: Again, like I said, I tried to 20 get ahold of the manager from Walmart over the weekend when 21 he was out of pocket. I tried to get him to come to the 22 next Commissioners Court meeting so we could maybe have 23 something worked out. 24 MS. COWELL: Thank you. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. 8-26-02 42 1 MR. PICKENS: Thank you. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Next item is Item Number 3, 3 consider and discuss approval of commercial warehouse lease 4 agreement between City of Kerrville, County of Kerr, Texas, 5 and Triad Manufacturing, Ltd., and authorize County Judge to 6 sign same. Megan? This is a new lease at the airport on 7 the form of lease that's previously been considered by the 8 Court; is that correct? 9 MS. CAFFALL: Yes, sir. This is a commercial 10 warehouse lease with Triad Manufacturing, also known as or 11 doing business as B.A. Products, at the airport. They're 12 the same folks we leased the former Gibsons warehouse to. 13 Since they've relocated to the airport, their business has 14 grown 20 percent. They've picked up three new distributing 15 outlets for their feeders. The only name I recognized was 16 Cabela's. But their volume of output has changed. They 17 have requested to lease 1,500 square feet of storage space 18 only in the blue building that the City and County own that 19 was constructed by the Experimental Aircraft Association -- 20 that's just further on up the road, if you're not -- I 21 assume you're all familiar with where it is -- as overflow 22 storage for their finished product. 23 This is a space lease only. As usual, 24 between the time I delivered to Thea and you got your 25 printing done for your packets -- we have a standard lease 8-26-02 43 1 that we use, you know, for everything, and we take -- take 2 items out that aren't appropriate and add in what's needed. 3 The changes are on this underlined in red. The original 4 text is taken out. Basically, the changes deal with the 5 fact that they are only leasing space; they're not going to 6 be constructing anything at the airport. They're only going 7 to lease a portion of that building. Ultimately, my plans 8 next year for that building are to make the bathrooms in 9 it -- there's a men's room, ladies room, and a shower in 10 it -- accessible to our T-hangar tenants and any other -- 11 and general aviation development that we have out at the 12 airport. Right now, the only toilets at the airport are at 13 Kerrville Aviation. And when you fly someplace, usually the 14 last thing you want to do is visit a restroom. The first 15 thing you want to do when you get off an airplane is visit a 16 restroom. So, that is my plan. They only need about 17 1,500 square feet. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What's in the building 19 right now? 20 MS. CAFFALL: It's basically empty. We have 21 some of our airport supplies in there, which we can move 22 out, and the offices. There's one office and two restrooms 23 in a row. I have in next year's budget funds to partition 24 wall off that portion and put a -- a keypad access door just 25 to the bathrooms and that office. And the building has been 8-26-02 44 1 pretty much empty, except for what the City and County keep 2 there for maintenance purposes, our runway exits that we -- 3 we close the runways with, since the Experimental Aircraft 4 Association, in any event, left here a few years back. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I didn't follow all 6 that. Does this company have access to that office? Will 7 they be leasing the office? 8 MS. CAFFALL: No, sir. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just -- 10 MS. CAFFALL: Just 1,500 square feet of 11 storage space. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One-year lease? 13 MS. CAFFALL: One-year lease, yes, sir. I'm 14 sorry. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No manufacturing to 16 take place? 17 MS. CAFFALL: No, sir, it is a storage lease 18 only. 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Get some revenue. 20 I'll make a motion that we approve the contract and 21 authorize the County Judge to sign same. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 24 Griffin, second by Commissioner Letz -- I mean Commissioner 25 Baldwin, that the Court approve the commercial warehouse 8-26-02 45 1 lease agreement between the City of Kerrville, Kerr County, 2 and Triad Manufacturing, Ltd., and authorize the County 3 Judge to sign the same. Any further questions or comments? 4 If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 5 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 7 (No response.) 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Thank you, 9 Megan. 10 MS. CAFFALL: Thank you. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Item Number 4, consider and 12 discuss requesting the Kerr Central Appraisal District to 13 reappraise property damaged in the flood. Fourth Coates. 14 MR. COATES: Yes, sir. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: He's here to explain the 16 process to us. So you'll know, Fourth is the Chief 17 Appraiser at the Kerr Central Appraisal District. 18 MR. COATES: I've got some props. So -- and 19 the easel and I did not get along. Tommy, if I could get 20 you to be my easel, I would really appreciate it. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Get him to stand in a 22 chair so we can see it. 23 (Laughter.) 24 MR. COATES: Kind of hold it up. 25 MR. TOMLINSON: Let's see. Is this the top? 8-26-02 46 1 (Discussion off the record.) 2 MR. COATES: This is the front. 3 MR. TOMLINSON: Okay, got you. 4 MR. COATES: That's the top. 5 MR. TOMLINSON: I couldn't figure out what 6 the top was. 7 MR. COATES: Okay. Y'all pass these out. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. Thank you. 9 MR. COATES: I've got enough for all the 10 Commissioners and then some of the public also. Here's 11 another one. 12 (Discussion off the record.) 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Maybe you better get 14 on a chair. 15 MR. COATES: It's rolling up on you. That's 16 okay. First of all, the -- the first handout that y'all 17 have and that the public library will be getting is out of 18 the Tax Code, and it describes reappraisal of property 19 damaged in the natural disaster area. We qualify for this 20 reappraisal. The local taxing entity has the option to 21 initiate or give approval for a reappraisal, but basically 22 each entity, if they decide they want to have a reappraisal, 23 it's the governing bodies that approve it. So, basically, 24 we've got a flooded area. And, also, the -- the taxes will 25 be prorated as of the date of the occurrence, based on the 8-26-02 47 1 new value. So, the property's reappraised -- any 2 flood-damaged property is reappraised, and then the taxes 3 are prorated as of the date of the appraisal for the rest of 4 the year at the lower value. 5 So, basically, what -- what we're looking at, 6 for the most part, the damage that occurred -- I'm walking 7 away from my mic -- is damage that occurred in the City of 8 Kerrville, which is the area that I've got the best handle 9 on right now, along the blue areas there, along Town Creek 10 over to your left, and then down Quinlan Creek over here on 11 your right. The most substantial damage occurred on Quinlan 12 Creek, in the Appraisal District's estimation, in an area 13 below the golf course. In that area, it widens out right in 14 there. There was considerable houses that were damaged. 15 The City has identified approximately 25 properties that 16 were either totally destroyed or substantially destroyed to 17 the point to where they're going to try to do a buyout. 18 They're looking at getting some grant money, and so we've 19 got a lot of those. 20 Now, this sheet, the spreadsheet with the -- 21 with the blue colors, within those two areas, identified 22 approximately 350 properties within the city limits that 23 were damaged on -- not necessarily damaged, but that were 24 just within the floodplain. We don't know exactly how many 25 yet, but I've got some projections on -- on the percentages 8-26-02 48 1 that we can look at. The total value for these 350 2 properties is about $14.8 million. That includes the 3 improvements to the property and the land itself. What I've 4 based my projections on are the improvement values. You 5 know, we know for sure that we've got 25 properties that 6 have been substantially damaged, and that represents an 7 improvement value of $629,895, which is the red figure to 8 the right up there at the top. Now, just the revenue loss 9 on that figure for the County -- now, let me doublecheck 10 with Tommy here. The tax rate for 2001, the combined rate 11 was .3721; is that correct? 12 MR. TOMLINSON: That's correct. 13 MR. COATES: Seemed a little low. I just 14 wanted to make sure. 15 (Laughter.) 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Nice shot, Fourth. 17 MR. COATES: No, I'm just -- you know. The 18 -- the total improvement loss based on that is $1,172, based 19 on that $629,000. Now, that does not include any homestead 20 exemption; that's based on market value, so actually it 21 probably is going to be a little less than that. Looking 22 further down, a worst-case scenario, if we had 100 percent 23 improvement loss for the rest of the properties, it would 24 amount to $23,111. Add that to the known total destruction 25 there of $1,172; you've got a worst-case scenario revenue 8-26-02 49 1 loss of $24,283 for the County. Now, I don't think -- 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's just the properties in 3 the city? 4 MR. COATES: That's just the property in the 5 city. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: That doesn't include -- 7 MR. COATES: Not outside. I've talked to 8 U.G.R.A. They've identified some properties along the Camp 9 Verde area that have been damaged. I'm sure there's others. 10 So, this is just -- this is, more than anything, to give you 11 an idea of -- of what you're looking at on a projection 12 basis. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Not necessarily Camp 14 Verde, but Verde Creek area, particularly Center Point. 15 MR. COATES: Right. Verde Creek, Center 16 Point, that area. Most of the damage seemed to occur below 17 Kerrville. Kerrville -- city of Kerrville and below. It 18 goes right on down to the rest of the percentage of 19 improvement and the revenue losses on there, down to 12 and 20 50 percent, 5,700 to 25, and 3,400 at 10 percent. As far as 21 the cost of the reappraisal, if you noticed in the -- in the 22 first handout, there's a section there that says the dollar 23 amounts will be paid to the Appraisal District. And, 24 basically, our board has met. They've not taken action on 25 this item yet; it was just a discussion item. And it seemed 8-26-02 50 1 like most of the board had the feeling, after I talked to 2 them, these are properties that are going to have to be 3 looked at anyway; the Appraisal District's going to have to 4 take a look at them for the next tax year. If we look at 5 them now, some of them won't have to be looked at until 6 after the repairs are made to them. So, if they're repaired 7 before the first of the year, some of them will have to be 8 looked at twice. I don't think there's going to be that 9 many that are going to have to be reappraised. Just driving 10 through there, I've seen a lot of work that's been going on 11 and stuff, but it's not -- it's not just an overwhelming 12 job. I believe it's something that the -- that the 13 Appraisal District can handle without a lot of added 14 expense, and I feel like my board agrees to that. So, 15 basically, in doing our part, I believe we could probably do 16 that for about what our normal budget has in it. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Fourth, would it be 18 helpful for people that are in the county area to contact 19 you? 20 MR. COATES: Yes. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's what, really, 22 the -- 23 MR. COATES: Yes. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: In other words, you're 25 not going to know unless -- 8-26-02 51 1 MR. COATES: We've had several people that 2 have contacted us. U.G.R.A. has had several people. I've 3 been through one of these before in a previous county, and 4 we ran some ads in the paper for a couple of weeks that just 5 announced to people that there was a reappraisal being done 6 and to contact us if they had any flood damage. Now, we did 7 get some calls on people who had leaks that were in their 8 roofs and things like that, but it's basically going to be 9 flood damage caused by rising water. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions? You 12 made a presentation to the K.I.S.D.; is that correct? 13 MR. COATES: That's correct. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Are you going to talk to the 15 City at any time? 16 MR. COATES: Well, I'm on the agenda for the 17 City to talk about our budget, and whether or not any 18 questions come up, I'm prepared to answer them. So -- but 19 as of yet, I'm not on there to give them a presentation. 20 They have a real good handle on the damage. In fact, I got 21 a lot of this information from the City. We worked with 22 them in our mapping department, so we were able to download 23 their information and print out a map. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll make a motion to 25 authorize the reappraisal of property pursuant to Section 8-26-02 52 1 23.02 under the Tax Code. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Second. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner Letz, 4 second by Commissioner Griffin, that the Commissioners Court 5 authorize a reappraisal of Kerr County properties damaged in 6 the flood pursuant to Section 23.02 of the Texas Tax Code. 7 Any questions or comments? If not, all in favor, raise your 8 right hand. 9 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 11 (No response.) 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Thank you, 13 Fourth. 14 MR. COATES: Thank you very much. I know the 15 people who had homes destroyed and damaged will really 16 appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks, Tommy. 17 MR. TOMLINSON: Sure. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Next item is Item Number 5, 19 which really is a related item, consider and discuss Kerr 20 County participation in the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. 21 Stuart Barron, our floodplain administrator, is here to 22 basically answer any questions. This is the program whereby 23 the County may purchase properties that were damaged in the 24 flood, and that cannot be rebuilt because of their location 25 and the extent of damage. Is that correct, Stuart? 8-26-02 53 1 MR. BARRON: Yes, that have had more than 2 50 percent damage due to the flood. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: It does require a 25 percent 4 match on the part of the County. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There's a deadline 6 for filing, I understand. Is that correct, Stuart? 7 MR. BARRON: Yes, sir. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And that deadline is? 9 MR. BARRON: The 28th of this month. There 10 should have been a copy of this in y'all's box some time 11 ago. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Stuart, do you have any idea 13 how many homes or how many properties might be affected by 14 this? 15 MR. BARRON: Ones that were substantially 16 damaged, I have a feeling there's between 8 and 10 homes. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: We don't know whether -- how 18 many of those would want to participate in the program. I 19 mean, I personally have had one phone call from a homeowner 20 who wanted to know if the County was going to participate in 21 the program. One of the issues this raises is, what do we 22 do with the property if we acquire it? 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I've had two phone 24 calls. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: You've had two phone calls, 8-26-02 54 1 Commissioner? 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I've had one. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: And you've had one? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They may all be -- 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Which probably means there's 6 two out there. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Two people. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mine was about Hermann 9 Sons. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Have all the cases -- 11 of the seven or eight that you know of in the Verde Creek 12 area coming through Center Point, in all cases, to your 13 knowledge, is the property size insufficient for them to 14 relocate beyond the floodplain? Or just some of them are in 15 that circumstance? 16 MR. BARRON: They -- in those particular 17 areas, it's a Flood Hazard A or Flood Zone A, and they can 18 rebuild in those type of areas, but they have to elevate. 19 And that would -- by elevating, that would put them out of 20 the 100-year flood zone. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: All of them or some 22 of them? 23 MR. BARRON: If they elevate high enough, it 24 will be all of them. But there are lots in there that are 25 -- let me give y'all the next handout, if I might. It will 8-26-02 55 1 kind of lead into the next one and give you some -- this is 2 the study that was done by Voelkel Engineering that I'm 3 submitting to have the fees paid for. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let me pass it around. 5 MR. BARRON: I believe it's the second page, 6 there's a copy of a map. This one is in the Verde Creek 7 area between Highway 480 and Elm Pass Road. The -- I don't 8 know what, kind of, to talk about first, because this is the 9 next agenda item. The red dots there are going to be the 10 elevations that the surveyor shot for me so I could get a 11 debris line. You can see all the lots there in the 100-year 12 floodplain. The dark brown -- y'all don't have a color 13 copy. The darker color is going to be 100-year floodplain. 14 The lighter color outside of that is the 500-year 15 floodplain. So, yes, there are areas -- as you can see on 16 the bottom side of the page, there are lots completely 17 enclosed in the 100-year floodplain. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: On 95 percent or 19 more, some of them. 20 MR. BARRON: Yes, sir. The interesting thing 21 in this particular area is that -- that the river didn't get 22 all the homes in the area. There are a few of them that 23 have substantial damage, more than 50 percent. There's also 24 quite a few that did not have 50 percent or better damage, 25 where the homes could get built back there in the future. 8-26-02 56 1 If we decide not to go with the buyout program, which I 2 would -- I'll leave up to the Court, but I may recommend to 3 the Court, in the future rules for FEMA, is to have what 4 they call a progressive flood event. In other words, if you 5 have -- if you have a flood event on your property that 6 equals up to 50 percent within a 10-year period, then you're 7 eligible to be bought out at that time. And if it ever does 8 flood, then they can't build back on that -- if it ever does 9 get up above that, they can't build back in that same exact 10 location. At that time, they would have to elevate or move 11 outside of the 100-year floodplain. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Stuart, what price do you 13 buy them out at? I mean -- 14 MR. BARRON: I -- I'm sure it would be the 15 market rate. I'm not -- I don't know. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But on a flooded lot -- 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: It's market value before the 18 event. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Before the event? 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: As established by fair market 21 appraisal. 22 MR. BARRON: Once again, I feel there's 23 probably between 8 and 10 homes that have more than 24 50 percent damage in the county. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Will any of the other 8-26-02 57 1 federal funds that the County may get cover our 25 percent? 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: I don't think so. It's 3 possible that the money from the grant we applied for 4 through -- 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Grantworks. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: -- Grantworks could cover the 7 25 percent, if it's not used up in the road infrastructure 8 match. Which I don't believe it's going to be, if we get 9 the maximum. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, one person I've 11 talked to, the family is pretty destitute. I mean, their 12 life savings is pretty much gone. They can't rebuild on the 13 lot. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: But a question remains, what 15 do we do with that land once we buy it? 16 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Probably have to sell 17 it at auction. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Sell it and -- you know, 19 maybe someone in the neighborhood would want to buy it, and 20 couldn't build on it. Maybe recoup some of the money. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There are situations 22 where neighbors will buy it, particularly if they know they 23 don't have to use to it build on. I think we might sell it 24 at auction and whatever. Do we have time enough to get this 25 done? There's something about a team report that has to be 8-26-02 58 1 put in by the 28th. 2 MR. BARRON: Yes, sir. I believe the Judge 3 has a copy of that -- that folder I gave to you two weeks 4 ago. I haven't had time to go through it to see what all it 5 entails. I submitted it to Commissioners Court. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, you're going to have to 7 get real familiar with it in the next few hours if we're 8 going to do this. 9 MR. BARRON: Okay. The report that we need 10 to make is just going to be kind of getting where the homes 11 are, and I've got all that information there that's come to 12 me, anyway, and also some that I found on my own. That's -- 13 that's not going to be very difficult to do. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Stuart has told me that we 15 can get it done, and we'll work together and get it done. 16 MR. BARRON: If we do decide to take on the 17 program, it may take an additional staff member to help 18 myself administer the program. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, I would offer 20 a motion that Kerr County participate in the Hazard 21 Mitigation Grant Program, as offered by the division of 22 Emergency Management, which is part of the Texas Department 23 of Public Safety, and authorize the application to be 24 submitted by the deadline, County Judge to sign the 25 application. 8-26-02 59 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second, I think, but I 2 have a question. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 4 Williams, second by Commissioner Letz, that the Court 5 participate in the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program and 6 authorize County Judge to sign the application. Question? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: This is just the 8 application at this point so we could proceed? We're not 9 really committing to do any hazard mitigation at this point? 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's correct. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Nor do we have any 12 idea how much money we might get or how many are in line in 13 front of us, do we? 14 MR. BARRON: Yes, sir. The -- the D.P.S. -- 15 Department of Hazard Mitigation, they get 25 percent of all 16 the moneys that's been allocated to the State, and of those 17 moneys, that is what becomes eligible for buyout of this 18 75 percent share, the moneys that they've gotten from 19 Disaster Relief. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions or 21 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 22 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 24 (No response.) 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Next item, 8-26-02 60 1 Item Number 6, is consider and discuss payment of fees to 2 Voelkel Engineering for establishing debris line elevation 3 in Verde Creek -- Verde Park. 4 MR. BARRON: Yes, sir. This was the document 5 I just handed y'all. They gave me four elevations for out 6 there. It affects about 20 different people's residences, 7 or 45 different lots that I can find with these elevations. 8 The reason they need these elevations are for when homes 9 have been flood-damaged, they have to build at or above the 10 100-year floodplain, and this, on that particular portion of 11 the creek, is going to be considered the 100-year 12 floodplain. It's the flood of record now for that quarter 13 of a million in between those two roads. So, I have to 14 actually come up with a hard number that can be found by any 15 surveyor, and that's what Voelkel has given us at that 16 point, so we can tell where these houses are. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: What I'm going to suggest we 18 do, gentlemen, is authorize -- authorize the engagement of 19 Voelkel Engineering be ratified; it had to be done, and then 20 let Tommy take a look at the bill and look for a source of 21 funds and bring it back to us at the next court meeting. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that a motion, 24 Commissioner? 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. 8-26-02 61 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I second his 2 agreement. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: We have a motion by 4 Commissioner Baldwin -- 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Do we have to have a 6 motion? 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: -- to ratify the engagement 8 of Voelkel Engineering to establish a debris line elevation 9 in Verde Park, for a total expenditure of -- whatever it 10 is -- $848.75. Any questions or comments? 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's my motion. 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Just a comment, that I 13 would just say in passing that -- that Stuart is our 14 floodplain administrator. That bill should have been sent 15 to Kerr County, 'cause it's a Kerr County bill, not to 16 U.G.R.A. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's true. I also want to 18 say that Stuart has done yeoman duty -- 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Absolutely. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: -- as floodplain 21 administrator, and been very responsive to the needs of the 22 citizens in the county who were damaged by the flood event. 23 Any other questions or comments? If not, all in favor, 24 raise your right hand. 25 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 8-26-02 62 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 2 (No response.) 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. 4 MR. BARRON: Thank you. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Gentlemen, let's do one more 6 item, then we'll take a break and proceed on. Next item is 7 Item Number 7, consider and discuss proposed Letter of 8 Intent agreement with Texas Arts and Crafts Foundation. 9 Commissioner Letz. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. Bob Miller came to 11 myself and Commissioner Baldwin, I guess, two weeks ago with 12 the idea of using some of the property out at the County -- 13 owned by the Hill Country Youth Exhibition Center, with the 14 concept of relocating -- or locating the Texas Arts and 15 Crafts Foundation at that location. And I think Bob is here 16 to show the Court what he has in mind. 17 MR. MILLER: I have props. My name is Bob 18 Miller. I live at 1214 Oriole, Kerrville, Texas. I am the 19 Director of the Texas Arts and Crafts Educational 20 Foundation. The Texas Arts and Crafts Educational 21 Foundation produces the official Texas Arts and Crafts Fair 22 annually, and we've been doing it for over 31 years on the 23 Schreiner University campus on the banks of the Quinlan 24 Creek. Which may explain part of why we're here tonight. 25 (Laughter.) 8-26-02 63 1 MR. MILLER: The Arts and Crafts Fair, 2 besides being flooded very heavily out on Quinlan Creek, we 3 lost our permanent bathroom buildings and most of our 4 electrical distribution system, bridges and whatnot, which 5 was essentially most of the permanently installed physical 6 assets that we have on location at Quinlan Creek. That kind 7 of brought our -- our thinking around to, can we afford to 8 stay where we are, or do we need to look for a permanent 9 location? So, we've been out looking for a property that 10 would fill the need to be a permanent location for the Arts 11 and Crafts Fair. Another incentive is, Schreiner University 12 has provided us a beautiful place to put on the fair, and 13 it's been a wonderful location all these years, but as a 14 tenant on Schreiner, we are required every year to erect our 15 physical facilities, our entrance. We fence 3,000 square 16 feet of the property off for the fair, and then at the end 17 of the fair, we tear it all down, and there's a tremendous 18 cost to this setup and tear-down every year. So, having a 19 permanent location would allow us to do the setup one time 20 and then not have to go through that exercise again. 21 I can't remember who pointed to your property 22 over there next to the Highlander -- between the Highlander 23 Bar and, really, the rodeo arena, and it is all brushland at 24 this point; it's uncleared. But we went over and looked at 25 it. Peter Lewis, who is our vice president of our board, 8-26-02 64 1 did a concept plan, which you have in front of you now, just 2 to see, number one, if we could fit on that piece of 3 acreage, and number two, to look at it in terms of would 4 this work for a year-round event park for Kerr County? And 5 it does. It's a very nice piece of property, mainly because 6 it's between 6 and 7 hundred -- 6 and 7 acres in size. But 7 we have hopefully the ability to park automobiles in Flat 8 Rock Lake Park. If we don't have -- we need parking for the 9 fair; we need a lot of acreage to do the parking. We need 10 more acreage for cars than we do for the fair and the 11 people, so having an adjacent place to park cars really 12 makes some sense. 13 If we went out and looked at a piece of 14 property that was a stand-alone piece of property, we would 15 need to be looking at a piece of property in the 60 to 70 16 acre size in order to do what we needed to do. This is a 17 really unique little piece of property. If it works for 18 you, I really do believe it would work for us. And we 19 would -- I have submitted to you a non-binding Letter of 20 Intent, which is kind of an innocuous thing, really just to 21 start a negotiation to see if we can agree to a lease 22 agreement or some sort of agreement where we would build the 23 event park at our sole cost and expense, at no expense to 24 the County. After we got it built and got the 25 infrastructure in place, put the property -- put it on a 8-26-02 65 1 profit-sharing basis with the County. Our staff would 2 initially operate the park. I think, at some point, that 3 might change where we did a -- a separate board or a 4 separate entity of interested people who would use it as an 5 outdoor event park, to go run it. But our -- our staff is 6 initially ready to set up and do the sweat equity to get it 7 started and get it up in place. 8 We would like very much to put on the 2003 9 Arts and Crafts Fair at that location, which means 10 everybody's got to put their track shoes on and get to 11 running real quick in order to do that. One of the initial 12 stumbling blocks I know of is, we need to do an 13 archeological study on the site. And I met with the local 14 steward on that Sunday morning, went over the property with 15 them. They've already identified a number-one site with the 16 State, but we would end up having to hire an outside 17 consulting firm to come in and do that. We would need to 18 clear it, fence it, and get it sodded for next year's fair, 19 and that would probably be as much as we could expect to do 20 by year one. The improvements that we would foresee to put 21 on that piece of property are really a fairly small 22 footprint, 'cause we would like to keep it as 23 general-purpose as we can and be able to accommodate almost 24 any kind of entity that wanted to do an outside event. 25 And, if I can step over here, I'll yell at 8-26-02 66 1 the same time and show you. Peter has envisioned coming in 2 from Flat Rock Lake Park about midpoint off of Riverside 3 Drive. There's a -- already a pull-out there on the side 4 where you would stage people to cross the road, and do the 5 entrance at the middle of the property. There would be an 6 amphitheater -- an outdoor amphitheater with seating really 7 terraced on the hillside of what is now a drainage that runs 8 through the property and on into the park. That would seat 9 approximately 1,200 people, which would be about twice -- 10 not quite twice as big as what's at the Point Theatre, 11 bigger than what would be at the auditorium. It would 12 provide, really, a small music venue type of arrangement. 13 Wouldn't do a Garth Brooks concert, but it would be more for 14 a local entertainment type -- 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Bluegrass. Bluegrass. 16 MR. MILLER: We've already discussed this in 17 great detail. No problem. What is set up on the map here 18 is our tent arrangements. We use 36,000 square feet of tent 19 putting on the Arts and Crafts Fair every year, and so just 20 orienting them and trying to see how they fit. But -- so 21 the brown -- light brown areas would be our tent setup. We 22 would do slabs for stages or -- or pavilion-type 23 presentations, and put in permanent bathrooms in three 24 different locations around the property. There would be one 25 road, that is basically what's there now, extended over here 8-26-02 67 1 and then run down the back side for a service road, so that 2 during any kind of an event, you can put service vehicles 3 and whatnot in there without running over your attendees and 4 whatnot. The basic plan would be to leave it as natural as 5 possible, save as much of the trees and landscaping as we 6 possibly can. Shade is real important in an outdoor event, 7 and seating for your attendees under shade trees and 8 whatnot, and that's a pretty piece of property with some 9 beautiful, beautiful trees. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does anyone have any 11 questions for Bob? I think it's a great idea. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think it's exciting. 13 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It was good to see the 15 map. The actual location is where Road and Bridge used to 16 store some equipment over by the fireworks stand, the 17 Highlander, from there through the draw, over kind of near 18 to the back side of the rodeo arena, the Extension Office. 19 MR. MILLER: And it -- that did not flood 20 very bad during the rains. I think Third Creek pulls that 21 water around it, and I think that most of that water comes 22 from over on the V.A. property. But we've walked down 23 through there to see what that would be, and that would end 24 up being a -- a grassed-in area, and cleared out fairly 25 good, just to let the water get on through there and on into 8-26-02 68 1 the park. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Utilities. Would you 3 envision utilities being run, and would they be underground? 4 MR. MILLER: We would run utilities to them 5 underground. You wouldn't have any poles like we do now at 6 Schreiner. We have 17 telephone poles and meter runs that 7 we work off of on the Schreiner University campus; there are 8 poles almost everywhere you go. We have tentatively looked 9 at and kind of priced, for Schreiner -- on the Schreiner 10 campus, the ability to take a larger electrical run to a 11 central location and then run satellites off of that. What 12 we would envision here would be to bury the utilities and 13 have probably eight or ten points spread evenly across the 14 property where you could then pick up and run with lines to 15 wherever you needed them, and have them all individually 16 breakered and GCFI'd so that each -- one of our problems, as 17 a fair promoter, is you have 200 exhibiters on -- on 10 or 18 12 circuit breakers, and if a circuit breaker goes off, you 19 have no idea who's doing what to whom. So, you isolate 20 these circuits pretty good so people could run them, and we 21 also incur a pretty good cost of having an electrician 22 on-site every year, 'cause everything is hard-wired anew 23 each and every year, buried and set up for the folks. So, 24 this would be something that could be run and -- and really 25 just your normal maintenance staff could set it up and run 8-26-02 69 1 it. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Tell me again, what 3 have you done about the archeological issue? 4 MR. MILLER: I've just discussed what their 5 requirements are. The requirements are, number one, to come 6 out and do a survey on the entire piece of property, mainly 7 because they've already identified one location. They've 8 also got a location they identified at the credit union 9 across the street, and one between the Highlander Bar and 10 the building closer to town from it, under their parking lot 11 there's another site, and they kind of believe that all of 12 those are related in some manner. So, they would do a 13 survey. You hire a -- a firm that does this sort of thing 14 for a living; they come out and do little, small shovel 15 tests, analyze the -- what they take out of the holes, and 16 determine from there what you can do and what you can't do. 17 We're restricted at this point from moving dirt until that 18 survey is done. The stewards indicated that that area has 19 been heavily looted in the past, that there's been a lot of 20 dumping, storage -- I know there's been gravel and that sort 21 of thing dumped out there, so they're not real sure whether 22 the site is worth preserving at this point until they do 23 that kind of testing. I would like to see us -- if we could 24 find a place that they could kind of do a -- a showcase of 25 -- of one of the mound middens, and they were talking about 8-26-02 70 1 maybe doing one of their cooking oven things as a permanent 2 display, since that's a part of our history here in 3 Kerrville. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Does the Arts and 5 Crafts Foundation envision having its offices there? Or 6 just -- 7 MR. MILLER: Yes, sir. Yes, sir, we'd move 8 the office there too. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Pretty exciting. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: What do we need? 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: A motion to approve the 12 Letter of Intent and authorize the County Judge to sign 13 same. We need to designate someone to work with them on the 14 agreement, or however we want to proceed. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Commissioner Letz 16 would be happy to do that. 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I think you probably 18 both should. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Commissioner Baldwin. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Do we have a motion to 21 approve the Letter of Intent? 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 25 Baldwin, second by Commissioner Letz, that the Court approve 8-26-02 71 1 the Letter of Intent with regard to Texas Arts and Crafts 2 Foundation and authorize the County Judge to sign the same. 3 Any other questions or comments? 4 MR. MILLER: Thank you very much. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: If not, all in favor, raise 6 your right hand. 7 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 9 (No response.) 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Thank you, 11 Bob. 12 MR. MILLER: Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you 13 for your time. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: At this time, we're going to 16 take a 10-minute break. We'll reconvene promptly at 10 17 minutes after 8:00. 18 (Recess taken from 8:00 p.m. to 8:10 p.m.) 19 - - - - - - - - - - 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: We'll call to order again 21 this special session of the Kerr County Commissioners Court. 22 The next item for consideration is Item Number 8, consider 23 and discuss release of Letter of Credit Number 88222138 from 24 State National Bank of West Texas on behalf of the Burgess 25 Kerrville Corporation for Twin Springs Ranch II. Franklin 8-26-02 72 1 Johnston. 2 MR. JOHNSTON: This road in Twin Springs 3 Ranch II is complete. It's paved, and I went out and did a 4 final inspection. It's time to release the Letter of 5 Credit. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I move the release of 7 Letter of Credit Number 88222138 from State National Bank of 8 West Texas on behalf of the Burgess Kerrville Corporation 9 for road work in Twin Springs Ranch II. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll second that 11 emotion. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 13 Williams and emotion by Commissioner Baldwin that the Court 14 approve release of Letter of Credit Number 88222138 from the 15 State National Bank of West Texas, and on behalf of Burgess 16 Kerrville Corporation for Twin Springs Ranch, II. Any 17 questions or comments? If not, all in favor, raise your 18 right hand. 19 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 21 (No response.) 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Next item 23 for consideration is Item Number 9, consider and discuss 24 name change for privately-maintained road in private 25 subdivision, Y.O. Ranchlands, and set a public hearing if 8-26-02 73 1 needed. Commissioner Griffin. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: The reason "if needed" 3 is in there is 'cause I was not able to get in touch with 4 Franklin while I was down in Houston when my wife was in the 5 hospital there, but I wasn't sure that the -- the entire 6 length of this road is privately maintained. 7 MR. JOHNSTON: Yes, it is. 8 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Okay. So, the public 9 hearing should not be required. 10 MR. JOHNSTON: All parties -- my 11 understanding is, all parties are in agreement. 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Looks like there 13 shouldn't be any impediment to the name change. I'll make a 14 motion to that effect, that the name change be approved as 15 submitted. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll second that 17 motion. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 19 Griffin, second by Commissioner Baldwin, that the Court 20 approve changing the name of Dominion Road Northwest to Y.O. 21 Ranch Road Northwest, which is a privately-maintained road. 22 Any questions or comments? If not, all in favor, raise your 23 right hand. 24 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 8-26-02 74 1 (No response.) 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Item Number 3 10, consider the preliminary revision of plat for Tracts 4 Number 17, 18, and 19 of Y.O. Ranchlands and set a public 5 hearing for same. Commissioner Griffin. 6 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I'll turn this one 7 over to Franklin Johnston. This is one that we discussed in 8 court two or three sessions ago, and we're back now with the 9 preliminary proposed revision. And the only question I 10 have -- and I'm hoping that between Mr. Cummings and 11 Mr. Jackson and Franklin, maybe we can get to the heart of 12 it, but it has to do with the fact of whether or not this 13 road exists legally there now that we're talking about that 14 would provide access, and that's the one thing we -- that 15 I'm not real clear on. 16 MR. JOHNSTON: Okay. Basically, the plat 17 revision consists of moving lot lines between Lot 17 and 18 18 and between 18 and 19, making Lot 18 larger and the other 19 two tracts smaller. The road in question, I think, is 20 Goodnight Trail on the south part of the -- of these lots. 21 The road is -- is not now existing, but it is being 22 constructed right now. I think the right-of-way has been 23 partially cleared. Private road, so they wouldn't have to 24 clear the entire right-of-way. They're getting their base 25 tested and they're going to build an unpaved country lane to 8-26-02 75 1 access these three lots off of -- well, we just changed it 2 to Y.O. Ranchlands Northwest. 3 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: So, that's part of a 4 plat, then, so that settles this issue that I had of mine 5 that I was a little confused on. Because that -- 6 MR. JOHNSTON: Actually, the road's not -- 7 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: -- that's a part of a 8 plat. If they're going to put the road in to the right 9 standards, then there's no question. 10 MR. JOHNSTON: The road's not actually within 11 the area marked by the plat, but it is already a dedicated 12 60-foot-wide easement, as I understand, and they're building 13 a road in that easement for access to these three lots. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Mr. Jackson -- 15 MR. JOHNSTON: I think Scott might have more 16 information, if you need more on the road. I think he has 17 been out there working on it, knows about it. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: David Jackson has submitted a 19 form to address us on this issue. Do you have anything to 20 offer, Mr. Jackson? 21 MR. JACKSON: No, Your Honor, I'm just here 22 to answer any questions. But -- but what Franklin has said 23 is accurate. And the only other question that I know about 24 is the abbreviated process or the alternate process; that's 25 where I think we're moving this revision through. And I 8-26-02 76 1 know you have to have a public hearing that's published in 2 the newspaper, but an issue I discussed with Frank, and I 3 don't know where we are on it, is whether or not you have to 4 give notice to every owner in the entire subdivision. I 5 read the state law and the County regulation, which is 6 synonymous, to say that you do not have to do that if you're 7 just combining lots and moving a lot line. 8 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Okay. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The road -- the road 10 already exists, correct? 11 MR. JOHNSTON: The road's -- 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean the right-of-way 13 for the road. 14 MR. JOHNSTON: The right-of-way, yes. 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: The right-of-way. 16 MR. JOHNSTON: I guess moving lot lines is 17 the same as combining lots. I'm not sure about the 18 definition of that, but -- and it also comes under the less 19 than four lots, I think. 20 MR. JACKSON: Yes, that's right. 21 MR. JOHNSTON: That's where it comes in where 22 he put it in the newspaper; it did not have a -- not have to 23 have a mailout notification. 24 MR. JACKSON: Right. 25 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Ready to make a 8-26-02 77 1 motion? 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions or 3 comments? 4 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I'll move that we 5 approve the preliminary plat of -- revision plat of Tracts 6 Number 17, 18 and 19 of the Y.O. Ranchlands Subdivision. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by -- 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And set public hearing? 10 We should have a public hearing, correct? 11 MR. JOHNSTON: There's a public hearing. I 12 think the question was the type of notification. 13 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Okay. And set public 14 hearing for September -- 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: That would be the first 16 meeting in October. 17 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: How much time do we 18 have? 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thirty days would be first 20 meeting in October. 21 (Discussion off the record.) 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: So, whatever the first 23 meeting in October is. 24 MS. SOVIL: October the 14th. 25 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: October the 14th. At 8-26-02 78 1 10 a.m.? 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 3 Griffin, second by Commissioner Baldwin, that the Court 4 approve the preliminary plat -- revision of plat for Tracts 5 17, 18, and 19, of Y.O. Ranchlands and set a public hearing 6 on the same for 10 o'clock a.m. on Monday, October 14th, 7 Year 2002, here in the Kerr County -- 8 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: 15. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: -- Courtroom. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I'm sorry, October 15. 11 The 14th is a holiday. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: October 15th. Any questions 13 or comments? 14 MR. JOHNSTON: That -- we resolved the 15 notification? Is that just by newspaper? 16 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I think that's right. 17 I think that's a -- 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: David, let that young 19 man out, please. Thank you. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We can verify that. 21 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: We can verify that, 22 but I think that's all it takes, is just a newspaper 23 announcement. 24 MR. JOHNSTON: That's the way I read the 25 rules, yeah. 8-26-02 79 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions or 2 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 3 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 5 (No response.) 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Item Number 7 11, consider and discuss an agreement to contribute funds 8 for right-of-way to the High Water Bridge, authorize County 9 Judge to sign same, and authorize a hand check in the amount 10 of $8,600 from Fund Number 15-611-585 to be included with 11 the signed agreement. Franklin Johnston. 12 MR. JOHNSTON: I think we have a sample 13 agreement from some other project. I think it's just a way 14 to get this project started. I think it's at the time frame 15 where we need to acquire that right-of-way. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So moved. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait a minute. I want 18 to -- I get to -- 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm sorry, you wanted 20 to do it. Go ahead. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 24 Baldwin, second by Commissioner Williams, that the Court 25 approve the agreement to contribute funds for right-of-way 8-26-02 80 1 of High Water Bridge, authorize County Judge to sign the 2 agreement, and authorize a hand check in the amount of 3 $8,600 from Fund 15-611-585 to be included with the executed 4 agreement. Questions? 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just a comment. Buster, 6 you know, if we're lucky -- in all eight years of -- you 7 know, whatever year -- six years, anyway, we've voted to do 8 something on that bridge, and it still hasn't been built. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do you think this is 10 a good sign? 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just a continuing sign. 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Never been closer. 13 Think about it. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions or 15 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 16 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 18 (No response.) 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Item Number 20 12, consider and discuss submitting an application for funds 21 from the Emergency Watershed Protection Program administered 22 by the U.S.D.A. Natural Resources Conservation Service, as 23 authorized under provisions of Section 403, Agricultural 24 Credit Act of 1978. Commissioner Williams. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, I'm not sure 8-26-02 81 1 this is something we want to do. I don't know whether it's 2 not something we want to do, but it is another opportunity 3 to perhaps obtain some funds to do some things as a result 4 of the disaster that happened in Kerr County with the 5 excessive rains in June and July. This is a program from 6 the United States Department of Agriculture Natural 7 Resources Conservation Service, and the information came to 8 me through the R.C.& D. I pass it on to the Court. The 9 amount of flood -- or the amount of money -- the money that 10 they would perhaps grant to us would be used for debris 11 removal from stream channels, road culverts, and bridge 12 abutments. The debris removal in upland areas following the 13 windstorm, that doesn't apply. Perhaps the reshaping and 14 protection of the road and stream banks, repair of damaged 15 drainage facilities, flood prevention structures, if they 16 do, in fact, exist. If we're going to do it, it is 17 something that has to be done pretty quick, because the 18 window of opportunity is closing. I'm not certain whether 19 this requires a match or not. I think it does. Yeah, 20 75 percent of eligible work. I'll present it to the Court 21 for whatever you want to do with it. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are we talking about 23 debris from the stream channels on public land, or are we 24 talking about private properties? 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think -- my 8-26-02 82 1 understanding of it, Commissioner, is that it would be money 2 to remove debris caused by the flood on private property as 3 well as public lands. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I believe it's both, 5 Commissioner. I mean, I -- if it's the same program that we 6 signed up for in the '97 flood, private landowners can go 7 and get -- and, you know, apply for funding, but it doesn't 8 just come through the County. They handle -- it goes 9 straight through the federal government. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We don't do anything on 12 private property. But I also believe this is the same 13 program that did the now infamous Hermann Sons temporary 14 bridge, and we may need -- and I think we need to proceed 15 with this, 'cause we may need this same fund to get the 16 railroad cars out of the river. 17 (Laughter.) 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Because FEMA says that 19 since N.R.C.S. did it, it's their responsibility, and we're 20 still -- I don't know if Franklin was in on the conversation 21 with the FEMA representative or Joe Franklin, but I know 22 Leonard's been talking to them. They're trying to figure 23 out if we can get some assistance to either put the railroad 24 cars back in place or at least retrieve them, and I believe 25 it's the -- this is the program. 8-26-02 83 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: If we get another big flood, 2 we might be able to just roll them all the way to Kendall 3 County, not have to worry about it. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: A couple of floods, 5 they'd be right down there. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which, once again, if 7 we're going to do it, we need to move on this pretty 8 quickly. The window is closing. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let me ask you this. 10 What is 75 percent? The cost of eligible work? I mean, 11 what -- 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, I guess we 13 define the work, probably affix some kind of a cost to it. 14 I can get more of those definitive -- more definitive 15 information. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are we going to have 17 to come up with 75 percent? 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We come up with 19 25 percent. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We come up with 21 25 percent. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I believe in-kind 23 counts, also. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I believe the way it 25 worked last time, they come out and they will say where the 8-26-02 84 1 damage is. They assess it and they decide what's eligible, 2 and they come out with a number, and the number goes back to 3 the County. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's my 5 understanding. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: What's the pleasure of the 7 Court? 8 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: You want to pursue it? 9 Do we need a vote to pursue it? 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, we do. I would 11 move that Kerr County participate in -- file an application 12 for Emergency Watershed Protection Program funding 13 administered by the U.S.D.A. Natural Resources Conservation 14 Commission -- Service as quickly as possible. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll second, but I have a 16 question, like I usually do. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 18 Williams, second by Commissioner Letz, that the 19 Commissioners Court submit an application for funds from 20 Emergency Watershed Protection Program administered by the 21 U.S.D.A. Natural Resources Conservation Service. Question? 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Who's going to pursue it, 23 as in what person? So this one doesn't fall through the 24 cracks. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll follow up on it. 8-26-02 85 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I believe you might check 2 with Leonard. I think Leonard's already working on this. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll doublecheck on 4 him, but I'll follow up through R.C.& D. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right. And I need to 6 call Joe Franklin on the Hermann Sons Bridge. I'll ask him 7 if this is that program, as well. All right. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions or 9 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 10 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 12 (No response.) 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Item Number 14 13, consider and discuss the final concept plan for the Hill 15 Country Youth Exhibition Center and authorize the Court to 16 proceed with a bond election concerning the funding of same. 17 Commissioner Letz. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, this is an item 19 that we discussed earlier this afternoon in the workshop at 20 some length. But, to update those that were not at the 21 workshop, at our meetings previous to today, a basic concept 22 plan had been approved, and we wanted to try to firm in the 23 numbers a little bit better. And that concept plan was to 24 basically tear down the current -- what's called exhibit 25 hall, and tear down the current hog barn, which are the two 8-26-02 86 1 components behind the exhibit hall, replace that with a new 2 barn -- just a barn, basically a big, metal barn, 3 44,000-square-foot building, which is a little bit bigger 4 than the combined area that we'd be tearing down. A 5 13,000-square-foot exhibit hall would be built over to the 6 east where the polo field is, and that is the same size as 7 the current exhibit hall. Then the horse barn would be 8 renovated. And "renovated" means basically putting a 9 concrete slab in that building, upgrading electrical and 10 plumbing, and putting in a temporary windscreen on the 11 sides, and then doing some upgrades and renovations to the 12 arena, the current arena. And those are basically some 13 electrical upgrades to bring them more up to code, and 14 probably do some insulation/ventilation work, but not a 15 whole lot of work on the arena. 16 I sent -- or solicited the volunteer efforts 17 of three local contractors, Biermann Construction, J. M. 18 Lowe Construction, and Huser Construction, and sent them a 19 letter outlining the basic components of the building and 20 square footage; asked them if they could come up with, based 21 on their experience with similar buildings, a cost estimate 22 for the project. They did that. The cost estimates ranged 23 from a low of $3,100,000 to a high of $5,640,000. The -- 24 but when you look at the numbers on that high bid, or high 25 amount -- really, it's not a bid, just a cost estimate -- 8-26-02 87 1 some assumptions were made, and I've since talked with Steve 2 Huser. Probably about a million dollars of that should come 3 out, because there were things along the line of, on the 4 parking lot area that we wanted expanded, he quoted asphalt 5 as opposed to sealcoat, which doubled the cost of that, and 6 sealcoat's really what we would prefer. He also did some 7 far more extensive -- or had some ideas for some more 8 extensive renovations to the existing arena and to the horse 9 barn than I envisioned. So, the numbers really range from 10 about, oh, three million to four and a half million, and in 11 that, there's about a 20 percent contingency figure built 12 in. The idea being presented is that if we approve this 13 tonight, we would set the wheels in motion for a bond issue 14 that would be held in early February of 2003. 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Election. Bond 16 election. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, bond election. 18 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: The election. Not the 19 issue, but the bond election. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The bond election in 21 February 2003. And between now and -- I think the kind 22 of -- sort of drop-dead dates for that are actually in 23 November, we would really look at the numbers again and 24 figure out the construction mechanism we use, whether we use 25 a conventional -- hire an architect to develop plans, go 8-26-02 88 1 with a construction manager, or go with a -- what's the last 2 one? 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Design-build. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Design-to-build type 5 concept. We would do that in the next, you know, month or 6 so to figure out which way we would probably proceed. This 7 is a plan that has been looked at extensively by this Court 8 and many members of the community, several committees. I 9 hate to imagine or try to remember how many meetings we've 10 had on this, but I think we're at a -- basically, we are at 11 a -- trying to meet the needs, square footage-wise, of what 12 the stock show is going to need in the foreseeable future, 13 and that's basically it. We're -- we looked extensively at 14 renovating the current hog barn and exhibit building, and it 15 just doesn't work. It costs more to renovate that building, 16 because of the nature of its construction, than it really 17 does to tear down and start over. And we also felt that, 18 after discussing this at length, that it might make more 19 sense to have a removed -- an exhibit hall that is removed 20 from the ag portion of it so that you don't have the 21 animal/ag smells in that exhibit hall area all the time. 22 The hope is, from the Commissioners Court 23 standpoint, that the City of Kerrville will piggyback the 24 exhibit hall concept and enlarge it some. We are putting in 25 a bare minimum size that would, we feel, meet the needs of 8-26-02 89 1 the stock show and other actual County functions and 4-H, 2 Extension Service, things of that nature. It's not -- I 3 mean, 13,000 square feet, when you take out some office 4 space and small catering kitchen and restrooms, you get down 5 to about 8,000 square feet, which is not a huge facility. 6 Not, certainly, like a convention facility or something like 7 that. But hopefully the City of Kerrville will join the 8 County in this and expand the size of that building. And we 9 have told them and talked to them several times this year 10 about this concept, and they are looking at it. I don't 11 know what their answer's going to be, but -- and if you all 12 -- and if you do support it, I recommend you talk to people 13 at the City and tell them your feelings. I think it would 14 be worthwhile to expand into a 26,000 or 30,000-square-foot 15 structure, but that's beyond the scope of what the County 16 feels we need to be doing right now. So that's, in a 17 nutshell, where we are. Any questions from anyone on the 18 Court? 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Let me take a crack 20 at it, Judge. I would move the Commissioners Court approve 21 authorizing a bond election to be conducted in early 22 February 2003 for the purpose of funding the renovations and 23 expansion of the Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center, in the 24 approximate range of three point million -- $3.5 million. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 8-26-02 90 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Motion by Commissioner 2 Williams, second by Commissioner Letz, that the Court 3 approve the final concept plan for the renovation and 4 expansion of Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center and set a 5 date for a bond election, in the amount of $3.5 million for 6 the first Saturday in February, the Year 2003. Is that -- 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's pretty close. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions or comments? 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have a comment, 10 Judge. As all of you know, and most of you know that I've 11 drug my feet on this issue for a couple of years now, and I 12 still -- even though we've come from the $8 million down to 13 the $3.5 million, I still don't have a warm, gushy feeling 14 about this whole thing. But I just want to make it very 15 clear that I -- my vote right now is not for any money, 16 building anything or any of that. This vote right now is 17 simply to authorize a bond election for the public to have 18 the opportunity to speak their voice, and that's the only 19 thing I'm voting on. That's all. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Fair enough. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, one other 22 thing that needs to be added -- I just thought of it, and we 23 must include in the motion. And funding to be included in 24 the 2002-2003 budget. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: We can get to that later. 8-26-02 91 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, we'll get to 2 that later. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Before you -- the only 5 comment I would make is -- it's kind of to follow what 6 Commissioner Baldwin is saying a little bit, take it a step 7 further. I mean, this Court has done a tremendous amount of 8 looking at this; it's spent some tax dollars and a 9 tremendous amount of time, and I feel now we're turning it 10 over to the community. And I look primarily at the Stock 11 Show Association as the primary benefactor of this facility. 12 They need to sell it. The community needs to sell it. The 13 Court cannot sell this bond issue. It's not going to be an 14 easy sell. I think Gene Smith is very accurate; there are 15 some in this community that don't think it's a great 16 expenditure of funds. I personally do think it's a good 17 expenditure. I think the youth are the primary benefactors. 18 I think it's a good way to spend money. But the community 19 is going to have to organize itself and really get behind 20 this if it's going to pass. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other comments or 23 questions? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 24 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 8-26-02 92 1 (No response.) 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. That was a 3 long road to get there, you know that? Item Number 14, 4 consider and discuss status of the 911 address coordinator 5 for Kerr County. As introduction, I will remind everyone 6 that in our budget workshop this afternoon, we discussed 7 hiring a part-time person to at least, as I put it, get the 8 pig through the pipe, for purposes of catching up with the 9 immediate need on getting the letters out and working the 10 process so that we can finalize the address changes. We 11 have tentatively indicated that we would be willing to spend 12 as much as $15,000 for a part-time person to take on this 13 responsibility, without having authorized a part-time 14 person. So, at this time, we need to circle back and 15 authorize a part-time person to take on the -- the 16 responsibilities of the 911 address coordinator for Kerr 17 County. Questions or comments? 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Question. I mean, I -- I 19 definitely understand the need to get this moving, but what 20 I don't -- and I see that we're going to -- I mean, to hire 21 somebody, but what's this person -- I mean, we need a plan 22 before we hire somebody. Maybe there's more -- 23 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I think there is -- if 24 nothing else, by default, there is a plan here. What we've 25 got is we have these -- we have these addresses that have 8-26-02 93 1 been entered into the system, into our system, Kerr 911 2 system. Those changes are made. They need to be submitted 3 to the post office, and at the same time, the notifications 4 need to go out to the residents and to whoever else needs to 5 be notified. That's the pig in the pipe, because that's a 6 lot of paperwork that needs to be accomplished, essentially, 7 simultaneously. And there's -- and -- but it won't last 8 forever at that higher level. We've got these 3,000 or so, 9 or whatever it is now that they're up to. Those are going 10 to be a real big effort to get those through the system. 11 Once that happens, then you -- when you get down later on, 12 this address coordinator function can probably be put 13 somewhere else in the county, because there will be a master 14 book the 911 Network people will keep up, and when somebody 15 wants to know, "What is my 911 address? I just bought this 16 property or whatever," they look through there, and it's in 17 the book. 18 So, that's -- that's the problem, that it's 19 really a paperwork problem of shoving these notices that 20 will be signed by the County Judge -- and I think we finally 21 ended up, County Judge and the Postmaster will sign those 22 letters that go out to the residents and all, and at the 23 same time it all gets entered into the -- not only into the 24 post office, but into the telephone system as well. So, 25 it's a simultaneous occurrence that's going to be very 8-26-02 94 1 paperwork intensive to get everybody notified at the right 2 time. And then it sort of dies down. That's the reason for 3 going -- 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Commissioner, I'm not opposed 5 to -- I think what you're suggesting is that we perhaps 6 delay this to the next meeting. Or am I misunderstanding? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Maybe you -- 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: I was thinking that if we can 9 come back with how many hours, what -- if you're interested 10 in that level of detail, we can do that. The reason that I 11 put it on the agenda today was really because, one, that -- 12 because it's a budget issue, and the way the budget is 13 shaping up, we have to make a decision to move forward. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I definitely think we 15 need to have this in next year's budget, because it needs to 16 be done, but my concern, I just -- until we have a -- I'd 17 like to see a better plan as to who's going to teach this 18 person. I mean -- 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: We -- we think that 20 there are people around who would be willing to do this work 21 part-time who have -- who have experience with the GIS, with 22 the 911 system, and understand how the addressing is done in 23 the first place. Because in some cases they're going to 24 have to deal with telephone companies; in some cases they're 25 going to deal with the -- with the post office. In some 8-26-02 95 1 cases they got to deal with the citizen involved, so they 2 need to understand that process. There are some candidates. 3 We probably will advertise this to some degree as part-time. 4 I don't know exactly what we have to do, but we would 5 probably want to have somebody that's got 911 system 6 experience. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where do you propose 8 this work will be accomplished? Where will it be done? 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: The paperwork piece of 10 it can be accomplished -- part of it can be done here, part 11 of it can be done at 911. They would provide space for this 12 person. But I think the important thing is -- is we have 13 discussed over the last several months that this person will 14 be a County employee, working for the County, working for 15 the Commissioners Court. They will not be a 911 Network 16 office employee; they would be a County employee who would 17 be doing this work. Now, that function then could 18 transition over into some other area in several -- you know, 19 a couple -- three months, even. I don't know how long that 20 pig's going to take to get through the pipe. But -- but 21 however long it is, after that period of that big surge, 22 that function could probably go somewhere else in the County 23 offices as an additional duty of somebody who's already 24 working for the County. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If we hired somebody 8-26-02 96 1 tonight, we would be three months behind. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I mean, we're way 4 behind. This needs to be done. I've had one phone call 5 from a gentleman that retired in Kerrville from 30 years in 6 the postal service and had some dealings with 911 and all 7 that, but I was uncomfortable, you know, without authority 8 from you guys, to visit too much. But, Larry, are you going 9 to handle that? I'll turn his name over to you. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Well, I think probably 11 what we need to -- 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let's do it. 13 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: But I think what we 14 really need to do is decide if we're going to -- are we 15 going to go out and solicit people with that kind of 16 experience, or are we going to do a public announcement? I 17 don't know whether we have to do that or not for a part-time 18 job. I don't know, but we need to answer some of those 19 questions. That, I think we can probably save for the next 20 court meeting. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: The fundamental question is, 22 are we going to hire a part-time person for this function? 23 Then we can bring back a job description, plan and go from 24 there. 25 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Right. 8-26-02 97 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm here to say yes. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I can go along with that. 3 I can go along with that part, if we're just dealing with 4 that concept. I just wanted to make sure this comes back to 5 us to figure out, either help -- maybe this person can help 6 us figure out how they're going to do it. 7 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Absolutely. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I just want to have an 9 idea what exactly they're going to do so we can hold them 10 accountable. 11 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: This person's going to 12 have to be on their motor scooter, because he or she may 13 have to end up running to San Antonio early on in this 14 process, may have to get something straight with the people 15 in San Antonio, with the Post Office Department, with the 16 telephone companies, with -- one or more, with outlying 17 Postmasters. Who knows? But this person's going to have to 18 be somebody that can get on their horse and ride this down. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: First thing to do is 20 go to 911 and get training. 21 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: They're going to train 23 them. 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Going to train them in 25 what all is required, and that can be very -- if you've got 8-26-02 98 1 an experienced -- somebody that understands some or all of 2 this system, then that can be a pretty short period of time. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: I suggest what we need 4 tonight is a motion to hire a part-time person who would 5 report to the Commissioners Court to take on the function of 6 Kerr County 911 address coordinator. 7 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: So moved. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 10 Griffin, second by Commissioner Baldwin, that the Court hire 11 a part-time person who will report to the Court to act as 12 the 911 address coordinator for Kerr County. Questions? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay -- 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Please don't ask him 15 that, Judge. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: He has that look in his eye. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I'm still -- I'm a 18 little unsettled over here, because I can see us voting on 19 this, and I think it's going to pass, but then what happens? 20 I mean, how are we going to advertise for the person? What 21 are we going to say they need to do? I mean, what's -- how 22 do we handle the next step? 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Job description. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Job description. We bring 25 all that back at the next Commissioners Court meeting. 8-26-02 99 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. Now I've got a 2 plan. Next court meeting, I'll see a job description. 3 Okay. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions or 5 comments? All in favor, raise your right hand. 6 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 8 (No response.) 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Item 15, 10 consider and discuss approval of a resolution authorizing 11 application for Indigent Defense Grant. According to the 12 correspondence from the Texas Task Force on Indigent 13 Defense, Kerr County is eligible for a grant in the amount 14 of $22,439. This resolution, which is in the packet, would 15 authorize the County to apply for that grant, which is 16 supposed to be used to offset some of the costs of 17 additional attorneys under the Indigent Defense Act 18 requirements. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is there any match from 20 the County? 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: No. 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: This is -- I think 23 they got guilt feelings after what they did, and the last 24 Legislature said we want to give you some more money to 25 help. I'll move that we approve the resolution authorizing 8-26-02 100 1 the application of the -- for the Indigent Defense Grant, 2 and authorize County Judge to sign same. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 5 Griffin, second by Commissioner Baldwin, that the Court 6 approve the resolution authorizing application for the 7 Indigent Defense Grant, and authorize County Judge to sign 8 same. Any questions or comments? If not, all in favor, 9 raise your right hand. 10 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 12 (No response.) 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Next item, 14 Item Number 16, is consider and discuss approval of the 15 FY 02-03 budget, and set a public hearing on the proposed 16 budget for Monday, September 9th, Year 2002, at 10 o'clock 17 a.m. I've handed out to each of you -- here's some other 18 copies for the -- for the media -- a summary of what we 19 discussed this afternoon in our workshop, summarizing the 20 costs associated with the additional funding. Does anyone 21 have any questions or comments regarding those additional 22 expenditures? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, the comment I have 24 -- I'm not going to bother everyone with the same speech I 25 gave this afternoon; it lasted quite a while. But the item 8-26-02 101 1 of jailers, the five additional jailers, I would be in favor 2 of that except for one thing. And it comes back to the 3 conversation we had this afternoon regarding the O.S.S.F. 4 program and the likelihood that the County's going to take 5 that back, in my opinion, after the first of the year. And 6 I concur with the discussion this afternoon that we should 7 fund the full amount and put the full amount for the 8 contract with U.G.R.A. in the budget, because that would 9 give us some money to have for a start-up, but I don't think 10 that is going to be anywhere near enough to start up that 11 program. And I think that -- my gut feeling is, for the 12 County to start up an O.S.S.F. program, it's going to 13 probably take in the neighborhood of, you know, $100,000 to 14 $150,000. 15 Knowing that that number, even though that 16 would be required, I mean, to do that, would be a budget 17 amendment next year, you're still -- you're talking about -- 18 in reality, this number has grown from $609,000 of 19 additional expenditures to $750,000, thereabouts, and that's 20 getting a little bit on the high side from what I think I'm 21 comfortable with. My preference would be and is to delete 22 the five additional jailers until after the new Court meets 23 in the first of the year, see what's going to happen, see if 24 -- where O.S.S.F. is going, and commit to the Sheriff right 25 now that if money is available midyear, hire the 8-26-02 102 1 additional -- do a budget amendment at that time to hire the 2 additional jailers, and -- but leave that money out of the 3 budget right now. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: We'd end up doing a very 5 large budget amendment, then. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, if you don't -- if 7 the O.S.S.F. doesn't happen, and/or if there's a way for it 8 to be funded that doesn't cost the County $150,000, then I 9 would take that money that's, in my mind, set aside, and 10 apply it to the jail and hire -- and use it there. However, 11 if we don't -- if we do need $150,000 to start up the County 12 O.S.S.F. program, the Sheriff would have to wait until the 13 following year. 14 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I disagree. I think 15 the five jailers are more important than the County taking 16 back the program at this or any other time, so I can't vote 17 -- I couldn't vote that way, because that's not my choice. 18 Now -- now, if a different Court, different people want to 19 make that decision, then they can budget the money for it. 20 It's there. The money's there. And there's not a reason in 21 the world -- but I'm not going to compromise on the basis of 22 a "what if a new Court does something else." I'm just not 23 going to do that, period. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's pretty solid 25 thinking. 8-26-02 103 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: I -- as I said this 2 afternoon, I think that we have to give appropriate 3 recognition to the efforts of the long-range planning 4 committee. There's no obligation on our part to fund their 5 efforts. They certainly didn't go into it with the 6 knowledge that we would fund their efforts. But when you 7 ask citizens to give of their time and produce a product 8 that was of the quality that Ilse and Chuck and the other 9 guys did, then I think we have to be cognizant of that. We 10 have to understand that they didn't produce a product that 11 was a result of the Sheriff's whim. They produced a product 12 that was a result of their own labor and their own 13 investigation. And for us not to honor and respect in a 14 small way their efforts, I think, is to diminish the process 15 and their efforts. I think we have the wherewithal to fund 16 the additional jailers, and I'm certainly of a mind to do 17 that, because I think it's good for Kerr County. And I 18 think that's the bottom line. 19 We've asked the Sheriff to operate the jail 20 averaging 160 inmates a night with the same staff that he 21 operated the jail with 100 inmates a night, and that's 22 unrealistic and it's poor policy and it's poor government. 23 And the 160 inmates a night are not a function of going out 24 and obtaining inmates from other counties. It's a function 25 of our own population. I think we're averaging somewhere 8-26-02 104 1 around 20, 22 inmates a night from other counties, but that 2 still puts us within the staffing levels that are required 3 for the 160, so there's no relief there if we were to turn 4 back -- turn away the prisoners from other counties. I am 5 of a mind that we should fund the additional jailers for the 6 Sheriff's Department. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The way I see it is, 8 the issue tonight before this Court is not O.S.S.F., who 9 administers it and when. The issue before this Court is 10 whether or not we're going to fund the recommendation of the 11 long-range planning committee for the Sheriff and provide 12 adequate safety and meet the standards that are required for 13 jail security and safety of the people out there, so I'm in 14 favor of the jailers. If another Court, on another day, at 15 another time decides it wants to do something about 16 O.S.S.F., then one of the issues it will have to confront is 17 how to fund it. So, I'm in favor of the jailers. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just let me say that 19 I'm also in favor of the jailers; however, we do meet the 20 standards that the State puts on us with the number of -- 21 ratio of jailers per inmate. We meet those numbers. And 22 State of Texas has always been liberal on that side. 23 However, the Sheriff feels like that it would make it a 24 safer involvement -- environment for his employees out 25 there, you know, and so I'm in -- I'm in favor of it as 8-26-02 105 1 well. But we do have to have this conversation about the 2 O.S.S.F. program. I mean, I don't have any doubt in my mind 3 that it's coming back to the County. We have to have that 4 discussion at some point. I mean, it's not -- just because 5 y'all are not interested in bringing it over here, it's 6 going to happen, and we've got to deal with it. It's not 7 something you just sweep under the rug. We have to deal 8 with it in next year's -- in this budget coming up. So -- 9 but I -- I really think that -- I think Commissioner Letz is 10 onto something when we talk about a partial year, funding a 11 partial year. I personally can see that how -- that that 12 would work, where we ask U.G.R.A. to continue running the 13 operation for a half a year, and then that would give us 14 time to get our ducks in a row, or our -- our septic tanks 15 in a row. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Porta-potties. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Porta-potties in a 18 row, whatever it might be. But I think, you know, that, to 19 me, is a sound plan. And -- and it has to be addressed. 20 It's -- to me, it's not between the jailers and O.S.S.F. 21 program. It's how we're going to do both. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. Finished? 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, I'm finished. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tommy, the amount that is 25 currently listed as in the expenditure side for the radio 8-26-02 106 1 towers is about $600,000, so we're pretty much -- this 2 $609,000 here, if you take that out, it gives us basically a 3 perfectly balanced budget right now; is that correct? Am I 4 looking at this correctly? 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: It's close. It's not 6 perfectly balanced. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But balanced -- 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Variables like -- you know, 9 we have -- we've added $6,100 here to change the 10 classifications of some employees. Well, that will change 11 the FICA, retirement -- 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: -- contribution. So, it's 14 not perfectly balanced, but it's probably within a -- a plus 15 or minus of -- of a balance, yes. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And -- well, I just want 17 to make that clear. I mean, these increases are giving us 18 basically a balanced budget. I mean, we're not increasing 19 anything; we're still in a balanced budget setup right now. 20 And, Tommy, my next question is, in your opinion, our 21 reserve funds are larger than they need to be to meet the 22 requirements or the recommendations of the State? 23 MR. TOMLINSON: Well, the worksheet that I 24 gave you today shows that -- that our -- our reserve 25 balances are -- or the estimated reserve balances at the end 8-26-02 107 1 of this fiscal year will -- will cover 37 percent of our 2 expenditures. That's -- that's 7 percent more than what the 3 Court agreed on in 1997. Five years ago, we were, like, at 4 30 percent. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What does -- 6 MR. TOMLINSON: So, you know, I think that a 7 range of 25 to 30 percent is adequate. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Can you equate 7 percent 9 to dollars? How much -- 10 MR. TOMLINSON: Whatever 7 percent of 11 $12 million is. 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: About -- 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Eight hundred -- about 14 $800,000 in reserves. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: $868,000. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: $868,000 in reserves 17 beyond what is, I guess, recommended. So, if we needed to 18 go -- if we went with the $609,000, which includes the 19 jailers, and then we had to go into reserves for $150,000, 20 we would still be in very good financial shape? 21 MR. TOMLINSON: I think so. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Anything else? If 23 there's nothing else, I think what we need is a motion to 24 approve the budget, which would include the additional 25 expenditures summary and the required add-ons thereto, as 8-26-02 108 1 presented. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: So moved. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that a motion? 4 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I said "so moved." 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Pretty weak. Second. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 7 Griffin, second by Commissioner Baldwin, that the Court 8 approve the proposed FY 02-03 budget, to include the 9 additional expenditures summary and any related costs 10 required such as benefits, et cetera. Let's take a vote on 11 that. Any other questions or comments? 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And to set -- 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, let's do that first. 14 Then we'll come back. Any other questions or comments? If 15 not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 16 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Reluctantly. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 19 (No response.) 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. Next issue 21 is to set a public hearing. What's been suggested is 22 Monday, September 9, 2002, at 10 o'clock in the morning. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So moved. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 8-26-02 109 1 Williams, second by Commissioner Baldwin, that the Court set 2 the public hearing on the proposed budget for Monday, 3 September 9, Year 2002, at 10 o'clock a.m. Questions or 4 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 5 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 7 (No response.) 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion carries. The next and 9 final item is to consider and discuss approval of proposed 10 FY 02-03 tax rate and set a public hearing on the proposed 11 tax rate for Monday, September 9, Year 2002. The budget 12 that we just -- the proposed budget that we just adopted 13 assumes a tax rate of 37.21. 14 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Which is unchanged. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Which is unchanged from the 16 previous year. I'm informed by Tommy that if we set the tax 17 rate at that level, we do not, by law, have to have a public 18 hearing. We can if we want to, but there is no requirement 19 under the law that we have, because that rate happens to be 20 exactly 3 percent more than the effective rate. That's just 21 the way it turned out. My opinion is, it's not a bad idea 22 to have a public hearing, but that's at our discretion. 23 Let's break this up into two motions again. First, let's 24 have a motion to set the proposed FY 02-03 tax rate at 25 37.21. 8-26-02 110 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 4 Baldwin, second by Commissioner Letz, that the Commissioners 5 Court set the tax rate for fiscal year '02-'03 at 37.21. 6 That's the total combined tax rate. Any questions or 7 comments? If not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 8 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Opposed, same sign. 10 (No response.) 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Now, do we want to have any 12 discussion on whether or not we want to have a public 13 hearing? 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If it can be in 15 conjunction with that other one. I wouldn't come in -- 16 bring everybody in on a special day for this; it's not that 17 big a deal. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: The proposal would be to have 19 the tax -- the hearing at 10:30 in the morning on Monday, 20 September 9th. Any problem? 21 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: So moved. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Motion by Commissioner 24 Griffin, second by Commissioner Letz, that the Court set a 25 public hearing on the proposed tax rate for Monday, 8-26-02 111 1 September 9, Year 2002, at 10:30 a.m. in the Kerr County 2 Commissioners Courtroom. Any questions or comments? If 3 not, all in favor, raise your right hand. 4 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: All opposed, same sign. 6 (No response.) 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anything else, or have we had 8 enough fun? If there's nothing else, we stand adjourned. 9 Thank you all. 10 (Commissioners Court adjourned at 8:59 p.m.) 11 - - - - - - - - - - 12 13 STATE OF TEXAS | 14 COUNTY OF KERR | 15 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 16 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 17 County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 18 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 19 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 30th day of August, 20 2002. 21 22 23 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 24 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 25 Certified Shorthand Reporter 8-26-02