1 2 3 4 5 6 7 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 8 Workshop 9 Monday, May 12, 2008 10 1:50 p.m. 11 Commissioners' Courtroom 12 Kerr County Courthouse 13 Kerrville, Texas 14 15 16 17 18 Transportation Priorities Planning Workshop 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 On Monday, May 12, 2008, at 1:50 p.m., a workshop of 2 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: I will now call to order 7 Commissioners Court workshop agenda scheduled for this date 8 and time, Monday, May 12th, 2008, at 1:30 p.m. It's a few 9 minutes past that time now. Mr. Coward? Where'd Mike go? 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We lost him. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Did that get your people enough time 12 to get here, Mike? 13 MR. COWARD: We're all here. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Great. 15 MR. COWARD: Just like we planned it. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Super. Okay. Where do we start, 17 gentlemen? Are you the lead, Mike? 18 MR. COWARD: I'm -- well, I couldn't really call 19 myself a leader, but I'll be glad to get it started. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Come ahead. 21 MR. COWARD: I'm tallest, so we'll take it from 22 there. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: You're the easiest to see. Biggest 24 target, I think is what we look at. 25 MR. COWARD: Slowest runner, that's why. For the 5-12-08 wk 3 1 record, I'm Mike Coward; I work for TexDOT here in Kerr 2 County. I'm really here kind of at the request of 3 Commissioner Williams. Commissioner Williams has always been 4 interested in transportation across the county. He comes by 5 probably about -- what? Every four or five months we get 6 together and talk about some idea or another. And I'm -- one 7 thing we had been recently talking about was a project that 8 can maybe connect up 173 and State Highway 27, how you might 9 get that done. And from those discussions, we started 10 talking about, as you look around Kerrville, a lot of the -- 11 the projects that people always talked about that we needed 12 to get done. One was to build a new bridge over the 13 Guadalupe River on Spur 98, so, check. The other one was we 14 needed to get Holdsworth Drive done, so now it's -- check. 15 We got the project underway which connects Holdsworth Drive 16 up with Tivy Street, and really, that kind of connects it up 17 with the loop, so that one's started, and check. And then 18 Sidney Baker; I don't know if anybody asked for it, but you 19 got it, and it's a -- it's coming down to the finish line 20 too, so we're just doing some of the fun stuff at the end. 21 So -- but what we realized is that if you look 22 beyond this little window here, you know, gosh, what are we 23 going to be doing, you know, five years from now or 10 years 24 from now or 20 years from now? 'Cause I think most of y'all 25 could probably remember when we first started talking about 5-12-08 wk 4 1 Spur 98, and unfortunately, I think that was about 20 years 2 ago. So, you know, under the best of circumstances, you can 3 take projects from a good idea to people driving on pavement 4 probably really takes 8, 10, 12 years under good 5 circumstances. Under kind of the more typical circumstances, 6 it really ends up taking longer than that, and so we kind of 7 got a gap coming up on any big projects. 8 I think one thing we'd like to talk about a little 9 bit -- and I am not prepared to talk for two hours, so I'm 10 almost running out of material here in just a minute. But 11 one thing I thought, while we had y'all's attention, is maybe 12 Clay could talk a little bit about funding. I mean, I think 13 that the -- we're really starting to see the funding change. 14 You know, to put it bluntly, I mean, you know, if you read 15 the paper, the -- the state deals, your state DOT is having 16 some real funding challenges right now. I don't want to 17 steal Clay's thunder, but, I mean, gas tax is flat; been the 18 same since 1991. We got 1,000 to 1,500 people moving into 19 Texas every day. I think that the days are probably just 20 about gone where your Texas Department of Transportation is 21 going to be able to fund local roads in their entirety. I 22 mean, we can talk a little bit about that. I prepared, under 23 this format -- I'm not sure what the best format would be, 24 but we did prepare some information for y'all to look at. 25 About four years ago, Judge Tinley and Commissioner Williams 5-12-08 wk 5 1 at that time worked with the then District Engineer, David 2 Casteel, on a group that I think was called the South Central 3 Texas County Judges group, something like that. And -- 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Close enough. 5 MR. COWARD: Something like that. And from that, 6 what we did is we got all the rural judges from the -- 7 there's 11 counties in San Antonio; 10 were considered to be 8 rural. Now, that includes Comal County, which you can 9 probably argue about how rural Comal is, but it also includes 10 McMullen County, and you can't argue much about how rural 11 McMullen County is. But we got all them together, and we had 12 them look at kind of our pot of money that we had, and we 13 basically -- Mr. Casteel said, "Here's how much money we have 14 over the next four or five years. Help us plan how to best 15 spend it." And that's what we did. And out of that effort, 16 I think really the projects -- only projects they were able 17 to fund and move forward were some projects like some 18 pass-throughs and some stuff out on 46, and so there's just 19 not that much money. But out of that effort, we identified 20 three potential projects in Kerr County. 21 Let's see. Number one priority at that time was to 22 extend Spur 98 over to G Street. And, you know, I think 23 there were some flow issues on that, but that was kind of 24 brought out to be the number one project. Number two would 25 be to extend -- expand Spur 98 over to Bear Creek Road, and 5-12-08 wk 6 1 then number three would be to go from Bear Creek Road over to 2 Indian Creek Road. So, these were kind of brought forward. 3 Those were the number one, two, and three priorities in Kerr 4 County about three or four years ago. All that ever really 5 happened with those projects is that they were -- I mean, 6 they were duly noted, but they were not funded, and we have 7 not done anything, to be very brutally honest. I mean, we 8 have done very little with them, because there is no money 9 allocated to build those projects. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mike, before you -- are you 11 going to go into -- I don't know how long ago; it was several 12 years ago, there was a report that came out with TexDOT that 13 talked about other highway upgrades, district highway 14 upgrades, and part of that, I know, was on Highway 27 going 15 to four lanes from Center Point to Kerrville. And that was 16 at a future date, maybe 20 years down the road. It was 17 long-term. Is there any change on that? Because, you know, 18 27 is becoming -- more and more accidents, and more and more 19 traffic. 20 MR. COWARD: I think that's something -- I mean, I 21 think one thing we have to -- at least I have to be careful 22 of, too, is that there's all kinds of plans. I mean, you 23 know, if you go into my office, there's a map and there's a 24 blackboard, and there's plans on that at any given time. I 25 don't have a lot of money to implement those, but certainly, 5-12-08 wk 7 1 you know, you can look at 27, you can see that we've gone to 2 five lanes out to Third Creek. I mean, we're very well aware 3 of some of the crashes in the vicinity of the airport. But 4 by most -- by the most objective means you would use to rate 5 the number of crashes and the congestion, it's pretty small 6 when you start getting compared to the New Braunfels of the 7 world or, you know, some of those. 8 But, you know, as far as I know -- I mean, you 9 know, we do a couple things. One is, we have a three-year 10 plan that's basically we know how we're going to pay for, and 11 it's not on that plan. We have a 10-year plan -- right? -- a 12 10-year plan which we're not sure how we're going to pay for, 13 but we think it's somewhere within the total amount of money 14 we're going to have, and it's not on that plan. And then 15 there's the 20-year that Mike Coward keeps, you know, and 16 it's on that plan. Which would be -- it's to expand it out, 17 but -- so I guess the answer is, nothing's changed, but it's 18 never really been on a true, funded plan. I mean, it's been 19 identified by multiple people, just one of the higher 20 priorities for Kerr County, but by any -- almost any 21 objective means that you would give to rate that project, it 22 would rate pretty low, given the group of counties that we're 23 in. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mike, would the fact that 25 the Airport Board has effectively put dead the issue of 5-12-08 wk 8 1 moving that highway during that stretch, would that have any 2 bearing on -- on the improvements that you were just talking 3 about? 4 MR. COWARD: I don't know. I don't think it 5 impacts it one way or the other. I think that if, indeed -- 6 we were going to have to steal money from somebody else or 7 some other project in Kerr County to fund those improvements 8 at the airport, if they were ever done. Anyway, there is no 9 additional money, so we would have to look out and maybe 10 defer doing other projects in Kerr County we'd planned to do 11 if we decided we needed to fund that work in front of the 12 airport as number one. So, I don't think it changes anything 13 at all. It just allows you to continue forward like we 14 planned on doing. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What's the status of the 16 widening 39 from the light out to the dam? You knew I was 17 going to ask you that, didn't you? 18 MR. COWARD: Yeah. That's good. We're actively 19 working on plans. Those plans are being done by the San 20 Angelo district. We don't have -- I can give you a letting 21 date, but I wouldn't put a lot of faith in it right now. I 22 know that it's not going to be until 2010 or later, 'cause I 23 know -- I know what I'm going to do the rest of this year. I 24 think I know what I'm going to do in 2009 -- our fiscal year 25 2009. So, the earliest it would be was 2010. That one's got 5-12-08 wk 9 1 a little kicker, 'cause it's got some work at Cade Loop we'd 2 also like to get done in there. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's part of it. 4 MR. COWARD: Clay is aware of that, and Julie's 5 aware of that. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So, Clay's under the noose 7 again. 8 MR. SMITH: Always. Some things never change. 9 MR. COWARD: I guess, you know, I'll just do my 10 little -- you know, I will have the plans ready. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So, actually, that is going 12 to be delayed until past 2011? 13 MR. COWARD: At this moment, it sure looks like 14 that. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What about the traffic light 16 at -- at Goat Creek Cutoff and 27? 17 MR. COWARD: That one's going to go. We've got the 18 -- we've got -- that is let. It's funded. We were reviewing 19 construction diagrams for it the other day. We expect that, 20 you know, it will be construction-type delays. I mean, it 21 won't be any -- it's a real project that's got real dollars, 22 with a real contractor that is going to come here and do real 23 work. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay. Clay, you don't have 25 to get on the horse yet. 5-12-08 wk 10 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mike, going back to the Highway 2 39, the other bridges in the eastern part of the county are 3 tied to that same project, I take it? 4 MR. COWARD: Not -- just kind of ancillary. I 5 mean, the Cade Loop is kind of an interesting deal. But, I 6 mean, we've got a deal worked out with Kerr County to -- that 7 was part of your match for these other ones. They can be let 8 at any given time. What's happened -- and I'm going to steal 9 more of Clay's thunder. I try not to do that, but what has 10 happened is part of this budget crunch -- and I don't want -- 11 didn't want to stand up here, and nobody wants to hear about 12 how broke we are. I mean, we got a budget of $4 billion a 13 year, so it's really hard to stand in front of Kerr County 14 and tell y'all how broke we are. But, you know, we're broke 15 enough that we -- we're mowing our own grass. We're cleaning 16 our own toilets. I mean, we have fired almost every surveyor 17 that we used to contract a lot of this work out. I say -- 18 "fired" is not a good word. We have let go almost every 19 contracted surveyor that we had on contract. We have let go 20 almost every consultant engineer that we had under contract 21 because we can't pay the bills and still move forward. And, 22 so, we're -- to fill this void, we're doing this work 23 in-house. 24 One thing that using consultant surveyors and 25 consultant engineers allowed us to do was to move quickly. 5-12-08 wk 11 1 But we're still moving; we're just not moving at the same 2 pace. I mean, so we're -- we're still -- I guess, you know, 3 I would say instead of rushing forward, now we are stumbling 4 forward. We will -- we still think sometime in 2009 -- I 5 think we said late 2009, that we'll be ready with those 6 bridges. I know they were out surveying on Cypress Creek 7 Road the other day, 'cause I got a call from Milton Dietert, 8 who lives next to it. I know we're out doing something out 9 there. And so I think, you know, we are -- we are moving 10 forward. We're just not -- I got kind of used to moving 11 forward at a break-neck speed, but we're not going to move 12 quite as fast right now, 'cause -- 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're moving forward also 14 on the Government Crossing; is that correct? 15 MR. COWARD: Yeah, I've got a set of plans just 16 about done for Government Crossing. Don't have any money for 17 it, but I've got the plans done. We had Childress district 18 do the plans for us. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't know what 20 impression the Commissioners have, but when Mike and I first 21 talked -- we've been talking for some time about another 22 river crossing, and those discussions led us to working out 23 the details for having the transportation priority planning 24 workshop this afternoon, and I want to express my 25 appreciation to you for that. To the extent that you may -- 5-12-08 wk 12 1 you and I may be prepared to talk about it, is now the time 2 to talk about what we were suggesting as a possibility for a 3 river crossing? Notwithstanding the fact that I know the 4 City has proposed in its comprehensive plan another river 5 crossing somewhere in the vicinity of Guadalupe Heights; I'm 6 not exactly sure where. But my thought to you, and what we 7 have talked about was a crossing that would take us from 8 Highway 173, probably somewhere in the area of where -- was 9 it 2771? Is that Lower Turtle Creek Road, 2771? 10 MR. COWARD: Yes, sir. I'm sorry, yeah. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That comes from that 12 direction across the river, and somewhere in the general 13 vicinity of Brinks Crossing, and then ties into Airport Loop 14 Road at Highway 27. 15 MR. COWARD: Yes. And, you know, I think that -- 16 well, this is y'all's meeting, and we will handle it however 17 y'all would like it handled. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It's on the table. 19 MR. COWARD: Now, I -- we had visited before this, 20 you know, and I think, again, Clay, if you can maybe talk 21 about the pass-through, or Julie, whoever is going to talk, 22 will talk about how, you know, those type projects could move 23 forward if the County wants to move forward, or the City. I 24 think one thing I'd like to also mention, though, is one 25 thing I think that is -- I think this should be the first of 5-12-08 wk 13 1 a series of meetings that we talk about transportation 2 priorities. Certainly, in two hours today, it's not in our 3 expectation that we're going to walk out with a 4 comprehensive, fully -- you know, we have taken everything, 5 and there's probably a lot of stakeholders involved in a 6 process like this. I think -- we know we have some; Paul 7 Hofmann and Charlie are here, and the mayor's here, and they 8 certainly have a -- you know, some things, you know, that 9 also we'd like to talk about. But I think, you know, as 10 to -- I think that when funds are very, very tight, it's 11 going to probably be more important than ever that we have a 12 very unified voice in Kerr County. 13 I can recall in years past -- and, oh, I bet you 14 Bruce can, maybe, when we had these TIP meetings, we would 15 walk in, and the worst years, every commissioner would have a 16 list of prioritized projects for their precinct, and then the 17 City would come in with their list of prioritized projects, 18 and there would not be any real sync. And I think that, you 19 know, the goal, in my opinion, should be, you know, one 20 county, you know, one plan. Because it all -- it all fits 21 together, and I think that will help us compete for those 22 increasingly scarce dollars. And through having a series of 23 meetings, this one just kind of being the kickoff, but we can 24 identify projects, Commissioners -- we got Mike and Claire 25 both taking notes. You know, we'll do -- and maybe it would 5-12-08 wk 14 1 just be part of the gathering of input, of maybe a map we can 2 kind of keep updated towards maybe coming toward some sort of 3 comprehensive plan that fits in with all the work that the 4 City does, 'cause the City's done quite a bit of work inside 5 the city limits, I know, also. So, I think I've already 6 talked about 10 minutes, 15 minutes more than I intended to. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Mike, before you -- 8 MR. COWARD: But I'll be -- 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Before you turn it over to someone, 10 I want to thank you for all that you've done for Kerr County. 11 You look around, and we're pretty doggone fortunate. It 12 occurs to me that through your leadership and your efforts, 13 that we may have gotten, at least these last several years, 14 more than our fair share. You look at the new bridge, look 15 at Sidney Baker, you look at Holdsworth participation, and 16 then 1341 coming in there. You've got a tremendous amount of 17 activity that's been going on here with state dollars, and we 18 appreciate it. We appreciate what you're doing. 19 MR. COWARD: I'll accept the compliment. I know I 20 don't deserve them myself; there are a lot of folks involved. 21 But, I mean, it just -- I think it comes down to having a 22 plan and being ready to execute it when the time is right. 23 We appreciate the compliment. And -- 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I -- 25 MR. COWARD: -- I'll take it back home. 5-12-08 wk 15 1 JUDGE TINLEY: I've heard a lot of comments from my 2 counterparts out in other areas, in other counties, and 3 frankly, most of them are petty doggone jealous, because they 4 said, "How did you get all that TexDOT money and all those 5 projects going on in your county?" And, "Boy, we're just 6 getting a little dribble every now and then." So, believe 7 me, folks outside this county have noticed it too. 8 MR. COWARD: We appreciate the compliment, and like 9 I said, I'm one very, very small piece. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mike, what you do is, when 11 it's a compliment, you accept that, but when there's a 12 problem, then you point to these people. (Laughter.) 13 JUDGE TINLEY: And the corollary of that, Mike, is, 14 you know, having done what you've done for the last several 15 years, you got a big-time act to follow here. 16 MR. COWARD: Yeah. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: For the next 10, 12 years. 18 MR. COWARD: So, I'll -- 19 JUDGE TINLEY: And we're counting on you. I want 20 you to know that. 21 MR. COWARD: The bar has been set way too high, I 22 can tell you that. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And, Mike, I attempted in 24 court this morning to talk about -- talk about Lemos Street 25 Bridge, and I'm working off of a letter from you all -- or 5-12-08 wk 16 1 from CEC Engineering folks. 2 MR. COWARD: Okay. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That said that construction 4 would begin in late August or September of 2008, and it would 5 possibly be closed for 12 months. 6 MR. COWARD: Actually, that's still pretty good 7 information. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 9 MR. COWARD: Commissioner, we're taking bids on 10 that project in August of this year. We may -- depends on 11 the -- a couple things; how quickly -- when we shut it down, 12 we want to be ready to go to work. So, I mean, whether we 13 shut it down in September or October, we'll have to wait and 14 see how quick we can get all the materials we need, but we're 15 thinking it's about a year or so project, maybe a little bit 16 less. But that's pretty good information. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, we want to help you 18 start getting people's minds ready, I guess. 19 MR. COWARD: And we will -- Guy Overby, who's here, 20 has volunteered to help. We're going to start having some 21 meetings here, kind of like we did with Sidney Baker; we told 22 people for a year how horrible it was going to be. And they 23 still tell us that we underestimated how -- but then we met 24 with them every year, or every -- so we had almost four years 25 worth of meetings, I think. 5-12-08 wk 17 1 MR. OVERBY: 2004 on. 2 MR. COWARD: And we're going to do the same thing 3 on Lemos Street. But, I mean, I think Lemos Street is -- 4 it'll be -- in some ways, it'll be better; some ways, it's 5 going to be a lot worse, 'cause we all know what Sidney Baker 6 looks like when Lemos Street's closed, and it's going to look 7 that way for a year. So, we did have Spur 98, and I think we 8 do have some signals on 16 that are starting to turn green in 9 front of you. I don't know if y'all have noticed that, but 10 I'm starting to see where -- we still got a little bit of 11 work to do, but the signals on 16 are starting to work the 12 way they're supposed to work with the new system. We got 13 some other things we can do, but it'll -- it'll be ugly for a 14 while. But it will -- when it's over with, it's going to be 15 worth it. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: At least you can shut it down 17 and work on it without having interference from traffic. 18 MR. COWARD: It will be scheduled instead of just 19 emergency. So, I'm going to, I guess, turn it over to -- do 20 y'all know everybody in this room? I've been here enough. 21 This is Clay Smith. Clay is the Director of Planning and 22 Transportation Development for the San Antonio district. And 23 over on -- sitting next to him is Mike Boyd, who works for us 24 in Kerrville, and then next to him is Julie Brown. Julie 25 Brown is the Interim District Engineer for the San Antonio 5-12-08 wk 18 1 district. So, I just want to make sure that y'all have all 2 met. Clay? 3 MR. SMITH: Good afternoon, and it's good to be 4 back in Kerrville again. We raced out of San Antonio, got 5 here as quick as we could. And Julie probably wanted to jump 6 in too. We've been involved with a lot of meetings over the 7 last couple months, and listening to our Highway Commission 8 go through some more cash flow issues, and if I could just 9 take a few moments and kind of give you a little history and 10 background of kind of where we are today, because I think it 11 sets forth kind of what we can be looking forward to. Julie 12 and I serve on the Metropolitan Planning Organization in San 13 Antonio, a 19-member body, and we made a presentation a 14 little over a week ago to the body there to let them know 15 kind of what to be expecting and kind of where we are in 16 terms of funding. But over the last ten years, the highway 17 cost index has gone up 100 percent. So, 10 years ago, 1998, 18 what used to cost a dollar today costs $2, so when we begin 19 to look at planning, it has a huge effect on us. You know, 20 so projects that we thought we would be able to implement now 21 are having to be pushed further out. 22 In fact, in San Antonio, just this -- in the last 23 year, we've had to move out of our 10-year plan about 24 $419 million worth of projects there. And no one likes it, 25 but that's just -- that's just what we've had to do, because 5-12-08 wk 19 1 of some of these factors, getting ready to go over, and then 2 the highway cost index. The other is the fuel efficiency of 3 the vehicles, and people look at us with this frown on their 4 face, "Well, how does that affect you?" Well, the -- our 5 primary source of revenue comes through the highway -- 6 through the motor fuel tax at the pump. And it's been fixed 7 since 1990, and it hasn't changed, even though each of us, as 8 we keep filling up with gasoline -- as we were coming out, I 9 saw $3.60 at the gas pump. It's still the same fixed price 10 it was in terms of the gas tax as it was in 1990. On the 11 state side, that's 20 cents. On the federal side, that's 12 18.4 cents. On the state side, of that 20 cents, one-fourth 13 of it is dedicated to the public school system, and that's 14 what voters voted on about 40 years ago, I believe. I was 15 too young to remember that vote, but they did, and it goes to 16 the public school system. 17 And then we do have some other areas that the 18 Legislature has moved some of the gas tax to cover some other 19 important things, and one of them's the Department of Public 20 Safety. We need to have the enforcement on the roadways, and 21 so they moved some of the dollars there of that remaining 15 22 cents. On the federal side, 18.4. We're considered a donor 23 state, and so for every dollar that the State of Texas sends 24 to Washington, we get back about 70 cents or so on the 25 dollar. Other states that get back a little bit more, such 5-12-08 wk 20 1 as Montana, or some of them they have an interstate system. 2 They still want to be able to move people across Montana and 3 some of the other states, and so they -- they do get a little 4 bit more. So, we don't get back everything of that full 38.4 5 cents. But on the fuel efficiency side, the more efficient 6 vehicles get, the less they have to stop and -- and fuel, and 7 what we're seeing over the next -- today the efficiency 8 continues to increase, and then over the next 20 years, 9 they're expecting it to probably double. 10 Today, they figure about 20 cents -- about 20 miles 11 per gallon on the average. And I saw an article recently in 12 California; I think the governor there is saying they need to 13 be up around 40, 45 miles per gallon here in the next ten 14 years or so, and I think we're going to be seeing the same 15 thing here. People are driving hybrids and other cars to get 16 better fuel efficiency. So, what we're seeing is, even 17 though on the state side they're saying about 1,500 new 18 Texans coming to Texas every day, whether they're born or 19 whether they're coming here because of the economy and 20 because it is pretty, even with that increase, we're still 21 seeing a decrease -- a net decrease in the fuel coming in in 22 the gas tax area. So, coupled with higher costs and less 23 revenue, we're chasing a curve that we're just having 24 difficulty catching up to, and know we're not going to. 25 The other is, on the federal side, we've had 5-12-08 wk 21 1 rescissions over the last couple years to the state of Texas 2 of almost a billion dollars. The highway trust fund, which 3 they were spending down in order to get that money out to the 4 states, they've actually begun to see that they were going to 5 go into deficit spending there, and so they began to rescind 6 dollars, and right now we're about a billion dollars in 7 rescissions just to Texas alone. And in talking to some of 8 the transportation officials in Washington, we're thinking 9 we're going to see about another billion over the next couple 10 years before it's over. And, again, that gets into your 11 planning, just like we're talking to Mike here about what we 12 can plan for the future. That kind of -- it affects our 13 future in terms of what we can begin to reasonably plan for. 14 So, our -- our commission set out with David 15 Casteel, who was with us for about four years here in San 16 Antonio, and -- and because of the smart person he is -- and 17 he's now in Austin, and he's taken on some of the reins here 18 of looking at our budget, looking at all the districts, the 19 25 districts out there. And he and John Barton, who is the 20 District Engineer in Beaumont, who's now David's counterpart 21 there, put together a funding plan looking at over the next 22 11 years, from 2009 to 19, what can we expect? And what they 23 did was go in and say, "We're not going to incur any debt." 24 So, any bonds that we have out there right now, we're going 25 to pay them off; we're going to go with a baseline budget. 5-12-08 wk 22 1 Let's not go in with a lot of assumptions, a lot of moving 2 parts, so if something doesn't happen, then we have to scale 3 back. Let's go in there with a base, a minimum base, and 4 this would be no new debt. Let's pay off the debt that we 5 have currently on some of the bonds and Prop 14, but no new 6 debt. 7 Let's also assume that there's not going to be a 8 gas tax increase. We've been talking about it since 1990, 9 and yet there hasn't been one, so we can probably expect that 10 there's not going to be one. I don't know of too many folks 11 right now that are saying -- running for office that are 12 saying we want to raise the gasoline tax, and expect to win 13 that race. We're also not assuming any federal gas tax 14 increase. Even though they are talking about it on the 15 federal side, we're assuming none, so if those things happen, 16 then those are things that will add into the budget and will 17 be -- and that will be better for us, but we're not going to 18 assume those are in there at this time. The other thing that 19 we're not going to assume right now, and that's Proposition 20 12. Last November, the voters in the state of Texas voted 21 for Proposition 12, and by a pretty good margin, but it's not 22 funded at this time until the Legislature comes back and 23 meets and puts -- puts money in it, and we can bond up to 24 about $5 billion for that. And so that will come out of the 25 general revenue fund, and so that'll be -- that will be an 5-12-08 wk 23 1 extra insert if they -- if they fund that, but we're not 2 going to assume, because today it's not, so we're assuming 3 still a baseline. That's not in our budget. 4 So, when we take all these considerations in, 5 they're looking at about $28 billion over the next 11 years, 6 or about two and a half billion a year. To kind of give you 7 an idea, over the last four years, using some of the tools 8 the Legislature gave us to House Bill 3588, 2702, where we 9 were able to accelerate and bond to do some things, and then 10 this -- before the rescissions -- federal rescissions, we 11 were doing about five to six billion dollars a year in there. 12 And a lot of the work Mike was talking about and y'all were 13 mentioning that he put on the shelf and got ready to go, and 14 so we got those going. That was our -- that was our peak 15 years. And so now we're looking at about two and a half 16 billion over the next 11 years, and so almost 50 percent less 17 over what we had before. Well, the Commission then was 18 looking at those parts of our budget that are fixed. Some of 19 it is fixed in state law. That says we have to have minimum 20 allocations in certain areas. And the federal government 21 does the same thing when they send the money back. They want 22 to make sure some of it goes to certain programs, like the 23 off-system bridge program, or we have the counterpart, the 24 on-system bridge program. They don't want to neglect those 25 things. 5-12-08 wk 24 1 They also have -- in your metropolitan areas, 2 there's a certain allocation that goes to the cities of over 3 200,000 in population. We have eight of those -- nine of 4 those in Texas. The one we deal with is San Antonio, so they 5 get an allocation. And those areas that are considered 6 non-attainment, because of air pollution, air quality, 7 there's a certain amount of money that's set aside for those 8 areas. They have a certain amount of money that's set aside, 9 oh, for safety improvement type projects, and so when you 10 take all those, we basically said we have to meet those 11 minimums. And so they kind of carved that out and said, 12 "Okay, we have 28 billion. We have to meet the minimums." 13 We have commitments that we've already made, like on the 14 pass-through agreements, just for instance our communities 15 here, our 12 counties. Bexar County had a pass-through 16 agreement with the Commission. The City of New Braunfels, 17 Comal County had a pass-through agreement that they had put 18 together. And so those commitments, they're going to still 19 honor those, so those were pulled out; said we have to honor 20 those commitments. 21 So, when it was all said, out of that 28 billion, 22 they were left with 17 billion over the 11 years as, let's 23 say, discretionary. When the -- so that came down to, does 24 the Commission put it in mobility, to add more lanes? Or 25 does the Commission put it in preserve -- or maintenance, to 5-12-08 wk 25 1 preserve our highway system itself? To look at the 80,000 2 center line miles that make up the state highway system in 3 Texas, and we are the largest of all the states. And I want 4 to say California is maybe second, and they're, like, maybe 5 half of what we have in terms of center line miles. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait. Does that exclude 7 interstates? 8 MR. SMITH: No, that includes interstate, 80,000 9 center line miles. Includes the interstate system itself. 10 When you look at the roadway system today, to keep it in 11 pretty much the condition that we have today -- let's not 12 degrade it any more; let's take the roadway conditions we 13 have today and let's keep it where it is today -- that would 14 take about $23 billion over that same time period. So, we've 15 only got 17 that we can use, and we know to keep it at the 16 same condition, it needs about 23 billion. When we look at 17 our historical figures, we look at our roadways that are out 18 there, and most of our roads, or many of them, are about 80 19 years old, and so we know up front we're not going to meet 20 all of them. We're going to have to do a lot of things 21 better and cheaper, and try and stretch that dollar, Bruce, 22 as far as we can go out there. 23 So, the Commission said, "Well, we've got the 17 24 billion, so we can put all of that in maintenance," in our 25 maintenance area. That would cover sealcoats and overlays 5-12-08 wk 26 1 and rehabilitation of our roadways, maybe some widenings in 2 there, and we know we're going to be short. We also have 3 some major congestion in some of our metropolitan areas, 4 those same eight metropolitan areas. And many of those 5 communities, like San Antonio and Houston and Dallas, Austin, 6 are taking some -- were taking -- originally in their plan 7 were taking some of their dollars, mobility dollars that they 8 had been allocated, and they were going to leverage it by 9 doing some bonding to build toll lanes, new toll lanes. Some 10 people say, "Oh, we don't want you converting those lanes." 11 Well they weren't. They were taking the existing lanes and 12 leaving them, and adding the new capacity -- the new lanes 13 and adding toll lanes, so that whatever lanes you drive on 14 today, you can continue to drive on them. But you might go 15 through, like -- like San Antonio on 281 North, they go 16 through a whole bunch of traffic lights. You can continue to 17 go through traffic lights, or you can build express lanes and 18 go through quicker and relieve the congestion. 19 What the Commission decided to do was to take -- of 20 that 17, they were going to take four and a half of that -- 21 about four and a half or four of that and put that in 22 mobility, and fund about 80 percent of what they said they 23 were going to fund in those metropolitan areas. And, like, 24 in San Antonio, the money that they have, they can bond about 25 another $800 million worth of work, so that the 200 million 5-12-08 wk 27 1 that they would get from mobility, they would bond another 2 800,000 -- 800 million to build their system that they have 3 there. So, what we end up with, the bottom line, is the -- 4 we end up with about 12 billion dollars over that 11 years, 5 or about a billion dollars a year in the preservation or 6 maintenance area. 7 They did carve out a little bit of money, and 8 that's what Mike wanted me to talk about, pass-through. They 9 did -- they put on it hold right now, but they did carve out 10 a little bit of money to put in pass-through financing to 11 work with communities, just like they worked with city of New 12 Braunfels and Bexar County before, for communities that were 13 looking at some economic development, looking at congestion 14 relief, that they would go in and partner with those -- with 15 those dollars. And, basically, on the pass-through, what it 16 would do is the local government comes in and fronts the -- 17 the project, basically construction of the project, and then 18 our Commission pays back a certain amount of money over a 19 period of time, depending on how much traffic is on that 20 road. And they -- they work out the calculations on that. 21 And so a lot of communities have gone in and done that. 22 Bexar County actually has one sitting up there right now 23 that's been put on hold. 24 The other funding that we don't know about yet as 25 we go back in is that Proposition 12. That's $5 billion 5-12-08 wk 28 1 there. And you can see out of the 28 that we have over 11 2 years, 5 billion isn't a lot, but it is some extra money that 3 the Legislature does capitalize on that, and puts money there 4 for the general revenue that will add some more dollars into 5 our -- into our program. And, Julie, were they going to make 6 a presentation this month on that at the Commission, or next 7 month, on the scenario with Proposition 12? Do you remember? 8 MS. BROWN: I don't know if they're going to do it 9 this month or not. 10 MR. SMITH: Okay, over the next couple months. 11 They're kind of running through the scenarios, because they 12 don't -- they don't want us to be caught off guard; they want 13 us to be prepared, so they want the Commission to -- as we 14 work with the Legislature, to come up with some kind of 15 strategy. Does -- does it all go to -- does it go into some 16 of it mobility and some of it preservation? Kind of work up 17 some scenarios so they have some idea of working with the 18 Legislature on that. So, that's kind of where we are on our 19 -- on our budget. Over the next couple years, our budget is 20 really focusing on preventive maintenance. Over the next 21 couple years, we have a lot of bridges, as Mike talked about, 22 we'll be working on. There -- we have -- some of our other 23 districts are down pretty low in their work, and so actually 24 they're helping us with some of the bridge design. And at 25 the peak, Mike, how much work did you have going on? 5-12-08 wk 29 1 MR. COWARD: Including Bandera County, about $104 2 million. 3 MR. SMITH: $104 million. Which was a lot more 4 than probably about four -- four of our other west Texas 5 districts put together. The amount of work was just right 6 here, and you noted that. Mike did have a lot of work going 7 on -- both Mikes, and so they're -- many of them are wrapping 8 up. I know we were up here for the ribbon cutting on 9 Holdsworth Drive. Big congestion relief, gives you another 10 route around the downtown. Spur 98 bridge, getting that also 11 helped out there. And so that's kind of where we are. We 12 have some ongoing projects that we have funded. We -- or we 13 identified an allocation of funds, because things get slowed 14 down. Some of those we haven't dropped, like on, I know, 15 some of the low-water crossings on 39, some of the lanes 16 we're looking at on 39 itself with -- with the off-system 17 route in there. We're not dropping those. It will take us a 18 little bit longer to get to them because of our cash flow 19 issue. And if Proposition 12 comes up -- that's why we're 20 going to keep moving, keep the plans -- get them backlogged 21 and ready to go, 'cause if Proposition 12 comes through and 22 the Legislature gives us the green light to move forward, 23 then we'll have some of those ready to go as well. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Seems like to me that you're 25 bringing somewhat of a gloomy report. You know, I mean -- 5-12-08 wk 30 1 MR. SMITH: That's why Mike went first. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are we -- are we going to be 3 able to get our children into town so they can have milk, or 4 are we going to all starve to death? And then on top of 5 that, you see -- you see the NAFTA highways -- I was out on 6 Highway 83 the other day; it's out in the middle of nowhere. 7 Y'all are spending tons of money out there widening that 8 thing. I don't care what it is. There's a bunch of money 9 being spent out there, and then, you know, the 35 corridor 10 and, you know, all this talk with Trans-Texas Corridor and 11 all of those things, there's lots of damn money going through 12 there. And then you're painting this ugly thing happening 13 around here. 14 MR. SMITH: Well, I think even in San Antonio, just 15 like you're seeing, there's -- there was a lot of money 16 spent. A lot of it was using the propositions that we were 17 able to use and bond and to move forward with. What we 18 didn't have was the rescissions that were upon us, that are 19 there today, and so we're having to take those into account. 20 The gasoline tax, or the -- the fuel efficiency is having a 21 big effect on us, and along with the highway construction 22 index, is -- it was -- there's 100 percent over 10. It was 23 actually 60 over 3. It just went up very, very high, so 24 projects -- we had two projects; we can only let one of them, 25 because we did get a lot on the ground. We're going to have 5-12-08 wk 31 1 to do a lot with our maintenance forces. I've been talking 2 here about roadway construction. We're going to be -- we're 3 going to do a lot with buying material for maintenance forces 4 to get out and help keep maintaining our roadways. Years 5 ago, I know, as we would travel across the state, you could 6 close your eyes and you could tell when you crossed the state 7 lines. Didn't matter if you were going into Mexico or 8 Oklahoma or Louisiana -- really, Louisiana. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 10 MR. SMITH: And what we're seeing is -- is that, 11 unfortunately, our roadways will probably drop down, some of 12 the things. We're focusing all of our resources into the 13 roadway. Years ago, we used to mow about every two weeks, 14 and then we cut back to about three and four times a year. 15 So, you might end up seeing some areas that we might have to 16 just put further out, certain rural areas that we may have to 17 reduce our mowing in some of those instances. We're having 18 to look at all of our budgets, and so some of the things that 19 we took for granted that made the highway corridor really 20 nice, we're going to -- we're going to put all of our 21 attention in the roadway bed, Commissioner, to make sure that 22 the roadway bed stays -- stays good. There might be some 23 things out here that we might have to cut back on. 24 Unfortunately, there might be some things in litter pickup 25 out in our rural areas where we pick it up, pick up litter, 5-12-08 wk 32 1 the frequency, we may have to cut some of those things back 2 to make sure we keep the road in as good a condition as we 3 can. 4 That's kind of where we are in this cross-section 5 of time. Things might change if -- you know, it's kind of a 6 baseline. If the gasoline tax came in, and that's extra, it 7 will bump us up. That will help us out. If Proposition 12 8 comes in, that will bump us up. That's kind of where we 9 stand right now. And Amadeo Saenz, our new Engineer 10 Director, along with David Casteel, they told Julie and I to 11 go out and just tell everybody the truth. Folks aren't going 12 to like it, but do you know what? It's -- we can come in 13 here today and say it's not going to change, the road's still 14 going to look nice, but that's not -- that's not fair, 15 because it's -- it's -- it is going to change. Because 16 that 38.4 cents we've been banking on for the last -- since 17 1990 is not the -- doesn't have the same buying power today 18 as it did, and it's still the same for us. 19 And, so, it is -- it's gloomy. It's not doom and 20 gloom, but it's gloomy, 'cause it's not -- we're -- we have a 21 lot of pride in our roadway systems, and we want our roadway 22 systems to look good, and we want people to have a good 23 experience as they drive through the state and drive through 24 the county and in the city. But we know, at this present 25 time, with the cash flow that we have, we're not going to be 5-12-08 wk 33 1 able to maintain it to the same degree we did, that you 2 expected us to, as we used to. Plus, some of the economic 3 things that we used to do in terms of getting some of these 4 projects, some of these bigger projects today, it doesn't 5 look like we're going to be able to get them to the table and 6 open them up as quick as we used to. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But we'll still be able to 8 get to the store and get some beer? 9 MR. SMITH: Absolutely. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Beer and -- 11 MR. SMITH: We can get you there. Milk and beer. 12 We'll get you there. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Milk and beer. 14 MR. SMITH: Just don't drive. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just don't drive. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: How far into the future do you see 17 pass-through financing being authorized? 18 MR. SMITH: I would say that they have them on 19 hold, and they haven't released them yet to start 20 reconsidering them again. I think if you have some ideas, 21 I'd say let's start working on them right now, and -- and 22 begin to put some thought in that. It doesn't mean that 23 it'll happen. But I think whatever window will open up will 24 be very small, 'cause you take $400,000 and divide it by 11, 25 it's not very much. $400 million, I'm sorry. $400 million. 5-12-08 wk 34 1 That's even smaller. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We are in trouble with 3 400,000. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 5 MR. SMITH: $400 million divided over 11 years, 6 it's about $4 million a year, about, so it's pretty low -- 7 pretty small amount. So, if you're -- if you want to 8 consider that or look at -- look at that, we definitely will. 9 We can work with you and help run some numbers out and think 10 about some of the innovations that you might be able to look 11 at. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What is the percentage of 13 reimbursement that a county could expect on a pass-through 14 contract? 15 MR. SMITH: There's different percentages, and I'm 16 going to speak mainly from what we had before. The financing 17 they looked at the local government to pick that up, or the 18 local entity to pick that up, they had three ranges. They 19 had more of a statewide impact, more of a regional, and more 20 of a local. So, they looked at the roads to see what they -- 21 what kind of improvements -- for instance, an interstate 22 would have a statewide impact. Then you get into -- it's 23 easy to drop down and look at local, 'cause you could just 24 look at a local street. Holdsworth would be a local street. 25 And somewhere in between -- there's a lot of discussions as 5-12-08 wk 35 1 to, well, what is regional and what is local? I think on 2 State Highway 46, they kind of looked at that more 3 regionally, because it went beyond multiple counties, even 4 though it wasn't something that had some statewide reaches 5 with it. At the -- at the statewide, they were looking at 6 one about 90 percent in their discussions, down to around 50 7 or 60 percent, I think, on the local. And then the regional 8 was somewhere in between that, 75 percent, 65 percent, 9 somewhere in there. But I don't know, with the -- the new 10 funds, the way they're -- with the program coming back out 11 again, if they'll redefine those lines, but that's where they 12 were, somewhere between 90 to -- to 50, 60 percent. 13 MS. BROWN: There's a lot of competition, so 14 probably leveraging and impact would be considered. 15 MR. SMITH: Right. What -- how much, what could be 16 brought to the table in order to implement the projects, and 17 then what are the -- of course, the more the traffic, the -- 18 the better it looks in terms of -- 'cause that's how they -- 19 that's how they measure, is in terms of traffic. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That means we have to be 21 focusing on projects that are much more needy, for a larger 22 number of people. How many years are those bonds issued for 23 on the Proposition 12? 24 MR. SMITH: When? 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No, how many years? 5-12-08 wk 36 1 MR. SMITH: How many years? 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What's the payback on them? 3 MR. SMITH: I think they were looking at them over 4 the -- the entire life of the 11 years. Now, the -- our 5 understanding is that the bonds would actually be paid back 6 out of the general revenue fund, and not out of our funding 7 of our highway. But they are looking at -- in order to get 8 them out, they're talking about, between right-of-way, it may 9 be using some consultants to accelerate them, 'cause we're 10 going to be paid up in our other core projects, that they 11 might use some of those dollars to hire consultants to get 12 those projects done as well. So, they do have some -- some 13 bonds in there. They -- they also had some Prop 14 they 14 could use to accelerate them, so they were actually looking 15 at over about 11 years time frame. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. 17 MR. SMITH: Okay, thank you very much. 18 MR. COWARD: I think what I would like to do -- or 19 y'all tell me what you want me to do, but I have some 20 handouts that we made. Nothing real fancy, but they have 21 kind of a history of some traffic counts. We'll go over a 22 couple things on those. We're probably -- Mike, would you 23 hand some out in the back, please? 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We'll pass them. 25 MR. COWARD: All right. 5-12-08 wk 37 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Don't want you to wear 2 yourself out. 3 MR. COWARD: Just real quick, let me just tell you 4 what I put in here for y'all to look at. I mean, I think, 5 hopefully, it's somewhat self-explanatory, but the first 6 sheet is ADT, or average daily traffic counts, and this will 7 be the 1990 one, so 18 years ago, this will be throughout 8 Kerr County. What's kind of interesting to me, if you take 9 it to -- the next sheet kind of zooms in on the City of 10 Kerrville, and then it kind of illustrates what I like to 11 call the Walmart factor. Then you go -- when you look out on 12 State Highway 27 out by Goat Creek Road, there was 15,500 13 cars a day traveling that piece of 27 in 1990. If you flip 14 two additional sheets back and look at that same piece of 15 road in 2005, so in 15 years, the traffic count there in 16 front of Walmart has just about doubled, 30,940 cars a day. 17 If you look back over where the Walmart used to be in 1990, 18 there was about 17,400 cars a day, and over that same 15 19 years, it only went up by about 4,000 cars a day. 20 Well, now, if you look -- you know, when you take 21 the time to look at this, and it's kind of interesting to 22 look, it will show you what you -- kind of common sense tells 23 you, is there's more people on the roads today, and quite a 24 few more. And what it probably also does is start to kind of 25 -- you kind of -- maybe it starts to alarm you a little bit, 5-12-08 wk 38 1 'cause when you start looking at 27 with 31,000 cars, and 2 that's over 15 years, and then you kind of wonder, "Golly, 3 what's that going to be like in 20 more years?" And can you 4 imagine 27 with maybe 45,000 or 50,000 cars a day on it? 5 Wouldn't that be nice? 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: May be bicycles by then. 7 MR. COWARD: Yeah, that could be. There's -- real 8 quick, the other day I went to a meeting with Commissioner 9 Oehler, and he came driving up in a minivan. I said, "What 10 in the world are you doing driving a minivan?" And he said 11 he can't hardly -- 22 miles a gallon versus 12 miles a 12 gallon. So, we're still getting around. This next sheet's 13 kind of small; I apologize. And, you know, we can certainly 14 get you a better copy, but what this kind of shows you is -- 15 it's a table, but it kind of shows you -- I guess, one, it 16 shows you that over the past -- oh, I guess what the first 17 little group of projects shows you is that we're in various 18 states of completion on about $46 million worth of projects 19 throughout Kerr County, so that includes Holdsworth Drive, 20 which is just about done, and a couple other ones. So, about 21 $46 million worth of projects, we're coming down to the tail 22 end. 23 We have, or are going to, let $14 million, almost 24 $15 million worth of projects this year. If you read over 25 there to the right, though, you kind of see that we're -- 5-12-08 wk 39 1 it's not as impressive as it looks, because it's a lot of 2 bridges, and it's building some parking lots at the Kerrville 3 State Hospital, and then building a parking lot up at the 4 wildlife management area with Texas Parks and Wildlife money; 5 it just goes through our process. And the next little group 6 of projects is kind of what we're -- we're working on. Some 7 of these projects, we've got the plans done, but they're 8 called pending, because we don't know exactly how we're going 9 to pay for them at the moment. And there's a group of about 10 another 22 -- $21 million worth of projects. And then below 11 that are the bridges that we're working on for y'all, the 12 Cade Loop and Cypress Creek and all those. That's a total of 13 about another $3,500,000 worth of projects, and I think we do 14 know how we're going to pay for those. We got agreements 15 done; it's just a matter of working out the schedule, and I 16 think on there, we're putting on there a late 2009 letting 17 date. So, when you add all that up, that comes up to about 18 85, $86 million worth of stuff that we either finished in the 19 last year or we're working on. 20 And the next page is -- it's the cover sheet of an 21 effort that Judge Tinley and Commissioner Williams was sure 22 we'll remember. We went through, and it's just kind of a 23 summary of the effort we did last time, and some background 24 information of what were the three top projects in Kerr 25 County back then, and we did not update these estimates. 5-12-08 wk 40 1 About the only thing I can tell you for sure is that they are 2 way too low. I would just tell you that we did them about 3 three years ago, so we could probably add 30 percent or more 4 to every one of these estimates. So, that first -- the first 5 project, Spur 98, we originally estimated $3 million. That's 6 a $4 million project today. The other one was a $5 million 7 project; well, that's a six and a half million dollar project 8 today. Of course, the $10 million project's a $13 million 9 project, et cetera. And I don't think anything else on there 10 is -- probably, when y'all have some time, if you want to 11 look or have any questions, and then there's some statistics 12 that were furnished by the state kind of showing relative 13 population growth. Commissioner Williams, what I was 14 thinking is that maybe TexDOT's talked plenty and maybe we 15 should listen for a while and get some input and answer 16 questions. I don't know if you had -- 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: By all means, Mike. 18 MR. COWARD: It's 2:48, and I know some people had 19 some deadlines and some other stuff. So, I think, Mike, if 20 you could maybe help keep notes, and we'll be glad to answer 21 questions, or just get out of the way and let y'all talk, 22 whatever you want us to do. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: What are we going to do right out 24 here next to Sidney Baker? That's pretty imminent, isn't it? 25 MR. COWARD: Which one's that? 5-12-08 wk 41 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Right next to Sidney Baker, the 2 sidewalk. 3 MR. COWARD: Oh, I'm sorry. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Many months ago, you and I were 5 standing out there and looked at that. 6 MR. COWARD: Yeah. We're going to do it. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: We'll figure out something? 8 MR. COWARD: Yeah. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: I didn't know what you'd figured 10 out. 11 MR. COWARD: No. What we're wanting to do -- 12 Judge, you may have been contacted by somebody to ask you 13 what we were going to do, but what we wanted to do was to 14 build a sidewalk, put an extra band of -- we got -- oh, you 15 can see little bits and pieces, but we're going to have some 16 stained concrete that runs along there. And so right next to 17 the curb, we got 10 inches of stained concrete. Down here on 18 the block between Jefferson and -- and 16, we'd like to put 19 an extra band down near the front of the courthouse, and then 20 we'd like to -- if we got a little bit of grade difference, 21 we would like to grade that and block sod that for y'all. 22 But we -- I don't want to build -- it's cheaper to put in 23 block sod than it is to build retaining walls like we did on 24 John Miller's side. We'd like to slope that back nicely, 25 make sure you can maintain it like you always have, but then 5-12-08 wk 42 1 we would block sod it in that area and have a nice area there 2 by the courthouse. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: The grade variation there is not 4 going to be so severe that they can't get there in and mow 5 it. 6 MR. COWARD: There's one area we may have to build 7 a little tiny bit of wall, one little unit. Everywhere else, 8 we can make it to where you'll barely know we were ever 9 there. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That last block between 11 Water Street and the bridge, is that -- you're obviously 12 going to resurface it, 'cause you've milled it. 13 MR. COWARD: No. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No? 15 MR. COWARD: No. It will -- we're going to seal it 16 when we get a chance. We came in there on a Sunday and we 17 just basically -- I was getting -- we get people that go out 18 and rate our pavements, okay, and that little 400 feet in 19 there was probably one of the worst single pieces of pavement 20 I have. And so Troy and his guys got out -- got out there 21 one Sunday morning early -- and we didn't mill it. I mean, 22 that's actually cold mix that's blade-laid in there. And 23 we'll come in and seal that and cover it up, but it rides 24 quite a bit better. But it wasn't milled; it was all -- 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: A lot better, not just a 5-12-08 wk 43 1 little bit. 2 MR. COWARD: -- all brought up. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah. 4 MR. COWARD: I wanted them to get that done before 5 we shut Lemos Street off. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good idea. 7 MR. COWARD: Yeah. You only have to beat me in the 8 head eight or ten times before I take action. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: They do teach lots of things up in 10 Lubbock, don't they, Mike? 11 MR. COWARD: They do. They do. After 25 years, 12 I'm almost done leaning whenever I walk. So -- 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Have they let you in the door yet, 14 Mike? 15 MR. COWARD: What -- which door? 16 JUDGE TINLEY: The Aggie door. 17 MR. COWARD: The Aggie door? I'm an honorary Aggie 18 thanks to David Casteel. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: If they let you in the door, that's 20 good. 21 MR. COWARD: They let me in the door, long as I 22 keep quiet. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. Come in the back door, 24 though. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The back door. 5-12-08 wk 44 1 MR. COWARD: Well, I guess I don't know what the 2 model should be. I think this should be -- I mean, I don't 3 know if the workshop is the best forum, but I'd like to maybe 4 find us a forum where maybe the next time we got together, we 5 were sitting with maps. 'Cause I think I want -- I asked -- 6 specifically asked Clay to give what we think is a very 7 truthful -- it's much easier to come in here and to blow 8 smoke, and -- you know, and my job is much easier if I can 9 say yes to everything, to be honest with you. And it's -- 10 but we felt like it was very important that we give you our 11 honest assessment. I don't think that that means that we 12 should stop planning. It may mean that we're going to change 13 our model. But I think whether -- you know, whether the next 14 20 years of projects are funded exactly like they were over 15 the past 20 years, I guess time -- time will tell. But 16 whether the cities and counties are going to have to pick up 17 a bigger portion of the tab in the future, if that's the 18 model, I'd still like for Kerr County to be in a position to 19 move forward. 20 The time it takes from the time we can all agree 21 that this is a project we want to do to the day we get it on 22 the ground is so long, that if -- if we spend five or six 23 years arguing about the fact that we have to deal with 24 financing, that that's going to be five or six years more 25 that we're going to go out. So, I guess I was just hoping 5-12-08 wk 45 1 that, you know, we could start moving -- talk about how we 2 would move forward, you know, work together with the County 3 and the City. You know, kind of maybe a comprehensive plan 4 for the County where we can give a true list of priorities. 5 And I'm thinking, I don't know -- you know, Commissioner, you 6 help me out -- is where I'd like to get us in a format where 7 we can have some maps and sit around tables and -- and do 8 that kind of stuff, if that's appropriate. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Possibly a joint workshop with both 10 the City and the County. 11 MR. COWARD: Yeah. And we're -- 12 JUDGE TINLEY: With your guys. 13 MR. COWARD: And I think it would probably be 14 appropriate, Judge -- we'll -- we'll assist in any way we 15 can, but I think that, you know, it's probably -- because 16 it's a local issue, maybe y'all could lead the effort, and 17 you just tell us how to support you, and we will be there to 18 support in any way we can. I mean, every -- every resource 19 that I have can help out. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mike, the -- I know the City 21 has a -- I say "I know." I think they have a master road 22 plan as part of the comprehensive plan. I know they did in 23 2000; I presume they still have that. The County doesn't 24 really have a master road plan, per se. Is that something 25 that would help TexDOT, if we did something like that? We've 5-12-08 wk 46 1 talked about some of these roads. 2 MR. COWARD: No, I'm not sure if, like, the Comal 3 Countys and things like that of the world is -- do they have 4 tools like that, Clay? 5 MR. SMITH: Yeah. The -- I think that's real good. 6 I think what Mike is wanting to do is very -- has a lot of 7 foresight, and I know the City has looked before, and there's 8 a lot of priorities. I know in the information that he 9 passed out, there were some things that we talked about four 10 years ago, and I think some of the things that -- maybe some 11 of the funding is a little different, but I think we still 12 want -- we want to plan. We want to make sure what the 13 priority is as we move forward, and there's some planning 14 that we can do. The city of Comal -- or Comal County and the 15 city, they do have a -- they do have a needs list. And they 16 look at -- they're looking at their roads and asking us, 17 there's some areas where maybe the -- some of the roads need 18 to be widened, but we're going in and looking at adding 19 passing lanes. It used to be we'd add passing lanes whenever 20 it was a hill, but you can also do it on a -- I don't think 21 there's any flat land up here, but you can do it -- 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Houston. 23 MR. SMITH: -- you can do it for trying to 24 prevent -- for safety purposes, trying to prevent cars from 25 trying to pass on that double -- that yellow. And if you 5-12-08 wk 47 1 periodically add a passing lane, and they know it's going to 2 be every 3 miles, then -- or 4 miles, then instead of trying 3 to take a risk and going out into the opposing traffic to 4 pass, they'll wait for the passing lanes instead of a 5 climbing lane. And so we've worked with them, so they're out 6 looking. Say we've got development here, or we have a long 7 stretch, we have a lot of traffic here, we'd like to see some 8 things done, so I think that's kind of some of the stuff that 9 Mike would like to see and make sure that we're moving in the 10 direction that -- that you want us to in the future. And we 11 know we have limited funds, but maybe we can prioritize it 12 and still make sure we're moving toward those goals. And 13 those areas where we need some innovative financing, maybe 14 the pass-through is one of them, and we'll be sure and put 15 some numbers to those, and try and work with us -- with the 16 City and/or and the County, whoever might take the lead on 17 that. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Mike, on the safety issue, do we 19 have anything concrete on the on 16 North to Fredericksburg? 20 MR. COWARD: We do not, Judge. I mean, the -- you 21 know, Kerr County's section, to be honest with you, is fairly 22 well suited with passing lanes and such right now. And we 23 have had some discussions with Gillespie County over the 24 years, but, you know, I think that it just never has been a 25 priority, but I think there was another bad accident over 5-12-08 wk 48 1 the -- it was either Friday or Monday, but there was a bad 2 accident out there; they had traffic blocked off for quite a 3 while. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: But Gillespie is over in another 5 district. 6 MR. COWARD: Gillespie is actually in the Austin 7 district. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Would it be a fair assumption 10 to say that in the future, the counties and the cities that 11 have projects that they really think to be a priority would 12 be expected to fund a larger part of the match? 13 MR. COWARD: I'll let Clay answer. But I'll answer 14 that the more you leverage a project, the less that we have 15 to -- state dollars we have to come up with, and it's -- it 16 certainly shows a true commitment when you have your dollars 17 involved. 18 MR. SMITH: Yeah. Some of the other communities 19 are trying to figure out ways that they can do things, like 20 the city of San Antonio that actually increased their -- 21 their sales tax one-eighth of a cent -- a quarter of a cent, 22 and took that -- they call it advance transportation district 23 funds, and they went through the Legislature and got that 24 passed so that they could actually raise some additional 25 dollars in their community for transportation. And in their 5-12-08 wk 49 1 case, they actually did it; it was used for VIA. They used 2 it for the city of San Antonio and for TexDOT, the -- the 3 pass-through financing and other. But they are looking at -- 4 City of Lubbock went through a -- they had some tax, maybe 5 not a utility tax, but to raise money for their 6 infrastructure as well. I know the valley, some of the 7 cities down there are looking at some things they can do as 8 well to help supplement some of their -- their -- knowing 9 that the State has only -- has a fixed one, and then they're 10 looking at, "What can we do to supplement that?" 11 JUDGE TINLEY: If the City and the County had a -- 12 a single project that they both deemed to be of major or 13 number one priority, the fact that you got two jurisdictions 14 that are pushing it, would that give it a competitive 15 advantage relative to the others in the district? 16 MR. SMITH: Well, it definitely -- it doesn't 17 change the amount of money that we have, but it definitely 18 helps us to pursue a single project that would work -- that 19 would be compatible for both the city and county, so we can 20 focus on one rather than trying to have two of them. And 21 Comal and the City of New Braunfels and their Chamber of 22 Commerce have worked trying to do that over the years to make 23 sure they kind of focus on one rather than maybe three 24 different ones. They kind of work together to -- to the best 25 they can. Each of them still have projects that are needs, 5-12-08 wk 50 1 but they do try and focus on one of them. Usually there's 2 one kind of in the -- the ETJ of the city that's very 3 important. It's -- the City's growing; they recognize it. 4 It's right there with the county, and they usually try and 5 come up with a common -- even though they each have their own 6 separate one you can look at, number one, if it's the same 7 one, it makes it easier for their engineers and us to focus 8 on those. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions for these 10 gentlemen and lady? We thank you for being here. We 11 appreciate all of it. And we'll review your materials and 12 look forward to meeting with you again. Do our counterparts 13 from the City have any -- 14 MR. COWARD: I know the mayor -- 15 JUDGE TINLEY: -- questions or comments? 16 MR. COWARD: I know the mayor had mentioned earlier 17 he had something he'd like to talk about. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: The mayor had something to say? 19 MAYOR SMITH: I only have eight days to have any 20 authority to say anything. But as mayor, I would like to -- 21 to second your remarks -- complimentary remarks for Mike 22 Coward and TexDOT. I think they've done an excellent job in 23 this area, and I don't think we could expect any more. Now, 24 as a private citizen, not as mayor, I've been working, trying 25 to get the speed limit reduced on 173 for at least eight 5-12-08 wk 51 1 years, and the last time I talked to the people in San 2 Antonio, they said there wasn't enough deaths on there to 3 justify lowering it. They did lower from it 55 to 50. But I 4 was -- started that when I was on the board of the property 5 owners' association, and at one of our meetings I asked for 6 volunteers to get killed along there, but nobody volunteered. 7 (Laughter.) But I have a suggestion that wouldn't cost 8 hardly anything, maybe changing a few signs. I think that if 9 we had more businesses along 173, a theater, some more 10 apartments, the Texas Ranger museum, an old -- old folks home 11 or whatever that is there -- there's been a lot of activity 12 along there, and the speed limit is 50 miles an hour. I 13 drive 50 miles an hour, set my speedometer to 50, and people 14 go past me like -- like crazy. But I look -- observe the 15 skid marks on there, and you have skid marks that are -- that 16 are over 100, 150 feet long, so people are -- those were 17 accidents that didn't happen because somebody was alert 18 enough to stop before they hit somebody. But I think it 19 would be probably really a good safety factor and save lives 20 without costing any money to lower the speed limit from 21 Veterans Highway or 534 around to G Street, and out 16 just 22 past 173. If all that was 35 miles an hour, it would allow 23 for better law enforcement there, because in talking to the 24 Texas Highway Patrol, they said they -- they don't give 25 tickets along there because it's unsafe. Well, if it's 5-12-08 wk 52 1 unsafe for a highway patrolman with a light to stop there, 2 how about the people there? So, anyway, I'm -- this is 3 y'all's show. It's -- but I heard there was going to be some 4 TexDOT people here, so this is addressed to them, but also to 5 you, because I'm a citizen of Kerr County also. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Gene, always a pleasure to have you, 7 you and the folks from the City. I know we've also got some 8 of our neighbors from U.G.R.A. and Headwaters with us, and 9 we're happy to have them. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, now that you 11 mentioned U.G.R.A., I want to throw one picture up on the 12 screen. It doesn't have anything to do with transportation, 13 but it does have something to do with long-range planning. 14 Take me two minutes. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Better hurry. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm going to do it -- 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Can we pass around the -- 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Do you have a bucket full of 19 dirt big enough to fill that? 20 JUDGE TINLEY: -- the picture of the official Kerr 21 County solid waste hauler? 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In this county, we've 23 talked for many, many years about the need for -- potential 24 need for an off-channel reservoir to take care of flood 25 waters on the Guadalupe River on those occasions when God 5-12-08 wk 53 1 sends us rain in any kind of quantity. I want to show you a 2 picture, and I want somebody at U.G.R.A. to start thinking 3 about, would this be a good place for an off-channel 4 reservoir? As soon as this thing warms up. Where's our I.T. 5 guy when I need him? 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I remember, I witnessed it. He 8 said push one button. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I did. I pushed that 10 button. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Here it comes. No, it's 12 coming. I see something -- 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Getting something. But I 14 don't see the picture here. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: It's searching. Just -- 16 Mr. Overby's got considerable expertise. We'll press him 17 into service. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Track him. It's tracking 19 blood right now. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Searching. If I don't get 21 it up on the screen, stay with me and I'll give it to you in 22 person. 23 MR. BUCK: I think I've already reviewed that, 24 Bill. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I just want everybody to 5-12-08 wk 54 1 see it. Looks like I can't get the picture up, Judge, so -- 2 JUDGE TINLEY: It will jump up there in a minute. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Still blinking. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What this would be, if it 5 were to come up on the screen, is that area in Precinct 2 in 6 the general vicinity of Sutherland Road at Highway 27, 7 between Highway 27 and C.P. River Road. Most of you know it 8 as an area which has been mined considerably, and this 9 picture, if it were to come up, would show you how 10 extensively it has been mined. If you think about the 11 long-term, when the mining ceases and all that heavy 12 equipment is out of there, you have an area of the county in 13 which it is -- for lack of a better word, it has been raped, 14 and it's not going to get better. But it is an area, when 15 you think about it, because of its proximity to the Guadalupe 16 River and the ability to take flood waters and divert them 17 off the Guadalupe into this area, with some work, this could 18 become an off-channel reservoir. We've talked about it for a 19 long time in this county, and nobody seems to know an area 20 where an off-channel reservoir would be appropriate. This 21 would be. I'm sorry the picture didn't come up, but that's 22 what I wanted to talk about. I wanted you to think about it, 23 particularly our friends from U.G.R.A. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Probably about five minutes after 25 the meeting is over, it's going to come up there. 5-12-08 wk 55 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It will. And the I.T. guy 2 is gone when I need him, so thank you anyhow. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I saw the City Manager with 4 his hand up back there. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, Paul? I'm sorry. 6 MR. HOFMANN: I'm sorry. When you were wrapping up 7 the transportation priorities workshop discussion, I thought 8 I might just add to what our -- our mayor said, and echoing a 9 lot of what you said, Judge, and other County Commissioners, 10 and what Mr. Coward spoke to about the importance of regional 11 transportation planning and the -- the positive benefit of 12 jointly suggesting projects to TexDOT and the Highway 13 Commission. And to echo that, there were a couple comments 14 made about how the City of Kerrville goes about doing its 15 transportation planning, and specifically our thoroughfare 16 plan. And Commissioner Letz spoke to this, and I know 17 Commissioner Letz was deeply involved in this several years 18 ago. We do have a thoroughfare plan. That thoroughfare plan 19 has been amended a few times in the seven or eight years that 20 it's been in existence. That is a part of the comprehensive 21 plan. The City is required to have a comprehensive plan if 22 it's going to have a zoning ordinance, and that 23 transportation plan is a part of that. 24 And what we do with that thoroughfare plan is -- is 25 really two things. We use it to identify our transportation 5-12-08 wk 56 1 priorities central to the city of Kerrville from a capital 2 planning perspective. If we're going to recommend a -- a 3 capacity-related roadway improvement through our capital 4 plan, we like to be able to point to that thoroughfare plan. 5 And the other thing we do with that thoroughfare plan is, it 6 -- we use it as a tool to work with new development. And 7 state law drives how all of this works, and case law drives 8 how all of this works, but essentially, if there's a new 9 development out there that is going to impact or be impacted 10 by something that's in our thoroughfare plan, we have an 11 ability to insure that that's taken care of during that 12 subdivision planning process. And -- and, again, state law 13 drives what we can do with this, but we have an ability to 14 insure that that development takes care of its own 15 transportation needs, again, within the constraints of the 16 law. 17 We are focusing our priorities right now, City of 18 Kerrville, not so much on transportation capacity issues, but 19 on maintenance issues. You know, cause you hear these 20 complaints too, that if there's a number one concern about 21 the services the City provides right now, it's not about 22 roadway capacity. It's about roadway maintenance. And we 23 are working towards and have had several discussions with the 24 City Council about a bond program this November that will 25 include a significant amount of money; five or six million is 5-12-08 wk 57 1 the number we're looking at right now, not to do anything 2 with regard to capacity, but it would be all about roadway 3 rehabilitation. And I say that because, from the City of 4 Kerrville's perspective right now, our focus is on 5 maintenance more than it is capacity. 6 Of the projects that Mr. Coward spoke about 7 earlier, we do have in our CIP a project, and this is the -- 8 of all the projects on that -- of all the lines on the map 9 that are on that thoroughfare plan, the only one that comes 10 close to a bona fide City of Kerrville project right now is 11 that Highway 98 to G Street extension, and that is shown as 12 future unfunded. So, when the City of Kerrville looks -- 13 right now, when the City of Kerrville looks at what we think 14 we can afford and what we plan to pay for over the next five 15 years, it's all going to maintenance. All that -- and I just 16 say that just to make sure you have a sense for where the 17 City of Kerrville is. And I certainly agree with what Mike 18 Coward said earlier; we should be planning for capacity 19 improvements. We should be planning for capacity needs. We 20 ought to be looking at data like capacity to volume and 21 projected volume, even in light of the shortage of dollars. 22 And from the City of Kerrville's perspective, we have no 23 capacity projects that we're looking at right now. 24 I heard what Commissioner Williams said earlier 25 about the status of Highway 27. A few months ago, yeah, we 5-12-08 wk 58 1 were looking at maybe -- and had a lot of conversations with 2 Mike about potentially moving Highway 27, and in conjunction 3 with a highway widening project. But, yes, sir, you're 4 right, that seems to be off the table right now. So, I think 5 from a capacity planning standpoint, we're essentially 6 starting from a blank slate. And I haven't had this specific 7 conversation with Mike or with my City Council, but I think 8 I'm safe in saying that if we're looking at recurring 9 meetings like this, we are more than happy to participate. 10 We don't do a lot of thinking from a regional transportation 11 planning standpoint with the City of Kerrville, but see its 12 value and would love to participate. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Excellent. What did he say? 15 JUDGE TINLEY: You rascal. Anything else we need 16 to pitch out at this time? Why don't we adjourn? 17 (Workshop adjourned at 3:13 p.m.) 18 - - - - - - - - - - 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 5-12-08 wk 59 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 21st day of May, 2008. 8 9 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 10 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 11 Certified Shorthand Reporter 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 5-12-08 wk