1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Special Session 10 Monday, September 24, 2007 11 9:00 a.m. 12 Commissioners' Courtroom 13 Kerr County Courthouse 14 Kerrville, Texas 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X September 24, 2007 2 PAGE --- Commissioners' Comments................................5 3 1.1 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 4 approve extension for depositing funds with County Treasurer to the end of each month.............11 5 1.2 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to change County Family Protection fee to $15 in 6 compliance with statutory changes.....................15 1.3 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on 7 City of Ingram animal control contract................16 1.4 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action for 8 preliminary revision of plat for Lot 17, Privilege Creek Ranch; set public hearing for same..............19 9 1.5 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action for revision of plat for Lots 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 10 Block 2 of Hill River Country Estates; set public hearing for same......................................20 11 1.6 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on Kerr Emergency 9-1-1 Network 2008 proposed budget.....28 12 1.7 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to hire Patterson and Company as investment advisers..........36 13 1.8 Public Hearing regarding Kerr County FY 2007-2008 budget................................................39 14 1.12 Public Hearing regarding proposed Kerr County 2007 Tax Rate.........................................57 15 1.14 Public Hearing regarding proposed salary, expenses and other allowances of Kerr County elected county 16 or precinct officers for FY 2007-08...................58 1.9 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to adopt 17 list of organizations which will receive discounts at the Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center..............58 18 1.24 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to allow Milton Taylor to have limited temporary access 19 across county land in order to facilitate court- mandated cleanup of his property......................69 20 1.10 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to give the Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center booking agent 21 authority to make discretionary decisions as needed...86 1.11 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to approve 22 use of Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center for HILCO annual membership meeting on Feb. 8, 2008, at the 23 same rate as previous year ($162.50)..................89 1.13 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on 24 request to locate proposed LCRA transmission line from Rim Rock substation to Stadium Drive 25 substation as originally proposed in 1993, or 91, other more direct/more practical route or solution...164 3 1 I N D E X (Continued) September 24, 2007 2 PAGE 1.15 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to adopt 3 the Kerr County Proposed 2007-08 holiday schedule....132 1.16 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to adopt 4 the position schedule, step and grade schedule, and general provisions for FY 2007-08................139 5 1.17 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to authorize publication of an RFP for preparation 6 of the 2006-2007 audit...............................166 1.18 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to adopt 7 resolution stating Kerr County's intent to contract with Tetra Tech, Inc., for continuing engineering 8 services for Center Point wastewater project, contingent upon funding grant from T.W.D.B...........168 9 1.19 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on any desired cost-of-living adjustment for Kerr County 10 retirees under T.C.D.R.S. plan.......................169 1.20 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 11 conclude claims on former Treasurer's bond and authorize County Judge to sign release of same.......171 12 1.21 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to rescind Court Order #30492 regarding "Donation 13 of Metal Folding Chairs from City of Kerrville", and cause same to be returned........................174 14 1.22 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to assign employee to Kerr County Extension Office 15 on a full time basis.................................176 1.23 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 16 approve resolution in support of Texas State Arts & Crafts Educational Foundation application 17 to manage Arcadia Theatre as a multi-purpose public events venue..................................178 18 4.1 Pay Bills............................................179 19 4.2 Budget Amendments....................................181 4.3 Late Bills...........................................--- 20 4.4 Approve and Accept Monthly Reports...................181 21 5.1 Reports from Commissioners/Liaison Committee Assignments..........................................182 22 5.2 Reports from Elected Officials/Department Heads......186 23 --- Adjourned............................................192 24 25 4 1 On Monday, September 24, 2007, at 9:00 a.m., a special 2 meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in the 3 Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, Kerrville, 4 Texas, and the following proceedings were had in open court: 5 P R O C E E D I N G S 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. 7 Let me call to order this regularly scheduled meeting of the 8 Kerr County Commissioners Court which was scheduled and 9 posted for this time and date, Monday, September 24th, 2007, 10 at 9 a.m. It is that time now. Commissioner Baldwin? 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. Would you stand 12 and join me in a word of prayer, please, and when we complete 13 that, we will do the pledge of allegiance. 14 (Prayer and pledge of allegiance.) 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. At this time, if there's 17 any member of the public that wishes to be heard on any 18 matter that is not a listed agenda item, this is the time for 19 you to tell us what's on your mind. If you wish to speak on 20 an agenda item, we would ask that you fill out a 21 participation form. They're located at the back of the room. 22 It's not essential, but it's helpful for me to have those so 23 that when we get to that item, I'm aware that there is a 24 request to be heard so that I won't overlook that. However, 25 if you fail to fill out a participation form and wish to be 9-24-07 5 1 heard on an agenda item, when we get to that item, just get 2 my attention in some way, shape, form, or fashion; I'll see 3 that you're recognized and have the opportunity to be heard 4 on that item. But right now, if there's any member of the 5 public or the audience that wishes to be heard on any matter 6 that is not a listed agenda item, feel free to come forward 7 at this time. Seeing no one coming forward, we'll move on. 8 Commissioner Baldwin, what do you have for us this morning? 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't have much to talk 10 about, Judge. Thank you. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Williams? 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That was quick. Well, in 13 your absence from talking about the Tivy Antlers, I'll talk 14 about them. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: All right. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Had an opportunity to see 17 them Friday night, and they're really exciting. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Pretty fun, aren't they? 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Fun to watch. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm not going to make any 21 comments about them. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, that's it. No more 23 Tivy Antlers. In the absence of the Judge and maybe some of 24 my colleagues on Thursday, I had a call from the Sheriff's 25 Department, and any time I get a call from the Sheriff's 9-24-07 6 1 Department, my heart rate goes up, but this time he wanted me 2 to come out and take a listen to the gentlemen who were down 3 here from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards who were 4 reviewing the jail, its operation and its processes and its 5 records administration, et cetera, et cetera. I did that and 6 signed on behalf of the Court, which is, I think, a 7 requirement. And, so, Judge, I'd be happy to give this to 8 you for your file. We passed with flying colors. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: As usual. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: As usual. On Friday, the 11 next day, at the conclusion of Congressman Smith's appearance 12 and speech at noon at the Inn of the Hills, the Tax 13 Assessor/Collector asked me to host the Secretary of State 14 who was coming into town for a news conference. I think 15 someone dropped the ball in the Secretary of State's office, 16 and the news of his coming for a news conference was sparse. 17 But, nonetheless, we were there with some few folks. 18 Commissioner -- I mean, Justice of the Peace Ragsdale was 19 there, and he took some pictures on behalf of West Kerr 20 Current. And the Secretary of State was here to talk about 21 voter registration and the need to do so, and to recognize 22 Kerr County as a county which they're honoring for its voter 23 registration efforts. County officials, employees of Kerr 24 County play an important role in insuring that Texans are 25 registered and equipped to carry out their most important 9-24-07 7 1 duty, the right to vote, and we are cited for our excellence 2 in that field. Here's that proclamation, Judge. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. 4 I think probably a lot of the credit to this goes to our 5 County Clerk, who's in charge of our elections 6 administration. And -- 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And Voter Registration 8 people. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: And also the Tax Office that has the 10 voter registration that's involved there. And those are the 11 primary operatives when it comes to the election function, 12 and we appreciate their efforts. Anything else? 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, sir. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Letz? 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm kind of like number one; I 16 don't have much to say this morning. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner 4? Mr. Oehler? 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, this -- I'm going to 19 pass out some information on -- that has to do with library. 20 Went to Library Board, of course, on Tuesday, and our new 21 appointee, Mrs. Moseley, and I came up with questions to our 22 head librarian, and we asked for some answers to be given so 23 that we could get a better idea of what we're funding and why 24 we're funding it. And there was a little reluctance, but he 25 did it, and here is the results of it, so that we can use 9-24-07 8 1 that maybe to finalize whatever it is we're going to do with 2 the library budget before we finally adopt it on Friday. 3 It's something I don't think we've seen in quite a while, 4 showing all the various things, and there's -- front page is 5 the answer to the question. First and second page, and 6 actually the third page is a response from the head financial 7 person at the City. And then there are a lot of numbers that 8 are numbers of people and numbers of publications in 9 circulation, so that you can get an idea of -- of what the 10 real usage of the library is. One of the things that I get 11 out of it is they're very short on the number of computers 12 they have. That's probably something that needs to be funded 13 in time, but they didn't ask for any of that this year; 14 they're doing some other things in that regards. 15 Anyway, that -- and also, I think we need to bring 16 up that if we don't get some rain pretty soon, we're going to 17 need to put the burn ban on. This old tall grass is drying 18 out in a hurry, and this winter's going to be pretty 19 critical, I think, to -- to some real problems with fire. 20 The rain was wonderful, but now that -- now that the sun is 21 out and it's curing, it won't take much to have a really 22 severe fire. So, I think if we don't get some kind of 23 moisture in the next few days, I'm -- I believe I'm going to 24 probably put the burn ban on in Precinct 4. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Were you and Mrs. Moseley 9-24-07 9 1 satisfied with these responses? 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We -- yes. We believe that 3 we were -- it was answered, you know, to the best of their 4 ability. We don't believe the numbers were -- were tampered 5 with or anything like that. And it -- most of the stuff 6 is -- you're not going to see an exact head count of users. 7 From what I derived from it, it seems to be somewhere between 8 70 and 200 a day of actual people walking through the door. 9 And I think in the past, we've been told up to 500 to 700, 10 and I don't think the numbers in here will reflect that. 11 Anyway, that is being used a lot, and it will show you that 12 the majority of the users are going to be your -- your older 13 people, from 50 years up, are going to be the majority of the 14 users of that, but that's our population. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think older folks are 60 16 and up. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, I know. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Not 50. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I tend to agree with that. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: But I believe that -- 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It is what it is, guys. 23 (Laughter.) 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So, anyway, that's kind of my 25 little report on the library things. We have not gotten any 9-24-07 10 1 numbers, to my knowledge, on the usage of that facility, and 2 basically what I wanted when we asked the questions, we want 3 justification for the funding. And I don't think we ought to 4 fund it without justification, so -- and I believe we have 5 some now, finally. That's all I have. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Commissioner Baldwin, in a 7 few years, what will be the definition of "older"? 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's changing. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: I see. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The number's moving around, 11 even as we speak. I think a fellow from -- the nice 12 Christian man that's touring New York today from Iran or 13 someplace, that's one of his issues, is to set the -- the age 14 for Americans. When -- you know, when are you old? See, 15 that's one of his deals. And -- 16 JUDGE TINLEY: I must have missed that. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Anything else you need to 18 know? 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, if you live long 20 enough, you get old. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's what I've heard. Can 22 I borrow a pen? 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Sure. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: I would like to make everyone 9-24-07 11 1 aware -- as I'm sure most of you have seen, we have a -- a 2 nice new gazebo out here on the courthouse lawn, and that was 3 a gift to us from a private benefactor in honor and memory of 4 his late wife, and that will be known as the Frances Lehmann 5 Pavilion and Gazebo. And we're going to have a dedication of 6 that -- of that facility on the 12th day of October; be at 7 2 o'clock in the afternoon right out there at the gazebo. 8 And we'd -- we hope any of you that can be will be there and 9 join us as we accept this gift and dedicate it in memory of 10 the late Mrs. Lehmann. That's all I've got. Let's get on 11 down to business. The first item that we have is consider, 12 discuss, and take appropriate action to approve the extension 13 for depositing funds with the County Treasurer for the end of 14 each month per Local Government Code Section 113.022. 15 Ms. Pieper? 16 MS. PIEPER: Gentlemen, this code states that -- 17 that the officer who receives funds shall deposit them with 18 the County Treasurer on or before the next regular business 19 day, and if that deadline is not met, then it has to be on or 20 before the 7th business day. That statute also goes on to 21 say that with the Commissioners Court approval, they may 22 extend that period which the funds will be deposited, not to 23 exceed 30 days. So, I'm here requesting that we continue as 24 all elected officials are doing for the meantime, until we 25 can get more of our software program bugs worked out, to 9-24-07 12 1 where we submit them at the end of each month. I've talked 2 with the Treasurer, and she is not at a point to where she 3 can accept these daily as well. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How long do you think that 5 process will take? 6 MS. PIEPER: We've been working on programming this 7 software for a year now. I don't know. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You know, since our purpose 9 is to -- to maximize our opportunities for earnings, it would 10 seem to me the sooner we get the money in the bank -- 11 MS. PIEPER: It's not any different than her -- 12 than her drawing interest on the bank account or me drawing 13 the interest in mine. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's a lot different, because 15 we're getting ready to go with an investment policy that's 16 going to be changing greatly the amount of revenue that we 17 get by investing on an almost daily basis, not in bank 18 accounts. Banks are very inefficient ways to earn money. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's my point. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're changing the whole 21 county's investment strategy. And I understand y'all have a 22 problem, but we need to get, as soon as we can, to a system 23 of at least getting in weekly deposits. Because money being 24 held, I mean, at, you know, whatever the banks are paying 25 versus, say, another one point or three-quarters of a point 9-24-07 13 1 more that we can get through investments is a huge total when 2 we take it yearlong for the county, the amount of money that 3 goes through our system. 4 MS. PIEPER: Hopefully they'll get the software 5 working accurately in time. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Pieper, the authorization from 7 the Commissioners Court to permit that period of time to be 8 extended, that is applicable to counties with populations of 9 50,000 or less, is it not? 10 MS. PIEPER: That is correct. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Well, with our rate of growth 12 being what it is, it's anticipated that we're going to be 13 there anyway here pretty quick. 14 MS. PIEPER: Right. In our next census, yes. Yes. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There's another issue, too. 16 We spent a good bit of time talking about controls. Part of 17 the controls that the Auditor and Treasurer need to be 18 vigilant over is the deposit of money and the -- the controls 19 that go with that. So, to stretch it out for 30 days, to me, 20 seems to be counterproductive. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll make a motion that we 22 authorize -- I'm thinking if I want to do all of them or just 23 one. Actually, we can only deal with one, 'cause only one is 24 on the agenda. Authorize the County Clerk to make deposits 25 monthly through the end of the year, and come back at that 9-24-07 14 1 time with a plan as to how long, you know, to extend it 2 beyond that. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'll second it. And I 4 believe the reason for that is we -- is right now, our County 5 Treasurer does not have the staff to do this daily. I think 6 it's something we need to grow into, and seems to me that at 7 some point we need to -- the ones that are ready to start 8 doing it on a daily or a weekly basis can start doing that 9 and kind of phase it in over time, and not have it all hit 10 the same day. 'Cause we're going to have to -- we're going 11 to have to fund more money, I believe, for another position 12 in the Treasurer's office to be able to handle the daily 13 deposits. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's why I mentioned weekly. 15 And I think we need to plan. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think we need to start. We 18 need to get -- we can't just be talking about it; we need to 19 start doing it. And I think we've put a deadline on this 20 order. That's the way to get a plan. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: I have a motion and second as 23 indicated. Further question or discussion on the motion? 24 All in favor of that motion, signify by raising your right 25 hand. 9-24-07 15 1 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 2 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 3 (No response.) 4 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Jannett, since you're the first 6 one to come to the Court, I think we can do it -- my 7 preference would be end of the year, maybe do it all at one 8 time, so we don't -- if you do put it back on the agenda, try 9 to do a county-wide policy. 10 MS. PIEPER: Okay. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Try to get something worked up 12 through Mindy and whoever else can work on coming up with 13 some plan so everyone knows where we're going. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Next item; consider, discuss, and 15 take appropriate action to change County Family Protection 16 fee to $15 in compliance with the statutory changes to 17 Government Code Section 51.961. Mr. Emerson? 18 MR. EMERSON: Yes, sir. The Attorney General came 19 out last year and declared that of the original $30 fee that 20 was declared by the Legislature, $15 was set up two years ago 21 to go to the state, $15 to stay within the county. The 22 Attorney General came out at the beginning of summer and said 23 the $15 that was to accede to the state is unconstitutional. 24 Cannot do that. So, we have two issues, one of which is the 25 County's been collecting the $30. The County can keep the 9-24-07 16 1 whole $30, 'cause that's what the court order authorized 2 pursuant to statute. But going from here forward, the 3 statute has changed, and the statutory limit has been 4 decreased back down to $15, and we need a court order 5 decreasing that family fee down to $15 again. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll make a motion that the 7 County Family Protection fee be set at $15 in compliance with 8 Government Code 51.961. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded as 11 indicated. Question or discussion on the motion? All in 12 favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 13 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 14 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 15 (No response.) 16 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. We'll move 17 to Item 3; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action on 18 the City of Ingram animal control contract. 19 MS. ROMAN: Good morning. Our County Attorney and 20 the City of Ingram Attorney have worked out the agreement 21 regarding Animal Control. I've looked it over. It's pretty 22 simple. I'm pleased with it. I would like y'all to look 23 over it and see if there's anything that -- any questions 24 that y'all might have. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How many man-hours are you 9-24-07 17 1 going to devote to this project? 2 MS. ROMAN: Approximately -- well, approximately a 3 halftime officer, is basically what it boils down to. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Only one thing. In the 5 contract on Page 2, it seems -- and I don't know whether we 6 need to specify being a halftime employee to do this or what. 7 It says not fewer than two, and that's kind of what we have. 8 Sometimes we have more than that. But that's what the city 9 contract with Kerrville requires, and I'm not sure if we need 10 to change that to -- 11 MS. ROMAN: That was my question to Rex. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- halftime employee so that 13 they don't think they're getting two full-time people. 14 MR. EMERSON: We had extensive discussions about 15 that, and the reason we left that alone is because these are 16 the minimum standards for the county to maintain for the 17 whole facility, not just for Ingram's little piece of it. 18 MS. ROMAN: Right. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay. That was my question. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Contract's otherwise acceptable to 21 you, Mr. Emerson? 22 MR. EMERSON: Yes, Your Honor. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Janie, what did we do with 24 staffing in your department for this next year? We added a 25 half? 9-24-07 18 1 MS. ROMAN: One other employee, which is going to 2 be half kennel, half A.C.O. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Pretty reasonable for 4 doubling the size of the facility. 5 MS. ROMAN: Right. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm just looking at you; I want 7 to make sure that we're -- that the staff's not -- doesn't 8 need to get larger. We're taking on more and more work all 9 the time. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think this is a good time 11 to prove that up. If it needs to be in the next year -- 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We can look at it. 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We can look at it some more. 14 She believes she can handle it the way it is. 15 MS. ROMAN: I believe we can make this work. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I move for approval of the 17 contract. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 20 approval of the agenda item. Any question or discussion? 21 All in favor of the motion, signify by raising your right 22 hand. 23 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 24 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 25 (No response.) 9-24-07 19 1 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. We'll go to 2 Item 4; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action for 3 the preliminary revision of plat for Lot 17, Privilege Creek 4 Ranch, as set forth in Volume 8, Page 21 of the Plat Records, 5 and set a public hearing for the same, same being located in 6 Precinct 3. 7 MR. ODOM: Good morning. This revision will make 8 15 lots of 108.97 acres. The lots are numbered 17A through 9 30. Friday afternoon -- right now, everything seems to be in 10 order, and I want to set -- it's on the agenda to set a date. 11 But Friday afternoon, a little bit after 2 o'clock, I got a 12 call from Tish, and she said that she had not had enough time 13 to review it. She was reviewing it Friday afternoon, I 14 guess, for the first time, and that she needed contours for 15 these individual lots. And I told her this is a revision, 16 and normally what happens, that the contours were given on 17 the original, and that -- but she needed it for individual 18 lots. So, I told her to contact Mr. Grogan to see if he had 19 those contours or not, and that if she felt like she couldn't 20 have time to review it, then she could certainly be here. 21 And I see she's here to talk to the Court that -- not to 22 approve this revision at this time. But as I see it, I would 23 like to set a public hearing for November the 12th, 2007, at 24 10:05 a.m. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move approval. 9-24-07 20 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: We have a motion and a second to set 3 a public hearing on the matter for November the 12th, 2007, 4 at 10:05 a.m. Any question or discussion on that motion? 5 All in favor of that motion, signify by raising your right 6 hand. 7 (Commissioners Baldwin, Williams, and Oehler voted in favor of the motion.) 8 9 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Abstain. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Let the record reflect that 12 Commissioner Letz neither participated in the discussion or 13 voted on the matter. Let's move to Item 5, if we might; 14 consider, discuss, and take appropriate action for revision 15 of plat for Lots 1, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, in Block 2 of Hill 16 River Country Estates, as set forth in Volume 3, Pages 118 17 and 119, and set a public hearing for the same, the same 18 being located in -- in Precinct 2. Commissioner Williams? 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Judge. This is 20 not as complicated as it might look on the surface, but I 21 want to -- before we get into it, I want to take an 22 opportunity to introduce to the Court a young man who -- who 23 our actions today will affect. Michael, would you come up to 24 the podium, please? Let me introduce you to -- to members of 25 the Court and the audience. Don't be nervous. That's fine 9-24-07 21 1 right there. Good. Thank you very much. I'd like to 2 introduce to the members of the Court and the public Sergeant 3 Michael Boothby, United States Army, who served two tours of 4 duty in Iraq. Michael served in the 423rd Infantry Division, 5 Company A, with the 172nd Striker Unit. He was a gunner on a 6 striker unit. Michael also served six months on the Syrian 7 border and six months in Mozul, a well-known hotbed of 8 terrorist activity. Michael's striker was hit by an IED for 9 the fifth time on September 17th, 2006. This time he was 10 critically injured. Half of Michael's skull was blown away 11 by the explosion. He was immediately sent to Balad, Iraq, 12 where he was 14 days in a coma and was in surgery every day 13 between the 7th and the 14th day. From Balad, Michael was 14 sent to Germany for additional care, then to Bethesda, 15 Maryland. After Bethesda, Michael was transferred to James 16 Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa, Florida, for continuing 17 rehabilitation, and he continues his rehabilitation now. He 18 and his wife Megan are expecting their fourth child, and this 19 is -- the property that we're going to talk about is being 20 given to Michael by his grandfather so he can make his 21 residence in Kerr County. We thank you for your service. 22 (Applause.) 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, Michael. You may -- 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Would you like to say 25 something, Michael? 9-24-07 22 1 MR. BOOTHBY: I don't know what to say. I'll be 2 happy to answer any questions that are asked of me, but I 3 really don't know what to say. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We appreciate you coming to 5 court this morning. Appreciate your service to the United 6 States, and God bless you and your wife. Mr. Odom, would you 7 tell us what this is all about, please? 8 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. Thank you, Michael. This 9 situation came to our attention when the owner applied for a 10 septic. The original piece of land was 2.8 acres. Two small 11 pieces were sold to adjoining landowners. First one was sold 12 to the owner of Lots 5 and 6. The second piece was sold to 13 the owner of Lots 11, 12 and 13. 1.003 acres, as shown as 14 Tract 1, was sold to the grandson, and this is where the new 15 O.S.S.F. is to be placed. The remaining 1.509 acre, proposed 16 to be Lot 1A, Block 2, is to be used for a new well lot to 17 improve and increase the water system that's currently 18 located on Lot 5, Block 1. The grandson and his wife have a 19 manufactured home in place, and are anxious to proceed with 20 the installation of the septic. The earliest we can complete 21 the platting process will be November the 12th, 2007, and 22 having to wait until then for occupancy will be a great 23 hardship on this family. Since all parties involved in this 24 division have made every -- 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Every effort, in a very 9-24-07 23 1 timely manner, to correct the situation, and Mr. Holloway has 2 assured he will complete the platting process -- Mr. Holloway 3 is the grandfather of this young man -- we're going to ask 4 the Court to consider allowing Environmental Health to issue 5 a construction permit in advance of completion of the 6 platting process. Now, if there are questions about the 7 platting process the Court has, we'll deal with those right 8 now. 9 MR. ODOM: Right. And -- and as Mr. Williams 10 says -- Commissioner Williams, we also ask for a permit to 11 operate. Not only to permit this, but to operate this. And 12 at this time, we need to set a public hearing for revision of 13 plat for Hill Country River Estates, Volume 3, Page 118 14 through -19, for November the 12th, 2007, at 10 a.m. And any 15 questions on the platting -- but this is a bad situation; 16 we're correcting it. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: First of all, on the septic 18 issue, our intent is not to stop development. I mean, so we 19 don't need any kind of waiver. That goes without saying, in 20 my opinion. It's just to get -- it's more of a notification 21 issue for us than anything else. And we've been notified, 22 and they're -- and the individuals are proceeding, so, 23 clearly, that septic can now go forward, in my opinion. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't think we even need a 9-24-07 24 1 court order on that. That's just -- I mean, we can do one. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, I think, probably, 3 Commissioner, since there -- there seems to be some confusion 4 in terms of enforcement, it might not be a bad idea for -- at 5 the conclusion of our discussion, just for the Court to 6 instruct Environmental Health Department to issue a 7 construction permit so this can proceed. That probably is 8 not a bad idea. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, I have no problem with 10 that. But, I mean, I don't -- our intent is to find the 11 problems, not to delay people building homes. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Exactly. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Things of that nature. The 14 platting issue, do you know if they're platting again? I 15 mean, I see lot -- or Tract 1, which is 1.003 acres, and 16 that's -- 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You've got to go to an 18 earlier map, Commissioner, because that 1.07 -- 1.003 acres 19 there -- 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mm-hmm. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- is the combination of 22 several pieces of property. Am I correct, Leonard? 23 MR. ODOM: That's correct. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: To -- to enable access, 25 ingress and egress to this property, giving an easement for 9-24-07 25 1 entrance into this particular property. 2 MR. ODOM: Yes. What they had done previously was 3 to take Lot 5 and 6. They sold -- one person owned Lot 5 and 4 6. They had sold that piece of -- that parcel behind it. 5 Then Lots 11, 12 and 13, they sold that parcel behind it 6 there. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 8 MR. ODOM: Without platting, okay? They brought it 9 into Tract 1 -- or -- or Block 2, and Block 1 is down here 10 with Lot 1. So, essentially -- and then they were given an 11 easement. Well, that easement's all right under the 1.03, 12 but we thought it was better to plat everything. And then 13 this proposed Lot 1A, Block 2, is to be the new well. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's the acreage in -- is 15 this 1.003 acres? 16 MR. ODOM: .0327, and .269. And this 1.5 is the 17 well lot. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 19 MR. ODOM: And 1.003 is the -- where the young 20 man's going to live. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, I -- this is the same 22 situation we've done many times where we're taking old 23 subdivisions, very small lots, and they're being combined 24 into larger lots, and that's the direction this Court's 25 consistently -- 9-24-07 26 1 MR. ODOM: That's right. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- been in favor of doing. 3 MR. ODOM: Yeah. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Like you say, the lot for this 5 young man is -- doesn't require platting. 6 MR. ODOM: Doesn't require -- 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It makes it better, in my 8 opinion, to go ahead and do it all at once. 9 MR. ODOM: All at once. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, we just need to set a 11 public hearing? 12 MR. ODOM: That's right. This is -- 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What day are you proposing? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll move we set a public 15 hearing for -- 16 MR. ODOM: Hang on just a second. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- for 10 o'clock on the 12th, 18 I believe. 19 MR. ODOM: On the 12th of November, 10 o'clock, I 20 believe. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second that. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for a 23 public hearing on this matter for November the 12th, 2007, at 24 10 a.m. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And I just -- you know -- 9-24-07 27 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And instruct Environmental 2 Health to issue a construction permit for the septic. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I think -- I mean, 4 instruct them to proceed with the process. I mean, I 5 don't -- once they've done their evaluation. I mean, it 6 needs to be in compliance, but -- 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah, exactly. Sure. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. But it's a -- there 9 shouldn't be any holdup, in my mind, approving it for 10 construction, assuming the system is in compliance as 11 designed. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Any question or comments on the 13 motion? 14 MR. ODOM: Did I answer your questions 15 sufficiently, so that you understood? 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 17 MR. ODOM: It was a little bit complicated, but I 18 think cleans it up and makes it where it's good for 19 everybody. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is this that property right at 21 the very end of the -- 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This is way up on top, on 23 Hill River Estates. And the point you made earlier about 24 combining these small lots into one is a good thing. And 25 this particular property is adjacent to Camp C.A.M.P. way up 9-24-07 28 1 on the top of the hill over there. 2 MR. ODOM: Right at the very end. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Any other questions or comments on 5 the motion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising 6 your right hand. 7 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 8 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 9 (No response.) 10 THE WITNESS: That motion does carry. We had a 11 timed item for 9:30. It's a bit past that now, so I will 12 call Item 6; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action 13 on Kerr Emergency 911 Network 2008 proposed budget. 14 Mr. Amerine? 15 MR. AMERINE: Judge Tinley, Commissioners, I'm Bill 16 Amerine I'm with Kerr Emergency 911 Network. I'm here to 17 present the 2008 proposed budget. In accordance with Texas 18 Health and Safety Code 772, Subchapter D, the Director shall 19 prepare, under the direction of the board of managers, an 20 annual budget for the districts. To be effective, the budget 21 must be approved by the board, which was done on the 30th of 22 August. Must be presented and approved by Commissioners 23 Court; that's why I'm here today. Be presented and approved 24 by governing bodies of each other participating jurisdiction. 25 City of Kerrville will be tomorrow evening, and Ingram was on 9-24-07 29 1 the 18th of September. 2 Budget highlights. This is a balanced budget. We 3 do anticipate expenditure increases from 2007 of about 4 $10,343, which is a 3.04 percent increase. The majority of 5 those increases are on staff training and professional 6 seminars, as well as increase in professional fees that we 7 pay for audit and C.P.A. services. Because of staff 8 restructures, we anticipate a reduction overall -- a reduced 9 overall employee cost overhead of about $9,069, or about 10 7.66 percent on our overall employee cost. Our goals for 11 2008 are to complete all Phase I and Phase II provisioning by 12 early 2008, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a 13 minute. Provide interactive map capability for K.S.O.; the 14 contract for that has been approved. We're just waiting for 15 schedules so that we can install this. And what that is, for 16 some time City of Kerrville has had an interactive map 17 capability with the 911 system that allows the dispatcher to 18 see an actual map of where a call originates from. We did 19 not install it in the Sheriff's Office back in March of last 20 year because the county data was not at a point where it 21 would be of any use. In other words, they'd have the map, 22 but they wouldn't have the ability to pinpoint the call 23 location in the county. 24 Well, that was completed in August. The grant was 25 at work for getting those data files completed, and so the 9-24-07 30 1 order has gone forward to purchase that mapping software and 2 install it for the Sheriff. It's going to be of great help, 3 because it's going to be able to allow the dispatchers to 4 provide directions to the dispatching officer of exactly how 5 to get to that location. Also, Phase I and Phase II wireless 6 is in place. It will pinpoint with latitude and longitude 7 the location of the wireless call, and that mapping 8 application will -- again, will give an investigator 9 indication of where that call originates from. We're going 10 to spend a little bit more money in 2008 on 911 public 11 education and awareness. We're going to continue to be 12 address agents for the city of Ingram and Kerr County, and of 13 course will continue to sell signs. Since we started the 14 sign sales, we've sold 11,000 signs. Although that sounds 15 really good, we still see a lot of them out there. By our 16 estimation, there's at least 4,000 homeowners in Kerr County 17 that still don't have any signage, so we'll continue to press 18 that. Happy to answer any questions the Court has. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are signs still $5? 20 MR. AMERINE: Still $5 for single-sided signs. We 21 make them in about two and a half minutes right in our 22 office. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Best deal in down. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: When will the -- maybe you 25 answered this and I was reading and didn't listen. When will 9-24-07 31 1 the wireless stuff be done? 2 MR. AMERINE: Well, you know, we signed a contract 3 with Intrado in October of 2006 to take our stand-alone 4 database for location information, which is over at our PSAP 5 at the police department, and move that remotely to two 6 locations, and have them do validation of that data as that 7 data is fed to them by the phone company. We still haven't 8 completed that process. Intrado has been involved in a 9 lawsuit with Greater Harris County 911, and was renegotiating 10 their state contract. So, because we're small, not spending 11 a lot of money with them, we're not getting a lot of 12 attention from them. But we're starting to see progress; 13 that's going to be wrapped up. We have set the circuits in 14 place with AT&T and Windstream to get the selective routing 15 capability for the Walnut tandem in San Antonio that we need 16 to get the wireless in place. As soon as those circuits are 17 tested, which I expect to be done in about two to three 18 weeks, we'll submit the Phase I service request. All the 19 wireless carriers. We'll get Phase I done before the end of 20 this year, Phase II by probably the second quarter of next 21 year. So, we have all the steps in place, and we -- as a 22 contingency, since we don't want to wait on Intrado any 23 longer, we'll make those service requests whether the 24 database goes remote or not. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, that whole wireless phase 9-24-07 32 1 will be done by the end of this year, and -- 2 MR. AMERINE: Phase I by the end of year, this 3 year. Phase I, I've talked about in previous years, will 4 provide the cell tower location, with a physical address of 5 where the call is being handled, and Phase II will actually 6 provide a latitude and longitude of where that call 7 originated from. So, it will be in two phases. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Be great to get that -- 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Bill, you talk about Kerr 10 911 will retain a 5.25 percent surcharge rate. Is that a 11 reserve? Is that what you're talking about? 12 MR. AMERINE: No. Every year, as part of our 13 budget process, we're required by 772, Subchapter D, to 14 evaluate the surcharge that we charge each phone customer. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, I got you. 16 MR. AMERINE: And we reduced that, if you remember, 17 from 6 percent to 5.25 percent last year. Until we fully 18 understand what the cost of Phase I and Phase II is going to 19 be, we didn't want to reduce that fee any further this year. 20 However, I anticipate, 'cause we have a pretty good idea what 21 the cost will be, that in the 2008-9 budget, we'll drop that 22 probably another 12 percent. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What is the rate that's 24 currently put on land lines -- and we'll get to cell 25 phones -- per line as a 911 charge? 9-24-07 33 1 MR. AMERINE: 36 percent -- 36 cents. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 36 cents. 3 MR. AMERINE: Per month. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that down from 41? 5 MR. AMERINE: Yes, sir. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. And what -- what 7 charge is put on cell phone use? 8 MR. AMERINE: Fifty cents. That's set by the 9 State. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 11 MR. AMERINE: We don't have any authority over 12 that. State Comptroller and CSEC, Commission on Emergency 13 Communications, sets that rate. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, thank you. 15 MR. AMERINE: You bet. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Amerine, there was an issue here 17 fairly recently about two subdivisions having similar names 18 and causing confusion about where emergency service response 19 should be because of the confusion of the names of the 20 subdivisions. 21 MR. AMERINE: Yes, sir. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: This mapping technology that you're 23 going to get installed in the Sheriff's Office, that will 24 resolve that problem, won't it? 25 MR. AMERINE: Yes, it will. It will also resolve 9-24-07 34 1 to a larger extent some of the -- as you know, we have 2 known -- we made some efforts in 2003 and -4 to resolve the 3 duplicate road names. We still have some that are remarkably 4 similar. This will resolve that as well. So, we have a lot 5 of "Oak" roads in Kerr County, and this will pinpoint those 6 much better. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On your revenue line items 8 under 101, local 911 service, is that the fee that comes off 9 of every land line? 10 MR. AMERINE: Yes, sir. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And by looking at this, the 12 trend appears that there are fewer land lines, or are we 13 paying less money, receiving less, or both? 14 MR. AMERINE: Well, both. It's actually both. 15 We're paying less and we're having less land lines. 16 Time-Warner Cable is anxiously waiting for us to get this 17 selective router in San Antonio up so that they can start 18 providing VoIP via the cable modems that they provide for 19 tel -- for TV service. We expect to see a lot more folks go 20 to these kind of call plans, because long distance local 21 charges are much less than traditional. We also have Vonage 22 in our area, and people are opting -- even though it gives us 23 at 911 a little bit of caution, they're opting to use cell 24 phones only. Even with the technology I'm talking about with 25 Phase I and Phase II, it's not precise like a physical 9-24-07 35 1 address is, but a lot of folks are going to wireless phones 2 instead of traditional phones in their homes. That's why 3 that's going down; it's both of those reasons. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: My final comment is, overall, 5 you're doing a very good job of keeping the line under 6 budget. This is up from last year, but if you look back 7 through 2005, we're below 2005. You've done a -- in my mind, 8 an excellent job of getting the addressing off high center 9 and continuing to upgrade the technology and equipment, so 10 keep it up. 11 MR. AMERINE: Thank you. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We need to approve it? 13 MR. AMERINE: I need approval. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Motion to approve. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 17 approval. Any question or discussion on the motion? 18 Appreciate the presentation materials that you provided. 19 They were very comprehensive, and very understandable too. 20 MR. AMERINE: Thank you, sir. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. Any further question or 22 discussion? All in favor of that motion, signify by raising 23 your right hand. 24 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 25 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 9-24-07 36 1 (No response.) 2 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. It's not 3 quite 9:45. We'll move to Item 7; consider, discuss, and 4 take appropriate action to hire Patterson and Company as 5 investment advisers for Kerr County. Ms. Hargis? 6 MS. HARGIS: I think y'all have a copy of the final 7 draft that Ms. Patterson sent to us. And -- and Rex and I -- 8 it reflects all of his corrections. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This is signed off on by 10 the County Attorney? 11 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move approval as presented. 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 15 approval of the agenda item. Any further question or 16 discussion? 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have a couple of 18 questions. Ms. Hargis, this is a one-year -- 19 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- a one-year document? 21 MS. HARGIS: Right. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Now, the one single thing 23 that I liked about the entire thought was that our -- our 24 County Treasurer -- our new County Treasurer, through this 25 document, will be trained and -- and be able to understand -- 9-24-07 37 1 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- investments and those 3 things that a County Treasurer is required to do. 4 MS. HARGIS: And she'll also prepare the quarterly 5 report and the annual report, which will be of great 6 assistance to the -- 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's wonderful; I'm glad 8 she's doing that, but my -- my single thing that I focused on 9 when y'all were in here was the training for our County 10 Treasurer. And that's one thing I'm going to keep a close 11 eye on, and if -- at the end of this first year, if I'm 12 uncomfortable with that, I will not vote for this again. 13 MS. HARGIS: Okay. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Any other question or comment? 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I just -- I think it's -- 17 I'm very thankful of Ms. Hargis and the Treasurer for 18 bringing this forward and coming up with a mechanism to 19 handle the County's and the public's funds in a much better 20 way than we have in the past, and give the different revenues 21 to the taxpayers. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis, compensation to be paid 23 under this agreement, there are two different methodologies. 24 Are we dealing with the lesser of the two? 25 MS. HARGIS: I would prefer we deal with the lesser 9-24-07 38 1 of the two, which is to take a percentage, because I think 2 the percentage will come in around 14,000. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 4 MS. HARGIS: And that's what I budgeted. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: But that's where we are here? We've 6 got an alternative to deal with? 7 MS. HARGIS: Yes. She asked you, and you asked for 8 both, so she gave you both. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 10 MS. HARGIS: Yeah, I would -- I would take the 11 lesser, because that's based on the portfolio, and we won't 12 have necessarily all of our portfolio with her. There's some 13 that we'll manage on our own, and I'll help the new -- Mindy 14 with that as well. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. So, the -- so, the percentage 16 compensation is the one that you're recommending to be 17 approved -- 18 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: -- as part of the contract? 20 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That would be inclusive in 23 my motion, Judge. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: That would be included in your 25 motion? All right, very well. Any further question or 9-24-07 39 1 discussion on the motion? All in favor of the motion, 2 signify by raising your right hand. 3 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 4 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 5 (No response.) 6 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. It is a bit 7 past 9:45 now. I will recess the Commissioners Court meeting 8 at this time, and I will convene a public hearing which was 9 scheduled for 9:45 this morning regarding the Kerr County 10 Fiscal Year 2007-2008 budget. 11 (The regular Commissioners Court meeting was closed at 9:50 a.m., and a public hearing was held in open 12 court, as follows:) 13 P U B L I C H E A R I N G 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Is there any member of the public 15 that wishes to be heard concerning the Kerr County FY 2007-08 16 budget? I have two participation forms here that have been 17 furnished to me previously. Mr. Benham? 18 MR. BENHAM: Mr. Lipscomb was here first, but if 19 you want to -- 20 JUDGE TINLEY: All right, sir. I've got his also, 21 and he brought them up, so if you want to come on up and -- 22 MR. LUTHER: I didn't fill one out, Judge. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: That's fine. We'll get to you, sir. 24 MR. LUTHER: Okay. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. As I indicated at the 9-24-07 40 1 beginning of the meeting, it's not essential. Just make sure 2 I don't miss you. 3 MR. LUTHER: Okay. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: All right, sir. Mr. Lipscomb, if 5 you'd give us your full name and address, please, and tell us 6 what's on your mind. 7 MR. LIPSCOMB: Full name's John David Lipscomb. I 8 reside at 909 Lake Drive here in Kerrville. Judge, 9 Commissioners, and fellow Kerr County residents, I'm here 10 this morning to talk about the proposed budget item; in 11 particular, one item about reduced funding for the library. 12 First of all, let me say as a taxpayer, I encourage the 13 Commissioners' efforts to be good stewards of our county tax 14 dollars. It's a task that requires making a lot of tough 15 choices. However, I must object to one of those choices, and 16 that is the one that reduces full funding for the library. I 17 find it sadly ironic that Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library is 18 celebrating 40 years of service to this community in its 19 current facility, and still does not have a stable funding 20 source. 21 It was just two years ago that the County decided 22 to cut public -- excuse me, library funding. That was the 23 year the Peterson/Cailloux Foundations stepped forward with 24 funding and averted a reduction in service. At the time, the 25 foundations made it perfectly clear that the rescue was to be 9-24-07 41 1 a one-time event, as those foundations do not feel it is 2 their place to support a public library, and rightfully so. 3 Public libraries are to be financially supported with public 4 funds. Hopefully this funding situation can be resolved in 5 the near future. That hope is based on a resent request by 6 one Commissioner for statistics concerning library usage, a 7 positive sign that Commissioners are seeking a better 8 understanding of library operation. But a word of caution; 9 statistics alone cannot tell the entire story. There are 10 both tangible and intangible benefits associated with any 11 service. 12 Consider a scenario where, during a period, 13 county-wide statistics reflect a reduction in arrests, 14 traffic violations, burglaries, et cetera. Will patrol cars 15 be sold, law enforcement personnel be laid off based on what 16 could be just a short-term trend? I'm sure a review of data 17 representing library operations during a period -- over a 18 period of years will provide assurance the library is 19 performing with expenses in proportion to services provided, 20 especially when compared to other Texas libraries of 21 comparable size. In closing, the library is open 58 hours a 22 week, ready to provide services to anyone and everyone. The 23 library should receive full funding. Thank you very much. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, Mr. Lipscomb. 25 Mr. Benham? 9-24-07 42 1 MR. BENHAM: Thank you. Thank you, Your Honor. 2 Joseph Benham, 609 Rim Rock. Your Honor, with your 3 indulgence, I'd like to preface my remarks on the budget by 4 expressing my thanks and that of my wife for the quick action 5 that your Road and Bridge folks took on the potholes that 6 developed in our road during and after all of those heavy 7 rains. I wasn't sure that the shocks in my old pickup were 8 going to survive all those potholes, but your people got in 9 there quickly and worked on them, and I'm sure will continue 10 to stay on top of it, and we're grateful for that. And if 11 you'll convey my thanks, I will be grateful. I'm sure that 12 my new county Commissioner, Mr. Baldwin, had a significant 13 hand in that, and I'm grateful to him. I have to say, I am 14 distinctly impressed to see him in a white shirt and tie. 15 This -- 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Especially after having that 17 shovel up there filling up your pothole. (Laughter.) Not 18 easy. 19 MR. BENHAM: Momentous event. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It is. 21 MR. BENHAM: I would like to also express my 22 personal appreciation to the Judge for his warm welcome when 23 I came over to his table at the Chamber of Commerce banquet, 24 where I was happy to see him there supporting that important 25 organization. Gentlemen, I won't duplicate the eloquent 9-24-07 43 1 remarks of my good friend, Mr. Lipscomb. I would remind you 2 of two things. First of all, the growth in this county is 3 occurring largely -- not entirely, but largely outside of the 4 city of Kerrville. It is your constituents, although your 5 constituents are also Kerr County residents -- city of 6 Kerrville, pardon me. Your constituents are city of 7 Kerrville residents, as I was until recently, but they -- 8 many of them live outside the city limits of Kerrville. 9 Therefore, our library is a city/county facility. It is used 10 heavily by people who live outside the city limits of 11 Kerrville, and I would urge you to keep that in mind as you 12 are approaching this. 13 I will duplicate one thing that Mr. Lipscomb said, 14 and that is that I sympathize with you greatly on the 15 difficulty of finding enough money to fund essential services 16 with what you have available to you. I personally think that 17 our Legislature made a huge mistake -- even though I benefit 18 from it indirectly, I guess, or in one way, I think our 19 Legislature made a huge mistake in dumping this tax freeze 20 for senior citizens on the local governments in such a way 21 that it probably would have been almost impossible for you to 22 oppose it if you wanted to get re-elected. I've been 23 covering politics since the mid-1950's, and I understand the 24 realities of elections. However, to tell the counties and 25 the cities, "You go to your voters and tell them that they 9-24-07 44 1 can freeze their taxes if they're over 65 or disabled," both 2 of which categories I fall into, and -- "but you'll still be 3 able to fund all the services that they want and need and so 4 forth," that to me was irresponsible, and I wish they hadn't 5 done it, but you can't go back and undo it. So, I am 6 sympathetic to you. 7 At the same time, I continue to believe that this 8 library is a sufficiently important element in this 9 community. I hear people say -- and my friend, 10 Mr. Nicholson, used to enjoy needling me about this -- how, 11 "Oh, we can get what we need off the internet. I can go into 12 Wikipedia and find what I need; I don't need to go to the 13 library." Well, I don't know if all of you know it; I'm sure 14 some of you do. Any one of you could leave this room during 15 your break, go in, bring up Wikipedia on your computer, and 16 put anything in it you want to. There is no accountability 17 for Wikipedia. There is no accountability for an awful lot 18 of the other things that are on the internet. MoveOn.org is 19 a prime user of the internet, and I dare say all of you saw 20 that scurrilous ad they recently ran regarding one of our 21 most distinguished military leaders. I -- I use the internet 22 some. I use my own library, I use the internet, and I use 23 the Butt-Holdsworth Library, all three. But I think to say 24 we can simply depend on Wikipedia -- on the internet for our 25 information is not, frankly, a responsible attitude. 9-24-07 45 1 I'll say one more thing, then I'll be happy to try 2 to answer any questions. When we had a -- when you gentlemen 3 were facing this a year ago, you may remember -- you weren't 4 on the Commission yet, Mr. Oehler, but the others were -- a 5 gentleman whom I don't know, a feisty little fellow from out 6 in the west part of the county somewhere. He came up here 7 and he said, I've never spoken at a public meeting before, 8 but, he said, I feel so strongly about this that I'm going to 9 tell you that I want you -- my wife and I want you to fund 10 this library fully, want you to meet your full obligation on 11 this library. He said -- and this is the key part of what he 12 had to say -- we are a literate community. The people who 13 are moving in here from elsewhere are literate people. They 14 read. They're, in many cases, very well-educated, and we 15 need that library. And he wanted you to fund it. Well, we 16 are a literate community, gentlemen. We are a community 17 that's increasingly made up of people who are better educated 18 than their parents or their grandparents were, and we need 19 this library. 20 I don't minimize the difficulty of coming up with 21 money. You don't have the privilege that the federal 22 government does of just printing more when you run out. You 23 have to make what you have stretch. But I would urge you 24 with all my heart to please find the money to fund your half 25 of that budget, and your half of that budget is more than the 9-24-07 46 1 $400,000 that I understand is in this year's proposed budget. 2 As always, I'm grateful to you for your time. I'm grateful 3 to you for your service to this community. You gentlemen put 4 in an awful lot of time for not a whole lot of money, 5 although you get paid more than some public servants, but not 6 nearly enough, and I'm grateful for that. But I would urge 7 you to redouble your efforts to find this money. If I can 8 answer any questions, I'll be happy to, but otherwise, I'll 9 yield the floor. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Any questions for Mr. Benham? Thank 11 you, sir. 12 MR. BENHAM: Thank you. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Yes, sir? If you'd come forward and 14 give us your name and address and give your comments, please, 15 sir. 16 MR. LUTHER: Sure. Thank you very much, Judge. My 17 name is Joe Luther; I'm a county resident. I live at 113 18 Spring Branch Drive, which is out in Saddlewood. I'm here 19 today on behalf of your Kerr County Historical Commission, of 20 which I am the vice chairman. I'd also like to speak to you 21 from the perspective of the presidency of the Kerrville 22 Genealogical Society. I'm a heavy user of the library. I 23 have been all my life. I just retired from the University of 24 Nebraska, where I was a professor for over 30 years. 25 Obviously, my students are heavy users of libraries, and I 9-24-07 47 1 think you understand why. And you've certainly heard the 2 comments that have been made today. I'd like to just very 3 briefly say that I believe the library is the basis of 4 economic development in the county. I believe the library 5 can create wealth, and I think that's important. 6 I'd like to share with you, if I may, some data 7 that I prepared earlier concerning the characteristics of our 8 population. There's a couple of sayings that go here. My 9 favorite one is, "The problem with today is that tomorrow 10 isn't what it was yesterday." That's kind of a catchy thing, 11 but the problem with today is that tomorrow isn't what it was 12 yesterday. And you'll note that 25 percent of the population 13 of Kerr County in the year 2000 was over age 65, and as I 14 understand from talking to other people, today it's closer to 15 30 percent. Now, these are people who, by and large, are 16 retired. They represent an important part, if not the most 17 critical part of the economic base of Kerr County, because 18 what they represent are transfer payments. If I can use 19 myself as an example, I moved back home. I grew up here, 20 graduated from Tivy High School in '61 and went off to see 21 the world, and I've just come home. I bring a lot of money 22 into this community. That's money that comes from outside. 23 It's Social Security money; it's my pension money from my 24 retirement program, and my pension money from the Veterans 25 Administration. I spend that money right here in Kerr 9-24-07 48 1 County, and because of that, it has a multiplier effect of 2 about two, so it is a money-maker. I think other people do 3 the same thing. 4 I believe that, by and large, the senior citizens 5 of this county are well educated. They have a lot of leisure 6 time, and it's been my experience, from working as a 7 volunteer down at the Historical Center and the Genealogical 8 Society and at the Historical Commission, that by and large, 9 a lot of these people are very, very interested in the 10 history of this area. I think if you look at the number of 11 people that turned out for the Camp Verde celebration, the 12 number of people that attend and participate in 13 historically-related events here, demonstrate their strong 14 interest. I believe that if a person was looking at the 15 description of Kerrville on the internet and seeking a good 16 place to retire, that the library quality would certainly be 17 a major part of that. I would want to know that there's a 18 good library here. And, fortunately, because I had visited 19 my parents here so much, I had a good idea of what was 20 involved with the library. 21 We have plans. The Genealogical Society is just 22 finishing up its long-range strategic planning process. The 23 county Historical Commission is in the process of engendering 24 exhibits, new relationships with the Schreiner University and 25 with the library. Our collections are growing. We are one 9-24-07 49 1 of the public-accessible collections of old photographs that 2 are not in somebody's private hands, but in fact can be 3 looked at by the local public, and we're doing a lot of 4 digital photography work at the present time. So, let me 5 just conclude by saying I urge you to consider increasing 6 your support for the library, because I think you get a good 7 return on investment. I think it's a real high-leverage item 8 here, and that we recognize that we have a good quality 9 library here that attracts a lot of people. And if you don't 10 believe me, try finding a parking spot down there after 11 lunch. Thank you. I'll be happy to answer any questions. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Any questions for Mr. Luther? 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you, Mr. Luther. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, sir. We appreciate it. 15 Is there anyone else that wishes to be heard concerning or 16 regarding the Kerr County FY 2007-08 budget? 17 AUDIENCE: One back here. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Yes, ma'am. If you'd come forward 19 and give us your name and address, and tell us -- tell us 20 what you wish. 21 MS. TROLINGER: My name is Judy Trolinger. I live 22 at 126 Pleasure Hill Road, Ingram, Texas. We're residents of 23 the county. I was just going to sit and listen, but I -- 24 I'll keep this short. The library. You do not need 25 electricity to read a book or a newspaper, and I think that 9-24-07 50 1 needs to be kept in mind. I use the internet. It's great, 2 but when the power goes down or the internet goes down, 3 you're helpless. We need the library. Our kids need the 4 library. They need a source of education other than the 5 darned internet. They need that balance. We are -- as the 6 Kerr Regional History Center, we are trying to preserve and 7 hold onto our past, and especially for Kerr County. We've 8 been lucky; we have not lost the courthouse. Look at what 9 happens when Mother Nature hits, and courthouses and 10 libraries and all our educational systems can just be wiped 11 out. So, while the internet is great, we've got a lot of 12 people in this community that will not get computers, because 13 we are a large retirement center. 14 As far as the History Center itself, we come under 15 the auspices of the library. We have just handed a check 16 over to Mr. Antonio Martinez, the director, to get full 17 access to Ancestry.com, which is one of the biggies for 18 genealogists. We're paying for that out of our funds. And a 19 lot of people think libraries are obsolete. "What do you 20 need a library for?" Like I said, you can't -- books don't 21 need electricity. And as far as the History Center, we're 22 just kind of out there in la-la land; there are still people 23 that don't know we're there. We're protecting Kerr County 24 history. We have the microfilm -- the newspapers on 25 microfilm back to 1899. That's not on the internet. You 9-24-07 51 1 can't find all of Kerr County history on the internet. We 2 average -- in one month, we can average as high -- we have 3 gone as high as 300 people in that building a month. We're 4 open six days a week. We have people coming in here, they're 5 looking not only for the living relatives; they want to know 6 about Kerr County. We have a web site to where people can 7 post queries. We have had phone calls as far as Japan and 8 Germany that are wanting information for people that are 9 here. And when -- in the overall priority of things, 10 libraries have a tendency to kind of take a back step, and -- 11 but I think it's important that we have it. I first walked 12 into the library we have here in 1969. We have a unique 13 library. It's beautiful. It's right there on the river. It 14 doesn't need to be moved. It needs -- it needs to be 15 maintained. And many a day it's hard to find parking around 16 the library. But I wish you'd really and truly try to pull 17 what you can out of there and support this library before it 18 falls apart, or around our ears. And keep on -- and, again, 19 I will end by saying, books and newspapers don't need 20 electricity. Thank you. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, Ms. Trolinger. Is there 22 anyone else that wishes to be heard with regard to the Kerr 23 County FY 2007-08 budget? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, can I make a quick 25 comment, if I might? 9-24-07 52 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Surely. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: A couple of things that were 3 said, I think, you know, there must be some misconception in 4 the community. First of all, the History Center has never 5 been part of the Commissioners Court budget. That is a -- 6 was done through grants, and is a City of Kerrville function 7 100 percent. So, I mean, the City never asked us to be part 8 of that, to my knowledge. And it was done by the City of 9 Kerrville, so anything related to that is not a county 10 function, never has been. Just let me finish, please. The 11 other issue, the -- the funding at the library that is in the 12 budget right now is basically what came out of an agreement 13 between the City of Kerrville and Kerr County last year. 14 Many of you know we have been at odds over this because of 15 the -- what we have felt is a lack of information and a lot 16 of -- of access to information and other things coming from 17 the City of Kerrville, who is the managing partner, so to 18 speak, of the -- of this arrangement. So, we came -- the 19 Commissioners Court came up with a plan, basically, that 20 we're just going to fund a certain amount. We're not -- 21 there's nothing set that we fund half of the library. That's 22 been a common practice for a while. 23 We told the City of Kerrville, and they were very 24 comfortable with the arrangement that we came up with, that 25 we were going to fund a flat amount, and the City would be 9-24-07 53 1 responsible for the remainder. I, and I don't think anyone 2 on this Court has ever wanted to not fund the library. We've 3 had some issues with the -- the management and the way the 4 funding was done, that we had no input into that process, but 5 I've always been very supportive of the library. And we've 6 told the City of Kerrville recently we'd be willing to look 7 at -- they have plans to do some major changes of capital 8 improvements; we'll be glad to look at those. But we were 9 trying to get away from this annual bickering over the 10 funding of the library. We just said we're just going to 11 fund a flat amount, and the City of Kerrville seems to -- or 12 at the joint meeting two years ago, year and a half ago, was 13 very supportive of this idea. So, I'm not sure -- you know, 14 I just wanted to kind of set the record straight a little bit 15 as to where -- how we got where we are. It was an agreement 16 by the City of Kerrville and Kerr County. And, you know, 17 there's no intent on my part to cut funding for the library. 18 It's just a matter of trying to have -- we were not allowed 19 to have input into the process; therefore, we came up with a 20 different plan. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just one other comment, 22 Judge, if I might, responding to one of the things that 23 Ms. Trolinger said. If I -- excuse me. If I understood her 24 correctly, she indicated that the library's literally falling 25 down around their heads. I assume that comment meant the 9-24-07 54 1 physical property, the building. And you -- you're nodding 2 that that's correct. Well, the point I want to make is, 3 that's not our building. We have never funded that building. 4 That is a city of Kerrville building. The maintenance of 5 that facility is solely in their hands; has nothing to do 6 with Kerr County. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Any other member wish to be heard 8 with regard to -- you had an additional comment, Mr. Luther? 9 MR. LUTHER: I just had a question of Commissioner 10 Letz. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: And what might that be? 12 MR. LUTHER: Is it true that the Commissioners are 13 proposing to reduce the library budget by about $60,000? 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, we have a proposed budget that 15 is on file, and -- but the budget has not yet been finalized. 16 MR. LUTHER: Yes. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: There will -- there will be action 18 taken at the end of the week in that regard. In -- in 19 follow-up to Commissioner Letz' comments, I think there 20 was -- there was general agreement until approximately two 21 years ago that the operational aspects of that library be 22 funded 50/50 by the City and the County. At our joint 23 meeting last year, it was clearly indicated to the City by 24 Commissioner Letz, and my recollection is others seemed to be 25 in support of that, that on an ongoing, going-forward basis, 9-24-07 55 1 rather than look at it on a 50/50 participation in whatever 2 the operational costs may be, as -- as handed to us by the 3 City of Kerrville, that on an ongoing basis, we were going to 4 fund a specified flat amount, and not only would it be a flat 5 amount, but that it would probably decline from year to year 6 on an incremental basis, in order that there might be a 7 resolution where the City would take full control of that, or 8 possibly the creation of a library district. And that was 9 the -- those were the two other options that were laid on the 10 table last year at our joint meeting. But the -- the figure 11 in the budget, as I recall, at present is $400,000 on behalf 12 of the County. Hopefully that'll answer your question. 13 MR. LUTHER: Yes, thank you. Judge, thank you. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Is there anyone else that wishes to 15 be heard with regard to the Kerr County FY 2007-08 budget? 16 MR. BENHAM: Sir, can I add a P.S. to what was said 17 that I think is significant? 18 JUDGE TINLEY: All right, sir. 19 MR. BENHAM: You already heard from the historical 20 lady. The community -- the nongovernmental organizations, as 21 they like to say, the N.G.O.'s, we are doing as much as we 22 possibly can. We -- in my case and Mr. Lipscomb's case, 23 being the Friends of the Library, we are doing as much as we 24 can, and I think we have a very proud record of doing 25 everything we can. We have volunteers over there putting in 9-24-07 56 1 many hundreds, if not thousands of hours a year. The Friends 2 of the Library routinely donate $20,000 a year to supplement 3 the city and county funds. When I had the privilege of being 4 president of the Friends of the Library, we raised $360,000 5 to buy the property next door to preserve it for use for 6 library purposes. Now, to-date, about all that's -- the only 7 use the library's gotten out of that is some additional 8 handicapped parking, for which I personally am very grateful; 9 I need handicapped parking. But the agreement was, 10 particularly from the foundations that we managed to get a 11 lot of money out of, that that property would be used for 12 library purposes. So, I think the history folks and the 13 Friends of the Library can say honestly that we put our money 14 where our mouth is. We don't just come in with our hand out 15 and say give us -- give the library money. Obviously, since 16 you have access to tax funds, you have the ability to raise 17 more money than we do. But we raise every nickel we can, and 18 we work very hard doing it, with our book sales and so forth, 19 to put as much money into that library as we can. And so 20 this is not just a one-way street where we come in and say 21 give us some money. We are doing everything we can to fund 22 the library to the extent that we possibly can. And I'd like 23 to think of it as a partnership between government and the 24 private organizations to continue keeping that library as up 25 to speed and as -- as valuable a resource as it is. And I 9-24-07 57 1 appreciate your letting me add that. Thank you. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, Mr. Benham. Anyone else 3 that wishes to be heard with regard to the Kerr County Fiscal 4 Year 2007-08 budget? Seeing no one else seeking to be 5 recognized, I will close the public hearing regarding the 6 Kerr County Fiscal Year 2007-08 budget. 7 (The public hearing was concluded at 10:15 a.m., and the regular Commissioners Court meeting was 8 reopened.) 9 - - - - - - - - - - 10 JUDGE TINLEY: It is after 10 o'clock. We ran 11 over, and so I will go to the 10 o'clock timed item, and 12 convene a public hearing regarding the proposed Kerr County 13 2007 tax rate. 14 (The regular Commissioners Court meeting was closed at 10:15 a.m., and a public hearing was held in 15 open court, as follows:) 16 P U B L I C H E A R I N G 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Is there any member of the public 18 that wishes to be heard regarding the proposed 2007 tax rate? 19 Any member of the public wishing to be heard with regard to 20 the proposed 2007 tax rate in Kerr County? Seeing no one 21 seeking to be recognized, I will close that public hearing. 22 (The public hearing was concluded at 10:16 a.m., and the regular Commissioners Court meeting was 23 reopened.) 24 - - - - - - - - - - 25 JUDGE TINLEY: And noting that it is past 10:15, I 9-24-07 58 1 will convene a public hearing on the 10:15 item, that being a 2 public hearing regarding the proposed salary, expenses, and 3 other allowances of Kerr County elected county or precinct 4 officers for Fiscal Year 2007-08. 5 (The regular Commissioners Court meeting was closed at 10:16 a.m., and a public hearing was held in 6 open court, as follows:) 7 P U B L I C H E A R I N G 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Is there any member of the public 9 that wishes to be heard regarding the proposed salary 10 expenses and other allowances for Kerr County elected county 11 or precinct officers for Fiscal Year 2007-08? Any member of 12 the public wishing to be heard regarding the proposed salary, 13 expenses, and other allowances of Kerr County elected county 14 or precinct officers for Fiscal Year 2007-08? Seeing no one 15 seeking to be recognized on that subject, I will close the 16 public hearing. 17 (The public hearing was concluded at 10:17 a.m., and the regular Commissioners Court meeting was 18 reopened.) 19 - - - - - - - - - - 20 JUDGE TINLEY: And I will reconvene the 21 Commissioners Court meeting and take up Item Number 9; 22 consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to adopt a 23 list of organizations which will receive discounts at the 24 Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center. Commissioners Letz and 25 Oehler, which one of you two wants to lead off? 9-24-07 59 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Letz does. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess I do. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: As y'all recall, we have 5 changed the booking procedures and the fee schedules and 6 things of that nature. Previously, we had different 7 categories that we gave reduced rates to, and we've changed 8 that from a -- to more of a percentage basis. You just get 9 a -- either a 25, 50, 75 percent discount off of whatever the 10 rate turns out to be when you calculate it. The -- and there 11 was a difference for local commercial, different than other 12 commercial, which I guess would be non-local commercial. And 13 it's sometimes very difficult to differentiate one from the 14 other. Then there were nonprofits that were given various, 15 and not always consistent, reductions. And then there was an 16 issue whether a local nonprofit or a non-local nonprofit, and 17 it was really kind of -- it was a cumbersome system. In the 18 backup is the -- what we previously did under Court Order 19 27353, "LC" being local commercial, "C" being commercial, and 20 "NP" being nonprofit. And it's on the agenda to get some 21 guidance as to what do y'all want to do? 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: "Commercial" meaning that 23 they make money -- that they're making money out of the deal. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But -- and where the lines get 25 really blurred, if you -- and a good one is a pig sale, which 9-24-07 60 1 is done for the benefit of 4-H, but by private people that 2 are making money. And some of those private people making 3 money at the pig sale may be part of 4-H. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: But they're still making 5 money. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So -- 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That makes it commercial. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, 4-H gets free use, but does 9 a 4-H pig sale that's benefiting some people -- should they 10 pay? That's the kind of things that we need some guidance as 11 to how we're doing it. Other things are on the nonprofit 12 side. You have organizations like the agility dogs. That is 13 a national organization that has local members. Well, say 14 there wasn't a local member, but local people are attending. 15 Well, is that a -- you know, is that local or not local? You 16 know. Brangus Association, Red Angus Association. I mean, 17 there's -- you know, almost anything that goes on out there 18 that may be on the commercial side can also come in with a 19 nonprofit thing. I mean, it's just -- it's a -- it's a 20 problem. So, I thought we'd just put it on the agenda to see 21 how y'all want to proceed now. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Help me understand the 23 difference between, under commercial, American Boer Goat 24 Association, American Meat Goat Association, and Hill Country 25 Meat Goat Producers Gathering under nonprofit. Help me 9-24-07 61 1 understand the distinction there. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's -- I can't tell you. You 3 know, it's -- a lot of the associations are nonprofit, but 4 they're kind of not nonprofit. I mean, that's what's 5 difficult. You know, I'm actually in favor of -- I mean, I'd 6 like to eliminate a lot of the nonprofit. If there's, you 7 know, benefit to the local community, we want to give some 8 subsidy to that, whether, you know, it's helping the youth in 9 some of these associations, like the Boer Goat Association. 10 You know, let's come up with a list, give them a 25, 11 50 percent discount. I'm not in favor, really, of giving 12 anybody a -- or very few a 75 percent discount. I think you 13 give our 4-H people free use -- or 4-H clubs free use. 14 Beyond that, maybe 50 percent discount to some that we 15 figure, you know, under some methodology, you know, deserves 16 a discount. You know, most of these events are benefiting 17 the community. Most of them have people come in from out of 18 town staying in hotels, eating at our restaurants, so it's 19 real hard to pick and choose which ones get discounts and 20 which ones don't. So, that's kind of on the table. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: One of the problems is -- one 22 of the problems being that we still have expenses. We 23 have -- we have people that are on -- that are being paid. 24 All of these events generate a large amount of trash. They 25 require cleanup, setup, and so I -- I just -- I'm beginning 9-24-07 62 1 to believe that we need to have fair charges for those things 2 to at least cover our expenses. I don't believe that it's 3 right for Kerr County taxpayers to subsidize, you know, 4 completely some of these nonprofit groups. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Commissioner, is it a 6 possibility that in the new fee structure -- or in doing this 7 list, that we can -- that we can think about discounts for 8 the rental, but charge the actual cost of setup and 9 take-down, which includes trash cleanup? 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I agree. You know, and it 11 takes time to do all that. And -- and some of those costs 12 are, you know, not as high because we use some community 13 service, but somebody has to supervise them. And we have -- 14 you know, the cleanup part of it and the preparation and 15 making sure it's clean and -- and then ready for the next 16 event to come in. It costs money, and we need to be 17 compensated. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. A good example on -- on 19 some of the hidden charges is that events that go 8:00 to 20 5:00, we have staff out there, and we really don't -- don't 21 charge for that additionally, 'cause they're there 22 regardless. But once someone stays after 5 o'clock, we have 23 to pay somebody overtime to be out there at that facility, 24 and whether it's -- you know, no matter who it is, we have to 25 pay that money. And we feel that it's -- you know, I feel, 9-24-07 63 1 anyway, that it's a -- we should be compensated for that 2 part. And I think it's very important -- in the past, at 3 times we did not have a Kerr County employee on-site, and I 4 think that's a mistake. I think we need to always have a 5 Kerr County employee on-site, and he stays until the close of 6 that event and locks up. I think we were in the practice at 7 some of our facilities of giving keys out, let the people 8 lock up themselves. I just think that's not a good practice 9 any more. So, I mean, if we're having an event, we have to 10 send an employee there, and they have to pay for that. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And some of the new policy 12 that's being adopted, too, is -- requires security to be 13 there during the event to make sure that we don't have fights 14 and we don't have disorderly conduct or whatever to -- during 15 those times. And they need to be dealt with, and the 16 security person or peace officer is about the only one that 17 can do that. We don't need to endanger our regular 18 maintenance staff people to do that. So, that is a -- you 19 know, we're -- that part of the expense, though, is going to 20 be passed directly on and contracted for by the people that 21 -- that lease that facility. Kerr County is not in the 22 security business. That's another thing that's -- that is 23 required now. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I know when I rented the 25 arts and crafts fair, like -- whatever the name of the place 9-24-07 64 1 is, that it was by contract. I was required to provide 2 security for the function. I had to pay somebody, a police 3 officer of some sort, to do that. Is that what we're talking 4 about doing here? 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, that doesn't have 6 anything to do with this -- 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I understand. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- directly, but, I mean, 9 yes. Those are things we talked about the other day. This 10 is kind of another part of the policy that we're trying to 11 get direction on. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Personally, I think that we 13 need to simplify this as much as possible. Commercial and 14 noncommercial, and that -- or nonprofit. And it's got to be 15 -- it's got to be simple, and it's got to be firm, what it 16 would do, 'cause I can't -- can't imagine Jody looking at 17 these individually and trying to figure out, well, is this a 18 commercial function? Taking someone's word for it if they're 19 commercial or a nonprofit? I mean, whatever we do has to be 20 simplified and -- and we have to be firm, and understand the 21 thing for her purposes, if nothing else. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think the -- I mean, the 23 approach to me is that we come up with a list, and if you're 24 not on our list, you pay full rate, period. And that means 25 these people have to come up to us, and then we can add to 9-24-07 65 1 that list. This is a little bit -- maybe a starting point. 2 We can bring it back at the next meeting. And some of these 3 people come in one time, and we keep them on a list. We need 4 to redo the list periodically, and let people submit them 5 to -- anyone that's interested, inform our administrative 6 assistant, and we can get it on a list and make a decision 7 what the discount will be. I think it's easier if we can do 8 a full rate, 50 percent, or free. I mean, rather than doing 9 too many categories. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. And so I just think we 12 need to come up with a list, because Jody's been getting a 13 lot of calls, and we're kind of -- we made a lot of changes, 14 and there's a lot of people that are kind of on hold from a 15 contract standpoint as to what they're doing or want to do 16 out there. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Before we finalize this, I 18 don't disagree with either of the comments about -- 19 Commissioner Baldwin's or yours, in terms of trying to 20 simplify it. I think we should do that. Too many categories 21 become too confusing, and if you take a look at this list, 22 some probably could be recategorized or reclassified. But 23 when we finalize the -- the discounts, can we also consider 24 making it part of our policy that the discount applies to the 25 rental of the facility, and there will be actual charges 9-24-07 66 1 assessed for cleanup, setup, and take-down, as distinguished 2 from rent? 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Those are on the list right 4 now for charges. The new list of what -- what the facility 5 costs, the setup and the tear-down is one cost, and then you 6 have the rental is the secondary cost. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We can do that. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So we'll, I guess, bring it 10 back with a -- a starting point. Is that what I'm hearing? 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: As an example, under local 15 commercial, Thousand Hills Cowboy Church team roping. I 16 can't -- well, number one, they're almost through with their 17 own facility anyway. I doubt if they'll be using ours. But 18 I couldn't see them as a for-profit deal at all. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Right. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Or proms for high schools 21 is another category. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, exactly that. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They're not commercial. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Anything else on Item 9? 9-24-07 67 1 MR. BENHAM: Your Honor, are public comments 2 allowed on that item? 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Please say no. (Laughter.) 4 JUDGE TINLEY: You're in luck, Commissioner. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, it's Joe. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Benham's not -- his hearing is 7 not what it used to be. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. And he lives in my 9 precinct. 10 MR. BENHAM: There are a lot of things that aren't 11 what they used to be, but that isn't what I came up to talk 12 about. I wanted to try to offer something I hope might be 13 helpful. Before I moved up here, I was president of a 14 property owners association for 12 years, which, among other 15 things, owned a swimming pool, and we had people who wanted 16 to have swimming parties, birthday parties and so forth at 17 the pool. We broke it down into -- the cost down into two 18 areas. One was a basic cost, what you paid to rent the pool. 19 That covered the lifeguards and the electricity and so forth. 20 We had a second charge, which was actually a deposit that 21 said you put up -- and I don't recall the amount of money -- 22 several hundred dollars. You put up so much money, and if 23 you clean the place up and take all your trash with you, you 24 get that money back. And that, we felt, was fair to the 25 property owners, because it protected our community interest, 9-24-07 68 1 but it also kept the usage of the place within reach of 2 people who couldn't shell out $1,000 or $1,500 for a kid's 3 birthday party. I heard what you said about the security. I 4 was also chairman of our community public safety committee 5 for a number of years, and I -- I know how significant 6 security is. That would cover the security aspects and the 7 cost. And I agree with Commissioner Letz 100 percent; you 8 want a county employee there. You don't want to just hand 9 out keys. But if you let -- if you give the people the 10 option of cleaning up their own mess and taking it with them, 11 you could keep it within reach of some nonprofits that might 12 not otherwise be able to use it, and I would hope maybe you 13 take consideration of that. That, to me, is a win-win 14 situation, and it worked for us. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We do have -- we do have a 16 deposit built into the proposed policy, and we are going to 17 increase that some because of the mess that some leave 18 because the deposit hasn't been big enough. They say, "Well, 19 you know, if it's only $100, why do we want to clean it up? 20 You clean it up." 21 MR. BENHAM: I hear you. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So we're increasing that 23 amount of deposit. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, sir. Why don't we take 25 about a 15-minute recess mid-morning here? 9-24-07 69 1 (Recess taken from 10:35 a.m. to 10:55 a.m.) 2 - - - - - - - - - - 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's come back to order, if 4 we might. We have a 10:30 timed item on the -- on an 5 addendum that was subsequently posted. It's listed as Item 6 24, but it is a timed item for 10:30. Of course, we took a 7 break. That item is consider, discuss, and take appropriate 8 action to allow Milton Taylor to have limited temporary 9 access across county land to enter a portion of his property 10 in order to facilitate Court-mandated cleanup of his 11 property. Ms. Bailey? 12 MS. BAILEY: Thank you, Your Honor. Morning, 13 Commissioners and Judge Tinley. This item we put on the 14 agenda to hopefully assist Mr. Taylor -- Milton Taylor in 15 cleaning up his property that was Court-mandated by a 16 probation judgment he entered into back in November of '06. 17 He was charged with not having performed under that agreement 18 as required, so there was a motion to revoke his probation 19 filed. He spent some time in jail, and we have reached an 20 agreement with Mr. Taylor on how he's going to proceed to 21 actually do the cleanup. When I say "we," the prosecutor, 22 the Environmental Health Department, and various 23 representatives of T.C.E.Q. who are assisting with the whole 24 process. There is a color photograph attached to your agenda 25 item that explains a little bit more clearly what we're 9-24-07 70 1 talking about, and if you'll turn that on its side, you can 2 kind of see that's the aerial view of the property that's 3 concerned. 4 There are three major areas of pollution -- of 5 solid waste, mostly cars and car parts. As you can see, the 6 one on the very left runs along Third Creek, right adjacent 7 to Third Creek, and has probably the most number of vehicles 8 that need to be removed. Mr. Taylor was able to move those 9 down there by using a small road on his property, but he 10 indicates to us that since the grade is pretty steep there 11 from his house down -- well, this -- this is his house, 12 apparently, and there's a little road down by the side of it. 13 That was where he was able to move the cars down there, but 14 it's fairly steep here, and he says it would be very 15 difficult to pull items back up that grade. There used to be 16 -- where the little red mark is down here, where I say, 17 "Approximate location of requested access," he used to have a 18 gate there and accessed his property that way. Since this 19 adjacent property is county property, the County has fenced 20 across that, so he no longer has access there. His proposal 21 is to open up the county fence there so that a crusher can 22 come in and have access to that back portion of his property 23 through that gate area, and then at the end of the 24 probationary period, which is now scheduled January 24th of 25 '08, he would then, at his own expense, have to replace the 9-24-07 71 1 county fence there. So that during the period between now 2 and the end of January of '08, he would be able to access the 3 back portion of his property through that temporary easement. 4 It is our recommendation that we allow that to happen, 5 because I think would it facilitate his ability to do the 6 cleanup in an area that's very environmentally sensitive. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ilsa, is the access only to get 8 the crusher back in there? Or is it daily access during that 9 period? 10 MS. BAILEY: My understanding is -- and his 11 attorney's here; he can speak to it. My understanding is 12 that the purpose for that would be to remove the vehicles. 13 However, I think if we give him access, it would be so hard 14 to police that, I think we either just have to say you have 15 the access until January 24th of '08 through this area, or 16 you don't. If you want to limit it that way, that's 17 certainly something I think that we could do. I just think it 18 would be hard to police. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think you -- access is an 20 issue. Access for what purpose? For a crusher to get in and 21 do what it has to do and stack the crushed things up on a -- 22 on a flatbed and move them out? Or access so he can move out 23 those units one at a time and take them elsewhere into Kerr 24 County and recreate what he's got down here? 25 MS. BAILEY: That is a concern. I have just -- I 9-24-07 72 1 don't think Mr. Cortese has even gotten my letter, but I 2 wrote him a letter on Friday exactly to that effect, because 3 I have heard some -- some indication that he may have 4 intention to move the property -- the solid waste to another 5 location. And, certainly, if it's going to be solid waste in 6 another location, it would be illegal, and we certainly don't 7 want to facilitate that kind of -- 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's my whole point, 9 counselor. 10 MS. BAILEY: -- process. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't want to facilitate 12 creation of another situation like this elsewhere in the 13 county. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Bailey, the court order that 15 we're talking about that's currently in place in that 16 requires this to be accomplished by the end of next January. 17 Would that permit this solid waste to be moved to another 18 location, and just so long as it's not on this particular 19 property, it could be -- it could be moved to another 20 location and -- out of sight, out of mind, so to speak? Or 21 would that also be in violation of the court order? 22 MS. BAILEY: The court order itself addresses just 23 this property; it doesn't address that issue. However, state 24 law, and certainly our county rules, require that solid waste 25 not be placed anywhere except in an approved, licensed 9-24-07 73 1 salvage yard. I don't know if Mr. Taylor has another 2 approved, licensed salvage yard. I don't believe he does. 3 If he has a salvage yard that these items could be placed in, 4 legally, properly screened, properly licensed and so forth, 5 then I don't think we have any control over that. However, 6 if he places it anywhere else, it will be a new illegal 7 dumping case, which would require a new -- well, would allow 8 us to file a new criminal case and a motion to revoke his 9 probation for violations of the law. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. If he removes it, but to a 11 nonlicensed facility, that would, in fact, be in violation of 12 the existing court order? 13 MS. BAILEY: Yes, because it -- because one of the 14 provisions is, don't violate the law. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But our concern here today 17 is to either allow him to use the county fence and -- and 18 county road, probably, -- 19 MS. BAILEY: Yes. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- to get ingress/egress to 21 move the junk out that we've ordered him to move. 22 MS. BAILEY: Yes. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And it looks to me -- 24 MS. BAILEY: If you want to restrict it to only 25 allowing a crusher to enter and leave, we could -- we could 9-24-07 74 1 certainly restrict it in that manner. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, that would be a 3 crusher, perhaps, and a flatbed. If you're crushing them, 4 you're going to put them on something and move them out 5 someplace else. 6 MS. BAILEY: That would be my understanding. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, allow him to get that 8 stuff out of there. I don't care if he uses a helicopter 9 or -- 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's an idea. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- a little red wagon. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: How do we control access to the 13 park? Is that gate not locked? 14 MS. BAILEY: I believe that there is a gate -- if 15 y'all see the yellow dotted line where it crosses the county 16 road, I believe that there is a gate right there that we 17 would have to give him access to. But that would be more of 18 a -- either give him a key or combination to a gate that's 19 already in existence. The only one he'd actually have to 20 create is the gate down here where the red line is. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't think that gate is 22 locked. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It is periodically, to 24 control access. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If the weather's bad. 9-24-07 75 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The damage that we've had 2 with people going down there in muddy times, and -- 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If the weather's bad, yeah. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If the weather's bad. 5 MS. BAILEY: There has been some recent vandalism 6 down there with people driving in, so I suspect that it may 7 be locked more in the near future than it has been in the 8 past. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think it's locked most of 10 the time now. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have actually no problem with 12 using -- letting him have access to putting a gate in to get 13 the equipment in. My only concern is -- a little bit is -- 14 and during -- while work is going into operating the crushing 15 and loading them and all that, I don't see why they can't use 16 that road. I don't know why they need access to the park for 17 that. Getting the vehicles -- the trucks in and out, sure, I 18 have no problem with that at all. 'Cause I'm just really 19 concerned about access into the park as -- you know, all of a 20 sudden, other issues come up on responsibility when the 21 gate's open or closed, and who's responsible for all that and 22 things of that nature. So, I'd like to keep the county gate 23 locked as much as possible. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: All times, except whenever 25 you're driving through it. 9-24-07 76 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Nights, things like that, and 2 then let him access his property other times, you know, 3 through his property, which he can do. And then, when he 4 needs to get the crusher in or the trucks in and out -- 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, let's see if we can 6 establish where that gate is. There used to be a gate on -- 7 hanging on a couple posts that was on Mr. Taylor's property, 8 not on that county fence, correct? 9 MR. CORTESE: There is a -- what we -- what I was 10 always raised to call a lifetime gate, an aluminum gate. 11 It's on a set of posts. The County offset themselves about 12 2 feet and built a fence. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Correct. 14 MR. CORTESE: Obviously, to prevent Mr. Taylor from 15 attaching a gate. All Mr. Taylor wants to do is -- and he 16 will -- his intention is that even in this interim, that he 17 will attach all the wires, keep the fence in place, keep his 18 gate locked so that no -- there's nobody -- if somebody has 19 access to the county park, they're not trying to come into 20 his property. But he -- this -- the only access to the back 21 of this property is either across the creek, driving through 22 the creek, or to come down an about -- I don't know what 23 degree it is, but an extremely steep incline at the back of 24 his house, which is normally -- I mean, very, very -- very 25 difficult. I've personally been back there. Very difficult. 9-24-07 77 1 The -- you know, all he's asking for is this access to go in 2 and clean up the property. Now, that will entail more than 3 just a crusher showing up one day and crushing all the deals; 4 he's got to go in there and he's got to prepare the vehicles 5 for the crusher, and then the crusher has to come in and 6 crush them, and they have to come out. So, there is going to 7 be access. He's going to be accessing the property. Now, 8 obviously, he's not going to be accessing the property every 9 day, and that gate on the county property does remain closed, 10 I believe, generally when it's wet, and because there's -- if 11 you can look in these aerial photographs, you can see 12 doughnuts that have been cut out there in the field, that -- 13 even when this aerial photograph was taken. So, kids have 14 been going down there periodically, when it's wet and rainy, 15 and doing doughnuts. You can even -- like I say, you can see 16 in that aerial photograph, and I'm not sure when that was 17 taken, but I know it's been taken some time ago. 18 MS. BAILEY: In June. 19 MR. CORTESE: And, you know, all he wants is 20 access. I will remind the Commissioners that the only access 21 the County has to their property was through an easement 22 granted by Mr. Taylor initially. The current way the County 23 gets through to their property -- to their gate is through an 24 easement granted by Mr. Taylor and given to the County a 25 number of years ago. 9-24-07 78 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I understand that, but that 2 will soon be rectified. Go ahead. 3 MR. CORTESE: It was granted without charge a 4 number of years ago. So, I mean, the -- the point is, you 5 know, that's -- that easement was given. I mean, he's just 6 asking for an easement to get in this property and remove 7 these vehicles on this back side of Third Creek, I'll refer 8 to it as. I'm not sure if that's the back side or the -- 9 I'll say it's the south side of Third Creek. And that's what 10 he needs. He needs that -- otherwise, he's got to cross the 11 creek, and then that'll -- with the water flow currently in 12 the creek, you really can't do that. So, that's all he's 13 trying to do. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Somebody correct me if I'm 15 wrong, or tell me for certain, but at the point that -- 16 counselor, at the point where you're marking "requested 17 access" on the county fence there, there's no county gate 18 there. 19 MS. BAILEY: There's no county gate. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So this means that 21 Mr. Taylor will cut the county fence and install a gate; is 22 that correct? 23 MR. CORTESE: There's a gate there. What we will 24 do is -- what I've talked to him about is -- is cutting the 25 fence and placing the appropriate brace so the fence doesn't 9-24-07 79 1 loosen. Place the appropriate braces in there, and attach 2 the wires to the posts that he currently has there on his 3 gate, and so that there remains a -- a continuous -- 4 contiguous fence quality, you know, that it is not -- nothing 5 sagging. It doesn't look bad; it'll look good, until we 6 complete this removal. And in -- I'm sorry. And in response 7 to somebody's comment, there -- under the T.E.C.Q. rules, 8 there has to be an R.I.R. report. This is where they have to 9 come in, and a consultant will actually -- in this case, 10 we've -- we were arranging for consultants. They will 11 actually determine what needs to be -- what falls under the 12 solid waste and what will be removed under T.E.C.Q. rules of 13 solid waste. As far as moving it somewhere else, that's 14 really not an option, because if these items fall under solid 15 waste, they have to be removed under T.E.C.Q. rules. So, if 16 they're in that report as items that will be removed under 17 the solid waste, they have to be removed under the solid 18 waste, because they're in the R.I.R. report and they all have 19 to be accounted for subsequently in the subsequent reports to 20 T.E.C.Q. So that's really not -- I don't know where that new 21 rumor has come from, but anyway, it's unfounded. 22 Now, Mr. Taylor, under our agreement -- and I want 23 to -- just so that it's clear, he -- he remains a licensed 24 salvage yard, and as long as the property -- the points on 25 the property that qualify to be a salvage yard, the intent 9-24-07 80 1 is -- is that there will still be -- I'm not going to hide 2 this, because the intent is that there's still going to be 3 cars there. That will qualify as a salvage yard for the 4 cars. They will just be limited to the area that falls under 5 the T.E.C.Q. rules, as well as the floodwater rules for the 6 salvage yard. So that Ms. -- if you -- on that map, if you 7 want to point out that area. 8 MS. BAILEY: Let me clarify that. There's another 9 map that is with the probation order in addition to this map, 10 which shows the floodplain for the property that Mr. Taylor 11 owns. He owns the piece that encompasses those three areas 12 to clean up. He also owns this little area right up here on 13 Highway 27 that's Trucks and More. That's his -- his sales 14 business. All of that is in the floodplain except for this 15 area right up here, this circular area. So, what we have 16 agreed with Mr. Taylor is that he has, he says, 15 or 20 17 vehicles that he believes are good enough that he wants to 18 hang onto them, and this area is going to be added to his 19 license -- his salvage license. So, there will be vehicles 20 remaining on that location; however, it will be properly 21 screened as required by county order and by state law. So, 22 this area will be cleaned of junk vehicles. The vehicles 23 that he wants to keep will be placed there, and it'll be 24 screened. This area will be -- in the middle will be cleaned 25 out, and this area in the back will be cleaned out. 9-24-07 81 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There's very little area 2 that's going to be left for a salvage yard. 3 MS. BAILEY: Exactly. And it will be properly 4 screened so that it will no longer be an eyesore. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Anybody have any idea how 6 many vehicles we're talking about are going to be removed in 7 this area here? 8 MS. BAILEY: You know, I started counting them, and 9 I didn't actually finish, but there are several hundred, I 10 think. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And is the time we're 12 talking about, between now and January 24, 2008, is that 13 going to be sufficient to get this done? 14 MR. CORTESE: Well, that depends. Because -- I 15 believe that depends on T.E.C.Q. Am I correct? 16 MS. BAILEY: Yes. There -- the order has multiple 17 stages in it, because T.C.E.Q. has some requirements that one 18 thing be done before another. The R.I.R., the Release 19 Investigation Report, has to first be done, and then that 20 tells what has to be removed in -- in addition to the solid 21 waste things. Like, if there's ground pollution, that has to 22 be dug up and replaced. They outline all that. Then the 23 removal is done, and then there's another report that they 24 have to do. Now, according to my understanding of the order, 25 and what T.C.E.Q. says at this point, January 24th should be 9-24-07 82 1 a sufficient amount of time for all the solid waste to 2 actually be removed. Then there's another set of timelines 3 where that report has to be submitted to T.C.E.Q. They have 4 to approve it or give requirements of additional work that 5 has to be done, and that part will come after January 24th. 6 But that part, we have no control over the timeline, so we're 7 not going to hold Mr. Taylor's feet to the fire unless 8 T.C.E.Q. says, you know, "Do this by this date." 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, the area that we're 10 talking about that all of these vehicles are going to come 11 out through this access point, which ties into this road that 12 goes into the piece of Flat Rock Lake Park -- 13 MS. BAILEY: Yes. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- that's going to be 15 accomplished between now and January 24? All of that 16 surrounding his buildings in the middle, those are going to 17 come out and go to Riverside Drive; is that correct? 18 MS. BAILEY: Well, actually -- 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No? 20 MS. BAILEY: All -- all of these except the few 21 that he wants to save are going to be crushed as well. The 22 difference is that the crusher doesn't need access through 23 the red gate to get these up on Riverside Drive. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's my point. They're 25 coming off Riverside Drive. 9-24-07 83 1 MS. BAILEY: So, once he finishes there, then he's 2 going to move the crusher around there and crush these, and 3 there's also some from this area that are going to have to be 4 crushed, and all that is going to be moved, and then he's 5 going to take the 15 or 20 that he wants to keep and move 6 them back up to this area that will be added to his license. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Who's going to monitor this 8 process? 9 MS. BAILEY: Environmental Health and my office. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move approval. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Approval to do what? 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Gain access to -- to the -- 13 as detailed by counsel for Mr. Taylor. Limited access by 14 restructuring the fence and tying it to a gate at the point 15 identified by counsel as an access location. And that'll 16 extend until January 24, 2008, at which point in time we 17 expect the fence to be restored to its -- like he found it. 18 MS. BAILEY: At Mr. Taylor's expense? 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, ma'am. 20 MS. BAILEY: And also, I think as part of that 21 order, we should ask Mr. Taylor to keep the county gate 22 locked at all times when he's not using it. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree with that. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Keep the gate in -- however he 25 finds it when he goes in. If it's unlocked, leave it 9-24-07 84 1 unlocked; if it's locked, leave it locked. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me -- let me address the issue 3 of the scope of this authorization. Now, granted, he's going 4 to be able to move a crusher in there, and then he's going to 5 crush vehicles and they're going to come out, probably on a 6 flatbed trailer. My understanding is there will be some 7 additional solid waste that won't go through that crushing 8 process that will have to be removed from that same area. 9 MS. BAILEY: Yes. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Is that not true? 11 MS. BAILEY: Yes, because I believe that they have 12 to remove, say, batteries and oil pans and that sort of thing 13 prior to the actual crushing. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: So we're not just talking about the 15 crusher. We're talking about the crusher or other necessary 16 actions that have to be taken or conveyances to move out all 17 of the solid waste that's back there, as required by the 18 T.C.E.Q. mandate. 19 MS. BAILEY: I think that would be a correct way to 20 state that in the order. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, next question. Are you 22 proposing that Mr. Taylor be under, as part of this 23 authorization, a mandate to remediate whatever -- whatever 24 may occur to our property, the county property, as a result 25 of these actions? For example, we've heard about the fence, 9-24-07 85 1 restoring that. It may well be that in utilizing that 2 roadway that is there now on county property, that that 3 roadway, you know, possibly will have some rains; it gets 4 rutted up, maybe put in worse condition than it's presently 5 in. 6 MS. BAILEY: I think it would be appropriate to 7 require that he remediate the roadway to its pre-access 8 condition. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: The way the fence, the property, 10 whatever may be occasioned by his activities there. That's 11 what I'm getting to. 12 MS. BAILEY: I think that's correct. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: At his expense. 14 MS. BAILEY: Yes, sir. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I accept all that, Judge. 17 Thank you. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: We have a motion and a second, as 20 drawn out over a period of some time, I suppose. Any 21 question or discussion on what's proposed here? All in favor 22 of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 23 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 24 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 25 (No response.) 9-24-07 86 1 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Thank you. 2 MS. BAILEY: And, Your Honor, may that be effective 3 today so I can tell him that he can start moving things out? 4 JUDGE TINLEY: There wasn't any other date put on 5 it, so -- 6 MS. BAILEY: All right. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: But we do have a termination date. 8 MS. BAILEY: Yes, January 24th of '08. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Yes. Okay, thank you. 10 MS. BAILEY: Thank you. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Let's move to Item 10; consider, 12 discuss, take appropriate action to give the Hill Country 13 Youth Exhibit Center booking agent authority to make 14 discretionary decisions as needed. Commissioner Letz? 15 Commissioner Oehler? Which one of you guys wants to run with 16 this? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess I'll go. While we're 18 in this interim process, probably more than down the road, 19 but down the road as well, there's things that come up where 20 I think our booking agent, who's our administrative 21 assistant, needs a little bit of discretion to make some 22 decisions on her own without coming back to the Court every 23 time. And I'm blank as to an example what we're talking 24 about. Possibly some of the, you know -- can you think of 25 one, Bruce? 9-24-07 87 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, basically, say a small 2 little local group that just needs to meet and doesn't 3 require any -- any real setup or take-down, that may want to 4 go in there. Say, like -- like HILCO or something has just 5 an officer meeting they wanted to have, or something that was 6 a group of 10 or 15 or 20 people, and rather than having all 7 the other charges for that time, like, she could use 8 discretion and say, "Okay, you can meet there, you know, if 9 you clean the place up." And, you know, the charges are 10 going to be by the hour instead of a half-day rental or 11 full-day rental or whatever. 'Cause we do have a provision 12 in some of our charges for hourly rental, and some of them 13 are minimum; $25 an hour, say, for four hours would be one of 14 those kind of things. If they wanted to have a meeting 15 that's going to last two hours, pay 50 bucks and go have a 16 meeting, and not require a lot of county services. That 17 would just be one small example. And there will be other 18 small -- real small minor things that happen that don't 19 really fall under the full-blown rental charges, and setup or 20 tear-down. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And there's -- and here's 22 another example. Might not be a real good one. Insurance 23 requirements. We may have insurance from -- this may not be 24 a good example; I'll just say it anyway, 'cause we're talking 25 about redoing our insurance a little bit. But when the 9-24-07 88 1 riders come in, if -- hopefully through the County Attorney's 2 office, they can come up with some key things that she needs 3 to be able to look at, and approve an insurance -- 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Binder. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- binder. Binder and things 6 like that, so she has some authority to make the decisions 7 basically without having to call Commissioners Court every 8 time something isn't as cookie-cutter as we have in our 9 rules. Pretty minor things. And if she is uncomfortable 10 with making decisions, she'll obviously put it on our agenda. 11 Giving a little bit of discretion when it comes to the 12 nonprofits coming down the road, if they're not -- you know, 13 sometimes they may not have the exact time. If it fits in 14 with our rules and exactly, you know, how they're handled, 15 that type of thing, I think just more minor little 16 bookkeeping-type issues. I'll make a motion that we grant 17 our administrative assistant authority to make minor 18 discretionary decisions related to booking of the Hill 19 Country Youth Exhibit Center. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: We have a motion and a second. 22 Question or discussion on that motion? All in favor of the 23 motion, signify by raising your right hand. 24 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 25 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 9-24-07 89 1 (No response.) 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion carried. We'll move quickly 3 to Item 11; consider, discuss, take appropriate action to 4 approve the use of Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center for 5 HILCO annual membership meeting on Friday, February 8th, 6 2008, at the same rate as charged previous year, $162.50, 7 HILCO being a credit union owned by county, city, and state 8 employees here in Kerr County. Ms. Uecker, I think the 9 agenda item speaks for itself. Obviously, that's what you 10 want us to approve? 11 MS. UECKER: Right. And I've done that 12 presentation before. I'm just waiting to see, you know, if 13 yes, and how much so I can pass that on. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: How many people come to this? 15 MS. UECKER: It's usually about 150. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Are they all going to pick up 17 the trash? 18 MS. UECKER: We can pick up our trash if we have 19 to, sure. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just a meeting, or is this 21 a dinner or what? 22 MS. UECKER: It's a dinner. It's the annual 23 membership meeting where the board members are elected and 24 any business takes place. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Like telephone co-op? 9-24-07 90 1 MS. UECKER: Right. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You're going to need tables 3 and chairs set up for that function, and -- 4 MS. UECKER: Yes, but we can do that as well. 5 We've done that, too. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Our preference is no, we set 7 them up, or that they don't get set up, because basically 8 it's a liability issue. If HILCO people are out there 9 setting up tables and chairs and hurt their back, all of a 10 sudden we have more problems. So, have we calculated what 11 the rate would be if you -- if HILCO was charged? 12 MS. UECKER: I haven't heard anything. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, I'm guessing this is 14 about a 75 percent discount, something like that, you know, 15 would be my -- 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: How about 250? Is that fair? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 250 in the interim, until we -- 18 MS. UECKER: Sure, that's fair. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: This time next year, we'll 20 have it more nailed down, but that'll -- we'll set up tables 21 and chairs. I move that we charge 250 for HILCO to have 22 their annual membership meeting at the Ag Barn. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded as 25 indicated. Sorry? Question or discussion? 9-24-07 91 1 MS. UECKER: Okay. Y'all are going to set up the 2 tables, and -- but we'll take our trash, right? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You can clean up, yeah. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Put it in the trash cans. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Put it in the trash cans. 6 MS. UECKER: Okay. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Clean up, or we'll have to go 8 back and get a belated deposit for cleanup. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You don't have to put it -- you 10 don't have to take it in your trunk home with you, no. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We'll send -- sic Joe 12 Benham on you. 13 MS. UECKER: Okay. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Any further question or discussion 15 on the motion? All in favor of the motion, signify by 16 raising your right hand. 17 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 18 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 19 (No response.) 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion carries. Let's move to Item 21 13; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action on a 22 request to locate the proposed L.C.R.A. transmission line 23 from Rim Rock Substation to Stadium Drive Substation, as 24 originally proposed in 1993, or other more direct and/or more 25 practical route or solution. I put this on the agenda at the 9-24-07 92 1 request of Mr. David Jones, who's here with us. Mr. Jones, 2 if you'll give us your address, and you may proceed. 3 MR. JONES: Good morning, Your Honor, 4 Commissioners. Thank you very much for this opportunity. 5 I'd also like to take just a moment and say thank you very 6 much, Bill, for your recognition of the young man's service 7 as a veteran. We all appreciate that -- that note. My name 8 is Thomas David Jones. I reside at Number 2 Antelope Trail 9 here in Kerrville with my wife, Mary Elaine Adamek Jones. 10 I'm joined here today by Cynthia and Mark Hoffmann, a couple 11 of my neighbors, and Susan and George Cooper. My wife's 12 family, Charlie and Lil Adamek, have owned the land at 2199 13 Sheppard Rees Road since the early '60's. Family ranched and 14 hunted the land for almost 50 years. Family, along with 15 other families along Sheppard Rees, including Lavern Harris, 16 paid from their own pockets to pave that initial asphalt road 17 there. We've suffered through drought, the big fire of '99. 18 So, until now, even acts of God have not stopped us from 19 being good stewards of the land. 20 But in May of 2006, the god-like entity in the form 21 of Lower Colorado River Authority appeared in our Kerr 22 County, announced to the community meeting that they were 23 going to build a transmission line from Rim Rock Substation 24 adjacent to The Horizon development to some arbitrary point 25 on the line that runs between Stadium and the Ingram 9-24-07 93 1 Substation. I'm sure y'all have seen these maps before, but 2 this will aid in the discussion. Their plan -- their plan 3 was to have a community meeting where they announced to 4 everyone they were going to build this transmission line, and 5 they went back to Austin and waited. And their plan to 6 divide and conquer, of course, worked in the name of 7 community input; they created an atmosphere of neighbor 8 against neighbor, which led to creation of groups -- of 9 groups. These groups centered around the various routes that 10 were developed. 11 By a study done by the prestigious law -- 12 engineering firm of PBS&J, those of us that intervened early 13 in the case received these, at a cost to the L.C.R.A. and the 14 taxpayers in excess of $250,000 to $300,000, and the bill 15 keeps running. The route that they selected in this study -- 16 or that they noted as their preferred route was A-C-P. A-C-P 17 is the most direct route. It's the shortest, least expensive 18 of the eight routes that they proposed. In August of 2006, 19 the preferred route was rejected by the Kerrville City 20 Council in the form of a resolution that said that the route 21 chosen should not be seen from Highway 27 and should be 22 underground. Although a resolution was passed, no 23 correspondence was sent to the L.C.R.A. or -- or P.U.C. by 24 the Kerrville City Council. As you know, you gentlemen 25 passed the same virtual resolution, and the Judge sent a 9-24-07 94 1 letter to the L.C.R.A. expressing your opinion of the same 2 concept. Let's put it underground. Let's not see it from 3 Highway 27. 4 In spring of 2007 the L.C.R.A. chose, as preferred 5 route, Route 8. Route 8, which is listed in your -- on the 6 right-hand side in the -- in the columns there. These routes 7 are made up of links, as you probably know, and so they just 8 string these links together and come up with a route. So, 9 Route 8 was -- was chosen as their preferred route, or 10 recommended. And then in June -- June 26th, 2007, in 11 response to a group of neighbors and friends at the end of 12 Route 8, the Kerrville City Council endorsed Route 7. Route 13 7 is -- only difference between Route 7 and Route 8, they're 14 identical until they get to a point where Route 7 goes into 15 the county and Route 8 goes through the city. So, a 16 bureaucracy in Austin has scripted, formatted, executed, and 17 accomplished exactly what they set out to do. They divided, 18 they conquered, they dictated what they think is best for 19 Kerrville and Kerr County. 20 Let's get some additional facts. In 1991-'92, KPUB 21 and L.C.R.A. presented a plan to the Kerrville City Council 22 to close the loop and connect the Stadium Substation to Rim 23 Rock. At that time, it was presented as providing power to 24 the other side of the river from Stadium. Review of the City 25 Council minutes revealed that they were moving forward 9-24-07 95 1 working through KPUB and L.C.R.A. Then, on April 9th, 1972, 2 L.C.R.A. withdrew its application. Things were -- just went 3 back and we'll just deal with it. So, you know, flashing 4 back forward, the Stadium Substation is not even on the map. 5 It was not -- it was never considered as part of the study 6 area. They could very easily have shrunk the map just a 7 little bit and picked it up. You see the Harper Road 8 Substation noted, the Ingram Substation noted, Rim Rock. But 9 Stadium is just about where the 8 is under the heading 10 "Route" on your map, if they were to have put it in. 11 L.C.R.A. contends that the eight routes presented 12 are adequate. Careful analysis of the links demonstrate, 13 however, that a significant portion of the individual links 14 are repeated over and over again in the majority of the eight 15 cases -- eight routes. For example, Link F, which goes 16 through the Harris property, is on six of the proposed 17 routes. Seven of the eight proposed routes include the G 18 link. You can ascertain this by glancing down through the 19 column of the alternative routes, and you will see the letter 20 "G" in seven of the eight, as you will see "F" in six of the 21 eight, and you will see "B" in five of them. So, it's 22 just -- really, there's two routes. You're either A-C-P, or 23 you take out through the county. The G link makes a 24 90-degree turn at the highest point on Sheppard Rees Road, 25 2010 elevation, which is also one of the highest points in 9-24-07 96 1 Kerr County. One other fact. The majority of power from the 2 Rim Rock Station goes to the city of Kerrville. The usage 3 from the substation is 82 percent KPUB, 18 percent Central 4 Texas. This is in their study. The L.C.R.A. stated that 5 their projection projected three objectives. Let me pass out 6 this little analysis that I pulled together. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. Thank you very 8 much. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're very welcome. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Can I get one of your maps? 11 MR. JONES: No, not yet. This is the last one I've 12 got. I know you're armed, but -- 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You are a rare individual, 14 saying no to the Sheriff like that. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: If he'd been here last week, 16 he knows I don't have any bullets. 17 MR. JONES: We've danced before. L.C.R.A. has 18 three objectives; complete the loop, voltage support for 19 Harper Road and Stadium Substations, which are both located 20 in the city limits, and building a new substation between 21 Harper Road and Ingram. If you review the cost analysis 22 table of the savings, over $5 million, L.C.R.A. should be 23 able to achieve these objectives with a Rim Rock to Stadium 24 Substation line. For all of these reasons, we're asking you 25 for a resolution that requests the L.C.R.A. expand their 9-24-07 97 1 study area to include the Rim Rock to Stadium Substation 2 route and study that option to the same extent that they have 3 studied the other options. To expand on my analysis there, I 4 took a table from the PBS&J study where they give the 5 distance in feet and they present what's called a total line 6 cost, which I then extrapolated a cost per-foot of the line 7 for all of the various routes. Then they had a total 8 substation cost, which is listed there, and a total project 9 cost. The last column is a ranking of those project costs 10 with the cheapest route being Number 5, A-C-P, the next one 11 being Number 7, the next one Number 8, and so on. 12 So, then I took those figures and I said, "It's 13 3 miles, 15,840 feet, from Rim Rock to Stadium. So, I took 14 the highest figure of the line cost, multiplied that out, 15 took the highest figure for a substation, added that amount, 16 and came up with an estimated Rim Rock to Stadium cost of 17 10,000 -- excuse me, $10,748,000. In the City Council 18 meetings back in the 90's, Bill Taylor proposed a budget of 19 $3.8 million to do that same thing. It's a little more 20 cluttered now, so let's triple that; that's 11,4. That's 21 still well within the budget that they've outlined for any of 22 the other routes. So, I ask again for this resolution that 23 would at least enable us to approach Austin again, not on 24 bended knee -- I never go there like that -- to study this 25 thing with the same intensity that they studied the other -- 9-24-07 98 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Do you have a draft of the 2 resolution, by chance? 3 MR. JONES: No, sir, I'm sorry. I'm not an 4 attorney. I'll be happy to -- 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Neither are we. Or four of us, 6 anyway. Count him out. 7 MR. JONES: It's -- 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm not writing this one. 9 MR. JONES: I'll have you one within the hour. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: David, a question. Would 11 this require -- or is it built into your calculations here, 12 some modifications to the Stadium Substation, increasing its 13 size or capacity? 14 MR. JONES: Well, I've sort of included that in 15 the -- in the concept of that. That's their substation cost. 16 Yes, there would be some additional cost, but my whole point 17 is that if they go any one of these other routes, the 18 cheapest one is $16 million. And, by using their figures, 19 you know, we're at 11, so there's a $5 million amount of 20 funds there that they can treat any of those other problems, 21 plus additional cost of land, et cetera, et cetera. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: What you're asking for is a 23 resolution from the Court that requests -- P.U.C.? 24 MR. JONES: L.C.R.A. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: L.C.R.A. 9-24-07 99 1 MR. JONES: And the P.U.C., for that matter. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: And P.U.C. to consider additional 3 routes for the location of this transmission line, including, 4 but not necessarily limited to, the route that went direct -- 5 that was proposed back in the early '90's that went directly 6 from what is now Rim Rock Substation directly to Stadium 7 Drive Substation? 8 MR. JONES: Yes, sir. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Not endorsing, but merely asking for 10 that to be considered? 11 MR. JONES: "Endorsement" is such a good word, 12 though, Your Honor. (Laughter.) 13 JUDGE TINLEY: So much more easily understood, I 14 would imagine would be your thinking. 15 MR. JONES: Absolutely. Absolutely. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: I see. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Where is the Stadium station 18 again? You said under the "L" or under the "T" in Texas? 19 MR. JONES: Okay. If you draw -- if you extend the 20 line that they are showing, that white line, -- 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm. 22 MR. JONES: -- that's their right-of-way. And if 23 you imagine 16, you come to a point about right there. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mr. Jones, I will say, this is 25 probably one of the -- I understand more after this 9-24-07 100 1 presentation than I have most -- most of the others that I've 2 had to listen to, so I appreciate that. 3 MR. JONES: I am cursed with common sense, I'm 4 sorry. Again, it's part of L.C.R.A.'s program. You know, 5 they blew us all up and we all -- you know, I mean, it's like 6 a Ben diagram, you know, where you get various groups, and 7 the friend of my enemy is my -- whatever. And so, yes, it's 8 just -- by the time you get down to the point where you're 9 ready, you know, they -- the L.C.R.A. attorney, last week in 10 the hearing, said -- when asked how much it's going to cost, 11 he said, "Oh, $20 million," you know, to go from -- to go to 12 Stadium from Rim Rock. And they didn't study it. He already 13 said, "We didn't study it, but had we, it would have cost 14 $20 million." So, I am also inhibited by having to tell the 15 truth. So, you know -- 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let me ask you a question. 17 Let me ask you a question real quick. You're going to go 18 from Rim Rock over to Stadium. Say yes. 19 MR. JONES: Yes, sir. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes. And then -- all right. 21 And then how do you get it out to Ingram? What happens from 22 that point? 23 MR. JONES: There's already -- stand there at 24 Stadium and look west. There's -- that line is already 25 there. 9-24-07 101 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But it's not drawn on here. 2 MR. JONES: Yes, it's that white dotted line. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Right here. 4 MR. JONES: This line right here, that's an 5 existing line, that white line. That white dotted line. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Does L.C.R.A. or KPUB, for that 8 matter, own any right-of-way -- if you take a direct route 9 from Rim Rock Substation to Stadium Drive, the route that was 10 essentially proposed back in the early '90's, does L.C.R.A. 11 or KPUB own any existing right-of-way through there? 12 MR. JONES: Yes, they own about a fifth of it. 13 They own the Section A -- I mean, they have the right-of-way 14 to it. The -- and the easement. Already existing service 15 lines. It's not transmission lines, but they have that 16 right-of-way, which just adds to -- though you can't find it 17 in the charts that they gave you, adds to the validity of -- 18 of using A some way. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We're going to have to 20 acquire a lot of right-of-way going some of those other 21 routes, I believe. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All those other routes. 23 MR. JONES: All of them. It's ... 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, I have no problem 25 supporting a resolution asking them to study an additional 9-24-07 102 1 alternative. That makes -- I mean, I don't -- 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't either. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The whole process, I've never 4 had any -- I'm not going to get in a position of picking a 5 route, because then we're back to the -- like you say, that 6 divide and conquer mentality. I think I represent everybody 7 in Kerr County, but I think that you study as many 8 alternatives as possible. This sounds like a viable 9 alternative that should at least be studied. So -- 10 MR. JONES: Well, they had those three options that 11 they -- one, it wouldn't complete the loop. Well, it does. 12 They had voltage wouldn't be enough. Well, they didn't study 13 it, so they can't really say that. And they -- they don't 14 have a substation on the -- on that line. Well, you know, 15 again, you know, if it's just -- if it's not a dead-end 16 substation, it's just a carry-along station, again, I'm not 17 an engineer, but that's a budget issue that they could at 18 least approach or study. And, I mean, just on the face of 19 it, instead of going 500 feet, you go 1,500 feet. Seems 20 like -- 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Makes too much sense. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: David, if you know, what 23 is -- where is this issue in the conduit or the process of 24 deliberation? 25 MR. JONES: Well, I need it this afternoon, because 9-24-07 103 1 we've got to go at 9 o'clock in the morning to the hearing 2 on -- on -- the final hearing. We were -- they had a hearing 3 July the 25th on adequacy of the routes, and being a neophyte 4 in this, I thought we would be before the P.U.C., but that's 5 not the case. You go before an administrative judge who 6 then, you know, calls all the L.C.R.A. attorneys by their 7 first names and says, you know, "Well, gee, this is" -- and, 8 you know, blah, blah, blah, and this, that, and the other, 9 and, "Well, these routes are adequate." You know? And so 10 they said, "Let's go forward; these routes are adequate," so 11 we appealed it. So, the P.U.C. agreed to hear our appeal, so 12 we came before the -- before the P.U.C. last week, week and a 13 half ago, and they say, "Well, gee whiz, you know, we've 14 heard about another route that's half the distance, you know. 15 What happened to that?" And that's when the attorney got up 16 and said, you know, "Well, we didn't even study it. You 17 know, it's through the city, and we didn't want to have 18 anything to do with it, and it costs $20 million." And so, 19 you know, he's got credibility. And so the P.U.C. says -- 20 one lady said, "I'm not going to support the appeal." The 21 commissioner said, "Well, I want to look at it." And the 22 third guy said, "Well, I just got this thing last night and 23 haven't had time to read it." So, he then was persuaded by 24 staff and by -- and by the other woman -- the other 25 commissioner, and so they turned down the appeal. Chairman 9-24-07 104 1 said, "You will have time at the hearing on the merits next 2 week to present any other information you might have and any 3 other approach you might have." And so, as we fashion our 4 presentation, and have been for the last, you know, six 5 weeks, eight weeks, ten weeks, seems like this would be 6 beneficial. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, I don't know if -- I 8 mean, it's not totally necessary to do a resolution. You 9 could just do a simple letter from Commissioners Court. If 10 you do a resolution, he's got to have it today. Who's going 11 to write it? He's going to write it and get it back in here 12 and come get all five signatures on it this afternoon? 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're back here at 1:30. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That may be magical in 16 itself. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: This gentleman is reading my mind. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And -- but I would -- I 19 would hope that the -- you know, I'm like Jon on this thing. 20 I'm not in favor of recommending this route. All I'm in 21 favor of is recommending that they take another look at this 22 route. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Look at other -- other alternative 24 routes, including, but not limited to, the -- 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that what his resolution 9-24-07 105 1 is going to say? 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: See, it's already work -- he 3 talked so long, now we have to break for lunch, so he bought 4 himself an hour and a half. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: And he's going to get Kathy -- 6 MR. JONES: Certainly wasn't my intention. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: He's going to get Kathy to write 8 that up for him when we break for lunch. 9 MR. JONES: I'll buy Kathy's lunch. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: And he'll be ready to roll. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You have an attorney in the 12 background. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: We got someone that's -- that's 14 filed a participation form. If we don't have any more 15 questions right now for Mr. Jones, I'm going to follow the 16 order here. Any more questions for Mr. Jones? Mr. Machann, 17 you filed a participation form. Feel free to come forward 18 and give us your address, and -- 19 MR. MACHANN: Dwaine Machann, 222 Sidney Baker 20 South, Suite 436. I'm a local attorney here. I represent a 21 group of 74 property owners in Kerrville/Kerr County who are 22 part of this proceeding with the P.U.C. They've asked me to 23 make a presentation to the Court in opposition to this 24 proposal. I've been primarily involved at a local level with 25 the City Council here a few months ago. Obtained the 9-24-07 106 1 Council's recommendation for some alternate routes out of the 2 original eight. L.C.R.A. came up with eight routes. Those 3 routes -- and I haven't lived and breathed this every day, 4 but they've been discussed for a long time; locally, Austin, 5 everywhere. I say a long time; that could be a year or going 6 on a year, maybe longer than that. I agree with Mr. Jones 7 that L.C.R.A. has been successful in dividing, or attempting 8 to divide and conquer. Because, obviously, what they're -- 9 what they want to put in is a significant transmission 10 facility. It's going to affect property owners, there's no 11 way around it. A lot of opposition. There's probably 100 12 intervenors that have filed, maybe more. Some of these 13 people might could tell me more. I represent 74 of them, 14 about two-thirds of those that filed. I want to show you a 15 map prepared by my client. I want to get this thing oriented 16 so I can make sense out of it. That shows -- this is north. 17 This, I believe, is twenty -- 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Seven. 19 MR. MACHANN: -- seven. Guadalupe is right here, 20 through here. The eight routes, again, have been under 21 public scrutiny for a long time. L.C.R.A., in their 22 application, probably in February -- January or February, 23 after a lot of public hearings, they said they preferred 24 Route 8, which, generally speaking, starts over here at the 25 Rim Rock Station, comes around this way, comes back up 9-24-07 107 1 this -- 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Crosses 27 over -- 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Bear Creek? Is that Bear 4 Creek? 5 MR. MACHANN: Way over here, Bear Creek Road, and 6 then comes up this way and then came through the city. Their 7 second alternative is the one that both this Court and the 8 City Council says we don't want any part of, A-C-P route 9 right up the Guadalupe River, up Guadalupe River Basin. 10 That's their second choice. And so I think what you've 11 received here is -- understandably, I've come from one 12 perspective, and Mr. Jones is coming from another one, but I 13 think you've received not really a complete picture. This 14 group, with all due respect, Mr. Jones, is in here. They 15 don't like this route. Understandable. What they've been in 16 favor of is the A-C-P route through the Guadalupe River. And 17 what's happening here at this late date is, they're losing. 18 The full trial starts tomorrow. I think it's scheduled for 19 about three days this week. The Jones group -- we came to 20 Council and said, "Instead of coming right up -- up here, a 21 future development on Bear Creek Road, and instead of going 22 through an area in the city, why don't you move it out here 23 to a less populated area? Why don't you not run it up in 24 these areas -- high development, future developments, Wren 25 road, et cetera?" And Council says, "Makes sense to us." 9-24-07 108 1 They endorse coming out here in this area. 2 The P.U.C. staff basically has said, you know, "We 3 like that Route 7; makes a lot of sense to us. Wasn't 4 recommended by L.C.R.A., but we like it for a lot of 5 reasons." It gets it out of the Guadalupe River Basin. It's 6 not any more expensive than the rest of them, affects less 7 habitable structures. You can see that book he brought; it's 8 thick. There's lots of stuff there. So, City Council says 9 we support this, and we sent that to P.U.C. back, I believe, 10 in June. The P.U.C. now has said, you know, we kind of like 11 that one too. And, believe me, they're not arm-in-arm with 12 L.C.R.A. Quite the contrary. L.C.R.A. doesn't like our 13 Route 7. They want 8, or they want up the Guadalupe River, 14 period. They won't bend. The P.U.C. staff and the P.U.C. 15 engineer have submitted an alternative, what they call 7A 16 that's been accepted by the administrative law judge. It's 17 part of the -- it's a new route. There's a process, 18 evidently, you go through when you get routes, and that's a 19 certain legal procedure as to whether the routes are adequate 20 or not. And they've added one, which is 7A, which is it gets 21 up here around 27, jogs a little bit from 7. Seven comes up 22 here; 7A comes up here and jogs back, so it's got a couple of 23 jogs in it that avoid some -- what they call habitable 24 structures. And even the -- the P.U.C. staff and the P.U.C. 25 engineer says we think that's the best one out of all -- out 9-24-07 109 1 of eight -- out of nine proposals. 2 The Jones group has gone before the P.U.C. pretty 3 late in the game; about June or July, if I'm not mistaken, 4 maybe June, when they realized that what was happening was 5 the Council position was being listened to by the Public 6 Utility Commission staff. It's not L.C.R.A. Make sure 7 that -- they're two different people here, adamantly opposed 8 to each other about half the time or more. They saw the 9 P.U.C. staff and the P.U.C. engineer say this is the best 10 route. Let's forget 5 and 8, L.C.R.A., because they go down 11 the Guadalupe River. They go through the middle of the city 12 of Kerrville. They go through future development areas. 13 There is a better area that affects less people, less 14 development, doesn't go through the city. When all that 15 started happening, this group, who wants it to go down the 16 Guadalupe River Basin because they don't want anything over 17 here -- they don't want 8, they don't want 7, they don't want 18 7A. They said, "Well, we better find something to do," and 19 so they went back to 1992 and found a resolution that said 20 let's go to Stadium Drive. 21 I'm not an engineer. I've got the reports here. 22 I've got court orders, I've got L.C.R.A. applications, I've 23 got briefs, I've got engineer statements, all of whom say, 24 number one, this request is really late in the game, because 25 everybody's already ruled for a long time these eight are 9-24-07 110 1 plenty of alternatives. And, number two, L.C.R.A. says, 2 "That doesn't work for us at all, because it doesn't address 3 future needs." There's a three-prong deal. The last one is 4 the future needs of the county to the west, and they said 5 going to Stadium does not address that at all. I'm not an 6 engineer, but the engineers are supporting that. And all the 7 filings -- and I've got copies, and I can give you, but 8 they're this thick, that -- and so the administrative law 9 judge said, "We're not going to allow any more routes. We've 10 got nine routes; that's plenty for public input for us to 11 make a decision on." So, they're too late, et cetera, et 12 cetera. Doesn't address this, doesn't address that. There 13 are no numbers that this group has put together that say what 14 the cost is going to be. This is going to go through the 15 city directly. 16 And they had some support initially on the basis 17 of, "Make it all underground for 3 miles and we'll support 18 it." Well, that is not going to happen through the P.U.C. or 19 L.C.R.A., the state or anybody. It's too damn much money, 20 pardon my French. But there are no numbers presented by 21 anybody what this costs. The administrative law judge says, 22 "No, we're not going to add more routes here in July when the 23 full hearing is in September." Starts tomorrow. They then 24 appealed it to the Public Utility Commission. There's some 25 appeals board, three people, I guess. They voted it out 9-24-07 111 1 two-to-one. "No, we've got plenty of routes to consider. We 2 got nine routes to consider. We've got the P.U.C. input. 3 Trial starts tomorrow. No, we're not starting the process 4 over." I would respectfully submit, this is more of divide 5 and conquer. They don't want it to proceed. They would like 6 to have the Guadalupe River route, because they don't want 7 anything coming this way at all, so that means you got to 8 come up this way. 9 The yellow -- I don't think I'm misrepresenting; 10 the yellow and the orange here are significantly the group 11 that you're -- that's proposing this. All the routes except 12 A-C-P go this way, and so they're saying that's let's muck up 13 the process and stop it by adding something. And then what I 14 think is really telling, they say if you don't like -- if the 15 direct one doesn't work, we have other alternatives we'd like 16 to discuss, you know? They do. Goat Creek Road and others; 17 they've got two others, maybe three or four they've talked 18 about. All come up this way through the Guadalupe. If we 19 can't go underground, I really -- I don't know much about it, 20 but I doubt very seriously you're going to get this 21 transmission line under any circumstances underground for 4 22 miles through the middle of the city of Kerrville to 23 Stadium -- to the Stadium substation behind the football 24 field. When they say we've got some right-of-way, I -- I'm 25 not in a position to say they don't. I think they say maybe 9-24-07 112 1 a fifth. I don't know where that is; I think it's all over 2 here by Horizon. I think they got about a fifth of it, maybe 3 half a mile. The other 2 and a half miles is underground 4 through the city of Kerrville, through the middle. I just 5 don't see it as feasible. 6 And L.C.R.A.'s engineers, and engineers from the 7 P.U.C., I believe -- I know the L.C.R.A.'s do. I know the 8 administrative law judge, I know the Public Utility 9 Commission agreed with them. Getting to Stadium Drive, it 10 doesn't -- it doesn't work. It doesn't satisfy future west 11 county service. And that's without even talking about cost. 12 Can you even do it physically? Much less -- I mean, the -- 13 this entire commission has -- the commission, administrative 14 law judge, everybody says we're not going underground with 15 this thing. The costs go from $17 million to $58 million, 16 because we've addressed those too. You know, if we come down 17 through here, through the Guadalupe area and go underground, 18 it runs the cost about $58 million, as opposed to 17. I 19 don't think it's going to happen. 20 So, I think what we have here is a delay tactic on 21 the eve of trial that says we've been turned down by the 22 administrative law judge in Austin; we've been turned down by 23 P.U.C., the commission -- not the staff, but the board. 24 We've, in essence, been turned down by the P.U.C. staff and 25 their engineers who've looked all these eight and say we got 9-24-07 113 1 plenty of choices here, and we think the west side over here 2 is much better. There's two alternative out over here better 3 than anything the L.C.R.A. picked out. They really want to 4 come through the Guadalupe River, or stop it. KPUB took the 5 position in 1992, "We need this facility," and 15 years 6 later, L.C.R.A. has said, "We need the facility." 7 Unfortunately, it's going to affect people. The green -- 8 talking about the divide and conquer, the green, that's the 9 group I represent, for what it's worth. They're opposed to 10 A-C-P route. They're opposed to the route that runs right up 11 Bear Creek Road and through Wren Road and out this way. And 12 the City Council has said we agree; we don't want A-C-P route 13 and don't want this one through the middle of the city of 14 Kerrville, or these developer areas. Put it out here in a 15 less populated, less offensive area. Doesn't cost any more. 16 Length is about the same. And, again, P.U.C. staff is saying 17 we like that. And the trial starts tomorrow, and this is why 18 they filed in June. "How about let's pull up the 1992 City 19 Council minutes and see if we can't just go to Stadium 20 Drive?" This came up in June of this year. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Question. 22 MR. MACHANN: Yes, sir? 23 JUDGE TINLEY: It's been reported that the City 24 Council of the City of Kerrville passed the resolution for 25 the route that you mentioned -- 9-24-07 114 1 MR. MACHANN: That's correct. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: -- that goes way out. 3 MR. MACHANN: That's correct. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Because, quote, there was no -- no 5 one to oppose that request. 6 MR. MACHANN: I disagree with that characterization 7 of what happened. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Then there were folks opposing it? 9 MR. MACHANN: Didn't say that. I said I disagree 10 with the characterization that the reason they passed it is 11 because nobody opposed it. I think they passed it 'cause it 12 makes sense. We made a lengthy presentation, and we provided 13 lots of arguments about habitable structures that were 14 affected, not affected, the Guadalupe River Basin, future 15 development, areas to be developed on Bear Creek Road, Wren 16 Road, existing homes. As an example -- and I will agree with 17 these -- these people to a large extent. This PBSC group or 18 whatever -- this engineer's group, I don't think they can 19 count, or they have something else in mind. One of the major 20 items they've used to support the route L.C.R.A. wants is it 21 interferes with less number of habitable structures. It 22 won't. By -- it's not even close. What they did in counting 23 habitable structures is, they took the assisted living 24 home -- living center out off 27 there on the left; they call 25 it Mountain Village or something like that. It's got 50 9-24-07 115 1 units in it. They counted that as one. They went through 2 Granger MacDonald's assisted living senior citizens apartment 3 project. It affected eight four-plexes. Those are actively 4 living people; four families times eight is 32, the way I do 5 math. They counted that as eight. And once they took those 6 kind of comparisons, because they have other structures out 7 further west that were on 7, we -- they said we got a lot 8 more habitable structures out here. Well, they didn't use 9 the same rhyme or reason, because they -- and I'm not trying 10 to be -- you know, they took very small structures and they 11 all counted one, but a four-plex apartment project counts as 12 one, not four, and eight of them counts as eight, not 32. 13 And we're supposed to avoid interfering with children, 14 hospitals, apartments, but the retirement villa that holds 50 15 is one. When you approach those numbers, everything 16 flip-flopped. And so our argument for City Council was, 17 they're hanging their hats on habitable structures. They're 18 wrong, by probably twice as many habitable structures on 19 their route as on 7. Council looked at it and says, "Makes 20 sense to us." 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Is -- 22 MR. MACHANN: They don't -- 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Is my recollection not correct in -- 24 in that the mayor or one or more City Councilpersons, 25 subsequent to the Council's action on -- on endorsing, as it 9-24-07 116 1 were, that route that looped around, stated that the reason 2 it was approved by Council was because no one was there to 3 oppose it? 4 MR. MACHANN: I don't know if a Council member or 5 mayor said that. If they did, I'm sure that was their 6 opinion and they believed it. All I can say is that I was 7 intimately involved in that project for two months, and I 8 think it's safe to say that the majority of the Council, by 9 far -- and it was a 5-0 vote, by the way -- saw the wisdom in 10 not adhering to and not following L.C.R.A.'s recommendation. 11 Frankly, the Council was upset at L.C.R.A. because they 12 think -- Council was much like your -- the Commissioners. 13 Y'all said, "We don't want it in the Guadalupe." First thing 14 is, if you can put it underground, do it. And one of the -- 15 I've got some of your quotes here that one of the engineers 16 at P.U.C. used as support for his 7A, of keep it out of the 17 Guadalupe River Basin. I think y'all said that, if at all 18 possible. Bear with me. L.C.R.A. says, "We hear all of 19 that, and here's our new list," and they gave a list and 20 published it and put it on a big map, 1 through 8. You would 21 think Number 1 is the first one and Number 8 is the bottom 22 one, okay? No. City looked at that and says, "Looks good." 23 They took Route 5, A-C-P, and stuck it way down here at 24 Number 5. You got to read this report. What they did was 25 they put their first route at the top, of 8, and they went 7, 9-24-07 117 1 6, 5, all the way down, but 5 was the number two choice. 2 Now, P.U.C., if you don't approve us going this circuitous 3 route around Saddlewood and running, that next choice is to 4 run it up the Guadalupe River. That created extreme 5 consternation with the City Council members. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Did -- did not -- 7 MR. MACHANN: And so -- and I was -- and I -- this 8 is not hearsay. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me get to my question, if I 10 might. 11 MR. MACHANN: Mm-hmm. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: The route which the City Council 13 selected -- 14 MR. MACHANN: Yes, sir. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: -- and, in effect, endorsed -- 16 MR. MACHANN: Yes, sir, they did. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: -- did that not move the location of 18 that line more out of the city into the county? 19 MR. MACHANN: Yes, it did. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Than what it had previously been? 21 MR. MACHANN: Yes, it did. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 23 MR. MACHANN: That -- but I think what you've also 24 heard today, which is that this line was in the city, 25 dramatically -- all of Bear Creek Road is county, so I think 9-24-07 118 1 we need to -- I think, again, we need not to be -- the only 2 part that moved from the city under 7 is after it crossed the 3 Guadalupe River, 'cause everything on the other side of the 4 Guadalupe River all behind Saddlewood, the entire length of 5 Bear Creek Road, that's county property. It's to your 6 benefit to get it off that Bear Creek Road. That's -- this 7 isn't a city/county dispute, in my opinion. That's county -- 8 that's county property. It is in the city's ETJ. It is 9 prime development property, and they're going to run that 10 transmission line right down -- right down the side of it, 11 paralleling the creek -- Bear Creek, and run it right down 12 the side. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: So, what you're asking -- 14 MR. MACHANN: And we -- and the Council says, "We 15 don't like that route, nor do we like the one that comes 16 through Guadalupe River Basin." I think this group wants it 17 back on the Guadalupe River Basin or anyplace else, but there 18 are no other alternatives of the eight that the -- that's 19 been submitted to the state for a year and a half. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: So, what you're asking us to do, 21 then, is to deny a group of our citizens in this county an 22 opportunity to be heard on an issue, if the P.U.C. or 23 whatever other agency may be involved are willing to give 24 them that opportunity? 25 MR. MACHANN: These agencies have already said no 9-24-07 119 1 twice. That's my point. It's already been through the 2 agencies. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: What would the harm be, then? 4 MR. MACHANN: I don't know. I'm not -- I'm not -- 5 I'm not here to say, "Guys, don't pass this resolution; I 6 don't want them to have their say in court." I haven't been 7 involved in this extremely protracted litigation for a year 8 and a half or two years. I've been very local here. All I 9 know is that it's been going on for a few years. I know that 10 the administrative law judge has said no for various reasons. 11 I know that L.C.R.A.'s engineers have said this doesn't even 12 come close to satisfying our needs, and I know that they 13 appealed it to the P.U.C. commission, whoever that is, but 14 it's not the staff. It's a commission of three. They've 15 said no, we're going to proceed ahead with the nine routes 16 that are now before us. I -- I don't -- I don't disagree 17 with you that, you know, maybe this has been something that 18 should have come up two years ago. And maybe somebody should 19 have said something about it, but -- and so I'm not in favor 20 of denying anybody anything, but I am talking about reality. 21 Trial starts tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I understand that. 23 MR. MACHANN: And there's already been two rulings 24 by a judge and appeals commission that says no. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mr. Machann, can I make a 9-24-07 120 1 comment -- or question -- one quick question to the Judge? 2 Judge, my feeling is I'm really hungry right now. We're not 3 going to finish this before lunch. But, you know, my idea on 4 a resolution is to get L.C.R.A., basically, or whoever to say 5 that they have studied all alternatives. I have never been 6 satisfied that they've studied all alternatives. They have 7 done a very poor job overall, in my mind, of certainly 8 educating the community, this Court included, on the -- on 9 this matter. I -- from hearing Mr. Machann, you know, a lot 10 of that is hearsay. I, you know, believe -- I'm sure that 11 most of it is accurate, but I don't see any great harm in 12 doing a resolution. I mean, I think it's a -- makes sense, 13 but it's got to be very broad, and not recommend that they 14 stop anything. I just want L.C.R.A. to say they've studied 15 everything, and I'm not so sure that they have. And I've 16 never -- you know, they've never convinced me, as many times 17 as they've been here. 18 MR. MACHANN: And, believe me, I can't tell you 19 that they've -- I'm not here on behalf of L.C.R.A. at all. 20 I'm not a proponent of L.C.R.A. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Now, it may well be these folks may 22 appear before the P.U.C. tomorrow and be told flat out, "I 23 don't care what kind of resolution you got from whomever, but 24 that issue's been addressed. We find there are adequate 25 routes. See you. Go home." 9-24-07 121 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's probably what's going 2 to happen. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, but -- 4 MR. MACHANN: Would you consider -- are you going 5 to change your prior resolution or your prior position about 6 the Guadalupe River? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm not. 8 MR. MACHANN: Are you going to make that part of 9 this deal so that they understand where you're coming from? 10 JUDGE TINLEY: My concern is that even if it may be 11 too little, too late, it's been decided once to 22 times 12 before, I don't want to be in a position of denying any 13 citizen or group of citizens in this county from having the 14 opportunity to try and present their position, whatever that 15 may be, or, quote, having their day in court. 16 MR. MACHANN: I understand that. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Before a state agency. 18 MR. MACHANN: I understand that. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: It's broad brush. 20 MR. MACHANN: I understand that. The only thing 21 I'm asking that you consider, then -- I'm not -- I've 22 certainly been accused of being hard-headed, but I'm not 23 stupid -- well, sometimes I am, but not always. At least 24 consider that whatever you pass, don't lose what you passed 25 before. Because I don't know that everybody knows -- this 9-24-07 122 1 has been a year, year and a half ago, y'all passed a 2 resolution that says, give due consideration to underground. 3 They're saying they have; we're not going to do it. Well, 4 repeat that; that would be great. And then their second was 5 that the existing future aesthetics of Guadalupe River Valley 6 be among the highest priorities of consideration to determine 7 placement ideally above or below ground -- I'm reading this. 8 I don't think it's your exact quote, but I'm reading it from 9 the testimony given by the P.U.C. staff and their engineer. 10 What I'd hate to see is a message that's not complete, which 11 is -- that just says, "We want you to now go look at this 12 route." Or we want you to -- in other words, that waters 13 down in any way the A-C-P -- I mean, I think y'all pretty 14 clearly said you don't think it's good to come up the 15 Guadalupe River Valley. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: I don't think what the request is 17 before us today -- 18 MR. MACHANN: Well -- 19 JUDGE TINLEY: -- and our existing resolution, I 20 don't think they're in conflict. 21 MR. MACHANN: What about their request that says 22 "or other locations"? 23 JUDGE TINLEY: There may be other locations that 24 have not been studied. 25 MR. MACHANN: I'm sorry, I'm not -- I'm not here to 9-24-07 123 1 argue, but I do think that it would be good to make sure it's 2 clear. These are bureaucrats. This is the P.U.C., a bunch 3 of engineers, L.C.R.A., and they're going to take this letter 4 and use it however in the hell they think is best to use it. 5 And if L.C.R.A. can use it for A-C-P route, they'll damn sure 6 do it, 'cause that's what they want. They want to come up 7 the Guadalupe River. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't have any problem with 9 that statement. I think that I haven't changed my view on 10 the Guadalupe Valley. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: So far as saying that the -- that 12 this is not meant in any manner to diminish the resolution 13 previously passed by the Court? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's fine. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree with that too. 16 MR. MACHANN: That's all I'm saying. Y'all have 17 any questions? 18 MR. HOFFMANNN: Can I make some comments? 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Just a moment. We'll make sure 20 we're through here. Are you through? 21 MR. MACHANN: I've done about all the damage I can 22 do, yeah. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions of Mr. Machann? 24 Come forward and give us your name, please, sir, and your 25 address. 9-24-07 124 1 MR. HOFFMANNN: My name is Mark Hoffmann, and my 2 address is 265 St. Mark Path. And I just want to make a 3 comment, that I respect the position that you guys took. I 4 would caution you to not make the decision that the -- that 5 the P.U.C. has to make. Let them make the selection of 6 routes. And just -- all we're trying to do is make sure that 7 they have all the information and all the data presented to 8 them. You can't take a 10-minute presentation and condense 9 what, you know, six months of administrative process takes 10 into account. So, you know, let's -- that -- we trust the 11 P.U.C. and we hope that you guys will do that too, and let 12 them make that decision. Our -- our effort today was just to 13 make sure that they have all the information and all of the 14 data to make the proper decision. And another point I'd like 15 to make -- and I'm a little confused, because the 70 clients 16 that Mr. -- is it Machann? 17 MR. MACHANN: Yes, sir. 18 MR. HOFFMANN: -- represents supported our appeal, 19 when we were appealing that to the P.U.C. And so, at that 20 point in time, we had, you know, total backing of all the 21 parties involved. We did -- there's not one party in the 22 process that objected to our appeal, other than L.C.R.A. So, 23 I'm -- I just want to stress that. 24 MR. MACHANN: I beg to differ. Initially, there 25 was some support by my group. It was conditioned upon 9-24-07 125 1 absolutely the entire route -- I mentioned it a while ago -- 2 being underground, from Rim Rock all the way to Stadium. 3 That was the basis of that support. We'll support the P.U.C. 4 considering another route going directly to Stadium. It's 5 got to be underground or we're not going to support it. I've 6 been told by my client unequivocally, who I talked to this 7 morning -- clarify this for me, because I'm looking through 8 documents this thick that I got on Friday. I have a -- I've 9 got a filing here, filed by the attorneys on the 20th day of 10 September, 2007; pretty recent. It's, like, last Thursday. 11 This is by the Minton, Burton, Foster and Collins firm. I 12 have no connection to these guys, but they do represent the 13 group I represent. This is the statement of position filed 14 with the P.U.C. last Thursday. I've got a copy, if anybody 15 wants to see it. Nowhere in here do they support this route, 16 if y'all would like to see it. What happened, as I'm told, 17 is -- is that initially, they said, you know, that might not 18 be a bad idea to have them consider everything. We need to 19 have it underground. You know, this isn't going to be 20 feasible otherwise. It's a lot shorter; maybe underground 21 works, because it's only 3 miles instead of 7, and maybe the 22 underground cost would not be prohibitive. But what actually 23 happened, I'm told -- this is hearsay, Mr. Letz, 'cause I 24 wasn't there -- is that when it actually got to the hearing 25 before the administrative law judge, is that this group says, 9-24-07 126 1 "Well, we got a couple two or three other alternatives we'd 2 like for y'all to consider, too, if you don't like this one, 3 like going up goat Creek Road, doing this and doing that. 4 And so it wasn't -- it didn't end up being what it was 5 initially stated to be, which is we want to run directly to 6 Stadium from Rim Rock. Our group says, "Fine, keep it 7 underground." Got to the hearing and it's, like, "Well, we 8 probably don't have a very good case here, because we got no 9 numbers, we have no engineering, and we got some other routes 10 we'd like for you to consider too, because we think 8 and 9 11 is not enough. How about 11 or 12?" At that point in time, 12 the group I represent, they tell me -- just told me this 13 morning; I haven't met with them. He said we would -- 14 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 15 MR. MACHANN: He said that's what happened. We do 16 not support this, because -- because of not underground. All 17 that's okay, but -- because that's not what they believe is 18 happening today. 19 MR. HOFFMANN: I'd like to clarify what happened, 20 because when you have counsel coming forth and -- and 21 speculating what may or may not happen, I'd like to clarify 22 what happened. Okay. On the route of adequacy, it goes to a 23 hearing before the ALJ, Judge Sullivan. I've been at every 24 one of these hearings, been at every one of these 25 proceedings. What I'm giving is not hearsay. These are -- 9-24-07 127 1 there was a court or -- and he keeps referring to the thing 2 tomorrow as a trial. It's not a trial; it's a hearing. It's 3 an open hearing. Okay. At the ALC, Judge Sullivan denied 4 our request to consider the route Rim Rock to Stadium. Okay? 5 And our attorney -- Jones-Cooper, our attorney, appealed that 6 decision. And it went -- it didn't go to a hearing. It went 7 to the open meeting of the commissioners, three 8 commissioners -- three P.U.C. commissioners. David Jones, 9 Mary Elaine, Cynthia and I were all at that -- at that 10 hearing. The day before that open meeting, the 70 -- all of 11 them, every client that he says today that he represents, 12 filed a proclamation -- I'm going to provide all five of you 13 with a copy of that after lunch -- endorsing our appeal. 14 Okay? And it did have language in there about portions of 15 the line being underground, and you can read it this 16 afternoon. But they all endorsed it, and they have not 17 withdrawn that endorsement. They have not changed that 18 position. The fact that it's not stated in their current 19 position doesn't withdraw it. So, once again, I just 20 encourage you to pass a resolution or send a letter that 21 we're requesting. But -- 22 MR. MACHANN: Like, 60 seconds, I'll be through. 23 We're not going to get anywhere here. Nobody -- I don't 24 know -- I admitted this from step one. What I have from my 25 client -- I believe what my client tells me. I usually ask a 9-24-07 128 1 lot of questions. 2 MS. HOFFMANN: Client? Sorry. 3 MR. MACHANN: If you read the administrative law 4 judge orders, Hoffmann supports two additional routes in the 5 event Stadium isn't working. What my client tells me this 6 morning -- maybe -- there's always usually two sides of the 7 story. I don't usually do this, but I will in this case. I 8 said, "Fred, when I looked at your support filed by your 9 lawyers, it says we support this -- their proposal if a 10 portion of the line is underground." I said, "What does that 11 mean?" He says they made a mistake. I said, "What do you 12 mean, he made a mistake?" He said, "Our intent was all of it 13 underground, and we made that clear subsequently." That's 14 the only explanation I have for, obviously, a difference of 15 opinion as to where my clients -- I was hired last week to 16 come do this, and I'm being told by my clients they're fully 17 behind me, so I don't know what else to say. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It seems like y'all -- I mean, 19 the last 30 minutes, I haven't heard anything change, that 20 the resolution -- you don't mind the resolution, as long as 21 we protect our earlier resolution. I think I'm fine with 22 that. 23 MR. MACHANN: I think what I have heard 24 Commissioners Court say -- and if your decision is you'd like 25 to now pass a resolution that says L.C.R.A., P.U.C., 9-24-07 129 1 everybody, make sure you've given everybody a fair hearing, I 2 got no problem with that. As I've said before, and I think 3 what y'all proposed is this doesn't take away from our prior 4 one of whatever date it was; I think it's important. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree with that. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree with that too. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Can I go eat now? 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Lady had her hand up. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Cooper? 11 MR. MACHANN: Excuse me. Y'all don't need me any 12 more? I mean, I -- 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: See ya. 14 MR. MACHANN: Or want me any more. Bye. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Bye. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: You take your choice. 17 MS. COOPER: I'm very hungry and I won't take long. 18 MR. MACHANN: It doesn't matter. 19 MS. COOPER: My name is Susan Harris Cooper; I live 20 at 2075 Sheppard Rees Road. I absolutely agree with 21 Mr. Machann; we have let the bureaucrats from somewhere far 22 away divide us. In the city, in the county, neighbor upon 23 neighbor, and they have succeeded, and you've just seen it. 24 It's not going by Dr. Speck's house; it's going by my house 25 and my parents' house, and these people, and that's why we're 9-24-07 130 1 fighting. And we've been fighting all along. It's not a 2 delay tactic. And that's why we're here today. They never 3 studied that Stadium Drive. It's never been studied. It's 4 the closest. It's the common-sense, logical route, but it 5 was never studied. All we're asking is to give us a chance 6 to go back and study what makes sense in our city and in our 7 county. It is never too late to avoid a wrong decision. 8 Never. When we can take a little more time, put some energy 9 and resources into what's best for everybody. Everybody. 10 There is a consensus here. We haven't found it. And we are 11 marching down what I fear to be a very, very wrong decision. 12 You are going to scar some of the most beautiful hill country 13 land with the way this is going right now. And if I were 14 them, I would be arguing just as hard to put it up there with 15 the Hoffmanns and the Joneses and the Harrises and the 16 Coopers, 'cause it is not in my back yard. So, I don't blame 17 them. Let's pull together. This is our chance to pull 18 together and not let bureaucrats in Austin tell us what's 19 best for our community, and that's what we're asking for. 20 It's never too late to avoid a wrong decision. And I thank 21 you. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Thank you. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just want to know who's 25 going to draw up the resolution, and are they going to add in 9-24-07 131 1 there that -- what's it going to say? 2 JUDGE TINLEY: My understanding of what it's going 3 to say is that it is our desire as a court that all possible 4 feasible routes for the location of this line be considered, 5 including the line from Rim Rock Station to Stadium Drive, 6 and that this resolution does not impair or negate our prior 7 resolution passed by this Court on whatever date that was. 8 That's my understanding of what we've heard here. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll vote for that. You 10 want to vote right now for that? Before the document 11 arrives? Or are we going to come back later on? 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'd rather see a document. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: All right, let's do it. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Can I go eat now? 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. We'll be in recess till -- 16 let's say quarter till 2:00. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Quarter till 2:00. Let's 18 all say it together; quarter till 2:00. 19 (Recess taken from 12:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.) 20 - - - - - - - - - - 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, let's come back to order, if 22 we might. We were on Item 13, but I'm going to move on with 23 the agenda and come back to -- 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, I wanted to talk 25 about the L.C.R.A. issue. (Laughter.) 9-24-07 132 1 JUDGE TINLEY: I'll give you opportunity about that 2 later, Commissioner. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Little joke there. Just a 4 little joke. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Give you an opportunity to collect 6 your thoughts on it a little bit better so that they can be 7 more comprehensive. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me call Item 15; consider, 10 discuss, and take appropriate action to adopt the Kerr County 11 proposed '07-'08 holiday schedule. As you know, this is one 12 -- actually, we had passed it as part of our budget, as I 13 recall, in past years, but we're going to take a look at it 14 separately. What you've got in front of you are actually two 15 different ones that were proposed. I just threw them both in 16 there, and let y'all run with it from there. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How many do we have 18 currently? 19 MS. HYDE: Thirteen. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Thirteen, I think. Yeah. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I believe we have 13. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And we're proposing 15? 23 MS. HYDE: I didn't -- no, sir, I have 13. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Whose is -- where are the -- 25 who -- oh, you did this one? 9-24-07 133 1 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Who did this one? 3 MS. GRINSTEAD: I did, based on everything you've 4 ever given in the past, 'cause I had no guidelines. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Based on everything we've 6 ever done in the past? Why don't we just shut the courthouse 7 down? 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I notice that Texas 9 Independence Day is on Sunday, so I don't think we're going 10 to give that one. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let's see. Texas 12 Independence Day came out of my -- off my list. 13 MS. HYDE: It only came off 'cause it's on Sunday. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Pardon? 15 MS. HYDE: Texas Independence Day is on Sunday. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: This past year, we had 13? 17 (Ms. Hyde nodded.) 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The current year, we have 13, 19 so what we're doing, we're adding -- 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is Columbus Day on Monday? 21 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let me get my little 23 calendar out. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Actually, the 12th -- 10/12 is on 25 Friday. That's the day we're -- 9-24-07 134 1 MS. HYDE: That's Veterans Day. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: The day we're having the -- the 3 dedication for the Frances Lehmann Pavilion. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Veterans Day is in 5 November. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 7 MS. HYDE: 10/8 is Columbus day. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But that's not the real 9 Columbus Day; that's our -- that's our -- 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Monday holiday. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's the Monday day, right? 12 MS. HYDE: That's the day that's on the calendar. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's the government day. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's the day Columbus 15 sailed up the Guadalupe, so we can celebrate that. 16 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir, we can celebrate on a 17 different day. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No, Joshua Brown did. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Now we're going to give Joshua 20 Brown Day. 21 MS. HYDE: Well, Good Friday is in March as well, 22 so it moved. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And I guess -- if I was to make 24 a -- an option of a change here -- well, I can't do that. 25 Nevermind. I was going to give the 31st off for New Year's, 9-24-07 135 1 but that's already in this calendar year, so we -- oh, yeah, 2 we could do that, couldn't we? 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's in there. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, New Year's Day is off. 5 What happens is we end up shutting down for half of the 31st 6 anyway, in reality. 7 MS. BOLIN: That's because most people think we're 8 closed anyhow. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. So I would assume give 10 that day off, and scratch either Columbus Day or Martin 11 Luther King Day; make it a four-day weekend. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait a minute. Where are 13 you at? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Add 12-31-07 as a holiday, and 15 just scratch Martin Luther King Day or Columbus Day. 16 Probably, just from a time standpoint of times of the year, 17 I'd probably take out Martin Luther King Day, 'cause we have 18 more holidays in the front of the year than the last part of 19 the year. But I'm sure I'll open myself to all kinds of 20 criticism for that recommendation. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I believe you probably are. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm not going there, 23 Commissioner. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'm not making that 25 recommendation. 9-24-07 136 1 MR. EMERSON: I'll call Fred Gamble for you. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Y'all just aren't nice. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: See, that's the only problem 5 with it, is somebody's going to call them and -- 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, exactly. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- get it going. Actually, 8 I agree with you 100 percent. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think a four-day holiday 10 would be a lot more useful to the employees. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Than Martin Luther King Day. 12 I agree with you. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Coming back on Monday a half 14 day, and then leaving on Tuesday. 15 MS. HYDE: Right. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. But ... 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, most of those 18 coincide -- the days that aren't like Christmas and 19 Thanksgiving coincide with bank holidays. 'Cause I know that 20 there have been times whenever -- whenever the banks were 21 closed and we were not, and that's not a really good thing. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We could -- we could take -- 23 and I wouldn't be adverse to this; delete Columbus Day and 24 put in the 31st. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: New Year's Eve? 9-24-07 137 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: New Year's Eve. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Is Columbus Day normally a 3 bank holiday? 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I would favor it that way. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Isn't Columbus Day normally a 6 bank holiday? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Banks are closed a lot of 9 days when we aren't. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I didn't think the 11 bank was the problem. I thought it was school. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, that's an issue, too. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: School's not closed for 14 Columbus Day. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Not generally. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Not generally. And they are 17 closed on the 31st. 18 MS. HYDE: Yes, they are. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'd be in favor of that switch. 20 Delete Columbus Day and add December 31st, to make that a 21 four-day weekend. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Works for me. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Are you making that in the form of a 24 motion, Commissioner? 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes, sir. I move we adopt the 9-24-07 138 1 2007-2008 Kerr County holiday schedule, with the modification 2 that December 31st, 2007, be a holiday, and we'll delete 3 October 8th, '07 as being a holiday. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's coming off the Human 6 Resource Department recommended schedule. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. We have a motion and a 8 second. Question or discussion on the motion? All in favor 9 of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 10 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 11 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 12 (No response.) 13 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 14 THE REPORTER: Buster, did you vote? 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I might. I might not. 16 Yeah, I did. Yes. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And all -- all elected 18 officials here support that, right? 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Enthusiastically. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You did earlier. You were 22 nodding a minute ago, Rusty. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That may have been about 24 something else. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Jones? 9-24-07 139 1 MR. JONES: Yes, sir? 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Do you have something cobbled 3 together there? 4 MR. JONES: It is -- 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Ready to present? 6 MR. JONES: -- being cobbled. It will be here in 7 just a moment. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. It's not here yet? 9 MR. JONES: No, sir. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. We'll move on. 11 MR. JONES: But thank you for asking. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Item 16; consider, discuss, take 13 appropriate action to adopt the position schedule, step and 14 grade schedule, and general provisions for FY '07-'08. We -- 15 gentlemen, we have some -- some proposed changes to the 16 general provisions that have been handed out to you. I 17 assume the changes are those that are highlighted in gray, or 18 whatever color the original may have had? 19 MS. HYDE: It wasn't just -- yes, that's the 20 Auditor's corrections, and H.R.'s suggestions. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What does the gray mean 23 exactly? 24 MS. HYDE: It's a change. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a delete? The gray 9-24-07 140 1 is a delete? 2 MS. HYDE: Excuse me? 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The gray area is to be -- 4 proposed to be deleted? 5 JUDGE TINLEY: No, no. Added. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Added? 7 MS. HYDE: Changed. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, added to. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Added. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Modified, added. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I don't know that I like 12 that first gray one. That's basically, as I read that -- 13 MR. EMERSON: Since we haven't seen those 14 schedules, -- 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And would it affect us. 16 MR. EMERSON: -- we'd really appreciate it if y'all 17 would verbally talk through what's added and what's deleted. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What is added on the first page 19 is that the Commissioners Court may designate a county budget 20 officer to make budget amendments without coming to the 21 Court. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Or other -- 23 MS. HYDE: Shall I go get the Auditor? 24 MS. GRINSTEAD: They're not looking at the step and 25 grade right now. 9-24-07 141 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We're looking at a draft 2 of -- 3 MS. GRINSTEAD: Of the general provisions. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- general provisions. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Still like to see it. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm not so sure that I want to 7 do that. I don't know that it's -- 8 MS. HYDE: I didn't do it. I don't have a copy. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Jody, would you go -- 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Didn't I read that right? 11 MS. HYDE: I think that's what it says. Must be 12 approved by Commissioners Court, or Commissioners Court may 13 designate county budget officer or other officer or employee 14 of the county who may, as appropriate, subject to conditions 15 and directions as provided by the Court... 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Doesn't say we're going to do 17 it, but I'd just as soon not have it in here. I like our 18 format we're doing right now where we do all the transfers. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, I do like the one 20 part that says that prior to an expenditure, execution of a 21 purchase order. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: That was -- that was in the previous 23 one. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's been there for a long 25 time. 9-24-07 142 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. Doesn't mean anything, 2 but it's there. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: That was the problem; I think you've 4 identified it, Commissioner. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The other one is under 6 salaries. Y'all have one yet? 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Not yet. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Under salaries, "full-time" 9 means except law enforcement officers, jailers, child care 10 workers, and employees of the Juvenile Detention Facility, 11 and community supervision and corrections officers who are 12 authorized by the state to carry weapons, whose work week is 13 28 cycle... Basically, this is an accommodation that your 14 people aren't counted in here; they're not full-time. So, 15 basically, I don't have any problem with that one. They're 16 just saying that law enforcement's not subject to the term 17 "full-time" and -- as referred to -- 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I'm not sure that's exactly 19 what F.M.L.A. says on that. I've got the book at the office. 20 'Cause it does address that specifically. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: This may be an item that we want to 22 put on our Friday agenda, it occurs to me. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: There's quite a few changes 24 here. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 9-24-07 143 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let's go back -- let's go 3 back to the very first one again. And my -- my question is 4 simple, I think. Why would you want to add this verbiage in 5 here? What does this accomplish? 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It makes it so it doesn't have 7 to come to the court. It speeds it up, maybe, a little bit, 8 but it gets it -- I mean, to me, it doesn't accomplish any -- 9 to me, it's a bad accomplishment. 10 MS. HYDE: Do you want me to go get the Auditor to 11 explain? 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 13 MS. HYDE: Okay. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If you want -- or the Judge 15 wants us to wait and do it on Friday. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. I think we need to -- this 17 probably needs to have all of the department heads and 18 elected officials coming in to take a look at it. Probably 19 something we're going to be looking at for final approval on 20 Friday, I would think, these changes as well as any others, 21 as to whether or not we want to adopt them. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 'Cause Section 1, where that 23 really does have an effect is -- 'cause we get calls all the 24 time. Since today's Commissioners Court, say last Thursday 25 we received a bill. Y'all had a cutoff for bills, so that 9-24-07 144 1 bill would never be approved to be paid, even though it's one 2 of your normal bills, okay, until the next Commissioners 3 Court in two weeks. And a lot of times that puts those bills 4 late getting paid, and it's how a lot of the vendors look at 5 it. We get it a lot with inmate medical, where these doctors 6 and that are sending bills and they're all complaining that 7 it takes too long for the County to pay the bill, depending 8 on what time of the month we actually receive it. So, on 9 that type of timeliness, I can understand what they're trying 10 to do. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But, I mean, in my mind, 12 though, by triggers in the budget, when your account starts 13 getting low, it needs to come proactively to the Court before 14 it goes to zero. 15 MS. HARGIS: We ready for this? 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 17 MS. HARGIS: Okay. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: What was your rationale for having 19 someone other than the full Court approve budget amendments? 20 MS. HARGIS: In the actual text that comes out of 21 the Local Government Code, which is what I copied -- let's go 22 by what we do today. 23 MR. EMERSON: What section? 24 MS. HARGIS: Okay, what you do today is that you -- 25 you approve amendments on bills that have already been 9-24-07 145 1 incurred. If you read this paragraph, it says before the 2 expenditure. The expenditure's already been made, so they're 3 actually supposed to come to you before the expenditure, but 4 they're coming after. So, we're already not doing this now. 5 So, my philosophy is this; it's -- we have a lot of 6 amendments, which is defeating the purpose that you had 7 intended, which was to maintain a solid budget. What's 8 happening, I feel like -- and I don't have any proof of this, 9 but the fund balance is actually going down during the year 10 because we're approving these amendments based on all these 11 other people's accounts. So, we're playing Chinese checkers 12 all the time, and I can't keep up with that. My suggestion 13 is they have a bottom-line budget. They can't go over that 14 bottom line. If they go over that bottom line, they have to 15 be in here requesting. Now, we can tell you when they've 16 gone over a line item, and continue to give you that. And 17 then have the Judge -- which is what it says; it can be 18 either -- exactly what I've said here. It says designate the 19 county budget officer or another officer or employee of the 20 county who may, as appropriate, and subject to conditions and 21 direction provided by the Court, amend the budget by 22 transferring amounts budgeted for certain items to other 23 budgeted items. In other words, line item to line item 24 within their own budgets. If they go out of their budget, 25 that's when they need to come here. But what they're doing 9-24-07 146 1 now is that if they're out of a line item, then they went and 2 grabbed some from the jail, when they still had some in their 3 own budget. So, when they do their budgets, they need to 4 learn to live within that parameter. Many of them have money 5 left in their own budgets. Had they had to use them, they 6 would have stayed within their own budget. You know, they 7 all have money left because you gave them another line item 8 through somebody else, so it doesn't make sense. To me, 9 they're not budgeting. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But the reason -- 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I don't -- 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The reason that happens in 13 virtually every account, including why Rusty has money, is 14 because he has the biggest employee pool, and we don't ever 15 stay 100 percent staffed, and yet we budget as if we're 100 16 percent staffed. 17 MS. HARGIS: I understand that. It's not Rusty's 18 budget that -- that is the problem. He's more online with 19 his than anybody else. I'll give you a for-instance. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm not saying -- 21 MS. HARGIS: I hate to pick on Janie, but I just 22 happened to look at hers. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Whose budget? 24 MS. HARGIS: Janie's budget, the Animal Control. 25 We have given her line item amendments, but we have moved 9-24-07 147 1 moneys from other departments into hers. You know, she still 2 has 23,000 left in hers. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We haven't moved any money 4 from other departments. 5 MS. HARGIS: You haven't? 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No, it's been within her 7 budget. We're moving money, almost every instance, from 8 inside the same budget. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, use me as an example. 10 Pretend I did something like that so we can get -- get to the 11 bottom of this thing. 12 MS. HARGIS: All right. I had one the other -- to 13 give you an idea of -- Rex's is the biggest one, and I don't 14 know that we can avoid that, is the Court-appointed 15 attorneys. And those we have been taking from the jail. But 16 there are other areas where we've taken -- but by coming to 17 you just to move an item from one spot to another spot is -- 18 is really counterproductive in -- in your -- in trying do the 19 court. You know, notifying you of it and telling you of it 20 so that you know how they're spending it, I think, is -- is 21 more reasonable. Because if they know that they have to live 22 within their bottom line, they will. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Most do. There are very few 24 that I know of that we have -- other than Court-appointed 25 attorneys, that we've transferred money out of one person's 9-24-07 148 1 budget into another one. 2 MS. HARGIS: But just to give you an idea, when I 3 stood up here the 1st of August, I had to read 36 amendments, 4 and ever since then we've had 36 almost per -- per court. 5 So, what I'm saying is, that's an awful lot just to move it 6 from one line item to another line item, especially if we 7 gave you a report on that and -- and the Judge reviewed it. 8 If he found those that he did not feel were appropriate, 9 those would then come to you for approval. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, first of all, the Judge 11 is no different than another Commissioner when it comes to 12 these issues, so he just doesn't have any authority to 13 approve it. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's what it's saying 15 here, though. Give him that authority. 16 MS. HARGIS: He's the budget officer. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Assuming he wants it. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. So he -- he can 19 make -- what you're saying is the County Judge can make a 20 decision better than the whole Commissioners Court. 21 MS. HARGIS: No, I'm not -- no, I'm not saying 22 that. I'm just saying -- I'm trying to be more efficient 23 with the way in which we handle the amendments. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So you can go straight to 25 the County Judge and get approval without waiting for 9-24-07 149 1 Commissioners Court. 2 MS. HARGIS: Well, here's the other reason that I 3 wanted -- 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't think I'm going to 5 go along with that deal, personally. 6 MS. HARGIS: Okay. But if y'all will please just 7 hear me out. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 9 MS. HARGIS: Okay? Number one, we are always late 10 on our bills. We're 45 days paying our bills. We have late 11 payments on our bills because we approve the amendments on 12 bills that have already been incurred. They don't get paid 13 for another two weeks, so consequently, we're always behind. 14 We're always late on our bills, and I don't think that we 15 want that, especially when we're going to the bond market; 16 that reflects on our credit. So, I'm trying to come up with 17 a way to expedite the payment of our bills. A 30-day frame 18 is reasonable, but 45 is not. And after looking, I had a 19 stack that big that we were holding. At this time of the 20 year, that's really not good, because I need to know what my 21 position is this time of the year, so I ran those through. 22 What we're doing by doing the amendments is, we're holding 23 the bills that you have the amendments for; then we're 24 putting those bills on at the next meeting. They're already 25 late. 9-24-07 150 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Why are those bills being 2 received so late to start with? 3 MS. HARGIS: Well, they go to the department -- 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Two weeks to pay it doesn't 5 sound unreasonable to me. 6 MS. HARGIS: Well, they go to the department first 7 to be -- you know, they're received in the mail. So, that 8 department head generally needs a little bit of time to 9 evaluate that bill. By the time it gets up to us, let's say 10 it came in around the 3rd or 4th of the month. By the time 11 it gets up to us, it's got to wait for the second billing of 12 the month, just because of our cutoff time. 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay. 14 MS. HARGIS: It's -- 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Without going through the 16 merits of the budget transfers that are before us today, 17 there are two illustrations in the current list as to what 18 you're talking about. One of them is -- again, this is not 19 going to the merits of the transfer. One of them is Juvenile 20 Probation, and they're transferring from outside the 21 department. They're transferring from Custodial and Grounds 22 and Jail Maintenance to shore up their budget request. 23 MS. HARGIS: Right. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The second one is 25 Agricultural Extension, which is going outside its budget and 9-24-07 151 1 transferring money to meet its request from Jail Maintenance. 2 Those are two in the current list. 3 MS. HARGIS: To me, that's a real amendment. If -- 4 the purpose of an amendment, if you read the whole act, it 5 talks about you have the authority to make amendments, but 6 you -- it also says that -- that you don't want to make them 7 on a constant basis, and that's really what we're doing. 8 We're amending from the very first day, so it becomes such 9 old hat, for the lack of a better term, that people are just 10 doing it because they know you're going to do it. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: See, what I see, Ms. Hargis, 12 happening with your method -- and, you know, I'll probably 13 get criticized by -- say Diane has -- you know, someone 14 retired and it takes two months to fill that position, so all 15 of a sudden, she has a pot of money there in her budget. 16 Well, then she can either decide that, well, we're going to 17 go ahead and send some of our people to some more 18 conferences, or maybe we'll, you know, hire some part-time 19 people here and there. I mean, and there's things -- 20 MS. HARGIS: No, not -- your -- no. What I'm -- 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But she has full discretion 22 over her budget. 23 MS. HARGIS: She doesn't have full discretion; she 24 still has to request a line item change from a public 25 official, and it suggests the budget officer. If the budget 9-24-07 152 1 officer doesn't want to do that, you know, maybe perhaps one 2 of the other Commissioners would like to do that. I would 3 prefer not being the one. But -- 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Don't look at me. 5 MS. HARGIS: I mean, we can continue to do this, 6 but my thought would be that you approve the amendments 7 first. We present the bills. If there's a bill you don't 8 want to pay, we pull it. At least it gets paid on time. 9 It's -- but it just seems like an awful lot of amendments to 10 me, if -- when you make that many amendments to a budget, 11 it's worthless. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But we don't -- I mean, you 13 came towards the end. At the end of the year, we generally 14 do. There are very few in the first half of the year. 15 MS. HARGIS: In the city, we made none. None. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But they have a different 17 system. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: A very different system. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: If we're trying to -- if we're 20 trying to make sure that there's timely payment of just 21 obligations, wouldn't it be better if we got out of this mode 22 of paying first and amending later? But rather, as has been 23 the general policy since Buster -- before Buster came on the 24 Court, -- 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Good lord. 9-24-07 153 1 JUDGE TINLEY: -- that you amend prior to the 2 expenditure being incurred. And that may cause a hardship on 3 folks, but they need to know what's out there in front of 4 them. 5 MS. HARGIS: Well, and that's the intent. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: But I do want to congratulate you on 7 this summary that you put together, that procedure where we 8 can pull out if there are any questionable ones, but 9 otherwise just adopt them en masse, as per that summary. 10 That has helped tremendously, and you saw right away that you 11 didn't want to be standing up there and going through 25 12 different items, and I don't blame you. It's pretty evident 13 that that was something that you didn't like to do. This 14 solves that problem. But I think the other solution is, that 15 elected officials not incur debts until they got the money in 16 their budget to spend. And that way, it'll be paid right 17 away. 18 MS. HARGIS: And that's kind of what -- what -- if 19 you read the general provisions, that's what it says. It 20 says before the expenditure. But that's not happening. 21 You're actually amending it after the expenditure. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. What we need to do is make 23 every department head and elected official comply with the 24 policy as it has been written for years and years and years, 25 and that'll solve the problem. 9-24-07 154 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think -- I mean, to me, the 2 solution is pretty much what the Judge is saying, but you put 3 a trigger in there, when someone's balance in any line item 4 goes down to, say, 5 percent, whatever -- some percentage, 5 that they get advised of that automatically. They need to 6 make some proactive changes. 7 MS. HARGIS: They get sent, on the first day of 8 every month, a copy of their budget. Every month, so they 9 know. And if they want to call, I know we do calls, and we 10 teach them how to do the budget online. In this next year, 11 they can go on and check on a daily basis, which will help a 12 lot, which helped at the city as well, 'cause then they knew 13 where they were. But it just seemed kind of strange to me 14 that we'd be approving amendments on expenditures that had 15 already been made. The bills had already been incurred; we 16 had to pay them. We're just paying them late, and I don't 17 think you want to do that. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We agree with the problem. We 19 just don't like the solution. 20 MS. HARGIS: I know. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The problem I have with the 22 proposed solution is that it -- it transfers the 23 justification of the budget request from the Court to an 24 individual, none of whom seem to want to raise their hand to 25 do that. 9-24-07 155 1 MS. HARGIS: Well, I don't -- I don't really care 2 if the Court does it, but I just feel like if we're going to 3 put that in there, then it needs to be before you do the 4 expenditure. Then we need to stick with your policy. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree with that. 6 MS. HARGIS: And we need to send something out to 7 them and say if you -- you need to check your budget before 8 you make an expenditure when you know you're going to go over 9 your line item. And you must get that amendment before you 10 make that expenditure. It's much faster to get on the court 11 agenda for something like that than it is for us, because we 12 might skip a meeting in between. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And if you get it -- based on 14 prior conversations, like, if we do some sort of a purchasing 15 system, they won't be allowed to purchase something unless 16 they've got the money, correct? 17 MS. HARGIS: That's correct. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Exactly. 19 MS. HARGIS: Because that system is set up that 20 when they're over budget, it won't let them enter it. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Won't let them enter and buy 22 anything. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The sooner we get to that, 24 the better. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: There is an old court order 9-24-07 156 1 here -- 2 MS. HARGIS: I have a copy of it. I got all of 3 them. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- that sayeth -- and that's 5 Old Testament talk -- that if I want to go purchase a new 6 computer, and there's not enough money in my budget, I've got 7 to come here and get permission before I can do it. Why that 8 doesn't work, I don't know, but that's the way it's supposed 9 to be. That's the way it should be. True budget, I agree 10 with you. By doing it this other way, that's not a budget. 11 MS. HARGIS: Well, and I'm just trying to bring 12 that to you, because, I mean, it became very evident to me 13 when I was holding a stack of bills this big and I said, 14 "What are you doing?" "We have to wait." And at this time 15 of the year especially, I need my payables on there so I know 16 what our fund balance is, because it's important going into 17 next year. I don't mind taking it out, but I wanted it in 18 there so you could tell. I knew I would get opposition. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Can I make a comment in 20 regards to that same type thing that she's suggesting? 21 JUDGE TINLEY: If you'll say "please." 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Please. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: All right. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Quickly. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Quickly. Number one, I 9-24-07 157 1 honestly feel that -- and, unfortunately, none of us really 2 control what the District Judges do. But even though I had 3 the money budgeted for jailer's salary, and don't have a 4 problem with those amendments the Court deems necessary, but 5 if I'm going to go over in mine so bad that I'm going to have 6 to go to, you know, her budget to get money to pay what I'm 7 short, then, personally, my ethics and that says that I need 8 to be here asking you for that amendment, not the Auditor. 9 And I think if -- if the District Judges and those are made 10 to come when they go over it that bad, then they should be 11 here asking for those budget amendments. Either that, or 12 they need to do a better job of preparing their budgets at 13 the beginning. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The problem, Sheriff -- the 15 problem is exactly what the Auditor's bringing, this making 16 the expenditures and then coming and asking for blessing on 17 the expenditures. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, what they're doing is 19 they're keeping their budget down low on Court-appointed 20 attorneys, and they don't care, because it doesn't matter. 21 Because when they spend way over it two and three times, they 22 can just get it out of someone else's budget, and y'all are 23 going to approve it without any sweat off their back. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Or we have to declare an 25 emergency or -- we got to pay it. 9-24-07 158 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But, I mean, if you hold them 2 back, -- 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Or -- 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- maybe some of the these 5 court things will speed up through the court, or they'll give 6 you a little bit more honest figure when it comes time to 7 budget for those items. I try and give you an honest figure. 8 Now, at times there's few of mine that I can't control, and 9 that's where coming before would be a problem. Like, right 10 now we're towards the end of our budget; we've been having to 11 make budget amendments over inmate medical, okay? This 12 morning we had a suicide attempt, 7:30 this morning. I've 13 got an ambulance bill and all that. I can't say, "Nope, 14 don't take him. I got to get this bill approved first before 15 we provide the treatment." I've got to have the 16 flexibility -- in those emergencies, you have to provide it. 17 I don't have a choice there. 18 MS. HARGIS: There's an emergency provision. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You can also -- Rusty, what you 20 can do there is, as one of your line items get down, come to 21 the Court and say, "Hey, we're real low here; I don't think 22 we're going to make it through the end of the year. Let me 23 take some of the money out of Jailer Salaries that I'm not 24 going to need and put it in this account." 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And I have no problem doing 9-24-07 159 1 that, just as long as it stays inside. But one thing I would 2 like to see them be able to do, because of the late bills, or 3 late payment of bills -- 'cause we get those calls all the 4 time; it's just part of the way it happens -- is those normal 5 bills, in a normal budget, as long as it's within my line 6 item, I feel should be able to be approved automatically and 7 paid automatically. Then when y'all review what was paid, if 8 you had a problem with -- with what's on one of my bills, 9 okay? Say, you know, I paid for a certain medicine or a 10 certain food, and it was paid and the bill was paid and 11 everything, but when I came to court, you had a problem with 12 that bill. At that point, I think you should, one, chastise 13 me for spending it, 'cause it should keep me in line, and 14 two, if it was bad enough, reduce that line item in my budget 15 by that much that you didn't think should be paid, and 16 control it, but don't get the County in a credit deal by late 17 payments. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The reality is that, I mean, 19 this Court -- long as I've been a Commissioner, we've never 20 not paid a bill. 21 MS. HARGIS: Right. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So we're going to pay it. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But we're always late. 24 MS. HARGIS: I don't think you realize how late you 25 really are on some of these bills. 9-24-07 160 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You really are. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hyde? 3 MS. HYDE: Well, I didn't think I'd do this, but -- 4 JUDGE TINLEY: You don't have to. 5 MS. HYDE: I know, but I do. I do, 'cause I told 6 Jeannie I'd support her on some things that I could. We have 7 bills that we get, such as advertisements for new employees. 8 And coming from where I came from, late bills were -- because 9 we didn't pay -- as an organization, or as Kerr County, we 10 shouldn't be paying late fees. Those are huge. Those are 11 huge deficits against our moneys. But what we're doing is, 12 unfortunately, because of the way that we have Commissioners 13 Court set up and the way typically you get your bills, you 14 get most of your statements the 1st through the 5th or the 15 25th through the 30th of the month. Well, let's look at it 16 from a calendar. Think about how we have Commissioners 17 Court. The second and the fourth Mondays, right? So, what 18 ends up happening is we miss the deadlines. So, one thing -- 19 and she won't like this, but one thing that we could do is go 20 from a 10-day schedule prior to Commissioners Court for our 21 bills down to a 5-day. That would help us some. But the 22 other thing is, we could pay by invoice, not by statement. 23 There's some that we could pay by invoice versus statement, 24 which would also help us a little bit, and help clean up some 25 of this. I don't think her intent was ever that you guys 9-24-07 161 1 would not have ayes or nays for the budget. It's trying to 2 get the bills paid. And I think that maybe our terminology 3 might be off a little bit, but we've got to find a way to get 4 our bills paid. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I can tell you, I 6 would rather see this Commissioners Court come in an extra 7 day of session to pay the bills than I would turn it over to 8 someone that is not accountable -- 9 MS. HYDE: That's right. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- to the taxpaying public. 11 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's where I draw the 13 line, and I will fight the rest of my life over that. 14 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. But there are some other 15 things, Commissioner, like going to the 5-day or paying by 16 invoice versus paying by statement. That could also help us. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Those kind of things are -- 18 those are in y'all's bailiwick, from my standpoint. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Those are doable. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Those are logistical, as 21 far as I'm concerned, for them. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis? 23 MS. HARGIS: Yes? 24 JUDGE TINLEY: What -- what's your input on, say, 25 the 5-day as opposed to 10-day? 9-24-07 162 1 MS. HARGIS: The report has gotten ready for you -- 2 it takes pretty much a day to get ready, and it's gotten 3 ready on Thursday, so that's, you know, Thursday, Friday, and 4 the court is on Monday. So, you know, we could take them up 5 to that Monday or Tuesday. But it's really going to make it 6 tight to get everything copied and that kind of -- and all 7 the amendments done. But we can -- let me look at it. Let 8 me look at it and see what my staff's schedule is and see 9 what we can do. You know, I only have -- 10 JUDGE TINLEY: I want to try and accomplish the 11 timely payment of our bills. I mean, we -- that -- 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Are we not on the agenda item? 13 MR. EMERSON: You're, like, way out of the -- 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: He says we're not on the agenda 15 item. 16 MS. HYDE: It's under general provisions. 17 MR. EMERSON: Where? 18 MS. HARGIS: Right here. 19 MS. HYDE: On the agenda item, it says under 20 general provisions, and we're in the general provisions. 21 MR. EMERSON: You're getting into payment 22 procedures and all that other stuff. You're not getting into 23 procedures for budget transfers. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: And we got work to do at 3 o'clock, 25 too, right? 9-24-07 163 1 MR. EMERSON: Yes, sir. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 3 MS. HARGIS: So, you want me to go back to the 4 original language? Is that what you want me to do? 5 JUDGE TINLEY: I want all the elected officials and 6 department heads to take a look at these general provisions 7 and any other input, have that available on Friday. We'll 8 take this up in addition to what else we've got scheduled, 9 ahead of final approval, and we'll look at any other proposed 10 changes. 11 MS. HYDE: Can Jody send them out to everybody? 12 Can Jody put them out to everybody so everybody can get a 13 copy? 14 (Discussion off the record.) 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. What about the position 16 schedule and step and grade schedule? Has that been 17 finalized? 18 MS. HYDE: The step and grade is finalized. The 19 position schedule isn't finalized. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: She'll blame me. 21 MS. HYDE: Because the S.O. has some changes, 22 effective today. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: All right. We'll roll all three of 24 these till Friday. 25 MS. GRINSTEAD: Okay. 9-24-07 164 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, let's get back to Item 13, see 2 what the cobbler has here. 3 (Discussion off the record.) 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm in favor of it. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I've got it -- 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Oh. 7 MR. JONES: You gave me instructions, Your Honor. 8 It's the same thing. I just put it in -- 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It doesn't -- it doesn't 10 address the issue about our previous -- 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Last sentence. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, it does, too. 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Last sentence. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: And that this resolution does not 15 impair or negate our prior correspondence. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You don't like the word 17 "negate," do you? 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I see it. No, I like it; 19 that's a good word. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You do? Okay. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: I think that's the term I used, 22 wasn't it? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't -- should it say 24 correspondence or resolution? 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, it was a resolution, 9-24-07 165 1 wasn't it? 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Our prior correspondence and 3 resolution? Or resolution? 4 JUDGE TINLEY: And/or resolution. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And/or resolution. 6 MS. HOFFMANN: Was it a resolution, though? I 7 think it was just a letter. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: A letter. 9 MR. JONES: All they had in the study was your 10 letter of December -- December the 3rd. I'm sorry, I've left 11 that stuff -- 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Is that all there was, is a letter? 13 MS. GRINSTEAD: I think it was just a letter. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just a letter? 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, I move for approval. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: As presented? 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: All right. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll second. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: We have a motion and second for 23 approval of the resolution relative to the transmission line 24 as presented. Any further question or discussion? All in 25 favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 9-24-07 166 1 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 2 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 3 (No response.) 4 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 5 MS. COOPER: Thank you very much. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good luck. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: We'll get all five of them right 8 quick here. 9 (Discussion off the record.) 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay? 11 MR. JONES: Thank you, Your Honor. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. Let's now move to Item 13 17, if we may; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action 14 to authorize publication of an RFP for preparation of the 15 2006-2007 audit. Ms. Hargis? 16 MS. HARGIS: Unfortunately, I'm still working on 17 it. It's turned out to be about a 44-page document, and it 18 requires a lot of detail as to our accounting system, number 19 of employees, so forth and so on. So, Tommy and I are still 20 working on it. I came in over the weekend, but there was a 21 lot of information I didn't have. You have to give them kind 22 of an idea how many departments we have, what type of -- of 23 accounting system we have, you know, what they need to look 24 at. And the sample that was given to me by the County 25 Auditor in El Paso was dated 2001. I wasn't comfortable that 9-24-07 167 1 it included everything, so I pulled down another one off the 2 internet that was 2007. So, we're comparing both documents 3 to make sure that I have all of the newest accounting 4 regulations that I need, like the Yellow Book, which is the 5 G.A.O., just came out with a 2007 manual. So, it says 1996; 6 it needs to say 2007. So, we're making those changes, and 7 some of them I'm going to have to type in, so it's taking me 8 a little bit more time. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Is everybody on the Court aware of 10 the need of why we're here at this late date? 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Pressler-Thompson. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, okay. 15 MS. HARGIS: And I think we can still get it done 16 if I have it ready for you. That way, I'd like to get it 17 ready for you, let you review it, and then at the next 18 meeting we'll approve it. I'd rather get it right. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're meeting Friday, if it can 20 be ready by Friday. We can just roll it on the agenda if 21 it's ready; if it's not, it's not. 22 MS. HARGIS: I'm going to try to get it ready by 23 Friday. I won't be here, but I can go over it with the Judge 24 and y'all can review it. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Okay, let's go to Item 18; 9-24-07 168 1 consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to adopt a 2 resolution stating Kerr County's intent to contract with 3 Tetra Tech, Incorporated, for continuing engineering services 4 for Center Point wastewater project contingent upon funding 5 grant from the Texas Water Development Board. Commissioner 6 Williams. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Judge. This, as 8 it says, states our intent to continue to use Tetra Tech, who 9 has been with us since the inception of this project, for 10 their services that are detailed in the attachment, which 11 total about $385,000 worth of their services to take care of 12 the planning activities T.W.D.B. wants in the next phase. 13 And the current contract we have is completed, and if the 14 County Attorney thinks an addendum is appropriate, or a new 15 agreement would be more appropriate, we'll do whatever he 16 thinks is -- is the best way to approach it to detail the new 17 scope of services and the level of funding, all contingent on 18 grant approval by T.W.D.B. Move approval of the resolution. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: We have a motion and a second for 21 approval of the agenda item. Any question or discussion on 22 the motion? All in favor of that motion signify by raising 23 your right hand. 24 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 25 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 9-24-07 169 1 (No response.) 2 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. We'll move 3 to Item 19; consider -- 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: There's a typo. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll straighten them out. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Consider, discuss, and take 7 appropriate action on any desired cost-of-living adjustment 8 for Kerr County retirees under the Texas County and District 9 Retirement System plan. Each year -- I think each year we 10 consider whether or not we want to give retirees any COLA 11 adjustment. I think each of you have been provided with 12 information with regard to our buy-in that's estimated for 13 our coming retirement year, and there's some information 14 attached to what it would cost to provide a COLA, either 15 based upon a flat rate increase or a CPI-based increase. My 16 recollection is in the past, I think we've generally done a 17 50 percent COLA, if I'm not mistaken. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's right. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: And the front page of the material 20 provided to you makes provision for that. It says 21 14 percent. Actually, it's -- 22 MS. HARGIS: .14. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: -- .14. 24 MS. HARGIS: And that's the 50 percent. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Which would be a 50 percent. 9-24-07 170 1 MS. HARGIS: The only thing is, Judge, this one -- 2 we don't have the current one, so I'm using last year's, 3 14 percent. But I'm sure it's not going to be a whole lot of 4 difference. They have not produced a current schedule for 5 this year. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Did they tell you what the 7 level of funding is? 8 JUDGE TINLEY: I think what is important is we've 9 already got it included in our budget at 8.9 percent. We are 10 currently -- our current rate is 8.75, which includes a 11 50 percent COLA for last year. And our $20,000 group term 12 life insurance, the proposed rate for '08 has been lowered. 13 Our base rate on our group term life rate went up very 14 slightly, and so we're -- we're within our budget in all 15 respects. So -- 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is this the third year we've 17 done that? Or -- 18 MS. HARGIS: I know you did it last year. I don't 19 know if you did it the year before. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think it is the third. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Third year, and I think for 22 the first time ever. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Maybe. I don't ever remember 24 doing it. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, that we've ever done 9-24-07 171 1 anything like that. And, so, what do we need? A number? Or 2 just ratify whatever you just got through saying? 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, if you want to -- if you want 4 to give the retirees a 50 percent COLA increase, that's what 5 we need. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The total of all of that 7 comes under our -- under what we budgeted? 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Yes, it is within budget, what we've 9 currently got plugged into the budget for retirement costs. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll make a motion we give the 11 retirees 50 percent COLA's, as is within the current budget. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded as 14 indicated. Question or discussion? All in favor of the 15 motion, signify by raising your right hand. 16 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 17 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 18 (No response.) 19 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion carries. Let's move to 20 Item 20; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to 21 conclude claims on former Treasurer's bond, and authorize 22 County Judge to sign release of same. I put this on the 23 agenda. As the Court, I'm sure, recalls, we asserted some 24 claims on the former Treasurer's bond. One of them was for 25 approximately $12,500. The other one -- the other claim 9-24-07 172 1 that's been asserted is for $1,919 and change. We had some 2 other potential claims, we thought, for the first quarter of 3 2006. Ms. Williams has worked extensively with the I.R.S. 4 There was a claim of about -- potential claim of about 12,5 5 again that she managed to get resolved, even though we paid 6 it. We've gotten full credit for that back, so that turned 7 out not to be a claim. The reason I'm bringing it before the 8 Court is the total amount of the bond coverage is $15,000. 9 What the bonding company is -- has agreed to pay is the 10 amount of that first claim of about 12,5, or less an amount 11 that was -- a portion of it was tax, somewhere around $1,000. 12 So, what they've agreed to pay is only penalty and interest, 13 and plus the entirety of the second claim. I've talked with 14 Ms. Williams to see if there are any other potential claims 15 that we see on the horizon that might be asserted against 16 that bond, because we've got about $1,850 left in coverage. 17 But the bonding company, as a condition of sending us payment 18 for the $13,137.59, they want -- they want a full release. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Right now? 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. Now, we can either take our 21 money now, or we can hold it open and not get our money now 22 until we see where we are. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's not likely that there's 24 anything looming out on the horizon, is there? 25 JUDGE TINLEY: I can't think of anything. I've 9-24-07 173 1 talked to Ms. Williams. We've -- we've kicked this thing 2 back and forth trying to figure out what other potential 3 claims there might be against that bond, and there's nothing 4 that either one of us knows about -- 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: -- that would be something that 7 would fall under a potential claim. And -- through the 8 period December 31. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. So, with nothing that 10 we can see -- the possibility of anything we can see looming 11 out there, we probably need to -- 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Wrap it up and move on. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- wrap it up and move on. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Has the County Attorney looked 15 at this release? Is it okay? 16 MR. EMERSON: It's fine. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I make a motion that we accept 18 the payment of $13,137.59 payment against the former 19 Treasurer's bond, and accept the final release. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: And authorize me to sign the final 21 full release? 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded as 25 indicated. Question or discussion? All in favor, signify by 9-24-07 174 1 raising your right hand. 2 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 3 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 4 (No response.) 5 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Let's move 6 to Item 21; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to 7 rescind Court Order Number 30492 regarding donation of metal 8 folding chairs from City of Kerrville, and cause same to be 9 returned. I assume that's the chairs? Or the court order to 10 be returned to them? 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Probably do both, Judge. 12 What the City giveth, the City taketh away. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They want their chairs back? 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They want the chairs back. 15 The chairs -- General Schellhase represented what had been 16 told him from the prior Parks Administrator, that, "Get those 17 chairs out of there; I don't want them any more. Get them 18 out of the firehouse. Chief wants them out of the 19 firehouse." So, by the time we got all that and got it -- 20 did all that, the former Parks Administrator was history; 21 he's gone someplace else, and we got a new one who said, 22 "Well, I don't want to give those chairs away." In the 23 meantime, we moved the chairs out, after the General gave us 24 that -- gave us that memorandum. That prompted the Fire 25 Chief to call over here. First of all, he wanted to know how 9-24-07 175 1 anybody got in his firehouse. Is that right, Ms. Grinstead? 2 MS. GRINSTEAD: Yes. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, he told them that he -- 4 the person that got in his -- in his firehouse had a key, and 5 he didn't give it to them. And then he says, "I got to get 6 those chairs back. There's been a change." So, rescind the 7 court order. And I told the gentleman who called me -- I 8 said, "Fine, you want them? Come get them." 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that a motion? 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a motion. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second -- third. Give back the 13 chairs. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: I have a motion. 15 MR. WALSTON: I was just going to tell you thank 16 you. We're going to get use of them for our wild game dinner 17 anyway. So -- 18 JUDGE TINLEY: I have a motion and a second for 19 approval of the agenda item. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Whenever they want them back, 21 they can come get them. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's kind of what I said, 23 'cause they got to move them someplace else. We're not going 24 to take them to a new location. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And we're not storing them 9-24-07 176 1 any more, either. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Any further question or discussion 3 on that motion? All in favor of that motion, signify by 4 raising your right hand. 5 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 6 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 7 (No response.) 8 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Actually, I think we need to 10 send them a storage invoice of some sort. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: We'll start accruing that now that 12 they're the new owners as of now. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Don't tell anybody. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Send the bill to the Chief. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Next item; consider, discuss, and 16 take appropriate action to assign employee to Kerr County 17 Extension Office on a full-time basis. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, we, some time ago -- 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess he'll take this one. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- moved Alyce Davidson over 21 to the Extension Office to give them some assistance in an 22 area where they were having a problem with not being able to 23 do all the jobs that needed to be done. And in the process, 24 we allowed her to continue doing the county Ag Barn booking 25 there, and since then, things have changed and she's no 9-24-07 177 1 longer booking. But I recommend that we assign her 2 permanently to -- to Mr. Roy Walston at the Extension Office, 3 and she'd be under his direction. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Roy Walston says that's A-okay 5 with him. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: That was a motion? 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sure. You want to use the 9 word "permanent," though? Full-time? 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Full-time employee of the 11 Extension Office. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 'Cause Mr. Walston may 13 change his mind next week. No, we're sorry, buddy. You're 14 -- it's permanent. 15 MR. WALSTON: A permanent position. Put it that 16 way. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, until further notice. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: With a reminder that all 19 Kerr County employees are at-will employees. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's right. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: All right. We have a motion and a 22 second. Any further question or discussion on the motion? 23 All in favor of the motion, signify by raising your right 24 hand. 25 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 9-24-07 178 1 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 2 (No response.) 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion carried. Let's go to Item 4 23; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to approve 5 a resolution in support of Texas State Arts and Crafts 6 Educational Foundation application to manage the Arcadia 7 Theater as a multi-purpose public events venue. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Don't ask why they want to 9 do this, but they want to do this. They want to file an 10 application, and they're asking us to give support to their 11 application based on our experience with them developing 12 River Star Park. And, yes, Commissioner, there are three 13 errors in this one that need to be corrected. I'll make note 14 of them. So, Bob Miller came to me and wanted to know if the 15 Court would be good enough to do a resolution of support for 16 their application. Doesn't cost us anything. I don't know 17 why they want to take on that headache, but they apparently 18 do. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Who owns the Arcadia? 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: City. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I thought -- I mean -- 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: This is worse than us 23 getting involved with the L.C.R.A., I tell you. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, we're just blessing 25 it, you know? Move approval. 9-24-07 179 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 3 approval of the agenda item. Question or discussion? 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There's a couple 5 corrections I'll make for the final draft. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: All in favor of the motion, signify 7 by raising your right hand. 8 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 9 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 10 (No response.) 11 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Okay, we'll 12 now move to payment of the bills. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Jon, what was the 14 correction on the Tetra Tech one? 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll find it and give it to 16 you. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Why don't we just appoint 18 somebody to pay the bills, and that way we don't have to 19 waste our time in here like this? 20 JUDGE TINLEY: I thought we'd appoint you. You 21 have a great deal of seniority in these type of procedures. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's right. I could 23 always do a little fundraising on the side to pay these 24 things. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Not looking at Page 14, are you? 9-24-07 180 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, but I can. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Bottom. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Jody, here's both of them. 5 A couple errors we need to correct. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I just wanted to point 7 out one bill in here on Page 14. 198th District Court, Gray 8 and somebody -- and I'm not trying to be rude; I really don't 9 know. Is that Desprez? 10 JUDGE TINLEY: I don't know the correct 11 pronunciation. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Gray and somebody, for 13 $2,432.50. That's an investigation on me. And what a 14 horrible waste of money -- taxpayers' money. That's all. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Move we pay the bills. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded to pay the 18 bills. Question or discussion? All in favor of the motion, 19 signify by raising your right hand. 20 (Commissioners Williams, Letz, and Oehler voted in favor of the motion.) 21 22 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I oppose. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Okay, we've 25 got budget amendments. We have a budget amendment summary 9-24-07 181 1 that's been provided by the Auditor's office consisting of 24 2 budget amendments. Don't see any of them as late bills. 3 MS. HARGIS: No. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Not any of them as late bills. Do I 5 hear a motion that the budget amendments requests, as set 6 forth in the summary, be approved in its entirety? 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 10 approval as indicated. Question or discussion? All in favor 11 of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 12 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 13 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 14 (No response.) 15 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Do we have 16 any late bills? 17 MS. HARGIS: No, sir. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: I've been presented with monthly 19 reports for Justice of the Peace, Precinct 3; Constable, 20 Precinct 3; Road and Bridge for July and August 2007; Justice 21 of the Peace, Precinct 4; District Clerk; County Clerk, both 22 general and trust fund; Constable, Precinct 2; Justice of the 23 Peace, Precinct 2, activity report; Environmental Health; 24 Constable, Precinct Number 1; and Justice of the Peace, 25 Precinct Number 1. Do I hear a motion that these reports be 9-24-07 182 1 approved as presented? 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So moved. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 6 approval of the designated reports as presented. Any 7 question or discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify 8 by raising your right hand. 9 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 10 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 11 (No response.) 12 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Any reports 13 from Commissioners in connection with their committee or 14 liaison assignments? Commissioner Baldwin? 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, sir. There's your pen, 16 thank you. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Williams? 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, sir, Judge. You and I 19 have a meeting tomorrow with people from Cornerstone Services 20 with respect to the possible leasing of the Juvenile 21 Detention Facility. Folks are flying in from Colorado. 22 They'll also be meeting later in the day with Dr. Troxel with 23 K.I.S.D., and introduce to him some individual from a charter 24 school in San Antonio who would provide educational services. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: See, y'all are looking at 9-24-07 183 1 two different issues. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, the educational issue 3 is one we kind of rolled in there; that we want whoever 4 leases our facility to provide educational services, not 5 depending on K.I.S.D. for their services. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else, Commissioner? 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, sir. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Letz? 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I can't remember when the 11 last -- I think we had an airport meeting not long ago that I 12 attended as a visitor. Very interesting meeting. I look 13 forward to seeing -- I will look forward to seeing the 14 minutes from that meeting, because there was a -- a number of 15 things were brought up by other parties there about things 16 that the Airport Board was -- had been kept in the dark about 17 for the past year. Quite interesting. But I had nothing to 18 do but just sit there and listen. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Made two of us sit there 20 and listen. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What I want to ask you 22 about, I've gotten a couple of e-mails from a fellow down 23 around toward Comfort. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is he a candidate? 9-24-07 184 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Oh. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: For the board? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, I presume. I've not 4 talked to him personally; I sent an e-mail back. I guess 5 he's one of Adolf Bartel's -- Richard Bartel, Bartel Road. 6 Most of the Bartels live on Bartel Road, so I assume he's a 7 relative of some sort. I've told people to feel free to 8 forward those to us, and we can get with -- Jody, I think, 9 can keep a file on them, or I'll keep a file somewhere, and 10 at such a point that the City and County sit down and decide 11 what's going to happen with the new board, we can just hold 12 them in our files and get them to the right people at the 13 right time. I'm a little bit disappointed to hear that 14 evidently the City of Kerrville has no plans to make any -- 15 to appoint anyone to meet with the County for some time. So, 16 the three-member board that's currently operating under the 17 old agreement is going to continue to limp along, and they're 18 not very happy about it either, but the City's idea is that 19 they want to wait until they hear from the consultants until 20 they decide on anything. So -- 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I, too, have an application 22 on my desk from a lady who came in, talked to me about it. 23 She is a former airline employee of many years standing, 24 retired, living in Kerr County. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think the best way to handle 9-24-07 185 1 any of those is to refer them to Jody, keep a file on them, 2 and then whenever the forces that be are going to make those 3 appointments or recommendations or formulations, to get 4 copies of those names and proceed in that manner. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Who are the three board 6 members that's presently there? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Roger Bobertz, who is chair; 8 Steve King, who's -- or president; Steve King is vice 9 president, and Fred Vogt are currently the ones that are -- 10 and they're a little bit nervous, because they can't talk to 11 each other without a violation of Open Meetings Act. As soon 12 as two of them talk, they have a quorum. Makes it rather 13 difficult to conduct business, and at the present time, the 14 president is out of town, so there's only two around that can 15 do anything. And -- and a lot of actions can't take place 16 until -- I mean, without that board's approval. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: As a matter of fact, they 18 had a meeting here -- special called meeting; only two of 19 them were there. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: To conduct some business 22 here. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But the good news is that 24 there's quite a bit of interest in activities and building 25 some hangars and things of that nature, both some commercial 9-24-07 186 1 ones -- there's a proposal before the board about building 2 similar to what -- the T-hangars that the City and County 3 built some years ago, to build up to ten or maybe even more 4 than that. And then there's a private individual who's 5 looking to build a pretty good-size hangar for his personal 6 use, similar to something like the Brinks hangar, but not 7 quite that large. And they're talking to some others, so 8 there's a lot of interest out there. But just going to have 9 to stay the current course until the City appoints people to 10 meet with the County. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else? 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, I won't delay. Looks 13 like I'll have a juvenile meeting here shortly, so I'll 14 pretty well hold my peace until Friday, I think, on budget 15 issues and that sort of thing. Which is not going to be 16 anything new, but just -- I've done all my things. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: All right. Anything else? Elected 18 officials? 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yep, just one. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Thirty seconds for all elected 21 officials. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I just want to expand on 23 something, the jail inspection that everybody went through. 24 I think I ought to expand on what your jail staff go through 25 getting prepared for one of those. And I just want to give 9-24-07 187 1 you a few items that they have to go through as two 2 inspectors this year took a little over seven hours to do 3 that jail inspection. Now, Judge Tinley's the one that's 4 been out there in the past for the whole thing and seen a lot 5 of it, but these are some of the things that I think y'all, 6 as a Court, ought to know. And maybe if you see one of my 7 jail staff, thank them, 'cause they do work hard getting this 8 stuff done. Life safety. Inspected all life safety 9 equipment, conducted and observed emergency drill review 10 documentation, conducted staff interviews. They also 11 actually set off a smoke alarm. They set it off in the back 12 of the jail and see how long it takes for the staff to get to 13 that location and enter that location with the full SCBA air 14 packs on and operating, and it took them 45 seconds to 15 respond. I think that's unreal. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Wow. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Admission records; reviewed a 18 random sample of 24 inmate files, interviewed staff, reviewed 19 policy. Release records; reviewed a random sample of 10 20 inmate files and interviewed staff. Records and procedures; 21 reviewed policy and documentation, interviewed staff, 22 reviewed their little part of A.D.A. stuff that we have to 23 do. And compliance evaluation classification; reviewed a 24 random selection of 24 inmate files, reviewed staff training 25 records, reviewed internal classification audits, reviewed 9-24-07 188 1 policy, interviewed staff. Health services; reviewed a 2 random selection of 40 inmate files, interviewed staff, 3 inmates reviewed training records. Part of that is also any 4 inmate that stays in that facility longer than 72 hours has 5 to have a TB test. All those records have to be kept forever 6 and ever, and that's all that they do on a daily basis. 7 Supervision and staff; reviewed a selection of 27 officers' 8 TCLEOSE certification records, reviewed officer 9 documentation, and interviewed staff. Personal hygiene; 10 conducted a facility walk-through, reviewed facility work 11 schedule. Sanitation; conducted a facility walk-through, 12 interviewed staff and inmates. And they actually do go and 13 find inmates to actually talk to them about what the 14 conditions are. And we had some telling them it's the worst 15 jail in the world; another one told them, "I've been in a lot 16 of jails, and this is the best one I've ever seen." I 17 thought that was kind of an interesting comment, but that's 18 what they make. Food service; conducted a walk-through 19 inspection of kitchen area, interviewed staff, discussed 20 issues concerning diabetic diets, and reviewed documentation. 21 And the day before this, or two days before this inspection, 22 we got inspected by the Health Department, and it was a shame 23 we didn't make 100 percent on that inspection. We lost 4 24 points 'cause there was two dented cans in our pantry, and it 25 cost us 4 points in health inspection. 9-24-07 189 1 JUDGE TINLEY: On the jail inspection or on the 2 health inspection? 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Health inspection. Didn't 4 cost us on the jail inspection; cost us on the health 5 inspection, 'cause there were two dented cans. Discipline; 6 interviewed staff and inmates, reviewed policy and reviewed 7 all the inmate rules and the inmate disciplinary procedures. 8 Grievances; reviewed policy, interviewed staff and inmates. 9 Inmates can write grievances, and all those are kept and have 10 to be shown to the Jail Commission. Exercise; did a 11 walk-through of the exercise area, reviewed documentation, 12 interviewed staff and inmates. Educational and library, 13 reviewed policy and schedule and interviewed staff and 14 inmates. Work assignments, reviewed policy and schedule. 15 Telephone, reviewed policy and schedule. And they actually 16 look at our daily schedules. When do they get to do these 17 things? And who got to do it this -- this day? And, like, 18 on recreation, when an inmate goes out to recreation, the 19 jailer taking them out has to actually initial that that 20 inmate went or that that inmate refused. And every inmate 21 has a right to go out there three hours a week, and so it's 22 just a constant deal going on. Correspondence, reviewed 23 policy and schedule and how all the mail is handled. 24 Commissary, reviewed policy and schedule. Visitation, 25 religious practices, and then if we would have had any other 9-24-07 190 1 things that -- variances and that. But another one is our 2 M.H.M.R. stuff. We have to, and we do, notify M.H.M.R. of 3 every inmate that's in that jail and every inmate that's 4 released from that jail, and any inmates that have ever had 5 any kind of inmate M.H.M.R. issues on a daily basis, and then 6 they -- M.H.M.R. has to decide whether they want to offer 7 more treatment, which we have to pay for if they do. But 8 they get that opportunity. And that's every day of the week, 9 seven days a week, the list goes over to M.H.M.R. I just 10 think -- and psychiatric assessments, and you get into more 11 and more pages, okay, of this. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Any hickeys, Sheriff? 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: There was not one. The -- the 14 full check that you see on the front of yours that they 15 checked says, "This facility was inspected on the date 16 indicated below. There were no deficiencies noted." And 17 upon review of this report by the Executive Director, they 18 issued a certificate of compliance. There was not one single 19 misstep or record that they could not find. They did some 20 things this year -- because normally we had -- we've had the 21 same inspector for years. Well, he left two weeks ago, so 22 the day before the inspection, we got notified it would be a 23 brand-new inspector, and a different inspector would be 24 coming with him, because it was also a training session. So, 25 they went through every single thing we had this time, and I 9-24-07 191 1 was very pleased that staff, even with all the changeover 2 we've had all year and everything else, that they did not 3 find one thing. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Rusty, I saw where the 5 newspaper quoted the Executive Director, Adan -- whatever. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Did he come down here? 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So -- 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: They called him. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: They carry around a little 12 sheet with his remarks on it? 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, they -- the newspaper 14 actually called him, because the inspectors are not allowed 15 to say a word. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Media can show up, but they're 18 not allowed to say one word in front of the media. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And so then they go back and 21 call the Executive Director, I guess, and he can say whatever 22 he wanted to. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Said he likes Kerrville. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, he likes Kerrville a 25 lot. 9-24-07 192 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I know. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think there's a lot of us 3 and him that go back a long ways, not for the better. But I 4 do think it was a lot on that jail staff, especially a lot of 5 them being new, a lot of them still in training. And Sylvia, 6 that I think they did a fabulous job. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: He's telling you you're off 8 agenda item. Hush. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, it was reports, so I gave 10 a report. I'm not off the agenda. 11 MR. EMERSON: I'm telling you shut up, sit down, so 12 we can go on with court. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I was trying to be nice, Rusty. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Any other reports? We stand 15 adjourned. 16 (Commissioners Court adjourned at 3:05 p.m.) 17 - - - - - - - - - - 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 9-24-07 193 1 STATE OF TEXAS | 2 COUNTY OF KERR | 3 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 4 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 5 County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 6 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 7 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 1st day of October, 8 2007. 9 10 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 11 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 12 Certified Shorthand Reporter 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 9-24-07