1 2 3 4 5 6 7 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 8 Special Session 9 Friday, April 18, 2008 10 2:00 p.m. 11 Commissioners' Courtroom 12 Kerr County Courthouse 13 Kerrville, Texas 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge 23 H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2 24 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 ABSENT: BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X April 18, 2008 2 PAGE 3 1.1 Open bids for new vehicles for Environmental Health Department and Animal Control Department 4 and take appropriate action to award bid and purchase vehicles 3 5 5.1 Reports from Commissioners/Liaison Committee 6 Assignments 6 7 --- Adjourned 20 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 On Friday, April 18, 2008, at 2:00 p.m., a special 2 meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in 3 the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, 4 Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in 5 open court: 6 P R O C E E D I N G S 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me call to order this special 8 meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court posted and 9 scheduled for this date and time, Friday, April 18, 2008, at 10 2 p.m. It is just a bit past that time now. The item on the 11 agenda today is to open bids for new vehicles for 12 Environmental Health Department, Animal Control Department, 13 and take appropriate action to award bid and purchase 14 vehicles. Do we have the bids? 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The bids, please. 16 MR. GARCIA: I have the bid. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Bid closing was at 11 a.m. 18 this morning; is that correct? 19 MR. GARCIA: Yes, sir. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: And the one you've just handed me is 21 the only bid submitted to your department pursuant to the 22 public notice; is that right? 23 MR. GARCIA: Yes, sir. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, is the animal -- 4-18-08 4 1 (Coughed.) I get so choked up when I talk about it. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: About animals? 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is the Animal Control 4 vehicle in this same bid? The county -- 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, all vehicles are in this same 6 bid. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. All right. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, we have one bid that was 9 submitted. It was received April 7, which, of course, is 10 before the bid submission deadline. It comes from Ken 11 Stoepel Ford. The bid is for four 4-by-2's and one 4-by-4, 12 half-ton pickup trucks. The unit price of the 4-by-2's are 13 17,974. $17,974. Four of them would be a total of $71,896, 14 according to this. I haven't checked the math. The 4-by-4, 15 unit price is $20,830.13. The math checks, according to my 16 calculations. What is the Court's pleasure? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I move we accept the bids, and 18 I guess go with our only bidder. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: To purchase those vehicles. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: I have a motion to accept the bid to 22 purchase the vehicles as per the bid. Do I have a second? 23 (Pause.) Where's Bruce when you need him? 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll second it. I want to 25 ask a question. 4-18-08 5 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: I have a motion and a second -- 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll second it. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: We have two seconds. Question or 5 discussion on the motion? 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: My question is, to what 7 extent was this bid notification circulated? And did we, by 8 any chance, contact Houston-Galveston COG for their pricing? 9 MS. HARGIS: Yes, we did. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Here comes the answer. And 11 the answer is? 12 JUDGE TINLEY: The Auditor said we did contact 13 Houston-Galveston COG. And we advertised three times? 14 MS. HYDE: We advertised the 14 plus one, per the 15 statutes, in the Kerrville Daily Times. Yes, we did, and 16 there's copies. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I have no problem with 18 Stoepel. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't want them to put 21 knives in my tires next time I drive my Ford. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Any other question or discussion? 23 All in favor of the motion, signify by raising your right 24 hand. 25 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 4-18-08 6 1 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 2 (No response.) 3 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. That's the 4 only item on the agenda, gentlemen. I suppose we can get 5 over here and talk about -- we do have on the agenda reports. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Absolutely. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Yes. Yes, we do have on there -- 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And Rex is not here anyway. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So we can really -- 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We can really get into it. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Go all over the lot, right. 12 Here we go. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Any member of the Court have any 14 report to render to the Court in connection with their 15 liaison or committee assignments? 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll go ahead and give an 17 update of our -- Commissioner Williams and myself's meeting 18 with the City yesterday. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We're both alive. Take 20 note, we came out alive. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We came out alive, despite my 22 coughing throughout the meeting. The -- I guess the bottom 23 line was -- and there was -- all five City -- or four City 24 Councilpersons and the mayor were present, and they all 25 concurred with us, even though I don't think they could take 4-18-08 7 1 a vote, 'cause they don't have -- it wasn't an action item. 2 That the library -- well, first, Animal Control; the County 3 will take that over county-wide and pay for it county-wide. 4 The City will look at their ordinance, and anything that 5 needs to be modified there will be taken out, so we will only 6 be enforcing county rules. And there was some concern about 7 dogs barking and some of this, and they have things that -- 8 like barking dogs are in their -- that ordinance, and they 9 need to make sure they leave that in there, because the 10 police can stop barking dogs and things like that, which is 11 fine. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Do the police stop barking 13 dogs? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They have the authority to, 15 according to their ordinance. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Do -- do we stop barking 17 dogs? 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. We're going to do -- we're 19 going to -- our Animal Control is going to be the same 20 county-wide, same service. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Statute doesn't say anything 22 about barking dogs. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, I don't know anything about 24 barking dogs. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, we don't do things like 4-18-08 8 1 that. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We don't do barking dogs. The 3 library, which was -- 4 MS. HYDE: Will that mean that the county laws will 5 be the ones that we go by? 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mm-hmm. 7 MS. HYDE: So the cat thing will be the same now? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Everything's the same. 9 Everything will be the county rules. The airport, which is a 10 -- they have agreed that we will set up an independent board. 11 Commissioner Williams and myself, Councilman Gross and 12 Councilman Hamilton will be negotiating the new governance 13 agreement, but the basis of that agreement is it will be an 14 independent board, with the Airport Manager reporting to the 15 Airport Board. Funding will be 50/50 between the City and 16 the County. So, it's basically what we have been advocating 17 for several years. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Long time. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Or longer. On the library, our 20 proposal that they accepted was -- and this is still subject 21 to the Court looking at this -- that we will fund $400,000 in 22 the 2008-2009 budget. Currently we're at 444,000. And after 23 that, we will either continue to reduce our expenditure to 24 the library down to the area -- somewhere between 120,000 to 25 200,000, or to zero, or the library will be set up as an 4-18-08 9 1 independent board that will be run by a -- someone that 2 reports to the board; basically, be the same as the airport, 3 and we will have equal say in operations of the library, at 4 which point we will continue to be a 50/50 partner. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think it's fair to point 6 out -- 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And ownership of the all the 8 property will be transferred 50/50. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think it's fair to point 10 out that Councilman Gross offered to give us 50 percent of 11 the library just to keep us in the stable. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And his reasoning is -- he is 13 probably the lead person, I think everyone knows, in really 14 taking the library to the next step, and he's had -- he's 15 concerned that it could cause some problems in their grant 16 applications and dealings with various foundations and 17 talking if we pull out right now. And whether that's true or 18 not, you know, fine, but they are looking at it a lot. A lot 19 of things on the table. And I did bring up that, while 20 they're talking to these foundations about funding a new 21 building, maybe they should talk to some of those foundations 22 about funding future operations, and they had not thought of 23 that, but said they would. EMS, there was no change. Fire, 24 I think it was a $5,000 increase. The -- EMS is the same 25 formula, so it goes to 180,000, I think, with the fire 4-18-08 10 1 instead of 175. And they wanted -- and they wanted -- it 2 doesn't have to be that -- they would like an escalator in 3 there in the area of -- 5,000 was a maximum discussed; could 4 be as low as 3,000 a year. 5 And then on streets, continue what we're doing 6 right now, as in talking, and we will be probably, as a pilot 7 program, doing some sealcoating for them in the next budget 8 year. And the -- their material costs is going to be in the 9 area of $60,000, but that's not -- they pay whatever it 10 costs. It was set up -- or discussed as that it's a -- you 11 know, we'll do the labor, kind of look at it, but they were 12 paying for it. They're paying us, as opposed to paying a 13 contractor. And it would be subject to putting it into our 14 schedule, because there's no anticipation of us changing the 15 structure of Road and Bridge personnel-wise right now, but 16 that could come down the road, depending on where that leads. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge Tinley asked a 18 question when we were chatting outside with respect to 19 Councilman Hamilton's central initiative regarding double 20 taxation, and that was the driver on his plate. And it 21 seemed to be my -- it was my observation that of all the 22 discussions that had taken place with respect to his 23 perception of inequity in the taxations thing, it didn't end 24 up that way. And I think he finally could see that his 25 colleagues were not jumping on that train to the extent that 4-18-08 11 1 he might have liked. And so -- so, there's no double or 2 triple increase in our cost to equate to his -- his 3 equalization formula that he's been pushing. So, for our 4 purposes, that's a plus. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And that discussion really 6 centered around the -- well, the airport, but also EMS. It 7 went round and round about EMS and whether the County should 8 pay 100 percent of EMS. And I brought out that there's a 9 different level of service and, you know, it's not proper for 10 us to pay the same amount, because they are different levels 11 of service, unless they plan on putting substations out in 12 the county. They said they don't want to do that. We went 13 round and round for what seemed like an hour, but probably 14 was only ten minutes, and finally we agreed to leave it where 15 it is. 16 MS. HARGIS: Was the new Fire Chief there? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Did you say that the maximum 19 increase per year would be 5 percent on the fire contract? 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 3,000 to 5,000. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Dollars. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 3,000 to 5,000. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Dollars. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Dollars. And then, did you 25 talk long-term? Or are we just talking about next year? 4-18-08 12 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just talking about -- we're 2 not talking long-term. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're talking about midterm, 4 probably, five to -- 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, like, let's say, 6 okay -- I mean, it would be nice to say somewhere between 7 3,000 and 5,000 for the next five years. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. Something like that, 9 yeah. I think that was the intent there. I think they have 10 come off of -- 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Where's the attorney when we 12 need him? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They, as everyone will recall, 14 last year tried to increase it to 260,000, I think, and felt 15 it was going to have another increase this year. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And the Council does not -- I 18 mean, they think that where it is right now is -- is fine. 19 And, in fact, there's some sentiment on the Council that we 20 shouldn't have to pay that, because they just need to do it. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I seem to remember in the 22 discussion last year, Commissioner, that it was the City 23 Managers's position that what would have been fair from his 24 point of view was us to pick up the cost of one crew. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, something like that. 4-18-08 13 1 But -- 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Or one station. Do you 3 remember it that way? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But that whole -- 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's gone bye-bye. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All that's gone. It's just -- 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Cost of doing business. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's 175,000 with the 9 escalator. And that escalator will probably -- anything else 10 that we do fund, if we were to fund -- agree to fund the 11 library, long -- or, you know, 100,000 two years from now, 12 then that -- 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just -- I just -- I'm 14 certainly not going to argue about it, but I hope that we 15 would have discussions about increasing the fire contract 16 every year. I mean, I -- you know, all those things that 17 y'all fuss about all the time, that is one area that I could 18 see that, personally, I don't know that we're getting the 19 bang for our buck. I just don't quite see that, 'cause 20 it's -- the thing goes up, and the thing is, how many times 21 do they go there? How many times do we use that service? 22 And if you -- if they got real honest about it and looked at 23 all six times that they go, that's a pretty god-dang 24 expensive service out there. Plus -- but if we're going to 25 do it, I like this -- the small increments. But I don't know 4-18-08 14 1 about committing future commissioners courts. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We didn't make any 3 budgetary commitments. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I know you didn't yet, but 5 I'm not sure that we can. But -- 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think you can, subject to 7 budget approval. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Subject to appropriations. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Subject to appropriations, 10 you can do it that way. Future court appropriations. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If you do it, I like the 12 small increment way to do it. We've talked about that for -- 13 Holloway and I talked about that for years, and just never 14 brought it around putting it on the table. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think the fire -- your 16 argument for the fire, I think, would go for inside the city 17 as well. They're spending now $3 million a year, $2 and a 18 half million, whatever it is on fire protection, and they 19 have 10, 15, 20, fires a year? I mean, you know. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But the truck goes with the 21 ambulance. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm, it does. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Might get there ahead of it. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. I know we smirk at 25 that, but that -- I tell you, that's a strange thing to do. 4-18-08 15 1 And I guess they all do it. I don't have any idea. But -- 2 and then you ask them, "Why would a truck go out with an 3 ambulance?" Well, in case they need help carrying somebody 4 that's fat or something -- or heavy. You know, I just -- 5 these things don't add up to me. But -- 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Anyway, that's kind of where we 7 are. But I think they heard our positions pretty loud and 8 clear. Pretty much the -- we now are aware of the same 9 stuff. 10 MS. HARGIS: So, it ended up costing us. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, yeah, of course. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What, Jeannie? 14 MS. HARGIS: So we ended up -- 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It cost us probably -- it 16 netted us -- the first year, it cost us about $80,000 more. 17 MS. HARGIS: We've got to pay the animal, and we 18 need about -- I think we get 130 from them on the animal -- 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 120. 20 MS. HARGIS: 120? 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 120, and then we -- we knock 44 22 off of the library, so it's about 80. And -- and they're -- 23 you know, the Court could say we'll only do 375. 24 MS. HARGIS: Well, did that include -- well, I 25 guess we'll get down to it when we do it, but we need to talk 4-18-08 16 1 about -- 'cause they pick up their dead animals. I don't 2 know if we're going to be responsible for that. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The streets department picks up 4 their dead animals. 5 MS. HARGIS: No, the wastewater -- I mean their 6 waste management guys pick up the dead animals. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Somebody has to do it, 8 'cause we're not doing it. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Our -- that was the issue the 10 last time, that they wanted us to do it. We said no. 11 MS. HARGIS: Okay. Just be sure that it's only 12 live animals that we agree to do this under. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. There'll have to be an 14 agreement on this. It's the same service we provide in the 15 county. 16 MS. HARGIS: We pick up our own dead animals, 17 though. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Road and Bridge picks them up if 19 they're on county roads. 20 MS. HARGIS: Okay. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The Animal Control people don't 22 pick up dead animals, generally. I mean, there may be an 23 occasion. 24 MS. HARGIS: Yeah. I know in my part of the world, 25 you don't pick them up. 4-18-08 17 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: A little fluffy cat somewhere. 2 MS. HARGIS: I don't have fluffy cats; I have 3 fluffy deer everywhere. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Fluffy cat ain't fluffy very 5 long, but... 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Any other reports? 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That was our afternoon. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We had a good meeting in 9 Austin, went to the aviation conference. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Interesting. I think there's 12 a -- I think we have a -- I have a lots of optimism about our 13 airport. I think there's a lot of things that can be done on 14 the marketing side that now can be done and addressed. I 15 think our -- the next big question is going to be who should 16 be on that board. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That was a point that was 18 made yesterday with the City Council, that it's appropriate 19 to look at the current board members to see whether or not 20 they are the ones for the future. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Insofar as future board members, was 22 it possibly suggested that the nomination selection process 23 be patterned maybe after the KPUB concept? 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We didn't get into that 25 yesterday, but we'll get into it when we sit down at the 4-18-08 18 1 table on the governance agreement; we'll define the process. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's important that 4 it's not a city appointee and county appointee, and as long 5 as we get away from having "theirs" and "ours," I'll be 6 happy. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: That's the reason I mention it, 8 because the KPUB process, according to my understanding, is 9 that if there's a vacancy on -- or about to be on the KPUB 10 board, that board itself proposes a nominee or nominees for 11 whatever the vacancies are. In that case, the City Council 12 has the authority to say no. But if -- 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does the City authorize it, 14 though? 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Huh? 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does the City authorize it? 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, they -- 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Approve it? 19 JUDGE TINLEY: They can approve the nominee that 20 comes from the board, or they can disapprove. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Or they can sit on it and 22 make them go back. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Or if they -- if they disapprove, 24 you go back and they propose another nominee. And then, of 25 course, the Council gets to approve or disapprove that 4-18-08 19 1 nominee. But if they disapprove two, then the next one that 2 the board proposes is -- is it. They don't have veto 3 authority other it. It happens. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We'll take a look at that 5 process, Judge. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: 'Cause I think that that takes the 7 -- takes some of the politics out of it. That, I think, 8 would be good. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think the -- you know, my 10 view is -- I mean, I have nothing against any of our three 11 members that are out there, but it's going to be a very 12 different board. It's going to have a lot more meetings. 13 It's going to have a lot more responsibilities and things, 14 and it's got to be a lot more hands-on for the first couple 15 of years, 'cause they're going to -- you know, they're going 16 to have to work with that Airport Manager. And I just -- you 17 know, all three of our current board members take rather long 18 holidays during the year; I mean, as in a month at a time 19 off. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: As the chairman is right 21 now for a 3-week vacation to Europe. Which, God love him, 22 but if there's any airport business that needs to be dealt 23 with, they're down to two people dealing with it. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. Okay. Anything else? The 25 Auditor has laid something before us that's a report from a 4-18-08 20 1 department head, I assume? 2 MS. HARGIS: No, it's just homework. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Homework? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's bidding -- looks like 5 bidding process -- purchasing. It's purchasing processes. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This is for our 7 edification, or because you sense a problem? 8 MS. HARGIS: It's for your edification. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else? We'll be adjourned. 11 (Commissioners Court adjourned at 2:23 p.m.) 12 - - - - - - - - - - 13 14 STATE OF TEXAS | 15 COUNTY OF KERR | 16 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 17 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 18 County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 19 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 20 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 18th day of April, 2008. 21 22 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 23 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 24 Certified Shorthand Reporter 25 4-18-08