1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Special Session 10 Monday, November 24, 2008 11 9:00 a.m. 12 Commissioners' Courtroom 13 Kerr County Courthouse 14 Kerrville, Texas 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X November 24, 2008 2 PAGE 3 --- Commissioners' Comments 5 4 1.1 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to acknowledge and thank Shaleah Hill, Kerr County 5 First Responder, for her actions on Nov.7, 2008 6 6 1.2 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on request from Texas Rainwater Catchment Association 7 to be added to the nonprofit list for use of Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center 10 8 1.3 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on 9 request from Aglow International to be added to nonprofit list for use of Union Church Building 15, 10 44 1.4 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 11 approve Bexar County agreement for CERT trailer permanent loan 15 12 1.5 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 13 initiate investigation of alternative energy sources for county facilities 18 14 1.7 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 15 accept conveyance to Kerr County from K Bar Ranch Ltd., Inc. 22 16 1.8 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 17 reappoint Janet Moseley to Library Board for a 1-year term 25 18 1.6 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 19 authorize the 216th District Attorney to contract for appropriate staff to facilitate more expedient 20 case dispositions 26 21 1.9 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to formulate a plan to clean and repair Flat Rock 22 Dam and Ingram Dam 30 23 1.10 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to authorize request for funding from UGRA to 24 assist with the cleaning of Flat Rock Lake and Ingram Lake beginning winter of 2009; authorize 25 Commissioner Oehler to inform UGRA of plan to clean the lakes & request funding for same 39 3 1 I N D E X (Continued) November 24, 2008 2 PAGE 3 1.11 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to approve a resolution concerning proposed 4 legislation concerning county subdivision and land use regulations 53 5 1.12 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on 6 implementation of the burn ban 73 7 1.13 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to approve contracts with Dietert Center, Families 8 & Literacy, Inc., and Kerr County Soil & Water Conservation District; allow County Judge to sign 9 same 73 10 1.14 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to revisit sick leave portion of Personnel Policy 74 11 1.15 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 12 approve Library Agreement between City of Kerrville and Kerr County 99 13 1.16 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 14 approve bond for Angel Garza, Constable, Pct. 3 103 15 1.17 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to schedule annual County Christmas Party 103 16 1.18 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on 17 proposed site plan and related work for Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center and surrounding 18 property 109 19 4.1 Pay Bills 134 4.2 Budget Amendments --- 20 4.3 Late Bills --- 4.4 Approve and Accept Monthly Reports 135 21 5.1 Reports from Commissioners/Liaison Committee 22 Assignments 135 23 --- Adjourned 139 24 25 4 1 On Monday, November 24, 2008, at 9:00 a.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 regularly 8 scheduled meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court 9 which was posted and scheduled for this time and date, 10 Monday, November the 24th, at -- 2008, at 9 a.m. It is that 11 time now. Commissioner Letz? 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Would everyone please stand and 13 join me in a moment of prayer, followed by the pledge. 14 (Prayer and pledge of allegiance.) 15 JUDGE TINLEY: At this time, if there's any member 16 of the public or the audience that wishes to be heard on any 17 matter that is not a listed agenda item, this is your 18 opportunity to come forward and tell us what's on your mind. 19 If you wish to be heard on an agenda item, we would ask that 20 you fill out a participation form. They can be found at the 21 back of the room. That's not absolutely essential; it does 22 help me in having a heads-up knowing that there's someone 23 that wishes to be heard on an agenda item. However, if we 24 get to an agenda item that you wish to be heard on and you 25 haven't filed a participation form, just get my attention in 11-24-08 5 1 some fashion and I'll see that you have the opportunity to be 2 heard on that matter. But for right now, if there's any 3 member of the public that wishes to be heard on any matter 4 that is not a listed agenda item, come forward and tell us 5 what's on your mind. Seeing no one coming forward, we will 6 move on. Commissioner Letz, what do you have for us this 7 morning? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Only comment I have is to 9 remind everybody that Saturday is Christmas in Comfort, a 10 tradition after -- the Saturday after Thanksgiving. And 11 there's a parade and day long of activities, lots of things, 12 so it's a pretty fun event. For those that don't go, invite 13 everyone down to Comfort. That's it. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Oehler? 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I don't really have anything 16 at the moment, I don't believe. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Commissioner Baldwin? 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. In these days of 19 troubles and bad news that we see every day, we have some 20 good news. Not just good news, but fantastic news. Our good 21 friend Eric Maloney, which is the EMS Coordinator for the 22 City and training officer for the First Responder -- our 23 First Responder program, has -- wants to say a few words to 24 us. Eric? 25 MR. MALONEY: Judge, Commissioners, how are y'all 11-24-08 6 1 this morning? 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Good morning. 3 MR. MALONEY: It actually gives me great honor 4 today to speak, for the Court to recognize some outstanding 5 performance by one of our First Responders. Shaleah Hill 6 here has been a First Responder for 11 years for Kerr County. 7 Her response area is typically in Zone 4, which is the Ingram 8 area, and some -- and Zone 5. She has provided medical care 9 for numerous trauma and medical patients alike. On Thursday, 10 November 6th, Shaleah Hill answered a call for a one-vehicle 11 accident across from the Ingram fire station. Upon arrival, 12 she identified that the accident was caused by a person that 13 suffered a heart attack, and was not breathing and did not 14 have a pulse. She quickly applied her AED, the automated 15 external defibrillator, and heard the words, "Shock advised." 16 AED delivered the first shock, and the patient began to 17 breathe. About approximately two minutes later, Kerrville 18 Fire Medic 2 arrived on scene, and her AED advised to shock 19 again. After the next shock, the patient started to breathe 20 with a strong pulse. The patient was flown to San Antonio on 21 that Thursday, and two days later, on Saturday, he walked out 22 of the hospital. I have talked to the family. He is doing 23 well, and they feel very blessed by her quick response out 24 there. And there are a lot of occasions that we really don't 25 hear much of the outcome of the patients, much less that they 11-24-08 7 1 survive, and this was one of the those great occasions. So, 2 without anything further, I want to say thanks to Shaleah 3 Hill and her quick response with her AED. 4 MS. HILL: Thank you. 5 (Applause.) 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Speech. 7 MS. HILL: Speech? 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Speech. 9 MS. HILL: Speech. I wasn't the only one there. 10 There was other people there helping me, and it takes a great 11 team to do a heart attack. When a heart attack is called 12 out, and you're the -- and you're thinking -- you pray all 13 the way there's going to be -- gosh, sure hope somebody else 14 is there. I mean, because when you're there and you're by 15 yourself, there's just no way that you can do it alone. And 16 with one of the Ingram First Responders that helped, I was 17 very grateful that she was knowledgeable in helping, as well 18 as an RN nurse that was there helping me as well, and I 19 appreciate that. It' nice to have First Responders that know 20 what they're doing, and we'd like to have a few more. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Shaleah, you actually saved 24 somebody's life. That's -- that is so fantastic. 25 MS. HILL: I mean, I had help. 11-24-08 8 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, but still -- 2 MS. HILL: Thank you. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you very much. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Wonderful. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thanks for coming. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Going to be hard to top that. You 7 got anything else? 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's it. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Williams? 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One is, apologies to 13 members of the Court if I missed them Saturday night at Judge 14 Ables' retirement dinner. I apologize for that, but I 15 particularly wanted to make note that Commissioner Baldwin -- 16 that if he wasn't there, and I didn't see him, he missed an 17 absolutely wonderful opportunity, once-in-a-lifetime 18 opportunity to be in a group of people where the ratio of 19 lawyers to regular people was 18-to-1. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Boy, and I'm sorry about 21 that. Sorry I wasn't there. (Laughter.) 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It was a nice event for 23 Judge Ables, and he was very gracious in accepting all of the 24 kudos. Judge, were you there? I didn't see you. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 11-24-08 9 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I missed you. Maybe it was 2 19-to-1. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, could have been. Anything 4 else? 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, sir. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: As Commissioner Williams said, it 7 was a nice event. That ballroom at the Y.O. was -- was 8 packed, and there were people from all over the area, and it 9 was a nice event. There were quite a few lawyers, though, 10 Buster, so you might have felt real uncomfortable there. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, and it may have been 12 better that I wasn't there. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, could have been. Could have 14 been. No, I did arrive late, because I stayed for the events 15 here at the courthouse and the courthouse lighting and all of 16 that that got kicked off, and all the announcements that were 17 made there. So, I was a little late in getting there, but I 18 had the opportunity to participate in both events. The -- 19 the lighting of the courthouse last Saturday was really a 20 neat event. Each year it seems to get bigger and better. 21 The parade that precedes it, the number of people that turn 22 out, there were -- there were several deep on the streets 23 that were viewing the parade on both sides. The weather 24 wasn't the best. Even at one point, we got a real light mist 25 coming down, but that didn't seem to deter anybody, and it 11-24-08 10 1 only did so momentarily and then it quit, and we went on 2 about doing our thing there. But it was a neat event, and we 3 had a lot of participation and people enjoying their downtown 4 area and their courthouse, and we appreciate that. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Did you lead the singing in 6 Judge Ables' absence? 7 JUDGE TINLEY: No, I didn't. Judge Ables had made 8 arrangements for some folks to stand in. Apparently, the -- 9 the event for Judge Ables was -- the date was solidified 10 before anybody realized that that was the date that we do the 11 courthouse lighting that he normally -- he and Linda normally 12 lead the singing. So, we -- we got some able substitutes, 13 and things went off as planned and went off well. But it was 14 a great event. It's an annual event downtown here, and I 15 think everybody had a pretty good time. Let's get on with 16 our agenda, if we might. We'll move to Item 2; to consider, 17 discuss, and take appropriate action on a request from the 18 Texas Rainwater Cachement Association to be added to the 19 nonprofit list for use of the Hill Country Youth Exhibit 20 Center. Commissioner John Kight. 21 MR. KIGHT: Thank you, Judge, Commissioners. My 22 name is John Kight, K-i-g-h-t. And, what we're here to ask 23 y'all is to allow us to use the facility, understanding we 24 need to pay for the setup and the chairs and tables and so 25 on, insurance, whatever. But we'd like to have our first 11-24-08 11 1 annual rainwater harvesting conference here in Kerrville next 2 March, and that's why I'm before y'all, if you can waive the 3 rental part. The rest of it we know we have to do. And I 4 hope y'all understand -- I notice Jonathan, in his prayer, 5 asked for rain. We're in a serious condition, and this area 6 of the hill country won't support the density of growth 7 that's occurring with groundwater. It just -- it isn't 8 there. Rainwater, if you have a properly designed system, 9 you can sustain a drought of record with water left over. 10 I'm on a rainwater system; I don't have a well. Right now, 11 I've got 36,000 gallons of water sitting there, enough for 12 about two years just for house use. If you water the yard, 13 of course, you're going to use a lot more water, and I -- we 14 do water the yard. We got a lot of landscaping. But, 15 anyhow, we're -- we organized this last December. It's the 16 Texas chapter of the Texas Rainwater Harvesting Association. 17 And, again, we want to have our first annual conference here 18 in Kerrville next March, and that's why I'm before y'all, if 19 you can waive the rental part. I'm open to questions, if 20 y'all have them. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You're basically asking us to 22 be included on our nonprofit list? 23 MR. KIGHT: Right. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Which I don't think is a full 25 waiving of rentals. It's a reduction -- it's whatever our 11-24-08 12 1 standard reduction is. 2 MR. KIGHT: Yeah, we're a 5.01(c)(4). The reason 3 we went to 4 instead of 3 is, in a 3 you can't lobby. I 4 think we need to lobby. Which -- and that's the only 5 difference in the two. You know, 'cause in a 3, there's a 6 very fine line between lobbying and education, so it's better 7 to go to the 4 and full-blown lobby. And I've been before 8 T.C.E.Q. and the Legislature on this. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And you have members in Kerr 10 County? 11 MR. KIGHT: Oh, yeah. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The reason is, I believe our 13 rules require that if you're -- you have to be a Kerr County 14 resident to be active. So, I move approval. 15 MR. KIGHT: Yeah. In fact, our -- 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 17 MR. KIGHT: -- Secretary/Treasurer is here in Kerr 18 County. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 20 approval of the agenda item. Question or discussion? 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: John, how large is the 22 group? 23 MR. KIGHT: Right now, it's about 100. Now, we're 24 part of the national group, which is thousands. It covers 25 most all of the states. But we wanted to form one that's 11-24-08 13 1 strictly Texas. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sure. 3 MR. KIGHT: Because -- in fact, I'm working with 4 the national organization right now. They're writing up 5 design guidelines and installation standards. Well, some of 6 the things that the national group is doing, they don't 7 understand Texas is a little different than Minnesota or 8 California or somewhere else. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just a little. Little bit 10 different. 11 MR. KIGHT: And even Texas, between east Texas, at 12 60 inches a year of rain, and El Paso at 8 inches of rain, 13 you know, you got to be flexible in what you're proposing. 14 So, anyhow, you know, we're working on that. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm just trying to visualize 16 all of our hotel rooms full. Some of them will be with 17 that -- 18 MR. KIGHT: Oh, yeah. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If all those people show up. 20 Sure will. 21 MR. KIGHT: Yeah. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Further question or discussion on 23 the motion? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just quick, are you going to 25 have exhibitors here? 11-24-08 14 1 MR. KIGHT: Oh, yes. Yeah. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 'Cause I just -- 3 MR. KIGHT: In fact, let me just tell y'all, if 4 you're interested in looking -- do you want me to give -- 5 this is the Rainwater Harvesting Association, our -- it's 6 www.texrca.org. In fact, I'll just leave it -- with you? Or 7 Jody. Y'all need to get online, and you'll see in there that 8 we've got the registration, and for the exhibitors, and then 9 also we're looking for sponsors to help on this thing. But, 10 yeah. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Fantastic. 13 MR. KIGHT: And that's why this -- the place y'all 14 have out here is just perfect for something like that. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Maybe y'all can donate a 16 cachement system for that building. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: For the new building? 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Any of them. 19 MR. KIGHT: I've been working with y'all's nature 20 center here, been up consulting with them, and they're 21 getting a rainwater system -- bigger one. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Further question or discussion? All 23 in favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 24 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 25 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 11-24-08 15 1 (No response.) 2 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Thank you, 3 Commissioner. 4 MR. KIGHT: Thank you. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Let's move to Item 3; consider, 6 discuss, take appropriate action on request from Glow 7 International to be added to the nonprofit list for use of 8 the Union Church building. Is Ms. Trowbridge here? 9 (No response.) 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Have we heard from Ms. Trowbridge? 11 MS. GRINSTEAD: I haven't heard from her this 12 morning. I talked to her last week; she said she'd be here. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Did she indicate that she would be 14 here? 15 MS. GRINSTEAD: Yes. I need a copy of the 16 nonprofit proof. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Why don't we pass on that 18 item and we can come back to it later. We'll go to Item 4; 19 consider, discuss, take appropriate action to approve Bexar 20 County agreement for CERT trailer permanent loan. 21 Mr. Emerson? 22 MR. EMERSON: Thank you, Judge. I was asked to 23 present this on behalf of the Community Emergency Response 24 Team, which is the animal support part of a natural 25 emergency. It's been mandated by the state. It's my 11-24-08 16 1 understanding that Bexar County has obtained an AACOG loan to 2 provide one CERT trailer for each county in their district. 3 Unfortunately, because the grant is through Bexar County, all 4 the trailers technically belong to Bexar County, but it will 5 be placed on a permanent loan agreement and stationed 6 actually in Kerr County. It's a small trailer; it's a 7 5-by-8, has a little bit of equipment in it, and to be honest 8 with you, I'm not sure what it's used for. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Nor am I. 10 MR. EMERSON: I feel sure that Rusty will be kind 11 enough to house it at his facility. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: He will or will not? 13 MR. EMERSON: The honorable Sheriff is seated right 14 there if you'd like to ask him. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I misunderstood. 16 MR. EMERSON: I said I feel sure he will. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You feel sure he will. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We have one AACOG trailer -- 19 to me that's what that is, just a real small 5-by-8 box 20 trailer that could be used during homeland security-type 21 issues. You know, we have this emergency communications 22 trailer out there now. We can lock that one up too, I guess. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: My understanding was that in 24 connection with the animal aspect of emergency preparedness 25 and things of that nature that -- that are involved in those 11-24-08 17 1 issues, that that's in large measure what it's designed to 2 support. Also for training and things of that nature, I 3 believe. 4 MR. EMERSON: In theory, Judge, I think you're 5 correct. But, I mean, it's a small enough trailer. I'm not 6 real sure how it's actually going to be used. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, this -- also, I'd like to take 8 this as an opportunity to recognize Christine McIntyre of 9 your office, who's probably one of the lead persons in this 10 state when it comes to emergency preparedness issues and 11 animals. She's -- she goes all the way back to Katrina and 12 prior to that in her work with animal rescue in those 13 disasters, and she has done a fabulous job, and she's been a 14 tremendous resource to the entire state in some of the works 15 that she's done and some of the documentation that she's 16 drafted. And I think the State's getting a real good free 17 ride out of all of her work. I think you understand that 18 from her work in your office, how competent she is. This, I 19 think, in large measure, involves her work with the animal 20 rescue in emergency situations, and I think she's also going 21 to use it for training other groups. She's been doing that 22 in a number of instances in the past, and I think is 23 scheduled to do a whole lot more, so this will give her some 24 more resources to do that. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I move approval of the 11-24-08 18 1 agreement with Bexar County to house the CERT trailer. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 4 approval of the agenda item. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That gives you authorization to 6 sign. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Question or discussion on the 8 motion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising your 9 right hand. 10 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 11 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 12 (No response.) 13 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Let's go to 14 Item 5; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to 15 initiate investigation of alternative energy sources for 16 county facilities. Mr. Emerson? 17 MR. EMERSON: Let me tell you right off the bat, 18 this won't cost y'all any money, so relax. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's good. 20 MR. EMERSON: In the process of discussing the 21 electric use for the county, it came to our attention that 22 the courthouse last year used approximately $68,000 worth of 23 electricity. The jail and the Sheriff's Department used well 24 over $100,000 worth of electricity. Now, I know from various 25 articles that have been published and communicating with 11-24-08 19 1 other public officials in other counties that some of the 2 counties are exploring solar panels and wind -- wind 3 turbines. The city of Frisco has recently put in a system; 4 they're estimating it will reduce their electrical cost by 5 20 percent a year. What I would like is to have your 6 permission to just to talk to some of the alternative energy 7 source companies, have them come out and look at the 8 facilities, have them make a presentation on whether they 9 think it's feasible or not and it can actually help us. But 10 I just need your authorization to pursue that. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Rex, are you talking about 12 solar and wind? I mean, inviting people from the wind -- 13 MR. EMERSON: I'd like to talk to both. Now, I 14 think wind, we're limited because -- 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, I do too. 16 MR. EMERSON: -- of the City's ordinances limiting 17 height. It is possible to do something like that out by the 18 Sheriff's Department, where it's open. The courthouse itself 19 would be strictly solar. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Rex, in looking at that, I 21 don't even know if we can do it here, but I don't -- I know, 22 like, in Houston, larger industries, they're free to kind of 23 negotiate rates with all kinds of different energy providers. 24 They don't have -- they don't have to use, like, whatever -- 25 Houston Power and Light. They can use whoever they want. Do 11-24-08 20 1 we have that flexibility here? Do we have to use KPUB, or 2 can we negotiate a rate with Houston Power and Light? 3 MR. EMERSON: I don't know. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Be interesting to find out, 5 'cause I know this Houston -- you know, when you sign up for 6 services, you get to pick off the menu who you get your power 7 from, and it's based on -- the rates vary. So, it'd be 8 interesting to look at. I know the co-ops have a little bit 9 of a different way that they can do things that they -- you 10 know, but I know that -- but, obviously, KPUB's a lot 11 different than a co-op. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see where KPUB lowered -- 13 they're lowering their winter rates, though, so hush. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We want to get it lower. They 15 still may lower it anyway. Just something to think about. 16 You may find out if we have that flexibility here. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Would your investigation 18 include all county facilities, like the Hill Country Youth 19 Exhibit Center as well as the jail and the courthouse? 20 MR. EMERSON: We can certainly do that. I think 21 initially it was I was going to start at these two facilities 22 because they're the primary electrical users. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The other thing you may look at 24 specifically because of the large amount of acreage we have 25 at the parks and at the Ag Barn -- or larger amounts, and 11-24-08 21 1 Little League fields and -- what do you call it? -- Road and 2 Bridge, I believe you can -- if there's -- we generate power 3 there, KPUB has to take it back in through the system, so we 4 may get a credit against our whole power by having one 5 facility out at local remote location like that. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That would be something 7 really to look at. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have no idea what the payout 9 of those type of things are, but, you know -- 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You're right. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: My understanding, that's how 12 you're supposed to do it, but I know, again, co-ops are 13 different. Should we try that? 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Plus get John J.B. Miller 16 here in the courtroom to tell us about how KPUB wanted a 17 million-dollar liability policy in their favor for him doing 18 the same thing at his home. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, if we need a court 21 order, I would move to authorize Rex Emerson to look into 22 these issues. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded as 25 indicated. Question or discussion on the motion? All in 11-24-08 22 1 favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 2 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 3 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 4 (No response.) 5 MR. EMERSON: Thank you. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion does carry. Let's move to 7 Item 7, if we might; consider, discuss, and take appropriate 8 action to accept conveyance to Kerr County from K Bar Ranch, 9 Limited, Inc., 2.12 acres located immediately adjacent to Big 10 Sky Ranch Subdivision in Precinct 4 on Lower Reservation 11 Road. Commissioner Oehler? 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I was notified by the 13 partnership that did this subdivision several years ago they 14 would like to convey this property that's actually -- there's 15 a -- where the fence is has been in the same place for many, 16 many years. It used to be Tatsch Road, now Lower 17 Reservation. A portion of that, they want to deed the 2.12 18 acres to Kerr County that is outside of their fence, which is 19 already in our right-of-way, and so they can quit paying 20 taxes on it. But that's the sole reason. It's land that's 21 non-usable. They're going to prepare the deeds from the -- 22 actually, I think three different deeds that have to be 23 prepared, and submit them to us for conveyance. And so I 24 would offer a motion to accept the conveyance of the 2.12 25 acres from Big Sky Ranch Subdivision, Ltd., Precinct 4, into 11-24-08 23 1 Kerr County. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 4 approval of the agenda item to accept the conveyance. 5 Question or discussion on the motion? 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Bruce, are you saying that 7 these folks have been paying taxes on land that the County -- 8 that the public owns? 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Say it again. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The landowners actually own 12 it, but it's inside of our right-of-way, what's fenced into 13 our right-of-way. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We have an easement right now. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We have the road easement, 16 and then that land is between our easement and their fence 17 line. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Very good. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And so it's kind of cleaning 20 up a -- that's a really wide right-of-way. It's about -- 21 with this, it makes it about 80 feet wide now instead of 50. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just follows the road? 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just -- right, it's parallel 24 to the road, and it's already in the existing area. We don't 25 have to do anything except accept the deed. 11-24-08 24 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Rex, do you have a standard 2 form deed to accomplish this? 3 MR. EMERSON: No, sir. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We don't have to prepare it; 5 they're going to. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I know. I'm just saying we 7 have -- I mean, several times we've done these things in my 8 precinct, and there's several more that are getting ready 9 that we have to look at, and just to keep -- it might be 10 easier for Rex, rather than reviewing multiple deeds, if we 11 had a form that we prefer to provide the deed. 12 MR. EMERSON: There's a general warranty deed form, 13 okay, that's out there. But typically I don't prepare the 14 deeds; I'll allow the landowners to prepare the deeds. Or if 15 we have to do one, I'll go through a third party because of 16 the liability associated with real land transactions. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Basically, the area that's 19 highlighted on this little plat I gave you is the roadway, 20 the first two lines -- first three lines, and between the 21 last line and the fence line is where the property is. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. Is there a motion? 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is there a second? 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, it's already done, 11-24-08 25 1 except we haven't voted on it. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Any further question or discussion 3 on the motion? All in favor of the motion, signify by 4 raising your right hand. 5 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 6 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 7 (No response.) 8 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Let's move 9 to Item 8, if we might, to consider, discuss, take 10 appropriate action to reappoint Janet Moseley to the Library 11 Board for a one-year term. Commissioner Oehler? 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, evidently, I may have 13 messed this up. I thought that we would just do it for one 14 year. I've got some ideas about what we should do with that 15 Library Board now that we really don't have any interest in 16 it other than we give a set amount of money every year, based 17 on our agreement with the City. But according to Mike Hayes, 18 that -- per our agreement right now, it's a three-year term. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So I think we should probably 21 pass this until the next agenda, put it on there to do that, 22 and then give us time to work out what we're going to do with 23 that Library Board. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: But I don't see the Library 11-24-08 26 1 Board as being much of an issue any more. We don't have any 2 vested interest, really, negotiating anything with them. 3 But, anyway, I'd like to pass it till the next meeting and do 4 it properly. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's move to Item 6, a 9:30 6 timed item. It is close enough to that time at this point. 7 Consider, discuss, take appropriate action to authorize the 8 216th District Attorney to contract for appropriate staff to 9 facilitate more expedient case dispositions. Commissioner 10 Baldwin? 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. Thank you. You 12 remember a couple of months ago, we had a -- had a workshop 13 here at 7 a.m. in this room, and we had the two District 14 Judges; we had 216th D.A. and one candidate for 198th D.A. in 15 the room, as well as a lot of other folks. The District 16 Judges offered to help us financially to hire visiting judges 17 to go out to the jail and help facilitate those disposition 18 of some of those cases that are just sitting around out 19 there. And we kind of nodded our heads and had a nice visit 20 about it, and in my opinion, agreed with it and thanked them, 21 went on down our way and came back in here, and then in the 22 budget process, put some money in the budget for the District 23 Attorney to hire an assistant of some sort to go out and be 24 the prosecutor at the jail. So, that's basically what we're 25 doing, is giving him authority here to move forward to 11-24-08 27 1 appropriate some staff to do -- to do -- to take care of 2 those issues. That's it. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This is purely for 216th? 4 Or does 198th have a piece of this too? 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: In my mind, it's for both. 6 I'm not real sure that 198th wants to participate. I mean, I 7 don't know. They keep talking about these other things that 8 they have not appeared in this room yet to -- to present to 9 us. So -- 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What amount -- maybe I should 11 direct it to Mr. Curry. How much do you need out of the 12 amount that we budgeted for staff? I mean, what's the dollar 13 figure? Do you have a dollar figure? 14 MR. CURRY: I -- back just to that original deal, I 15 think we were talking maybe in terms of probably 30,000, is 16 what I kind of figured for a part-time lawyer that would 17 spend, I'd say, an average of a couple of days a week doing 18 that, and then hopefully be able to try some -- some of the 19 state jail felony type things that are hanging in there. And 20 then the rest of it -- I think it was 50, if I recall 21 correctly, was to be used for some of the peripheral matters. 22 And I'm not really sure what those would be, 'cause I'm 23 thinking about using a tape recorder instead of a court 24 reporter for many of these items, and so I'm not sure it 25 even -- we'd use it all. 11-24-08 28 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, at this point, until we 2 know what 198th is, 30,000? 3 MR. CURRY: That's what I'm thinking. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Bruce, is it your intention 5 to hire somebody on a contract rate, as opposed to that 6 individual being named an employee of the county? 7 MR. CURRY: That was my intention. And I think -- 8 I talked to the Auditor about that. If that's -- if that's 9 possible, yes, that would be my recommendation on it. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 11 MR. CURRY: And you'd asked the question about the 12 198th, and I consider it to be a jail docket, and so it would 13 cover both. The candidate that actually won the election, 14 Mr. Barton, and I spoke about this over a period of time, and 15 he -- if we did this, he said he would just as soon I 16 administer it, but it would be for every person brought into 17 jail, regardless of which court they're going to, yes. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 19 MR. CURRY: That's the idea, at least. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. Appreciate 21 that. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Curry, in the -- in the 23 disposition of cases, we're talking about a lot of trying to 24 facilitate pleas, and quick resolution of cases, I assume. 25 Is it the current policy of your office that plea offers made 11-24-08 29 1 to a defendant, that the first offer's the best offer? 2 MR. CURRY: I don't know that in concrete. I think 3 as a practical matter, that's probably right, but -- 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I can see where there'd be 5 some extenuating circumstances; witnesses recant, things of 6 that nature. But absent those extenuating special 7 circumstances -- 8 MR. CURRY: I think that would be a fair -- you 9 know, the evidence may change, something can happen, but I 10 think that's probably a fair assessment, yes. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, I move that we 12 approve the agenda item. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 15 approval of the agenda item. Is that on the basis of the 16 30,000 that -- 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You can do that it way if 18 you want to. I mean, I don't -- 19 JUDGE TINLEY: It's your motion, Commissioner. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have no problem with 21 limiting it to 30,000 today, and 20,000 next week. That's 22 fine with me. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But is that what you want? 25 JUDGE TINLEY: It's your motion, Commissioner. 11-24-08 30 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It makes sense to me to put a 2 dollar amount so we know where it's coming from and coming 3 out of that line item. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, that's fine. It -- in 5 the final analysis, it makes absolutely zero difference. 6 But -- 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Let's do the 30, and if the 8 District Attorneys need more, we can come back with the other 9 20. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Super. So, we'll limit it 11 to 30,000. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Today. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. We have a motion and a 15 second. Question or discussion on that motion? All in favor 16 of that motion, signify by raising your right hand. 17 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 18 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 19 (No response.) 20 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Thank you, 21 Mr. Curry. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you, Bruce. 23 MR. CURRY: Thank you. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Let's move to Item 9, if we might. 25 Consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to formulate a 11-24-08 31 1 plan to clean and repair Flat Rock Dam and Ingram Dam. 2 Commissioner Oehler? 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, I just thought we ought 4 to get started on this, being as we didn't really allocate 5 any funds in this year's budget for those repairs to either 6 Flat Rock or Ingram, and we did not, to my knowledge, 7 appropriate any funds to do any major cleaning of either one 8 of those. So, it would be my suggestion that we -- that 9 during the course of from now until probably June or July, 10 when we go through our budget process, that either Bill and I 11 together, or independently on each project, meet with some 12 people that do these kinds of repairs that have been -- that 13 came out of the assessment done by Freese-Nichols to get some 14 estimated costs of doing this, so that we know what that 15 amount is, or somewhere in the realm of reality of what that 16 is before next budget year. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Freese-Nichols is doing a 18 little bit of -- Bruce and I have talked about this. We're 19 pretty much on the same page. Freese-Nichols is doing a 20 look-see right now at what the scope of work might flesh out 21 to be, and getting some contractors' names and so forth lined 22 up for us, people that do that kind of work so that it -- 23 when we start these discussions, we'll have a leg up on 24 perhaps what kind of costs we're ultimately going to be 25 looking at to do the two dams. And it makes sense to do them 11-24-08 32 1 both at the same time. There is economies of scale in doing 2 that. We don't want to have them ramp up to do one, then go 3 away and come back and have to ramp up and do the second one 4 at some later date, do the same work. So, while all these 5 things are in front of us, one of the engineers from 6 Freese-Nichols is supposed to get back to Bruce and me with 7 this discussion. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is there -- under the cleaning 9 portion of the agenda item, is it a thought that we need to, 10 like, I mean, clean the dam or clean out the lake? 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Clean out the lake. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And -- 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Not the dams, just the lakes. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is there a -- I guess while 15 Lake Ingram -- Ingram is drained, y'all can probably do some 16 calculations as to how much is there, and, I mean, we drain 17 it again in a couple years and get some of the silt out. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's part of what I think 19 the plan needs to include, is kind of somewhat of a 20 timetable. Of course, the timetable on that includes 21 funding. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And I think Ingram, the 24 amount that it will cost to do a fairly major cleaning on it 25 is much less than what Flat Rock's going to be. 11-24-08 33 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's what I was going to say. 2 Flat Rock, that could be a never-ending -- 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It could be, and that'll have 4 something to do with the next agenda item. But I'd just like 5 for -- you know, to make the Court aware of kind of what 6 we're -- what we're thinking, and maybe appoint me to come up 7 with some kind of a plan of how we're going to do that. And 8 I think part of that includes Bill and I talking to some 9 contractors and getting some cost estimates to see what we're 10 looking at for next year's budget. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Flat Rock's going to be a 12 major piece, not only because of the size of it, but the 13 Court will remember that we went through this exercise once, 14 Bruce, before you came back on the Court, and in which we 15 talked about cleaning up Flat Rock Lake, and then 16 appropriated what's probably a modest sum of money by 17 comparison to what's going to be needed, 'cause Flat Rock -- 18 knowing it needs to be dredged, as does Ingram behind the 19 dam, but there's other debris in this lake that contributes 20 to hazard -- often hazardous conditions. Hate to reference 21 it, but, you know, we have three lakes, and if we're ever 22 going to be talking about surface water as an alternative or 23 adjunct to groundwater in the eastern part of the county, and 24 if there's any hope of that in the future, the River 25 Authority would engage itself in a water treatment plant 11-24-08 34 1 facility in the Center Point region, we've got to be thinking 2 about that dam and that dredging of that lake as well. Hate 3 to complicate the matter, but we have three, and we have 4 three problems. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, I think, you know, part 6 of -- part of the process, I think that we're looking at 7 spending over half a million dollars to even make a dent in 8 Flat Rock. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I wouldn't be surprised. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Cleaning it, and removal of 11 the siltation and debris and whatever. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And -- 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Could be higher than that. 14 I'm thinking that Ingram, probably in the neighborhood of 15 100,000, 150,000 will take care of it. But those kind of 16 funds I'll talk about in the next agenda item, because I know 17 -- I know that we don't have the money to do it with. And 18 there are some people that are under the impression that we 19 do, and I don't remember appropriating one cent for the 20 thing. Also, in the course of this year, we -- we kind of 21 have started in motion the same thing we did at Ingram, is to 22 go ahead and get that stuff cleaned away from the ball down 23 there so that we can drain Flat Rock next October, that being 24 part of the process. And the pumping and the diving part of 25 it is a very minimal charge -- cost to prepare to drain it. 11-24-08 35 1 We can't just -- 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- go down there and do it. 4 You know, we found out we had all those problems at Ingram. 5 Now, I think we figured out how to solve it, and it worked 6 very well. And I think the total cost on the draining of 7 that thing, doing all the pumping and diving and everything, 8 was about $3,200. Two days on the pump, and 2,900 from 9 the -- Doug Hill and his part. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Would part of your review be to 11 figure out where this debris would go? 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think that we've got a 13 pretty good alternative for that. We've got the pit over 14 there across the road at Wheatcraft could take a lot of it. 15 It would be -- which would be a close haul. I think we could 16 use some of it at Flat Rock up in our park area to fill up 17 some areas in there, make those more usable. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Get out of the floodplain. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And we have still -- I think 20 it's 9 or 12 acres that's out of the floodplain on that piece 21 of property. If we could do some leveling in there and do 22 some preparation of that part, future, you know, building 23 projects on that property, it may turn into a really nice 24 place, I think. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: T.C.E.Q. has some pretty 11-24-08 36 1 stringent regulations on what you do with that stuff and how 2 you do it. I recall in the last major flood that we had, 3 where the intake on U.G.R.A. Lake got all screwed up, they 4 ended up doing some dredging behind that dam after that, and 5 they had to put all that stuff on the ground in the proximity 6 of taking it out and let it dewater for a long period of 7 time. They needed to move it. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. It's -- and the thing 9 is, by draining -- by draining like we've done at Ingram, 10 that stuff would be watered -- of course, this is an 11 unusually dry year. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's dewatered faster than 14 I've ever seen it. It's amazing how quick they were able to 15 get in, and a couple owners that are doing some work. And, 16 you know, it doesn't have near as much siltation in it as 17 what I thought it would have after 11 years. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Probably more rock than 19 silt. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There's not that much rock, 21 and there aren't many health hazards out there that I can 22 see, you know, health and safety issues. There aren't any 23 big stumps sticking up, you know, trees that have washed in 24 or -- you know, we don't have any cars in there this time. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Few refrigerators. 11-24-08 37 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We haven't seen a 2 refrigerator either, so that's pretty amazing. No canoes and 3 no docks or anything like that, that sometimes come down and 4 sink. But do a little work around the boat dock; Road and 5 Bridge can do that, just do a little cleaning, because some 6 of the bigger boats that come in there hit the bottom when 7 they start to back in the ramp, so we just need to take a 8 little -- probably take a half a day or no more than a day to 9 do what little needs to be done there. Anyway, meantime, I 10 just wanted to kind of air this out a little bit and kind of 11 make everybody aware of what's -- what I think we ought to 12 do, and kind of get started on it ahead of time so we don't 13 scramble round at the eleventh hour to try to find out some 14 information that we could do during the year. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, we don't need any action, 16 really. This is more just a -- 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Kind of consensus of the 18 Court to see -- 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We've already started the 20 process. We'll just finish it. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, when is it -- what's the 22 plan on doing all this work? I mean, when? 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Next budget year. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Next -- I heard two years 25 somewhere. 11-24-08 38 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, there may be -- as far 2 as the cleaning part of it goes, it may be a five-year plan, 3 depending on funding. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One part of the -- one part 5 that we talked about with the Freese-Nichols engineer was 6 that, first of all, we don't have anything in this current 7 budget, and the earliest that we could have any funds for the 8 repair of the dams was in the '9-'10 budget. And that being 9 the case, we could lower the level of the lake and do the dam 10 repairs, both of them, sometime after October, and get -- of 11 next year, in the '9-'10 budget year, and get that out of the 12 way before the spawning season begins for the fish. So, 13 that's part of what we'd already talked about. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. One of the things that 15 sounds like -- I don't know which one of y'all -- I think 16 Bill said about surface water. It may be a good idea for us 17 to go through Region J to add these in as strategies to -- as 18 a potential for surface water impoundment. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Because that opens up a whole 21 lot of federal and state funding opportunities. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a good idea, 23 Commissioner. When can I meet with you? (Laughter.) 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're -- Region J has a meeting 25 in Bandera on the 11th of December. 11-24-08 39 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 11th of December? 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You just had to bring it up. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Am I invited, sir? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Certainly. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: But you take out -- you know, 6 I believe the -- with cleaning the Flat Rock Lake out, you're 7 going to be able to impound -- 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: A lot of water. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- a tremendous amount of 10 water over what's being impounded now, with all the mud and 11 stuff that -- that's in there. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure. Same would apply to 13 the Center Point lake. I don't think that's ever been 14 cleaned out. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Probably not. Do you know 16 how to drain it? 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, sir, I'm really not 18 sure. But I think a hose over the top might work. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: At this time, you can 20 probably put a 6-inch hose on it and probably drain it. 21 Anyway, that's all I really have on that. I just wanted -- 22 more of an information thing than anything else. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: We've got a companion agenda item, 24 Item 10. If there's nothing further on 9, we'll move to 10. 25 Consider, discuss, take appropriate action to authorize a 11-24-08 40 1 request for funding from U.G.R.A. to assist with the cleaning 2 of Flat Rock Lake and Ingram Lake beginning in winter of '09, 3 and authorize Commissioner Oehler to inform U.G.R.A. of the 4 plan to clean the lakes and request funding for the same. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, I think there's some 6 misinformation that's been floating around at U.G.R.A. that I 7 was made aware of the other day that we're -- it was said 8 that supposedly we had two and a half million dollars to do 9 this cleaning with, and that we didn't need any money. It 10 was brought up in one of the -- I think it was right after 11 one of the meetings, and might have been during the meeting. 12 So, I -- you know, we don't need that kind of stuff floating 13 around. And also, in my -- in my opinion, that, you know, 14 U.G.R.A. talks about doing a lot of clean river stuff and 15 clean this and clean that. This would sure enough give them 16 an opportunity to take some of their funds and help the 17 county do this project, and I think that we should formally 18 request some funds from them and see what they tell us. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't see any harm in 20 requesting, see where it takes us. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Give them an idea and make it 22 -- make it, you know, a process that can go on for several 23 years where we wouldn't expect all the funding at one time. 24 But maybe, you know, to allocate a certain amount each year 25 in their budget to where, you know, we can eventually be able 11-24-08 41 1 to do some -- some real work on these lakes rather than just, 2 you know, kind of piecemeal them because we don't have the 3 availability, in my opinion, of funds that we can just 4 allocate in, say, a year's budget to do that. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We could do probably something 6 -- you know, maybe 25,000 a year for a couple years. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, but we can't -- anyway, 8 I think we're facing some tight years ahead, and especially 9 next year could be a real tough year for any kind of 10 additional funding. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm wondering -- just 12 wondering aloud; Jonathan may know the answer. Is there any 13 -- do you think there's any possibility of funding through 14 state revolving water funds, T.W.D.B.? 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I would -- I'm sure there are 16 state funds available for this. I don't know where they'd 17 be. I mean, I would think that this is something that the 18 state Corps of Engineers -- I don't know whether it's through 19 T.C.E.Q. or through who, but I would think this is certainly 20 not a unique problem to Kerr County, and local entities just 21 are not going to have the resources to do it. And, 22 certainly, it's a really -- it benefits the state as a whole 23 on water quality issues, so I would -- I have no idea where 24 those funds would be, but I would be very surprised if 25 there's not some avenue at the state and federal level. 11-24-08 42 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Can we amend your -- what 2 will be your motion, perhaps, to add other -- other agencies 3 in addition to U.G.R.A.? U.G.R.A. and other state agencies? 4 To -- 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think we'll have to ask the 6 County Attorney about that. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Can't do that? 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We can put that on the next 9 agenda to hit other sources of funding. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: What you're suggesting, 11 Commissioner, is that we are in the process of formulating a 12 plan that's going to include the cleanup of -- of those 13 lakes, and it's going to take considerable financial 14 resources, and we don't have those, and just asking 15 assistance from U.G.R.A. of whatever they might provide? 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's right. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: To that end -- 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, I just think, you 19 know, it's another one of those things -- this is kind of an 20 early -- early in the year thing, perhaps, for next year, but 21 I believe it gives us some time to work on this funding level 22 so that when we do pull the plug next year on Flat Rock, 23 there may or may not be funds available to start the process. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't think this -- but the, 11-24-08 43 1 you know, absence of an agenda item is certainly not going to 2 preclude anyone on the Court from making inquiries of other 3 agencies. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Of course not. Okay. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: But I thought it would be a 6 good idea, being as U.G.R.A. is here locally, to have some -- 7 you know, I don't feel good about going over to ask for money 8 unless the Court is going to go along with that. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm not bashful. I'll go 10 with you. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay, I'll be glad for you 12 to. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: You feel like it might be helpful to 14 have an actual formal action by the Court in order to 15 facilitate that? I think it would be appropriate. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I do. I really do. I think 17 we should -- it would be appropriate to have a letter from 18 the Court requesting funding for this project. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll make a motion that we 20 authorize Commissioner Oehler and Commissioner Williams to 21 enter into a dialogue with U.G.R.A. about cleaning of the 22 lakes in Kerr County. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: And -- 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Kerr County-owned lakes. 11-24-08 44 1 JUDGE TINLEY: -- assistance for funding? 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And request assistance for 3 funding. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: We have a motion and a second as 6 indicated. Question or discussion on that motion? All in 7 favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 8 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 9 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 10 (No response.) 11 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Let's return 12 to Item 3, if we might. Consider, discuss, take appropriate 13 action on request from Glow International to be added to the 14 nonprofit list for use of the Union Church building. 15 Ms. Trowbridge? 16 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Yes, I'm sorry I'm late. My 17 request is for the Aglow International organization, which 18 was here in Kerrville -- the last was 14 years ago, so it was 19 formed here in the 1970's, and lasted until the president 20 died of cancer; moved back to Boston about 1993-'94, so it's 21 been 14 years. Now there is a new generation, let's say, who 22 want to form Aglow International here, and we're in the 23 process of forming it, and we would like to request that we 24 could have the Union Church at a 50 percent discount, because 25 we are a nonprofit organization, and I have the paperwork 11-24-08 45 1 here from San Antonio, Texas, signed by the officers. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Have you -- have you obtained a 3 nonprofit status from the Secretary of State of the state of 4 Texas, or the I.R.S., or any of those governmental 5 organizations? 6 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Well, Aglow, for 42 years, has 7 been a nonprofit organization in America. Aglow 8 International. But -- but the Kerrville group here is just 9 forming, so it -- we don't have anything like that at this 10 time. We just would be under their umbrella from San 11 Antonio, central Texas. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: This would just be a chapter of the 13 Glow International? 14 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Yes, sir. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What is Glow International? 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are you saying "Aglow"? 17 MS. TROWBRIDGE: A-g-l-o-w. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The women's Christian 19 organization? 20 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Yes, sir. Yes. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Aglow. Aglow. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: A-g-l-o-w, okay. I know what that 23 is. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Women's Aglow. 25 MS. TROWBRIDGE: That's right. 11-24-08 46 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Been around forever. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Aglow, okay, got 3 you. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I move approval. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 7 approval. Question or discussion? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Clarification. The -- the 9 approval is to be added to our standard reduction. Might not 10 be 50 percent, I'm not sure. Whatever reduction -- 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Added to the nonprofit list. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Nonprofit list. 13 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Yes, please. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Further question or discussion? All 15 in favor of the motion -- 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let me ask a question. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are you talking about having 19 a regular monthly meeting there, or are you talking about 20 going down there every day and praying for me, or what -- 21 what exactly -- what are you -- what's the plan? 22 MS. TROWBRIDGE: The plan would be, like, the first 23 Saturday of each month -- and we might occasionally meet 24 somewhere at a restaurant, like Mamacita's. But, you know, 25 we would be there probably, out of each quarter, at least two 11-24-08 47 1 months, you know. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have no -- 3 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Of each quarter. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have no problem with that, 5 but, you know, we denied a guy that wanted to have his 6 regular church services there. 7 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Oh. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We did, yes. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And this is kind of -- I 10 mean, I see it as kind of a similar -- not against your 11 group -- 12 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Oh, I know. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- or any kind of Christian 14 activity, but, you know, what's good for the goose is good 15 for the gander, kind of. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think this is a -- I think of 17 this more as just a periodic meeting. Not -- 18 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Right. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, it's not -- 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Not a church service. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Not a church service, just a 22 meeting. I was thinking, you know, monthly or whatever 23 y'all -- 24 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Right. We might just meet there 25 once every three months. But it would be, you know, probably 11-24-08 48 1 four times a year, minimum. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Like a board meeting kind of 3 thing? 4 MS. TROWBRIDGE: No, we would have 50 to 100 people 5 come to the meeting. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: A meeting meeting? What is 7 a "meeting"? 8 MS. TROWBRIDGE: It consists of praise and worship 9 and having a speaker, usually from out of the city. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Like a church service. 11 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Somewhat, yes, except it's a guest 12 speaker coming in. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: "Periodic meeting" is the term that 14 came to my mind too. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Rex, does this violate any -- I 16 mean, is this a -- a meeting -- I mean, is it a -- what do 17 you think? Is this a meeting or is this a church service? 18 MR. EMERSON: I don't know if there's enough info 19 to determine that. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, we've -- we've opted 21 against allowing church services there. 22 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Right, I understand. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We clearly established that 24 the building that you want to be in is the Union Church 25 building. 11-24-08 49 1 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Yes. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It is no longer a church -- 3 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Well, that's true. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- as such. Public events 5 facility. 6 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Yes. Kerr County Prayer 7 Fellowship. Judge Danny Edwards' wife, Lana Edwards, and the 8 other women had -- had that for the last five years, and they 9 would use Union Church at a discount rate about twice a year, 10 once a year. So, you know, even something like that would be 11 fine. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's fine as long as 13 it's -- for y'all to use it, but it's got to be clear that 14 this is not intended to be a location for church services. 15 MS. TROWBRIDGE: I understand. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't want it to evolve 17 into once a month and once a week. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What about -- yeah, and I 19 agree with everything. What about this thing of blocking out 20 a particular day for a year when they're not going to be 21 there but two or three times a year, so that that day could 22 be used for something else? Can we say that when you get 23 ready to use it, to reserve -- reserve it at that time? Or 24 do we need to block it for a full year, every third Monday or 25 whatever it was? 11-24-08 50 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: First come, first served, 2 isn't it, Ms. Grinstead? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just whatever our standard 4 policy is, what I would think. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think I heard her say, 6 though, that she wants to block out the third Friday morning 7 at 9 o'clock. Just trying to make it clear up front so we 8 don't have a problem later on. 9 MS. TROWBRIDGE: We will meet, you know, the first 10 -- the first Saturday of each month, so we'll have stability 11 and people knowing when we're meeting, you know. This is 12 done across America and the other 173 nations we're in, so we 13 just meet once a month. But we could just stipulate that the 14 other times we would meet there, we'll pay full price, $100. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Other times what? 16 MS. TROWBRIDGE: The other times we might ask to 17 sign up to meet there because of a consensus of wanting to, 18 we would pay the full price. If it were -- 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I got a problem with that. 20 We're -- setting aside the rate, whether it's regular rate or 21 not-for-profit rate, we're getting into regular church 22 services there. We've already denied one group that. 23 MS. TROWBRIDGE: We met at Luby's Cafeteria last 24 month, and we're meeting at Mamacita's December the 6th. 25 Those restaurants, you know, say we can meet for free. We 11-24-08 51 1 have 47 people signed up right now for the Mamacita's 2 meeting. We're signed up for next month for the Union 3 Church. And, so, I'm just saying from there, where do we go? 4 You know, once in a while? Or -- 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think what -- what I'm 6 hearing, I think, is that we don't want church services and 7 we don't want a regular place for you to hold your -- your 8 services. If you want to meet there occasionally, that's 9 fine, but it should not be your standard place to meet for 10 that kind of a service. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It should be a limited number 13 of times, maybe twice a year or something like that. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, first the lady said 15 maybe three or four times a year. That's quarterly. Now 16 it's down to month and whatever, so -- 17 JUDGE TINLEY: What I'm hearing is we do not want 18 to block out on a set schedule the first Saturday of each 19 month, for example, 'cause the next step is every Sunday, you 20 got somebody doing church service there. If you're holding 21 meetings, as opposed to worship services, and occasionally 22 you want to use that facility, you're a nonprofit, you 23 contact Ms. Grinstead, who handles the reservations. She 24 sees if it's available. If it's available, you can use it 25 for that purpose. If it's not, you find yourself another 11-24-08 52 1 facility or you select another day. Isn't that kind of where 2 it's going? 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's exactly it. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's correct, Judge. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Especially on Saturdays, we 6 have a lot of weddings and stuff going on there. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We do. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, if it's booked, it's booked. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, if it's booked -- 10 JUDGE TINLEY: But we're not going to book it, you 11 know, a year or months out in advance. 12 MS. TROWBRIDGE: No. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Y'all -- what I'm hearing from you 14 is, there are a lot of other venues around the area that you 15 use, eating establishments, maybe other meeting facilities, 16 Dietert or whatever. 17 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Yes. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: But occasionally you may want to 19 hold a meeting -- not a worship service, but a meeting -- at 20 the Union Church, and you want to be recognized as nonprofit 21 status for that purpose. 22 MS. TROWBRIDGE: That is correct. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. I think we got a motion, 24 don't we? 25 THE CLERK: A motion and a second. 11-24-08 53 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, and a second. Further 2 discussion on the motion? All in favor of the motion, 3 signify by raising your right hand. 4 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 5 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 6 (No response.) 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, ma'am. We appreciate you 8 being here. 9 MS. TROWBRIDGE: Thank you. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: We will now move to Item 11, to 11 consider, discuss, take appropriate action to approve a 12 resolution concerning proposed legislation concerning county 13 subdivision and land use regulations. Commissioner Letz? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. I -- there was in the 15 packet a kind of generic resolution, and then over the 16 weekend I customized it for Kerr County, changed it slightly, 17 but didn't change anything real significant. And this is 18 part of the -- similar to a resolution we did earlier, and 19 part of the Hill Country County Coalition and its efforts to 20 get some new legislation through. We met last -- 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Thursday. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- Thursday in Fredericksburg. 23 Commissioner Oehler was there. And we went over the actual 24 bills that have been drafted by the University of Texas law 25 school, some students there that are working on this project 11-24-08 54 1 as a class. I've got copies of what we looked at for anyone 2 that wants to look at it, but they're being changed again, 3 and we should have a final version of those bills tomorrow, I 4 believe. So, they're -- that's what the students' goal was. 5 The three areas that are -- four areas, actually, that it's 6 kind of been narrowed down to, the first is a -- and it's 7 under the "Now, therefore, be it resolved," the 2, 3 and 4 8 items. First item is clarifying county authority to mandate 9 subdivision development in unincorporated areas. That is 10 essentially going into Chapter 232 and making a number of 11 changes. In my mind, they're not huge changes. Some people 12 may differ with that. As an example of one of the larger 13 ones would be, currently we have the ability to require 14 bonding for roads in a subdivision. This would expand that 15 to require bonding of water and wastewater systems, which we 16 currently don't have the authority, basically, to expand that 17 to infrastructure. It changes -- the last Legislature gave 18 us some authority related to fire suppression, Subchapter E, 19 and it quite enlarges the tank size. I think it was 20 2,500 gallons, 5,000 gallons. It raised those sizes a little 21 bit and lowered the limits a little bit of the number of 22 lots, make it a little bit more practical. Definitions were 23 added, or proposed to be added to 232, which get all counties 24 a little bit more on the same page. And I think it was 25 primarily Kerr County's definitions that we have in our rules 11-24-08 55 1 were the ones that were adopted by the group. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Definitions of? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Plat, -- 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: This new stuff you're 5 talking about? Or just -- 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Definition of just what a plat 7 is, what a revision of -- what replatting is, that whole 8 issue of going back -- 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What a subdivision is. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What a subdivision is. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The age-old argument. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And things of that nature. 13 That's -- I don't think that's a real controversial one. 14 We're still looking a little bit at that, but not a whole 15 lot. I don't think we've really changed there. The other 16 item is providing authority for hill country counties to 17 require setbacks between incompatible land uses. That is in 18 -- well, I mean, back up a minute. These follow -- the next 19 three are looking at creating a, under Chapter 231, 20 Subchapter M, which would cover the 15 hill country counties, 21 and it would be authority that only these 15 hill country 22 counties would have. Subchapter 232 -- or Chapter 231 is 23 currently called zoning, county zoning, which is an 24 unfortunate title, but it is a chapter in the statutes that 25 gives counties -- certain specific counties more authority. 11-24-08 56 1 Hood County is one of the counties that is a 2 Chapter 231 county. A lot of the coastal counties have 3 additional authority because of wetlands and drainage and 4 water, flooding and all that stuff, but we're adding hill 5 country counties under there, and then they would get 6 additional authority on setbacks. Currently, we have 7 authority to do setbacks on the road frontage side, but not 8 on the other -- on the back, on the sides of the lot. This 9 would give us authority to have setbacks on all sides of a 10 lot, and that could be based on land use. So, what -- what 11 it does, it gives us a way to -- for example, a rock quarry, 12 we can say rock quarries need to have a setback of 50 feet. 13 And that's -- and the specifics are decided by each county. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Specifics are decided by 15 each county. The -- the incompatible land use issues, those 16 kind of things are decided by each county? I mean, like rock 17 quarries. What else? 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's up to the counties. It's 19 the -- has to be reasonable under the statute. Like you say, 20 if you're in a residential lot, 5 foot. You know, 21 commercial, I think you have to bracket them. I don't think 22 you can single out a certain industry, per se. Maybe you can 23 with rock quarries, but it's just a way for counties to have 24 a little bit more flexibility on setbacks. Like, if you have 25 a -- I think it's Commissioner Williams had some issues with 11-24-08 57 1 a large rental storage unit going in right next to a 2 subdivision. We might say any kind of commercial development 3 getting at least a 25-foot setback. So you can -- right now 4 there's nothing; they can put it right on the lot line. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Or light industrial going 6 next to residential. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Or if someone wants a cell 8 tower, wind turbines. Say, if you have a cell tower, it's 9 got to be -- you know, you have to have a 25-foot setback. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How about hog farms? 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Agriculture is exempt. 12 (Laughter.) Or will be exempt. That is -- anyway, that is 13 the -- the setback issue. The next one is providing specific 14 authority for hill country counties to regulate population 15 density, as determined by minimum and average lot sizes 16 within a designated area. This is an attempt to give 17 counties authority to set lot sizes, average and minimum, 18 without only looking at water availability, as we currently 19 do. We currently have a -- well, we just don't have the 20 authority right now, other than water availability. Also 21 gives us more flexibility to do what we're currently doing in 22 Kerr County, which is possibly a little bit questionable on 23 allowing higher density in the ETJ. Other things, it allows 24 us to look at a little bit bigger picture, possibly. We're 25 looking at water availability county-wide, as opposed to 11-24-08 58 1 looking at it in a specific -- or area-wide, as opposed to a 2 specific land -- 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So it's possible that an 4 entire county could be a density issue? 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Entire county, or it might be 6 doing like we're currently doing around the community of 7 Center Point and say we're going to allow a higher density 8 right in that area. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Based on public 10 infrastructure. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. Basically, health, 12 safety, and welfare. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You seem to think that that 14 is maybe illegal or something. I can't remember your comment 15 just a minute ago, that it's not the right way to go, but how 16 else would you do it? I like what we're doing. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't -- I don't -- I think 18 that there is a question, if you really look at the current 19 authority counties have, whether we have the authority to do 20 what we're doing. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, Columbus took a 22 chance. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. And I think we've done 24 it. I think many of the other counties have done it. 25 It's -- we're trying to stay out of litigation, and this 11-24-08 59 1 would be -- would provide a little bit more specific 2 authority. I think every county, Kerr County and surrounding 3 counties, have all done something that is, you know, along 4 the same lines as averaging. But it's questionable, and 5 pretty much every county's looking at how that authority 6 actually goes, 'cause we have authority to regulate lot sizes 7 based on water availability, and that's a pretty strict 8 statute. Anyway, it gives a little bit of additional 9 authority to look at other items. And then -- 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Why do we say in this, 11 Commissioner, talking about -- why do we make the reference 12 to population density? Why don't we just determine -- why 13 don't we just talk about lot sizes? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The -- this is one that we -- 15 we probably spent I don't know how many -- 30 minutes on 16 Thursday talking about this. The reason the term was used is 17 that the -- and also, the reason we got on the setbacks or 18 incompatible land use, the setbacks, when the law school 19 students and their professor were looking at how to do it, 20 how to get the -- what's been done previously, setbacks 21 were -- have been used around the state before. The term 22 actually for most other areas that have this ability on lot 23 sizes, it just says, "regulate population density." It just 24 leaves it as that counties have that, and that is deemed to 25 give us the authority for lot sizes. I think the group as a 11-24-08 60 1 whole was uncomfortable with that; would rather have it more 2 focused, 'cause we're not trying to regulate population 3 density. We're trying to do lot sizes. That's why we said 4 population density through averaging minimum lot sizes. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The reason I raise the 6 question is for the obvious reason. What happens in the case 7 of a proposed multi-family development of some sort, in an 8 area that needs public housing or needs low- to mod-income 9 housing? 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think that's a good -- I 11 think that's a good question. But also right now, under 12 water availability, we have -- you get into an issue. I 13 mean, what do you do now? I mean, it's kind of a -- 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't know; I asked you. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And we're trying to really 16 resolve some of that to get some of the gray areas out of our 17 current, you know, state rules. But I think the -- the 18 reason that term was chosen is because that is what has been 19 used by other counties to get the authority for lot sizes, 20 minimum and average. They've used the term "population 21 density." And then the fourth one, and I'll read it, and -- 22 is providing authority for hill country counties to assess 23 specific infrastructure fees to help counties fund the direct 24 infrastructure cost due to development. This is a -- prior 25 to Thursday, it was termed "impact fees," and was looked at 11-24-08 61 1 as we're going to do a change to Chapter 395, give counties 2 authority under 395. There was a -- a lot of discussion on 3 this, and this section is being rewritten in the bill right 4 now, and it is to allow the -- to not go the 395 route, not 5 go into impact fees, and do a much narrower view that will be 6 more specifically set out. When we get our new draft, 7 hopefully that will target it to if there's a -- I want to 8 say over a 125 percent increase of traffic due to a traffic 9 study on a road based on a new development going in, that's 10 the first trigger to set this off, and then the -- any 11 funding that would come from the -- a fee to the developer 12 would have to be used on that road within three years. The 13 money would be put in escrow, and if it wasn't used, it went 14 back to the developer. This is really to target -- the 15 purpose of this -- 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: They also have an option to 17 do some of the infrastructure improvement without -- without 18 even going through this. If -- you know, say if the 19 developer wanted to build at the end of a 30-foot easement 20 that was a county road, and they're going to put in 500 homes 21 in there, and the County could work with them in a way to 22 help do some land acquisition, possibly, and improve that 23 infrastructure to where you would have, you know, proper 24 access to that sort of thing, and it would be paid for, 25 basically. In my mind, it was kind of a cost-share. It was 11-24-08 62 1 somewhat county and somewhat developer would pay -- pay those 2 costs of upgrading that part of the infrastructure. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But that's -- you know, that's 4 where, you know, I guess the four items that the group as a 5 whole would like to get more authority. These are all -- 6 well, actually, the 232 would not be, but the other three are 7 a local option. It would either take a vote of Commissioners 8 Court or a vote of the public, and there would be pretty 9 lengthy requirements, at least two public meetings on the 10 proposed rules for the county. The counties can pick and 11 choose what they wanted. It would not be a grant 12 automatically to those 15 counties; they would have, then, 13 the ability to -- to go to each county for each county to, 14 you know, proceed with additional authority. I have met -- 15 and I see we have two members of the Home Builders 16 Association. I've met with Heinz and Justin at some length 17 on these. We have -- and I've been kind of charged by the 18 group to meet with them, and also as a good representative 19 of, I think -- or a good conduit to the state organization, 20 to try to have rules that they support, or certainly don't 21 vehemently oppose, being the Home Builders Association, and 22 trying to figure out and get feedback, what they think works 23 and doesn't work. 24 I'll let them, of course, speak for themselves, but 25 I think we're on pretty -- you know, on two of the items, 11-24-08 63 1 they don't have a whole lot of heartburn. They don't like 2 the impact fees, infrastructure fees, or whatever we want to 3 call it. They're not going to support that, I don't think, 4 but, you know, we've tried to really narrow it down a little 5 bit, and we probably will just have to agree to disagree on 6 that one item. I think that it's something that, in our 7 county, I really don't think it's that important of an issue. 8 I don't see that I would really support doing it in our 9 county, but there are counties that -- some of our counties 10 of the 15 counties do need it, I think. One that comes to 11 mind is that Commissioner Barton in Hays County, who was just 12 given or is currently being given a plat that's going to go 13 before their court for a subdivision with 7,000 homes, and 14 that's obviously going to have a pretty big impact on some 15 roads right around that subdivision, and he's looking at -- 16 you know, he feels that they do need some help. And I think 17 if anyone knows Jeff Barton, he's a pretty conservative 18 commissioner, and so I think this is something that we don't 19 need particularly in Kerr County; I don't see me being a big 20 supporter of it, but I think it is important for some of the 21 counties further to the east, such as Hays and Comal, 22 possibly Kendall. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are you saying the part 24 about -- when you have a development going in, and concrete 25 trucks and big trucks use a county road to get to that 11-24-08 64 1 subdivision, that impact fee is to repair that -- the 2 existing county road that's being torn up? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That, and also to handle the 4 increased traffic as a -- you know, if -- you know, if a road 5 was -- or say -- 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just take Henderson Branch; 7 that's the only example I can come up with. They've got -- 8 you know, most of that development's in Gillespie County, but 9 it all accesses out Henderson Branch Road. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Right. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And that's not a huge thing, 12 because -- but that Henderson Branch Road is really narrow. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And there was some damage 15 done to that during the development of that -- that property. 16 And I called and talked with the developer about it a little 17 bit to see if they might kind of pony up funds to help repair 18 that road they tore up, and, of course, I was met with "no." 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, see, I think they 20 should. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, and that's what this 22 can do. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, I understand. And -- 24 you know, of course, that's been -- we've talked about that 25 for years and years and years, and I think there should be an 11-24-08 65 1 impact fee for that. Not that you use it every time. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You know. I mean, other -- 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's a rare thing. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's kind of a rare issue. 6 I've got one in my precinct that they completely tore up a 7 really nice county road, and they should pay for it. Pretty 8 simple to me. So, I kind of disagree with you there. And if 9 -- and if these gentlemen in the back of the room don't -- 10 you know, I will disagree with them as well, that if you tear 11 up -- if you tear up public roads, you need to pay for it. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Period. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But, anyway, that's kind of the 15 purpose of the resolution. It is going around most of the 16 counties that are -- all 15 counties, I believe. I know that 17 Burnet County did not approve it, even though they're one of 18 the more strong ones that wanted some of these things. But 19 they, for whatever reason, chose not to. They wanted it, but 20 then they didn't want to support the resolution to do it, 21 though they also said they will support it at the 22 Legislature, which, you know -- 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Commissioner, would you 24 accept a modification on Number 3? 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Sure. 11-24-08 66 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Make it read, "providing 2 specific authority for hill country counties to regulate 3 average lot sizes within a designated area by criteria other 4 than water availability." 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You don't like density, the 6 "D" word? 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't like population 8 density. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, does that exclude water 10 availability as a criteria? 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Wasn't intended to, Judge. 12 So, if you can fix that, by criteria other than -- or in 13 addition to. In addition to. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Uh-huh. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: By criteria in addition to 16 water availability. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Read it again? 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Providing specific 19 authority for hill country counties to regulate -- take out 20 the wording, "population density as determined by, and/or," 21 making it read, "to regulate average lot sizes within a 22 designated area by criteria in addition to water 23 availability." 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have no problem. I think you 25 do need to say minimum and/or average. 11-24-08 67 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, that's fine. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Because they're different. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Okay. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's fine. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Leave "minimum and/or 6 average" in, fine. That's good. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll make a motion to approve 8 the resolution as amended. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded. Now, 11 question or discussion on the motion? I have some 12 participation forms. First, let me thank Commissioner Letz 13 for all of his hard work, and Commissioner Oehler for his 14 assistance on it. I know they've, over a number of months, 15 been putting in a lot of time on these issues that have been 16 developed. Mr. Roesch? 17 MR. ROESCH: Judge Tinley, if I may ask to let our 18 past president, Justin MacDonald, speak first. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: All right. Mr. MacDonald? 20 MR. MACDONALD: Thank you, Judge Tinley and 21 Commissioners. Appreciate the opportunity to talk to y'all 22 this morning. First, thank you, Commissioner Letz, for 23 sitting down and meeting with us and going over this item. I 24 am the past president of the Hill Country Home Builders 25 Association. I'm also a resident of Precinct 2, and a 11-24-08 68 1 builder and developer who works not only in Kerr County, but 2 in counties across the state. You're right, Commissioner 3 Letz, we definitely can agree on a couple of those issues for 4 sure. The main item that we do take exception with, in 5 addition to possible redefinitions of 232 and where those may 6 go, but we can see how those come out later. The main item 7 is the impact fee, infrastructure fee, whatever you want to 8 call it. We would urge you to remove that item from this 9 resolution. Commissioner Baldwin, in addressing your 10 concern, I don't really think that this, as proposed, 11 addresses construction damage to public roads. It's my 12 understanding that it -- it's meant to pay for upgrades due 13 to traffic increases over the long-term. That kind of 14 doesn't really work, because you're not only collecting -- 15 you wouldn't be just collecting an impact fee on that, but at 16 that stage in the game, you would also be collecting 17 significantly increased property taxes on those properties. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If that's the case, you're 19 right. You're absolutely right; I agree with you 100 percent 20 if that's correct, mm-hmm. 21 MR. MACDONALD: Okay. Because you'd be taking, you 22 know, generally ag-exempt, you know, valued land, and 23 adding -- you know, say it's 100 acres of ag-valued land, and 24 you add 10 homes on it, which are probably going to be 25 several hundred thousand dollars a piece, or maybe even a 11-24-08 69 1 million or more. That alone increases the county tax base, 2 and I think should be able to offset the cost of those roads. 3 I agree, Commissioner Baldwin; I think if you tear up a 4 public road, you ought to fix it. And Commissioner Williams 5 can attest to the fact that our company has done that once on 6 Fall Creek Road, where we had some overloaded trucks and made 7 some ruts, and repaved a mile or more of the road over there. 8 But that's the main message, is that we would urge you, if 9 you feel the need to adopt this resolution, to strike Item 4 10 from that. Thank you. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, sir. Mr. Roesch? 12 MR. ROESCH: Good morning, Judge Tinley and 13 Commissioners. Thank you very much for allowing me to speak 14 to you today. I'm the executive officer of the Hill Country 15 Home Builders Association, the professional association of 16 currently around 350 companies that are involved directly or 17 indirectly in predominantly the residential construction 18 industry. I would just like to support what Justin MacDonald 19 already has said, and I certainly also, you know, take the 20 view that if somebody tears up public property, he needs to 21 pay for that. But as Justin also said, these fees, whatever 22 they are called, are not meant, I think, to address that 23 part, but to address the -- to upgrade or to create new 24 roads. And we feel that in conjunction with the Point 3 in 25 your resolution, that we would agree on somewhere -- you 11-24-08 70 1 know, to define minimum average size lots. When a 2 subdivision is being put in, that that really limits the -- 3 you know, the actual impact to a county infrastructure, and 4 therefore, we feel that the property taxes that would be 5 created or down -- down the road following an improvement 6 through subdividing would more than offset the increased wear 7 and tear on the infrastructure. So I, too, would urge you to 8 strike Item Number 4 of your resolution. Thank you very 9 much. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, sir. Anyone else that 11 wishes to be heard with -- with regard to this particular 12 agenda item? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The -- 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Further question or discussion on 15 the motion? 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Another -- just one other item. 17 The -- the -- I've met with Representative Hilderbran on 18 this. He's generally supportive. I'm not saying he's going 19 to be supportive of any specific item, but he is supportive 20 of the additional authority for hill country counties. I 21 believe Representative Aycock is, and Representative Rose 22 are, and Representative Miller. So, I believe all four of 23 our representatives of the hill country are supportive in 24 concept. Obviously, until the actual bill is written, 25 they're going to withhold their judgment. The bill should be 11-24-08 71 1 available -- and I'll be glad to get a copy to -- both to the 2 Home Builders locally, Justin and Heinz, and everyone on the 3 Court, when I get the final version that's going to be 4 proposed. Once everyone receives that -- just a little bit 5 of information for those that don't know the process. It's 6 nice that the U.T. law students wrote the bill, but it will 7 then be rewritten by the Legislative Council, so it may come 8 out very different from them, and the verbiage, whether they 9 want "population density" or -- they will make that 10 determination probably, not us. But that's kind of the 11 process. And -- but I think there's pretty good support 12 amongst 15 counties and amongst the Legislature that this may 13 actually happen, but we'll see. And this will largely be 14 determined by things that happen in Austin that we have no 15 control over. The Speaker of the House -- 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Have -- have those legislators that 17 you've mentioned committed to carrying the bill? 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Two of them have, I guess, 19 offered to. But it is seen that they are not important -- 20 that it would be better if some other person carried them, 21 possibly one of them being Representative Rose. 22 Representative Rose is a Democrat, and soon it's going to be 23 Republican-run; it's felt that he's probably not the best 24 choice. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Little early yet. 11-24-08 72 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. Representative Miller, I 2 think, would be willing to, but as a freshman representative, 3 it is seen that that may not be a great option either. The 4 group as a whole would really like Harvey to carry the bill, 5 and Harvey's considering that. And -- 6 JUDGE TINLEY: But he first wants to see the bill 7 itself. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: He wants to see the resolutions 9 from the counties, and he wants to see the bill. And -- but 10 he's very much aware of this, and I'm hoping to meet with him 11 in early December again. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Once again, the bill, in 13 its developmental stage, and ultimately its final stage that 14 -- for introduction, would -- would emphasize that these four 15 items are by local option, are local option. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And not a general option, 18 unless or until approved by Commissioners Court and/or a 19 public initiative, if required. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Correct. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Further question or discussion? All 22 in favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 23 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 24 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 25 (No response.) 11-24-08 73 1 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Let's go 2 ahead and take about a 15-, 20-minute recess. 3 (Recess taken from 10:28 a.m. to 10:50 a.m.) 4 - - - - - - - - - - 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, let's come back to order, if 6 we might. We'll go to Item 12; consider, discuss, take 7 appropriate action on the implementation of the burn ban. 8 This is one of the those periodic things that we do. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Move approval. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 12 approval. Question or discussion on the motion? All in 13 favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 14 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 15 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 16 (No response.) 17 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. We'll move 18 to Item 13; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to 19 approve the contracts with Dietert Center, Families and 20 Literacy, Inc., and Kerr County Soil and Water Conservation 21 District, and allow County Judge to sign same. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move approval. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 25 approval. You've reviewed them, I assume, Mr. Emerson? 11-24-08 74 1 Everything's okay? 2 MR. EMERSON: Well, I haven't reviewed them, but 3 it's my understanding they're the same forms we used last 4 year. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: They are to my knowledge, yes. 6 Further question or discussion? All in favor of the motion, 7 signify by raising your right hand. 8 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 9 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 10 (No response.) 11 JUDGE TINLEY: We'll now go to Item 14; consider, 12 discuss, and take appropriate action to revisit the sick 13 leave portion of the Personnel Policy. Commissioner Baldwin? 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you, sir. When we 15 were meeting last week or two weeks ago about this issue, 16 Ms. Hyde made a couple of comments that just had some -- made 17 my antennas go up, and it had to do with the sick leave issue 18 and going from 12 days to 6 days, and short-term disability 19 programs and all of that, and it just brought about a bunch 20 of questions in my mind. And so what I did was I wrote down 21 some of the questions, and I think there's five of them here, 22 and sent them to her and asked her to respond to them, and 23 then, end of last week, went down and sat down with her and 24 went over them. And came to the conclusion -- both of us 25 came to the conclusion that it's difficult for her to answer 11-24-08 75 1 these questions without us first making big decisions. And 2 it's difficult for us to make big decisions -- or me to make 3 big decisions without these questions being answered. So, 4 it's kind of -- and, you know, and I think there was a time 5 frame, in my mind. I want to rush through this thing; I want 6 to get this -- I want to get this policy book written and 7 approved and on the table, and done and out of the way 8 because of the evaluations we have coming up, which I think 9 is going to be one of the most important things we do next 10 year. But -- so I wrote the questions down. Ms. Hyde, if 11 you'd -- there you are. If you would come and respond to 12 them, and some of us have to be -- we're going to take a 13 Christmas vacation, so if you could kind of go through it 14 kind of fast, I'd appreciate it. 15 MS. HYDE: I think the first thing is that when we 16 started going over this, the sick policy was a large 17 discussion. What do we need to do going forward? How do we 18 do it? How do we manage it? We've got GASB liability that's 19 sitting out there. We have internal liability to the 20 employees. But we also had a lot of folks that felt that 21 employees took advantage of the situation with their sick 22 leave. So, the problem comes, do we change it or do we 23 manage it? Which is what you and I discussed. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 25 MS. HYDE: The other part of it is, what's coming 11-24-08 76 1 down the pike? FMLA right now is at 12 weeks. You also have 2 military FMLA that will take it up to 26 weeks, and guess 3 what? It's not a question of "if." It's when are they going 4 to charge back to the organizations to pay. Instead of it 5 being unpaid leave, it will now be paid leave. That is going 6 to add right into our sick policy. If we're going to have to 7 pay for sick leave for FMLA, whether it's military or 8 non-military, then that's another huge liability that we got 9 to look at. 10 So, we got a couple of quotes. They're very broad 11 quotes. Currently, if we do it with the 30 days, which is a 12 long time for a person to be out sick before they start 13 getting paid if they have nothing, you're talking about 14 probably $18,000 a year. However, comma, if you take that 15 down to seven days, you start paying on the seventh day, 16 which is like our worker's comp, and you're looking at four 17 grand a month. You take to it 15 days, you're looking at 18 three grand a month. So, you know, that -- like you said, 19 we've got to determine, what way are we kind of going to 20 head? Because we don't have any of this budgeted this year. 21 And this was all done based on what we could get or not get 22 during budget time. So, you asked what's the cost of 23 short-term disability? It depends. It's based on age and 24 wages, and what time frame are you looking at before it 25 starts to pay out? 11-24-08 77 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Can we -- before we get to that 2 one, when I -- 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Before we get to the first 4 one? 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Before we get to the first one. 6 I'm -- I think of sick days as, you know, I've got a bad 7 cold; I stay home that day. I'm hearing y'all thinking more 8 of sick days as short-term disability, as, you know, you're 9 out for a longer period of time. Are we talking about 10 those -- both of those or one of those? 11 MS. HYDE: Talking about both. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The layout for short-term 14 right now -- 15 MS. HYDE: Sorry? 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The layout period before 17 short-term kicks in right now is what? 18 MS. HYDE: Right now it's 30 days. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, that takes that out of 20 the equation. 21 MS. HYDE: But the employee pays for that. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: When you're talking about existing 23 short-term liability, that's a supplemental policy that the 24 employee voluntarily elects to purchase. 25 MS. HYDE: That's right. 11-24-08 78 1 JUDGE TINLEY: And the current program is, the 2 elimination period is 30 days. 3 MS. HYDE: Right. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Before it begins payment. 5 MS. HYDE: Right. It has nothing to do with what 6 they've earned or accrued. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And right now, if someone gets 8 sick, they're going to be out for a while, what's our -- what 9 do we currently do? 10 MS. HYDE: When you say "a while," the current 11 thing is, if they're going to be out on a third day, then we 12 ask for a doctor's excuse. If they're going to be out after 13 that third day, and it's going to be something -- for 14 example, they're going to have surgery, they're going to have 15 a baby, now we're into FMLA, so you go ahead and you give 16 them the FMLA. They're requesting it; you go over the rules 17 and regulations with them, they take it to their doctor. 18 Their doctor tells you this is how long they're going to be 19 out. It's all an estimate, up to 12 weeks. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: That's after they use the sick time? 21 MS. HYDE: Well, no. What we've done is, we allow 22 them to use paid -- in fact, we encourage them to use paid 23 time, because the law right now is unpaid leave. Doesn't 24 mean that we can't pay them, but the law states that it is 25 regulated unpaid leave. 11-24-08 79 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, if someone's going in for 2 surgery, they're not being paid during that period? 3 MS. HYDE: If they have sick time, yes, they are. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: That was my question, Jon. If they 5 have the sick time available in the bank for themselves -- 6 MS. HYDE: Right. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: -- and they're going to be out, say, 8 five weeks -- 9 MS. HYDE: They get paid. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: And if they've -- say they've got 11 four weeks of sick time that they've accrued. They can use 12 that four weeks then? 13 MS. HYDE: Right. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: After that, they can use up to 12 15 weeks? 16 MS. HYDE: They can use comp time, vacation time, 17 any sort of beneficial leave that they've accrued. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And if they don't have any more 19 of that, then they go under FMLA, and they don't get paid? 20 MS. HYDE: FMLA starts day one, whether it's paid 21 or unpaid, in this county. By law, they say that you have to 22 allow them 12 weeks. It doesn't have to be paid leave. But 23 coming up probably the first of the year, the law is probably 24 going to change. In fact, it's in there right now; they want 25 it to be forced back upon us that we have to pay them. 11-24-08 80 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Big budget impact. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Question. You say FMLA starts day 3 one. Does it start day one even if they have the sick time 4 accrued? 5 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. You don't give them sick 6 time plus an additional 12 weeks. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. So, they run concurrently, 8 then. If they want to get paid, they use sick time, comp 9 time, vacation time, whatever they've accrued? 10 MS. HYDE: Right. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: If they don't want to get paid, why, 12 they can just take it on leave and not get paid, FMLA? 13 MS. HYDE: And I never have anyone ask for unpaid 14 time. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Now, if they -- if the law 16 changes, and you seem to think it will, wouldn't that mean 17 that we're going to have to use the paid, and they're not 18 going to use their time? 19 MS. HYDE: That's one of the questions. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What about short-term and 21 long-term disability? 22 MS. HYDE: One of the things when we were doing 23 this, when we talked about what was FMLA going to do, is just 24 kind of a heads-up that it was coming down the pike. What 25 was FMLA going to do? What were we going to do? What 11-24-08 81 1 direction do we want to go in? That's kind of why it's in 2 here like this, and there was a lot of discussion. Do we cap 3 it out at 240 hours? Do we not cap it out? Once they hit 4 the 240, do we allow them to use that so that when they 5 retire, we pay them a quarter on the dollar for their sick 6 time? You know, what are we going to do? What do we want to 7 look towards? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What does the law -- if this 9 change comes down, that seems like a pretty big change. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Huge. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Why don't you just eliminate 12 sick days altogether? 13 MS. HYDE: Well, that would be my suggestion if 14 that's what the law changes to. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: May be coming to that. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And then everyone just gets -- 18 then the federal government then mandates that everyone gets 19 12 weeks. 20 MS. HYDE: Or 26 if it's military. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. At that point, sick 22 leave becomes a nonissue. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Can you take FMLA for a day? I 24 mean, is there a process you have to go through? 25 MS. HYDE: No, you can take FMLA for a day. They 11-24-08 82 1 call that intermittent FMLA. For example, one of the -- in 2 my opinion -- personal opinion, you can take FMLA for 3 migraines. So, you've got a year worth of 12 weeks that you 4 can sit there, and I can be out four hours. FMLA leave can 5 be broken down to hours. Single, individual hours. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That would cause a 7 bookkeeping nightmare. 8 MS. HYDE: It's a bookkeeping nightmare, and it's 9 hard -- I mean, how do you say -- I mean, at least if you 10 have a different type of illness, you can have a doctor 11 telling you -- you know. But if you have a migraine, that's 12 kind of tough, because they're not going to go to the doctor 13 every time they have a migraine; they're going to take 14 Imitrex or something like that and rock and roll. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Is there some kind of 16 disability insurance or short-term/long-term that we can take 17 out to help offset some of this cost, possibly? 18 MS. HYDE: We can get some quotes. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Excellent question, Commissioner. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Because, man, we're talking 21 about an unknown -- huge possibility of a huge liability. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Something similar to comp. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Except in a -- in a non-job-related 25 incapacity. 11-24-08 83 1 MS. HYDE: The problem right now is all the 2 insurance companies are waiting to see what -- and I'm sure 3 the price is going to go up, you know. But it might be that, 4 like other insurances, if you merge it, STD and LTD together, 5 you might get a little bit of a discount by doing that. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Long-term disability, what is the 7 average coverage period? 8 MS. HYDE: What do you mean, average coverage 9 period? 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, six months? A year? 11 MS. HYDE: Six months. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Well, you're talking about 13 elimination -- the elimination period? Or are you talking 14 about the maximum -- 15 MS. HYDE: What normally happens is -- that's why 16 we encouraged STD -- or STD/LTD during enrollment. If you 17 have STD/LTD, you hit your 30 days, then your STD kicks in. 18 And then your long-term disability kicks in week nine, and 19 it'll start retroing back, 'cause now it's become a long-term 20 disability instead of short-term. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Why would any -- if we're 22 required to give them 12 weeks, why would anyone go under 23 short-term? Why would anyone do that? 24 MS. HYDE: Well, because a lot of people -- we have 25 a lot of folks that have been out on FMLA during the last 11-24-08 84 1 year and a half, and they're not staying out 12 weeks, unless 2 their doctor says they need to. Most of them are back within 3 four to six weeks, even with babies. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 5 MS. HYDE: And you asked how much money. Just from 6 the 12 to the 6, we figured it on 15 hours -- I mean, $15 an 7 hour. If you've got 12 days per month, that's 3,192 days -- 8 excuse me, hours, versus 1,596. So it's 48,000 or 24,000. I 9 mean, it cuts it in half. That was Question 6. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: You're talking -- talking about the 11 sick leave component of it going from 6 to 12? 12 MS. HYDE: Mm-hmm. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: There's a $24,000 -- 14 MS. HYDE: The suggestion -- 15 JUDGE TINLEY: -- difference between the two? 16 MS. HYDE: Right. And the suggestion that we had 17 when we started talking about it was knock it down to 8 18 days -- or, excuse me, 10 working days, which is 40 hours, 19 times two, which is 80 hours. Right now we've got them at 20 96; they are at 8 a month. But, I mean, there's so many 21 unknowns out there sitting right now that it makes it real 22 difficult. That's why this is one of the review previews. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Sounds to me like we need to 24 knock it down to six to start with, and then, more than 25 likely, if the law changes, zero. Or maybe zero now. 11-24-08 85 1 MS. HYDE: I would hate to do zero and then the 2 change in the -- 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, if you look at the 4 statistic that Ms. Hyde provided to us on the tail end of her 5 response to Commissioner Baldwin, it'll give you a little 6 sense of where we are. All-inclusive, Sheriff, jail, and all 7 the rest of employees together, we have, what, 23 percent of 8 our employees, almost a quarter of our employees who have a 9 week or less right now. A week or less. 10 MS. HYDE: What was amazing to me -- I mean, I 11 shouldn't say amazing. What was different was the difference 12 between here and the S.O. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 14 MS. HYDE: Those numbers are huge. The change in 15 the numbers were huge, so it kind of skewed all the exclusive 16 numbers. But you can still see that -- that less than 2 17 weeks is -- has got the majority when you pull it all 18 together. The difference on the S.O. and jail is, they're 19 161-plus. And I use that break-off 'cause I wasn't going to 20 get down any farther in the weeds, but I can tell you on the 21 S.O. and jail, most of those birds have got over 300, 400 22 hours sitting out there. We have a few on this side that are 23 like that. We have one that's at 1,300, 1,400 hours, and we 24 have several like that at the S.O. that are high. So, I 25 mean, you know, the whole purpose, I think, that -- that 11-24-08 86 1 people -- when you talk to employees, and the employees use 2 that for if they get hurt. Their -- their mind-set is not 3 for the -- as much the one-day, two-day. It's, "Oh my god, 4 what happens if I get hurt? I have to have surgery, and I'm 5 going to be out. I need my paycheck." And that's what they 6 hold it -- that's what they hold onto it for. They 7 understand that when they quit or retire, they won't get paid 8 for it, but they -- it's kind of like their insurance policy. 9 That is their LTD. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Some of them, you're 11 saying, have accumulated sick leave in excess of ten months? 12 MS. HYDE: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That's 13 what was amazing to me. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Up to a year -- probably 15 close to a year, some of them. 16 MS. HYDE: Mm-hmm. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Huge liability. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, it is. It is a 19 contingent liability. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Got to figure out some way to 21 get rid of some of that. Especially -- 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One way you -- 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Especially Rusty needs to 24 come up with a plan to get rid of some of that. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One way to consider is to 11-24-08 87 1 -- is to cap the earning, the amount that you can accrue. 2 Put a lid on it. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Or we could also -- I mean, 4 can't you -- can you put a cap on -- you use it or lose it? 5 MS. HYDE: Sure, you can put use it or lose it. 6 But I would say this, being the employee advocate. If you 7 have a benefit, and you're going to take the benefit away, my 8 suggestion would be that you replace the benefit with 9 something else. If you're going to take away their sick 10 time, then we need to pony up and do long-term and short-term 11 disability, in my opinion. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't view it -- I don't 13 see what we're talking about in terms of putting a cap on for 14 accrual as taking it away from the bulk of the employees. If 15 you put a cap on it, for example, at six months, all right, 16 then anybody who's already hit that -- hit the ceiling 17 automatically has six months going forward always, unless 18 they have a catastrophic illness and use it -- use it down. 19 So, you're not -- little bit of difference there. 20 MS. HYDE: What do you do with those that are 21 already at twice that amount? Three times that amount? 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You are under. Some of 23 those might be retro. 24 MS. HYDE: Does that mean they can no longer 25 accrue? See, these were all -- these are all great 11-24-08 88 1 questions, 'cause this is what we all discussed. And 2 everybody was, like -- 3 JUDGE TINLEY: One of the other issues that's 4 significant here is that we've got to have an overall cap of 5 what this is, because we've got to quantify it. 6 MS. HYDE: For GASB. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. She's got some accounting 8 rules that she's got to comply with, and if you've got an 9 open-end liability, you can't quantify it. And she's got to 10 be able to quantify it in order to put us in good standing -- 11 MS. HYDE: Right. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: -- with our financial statement. 13 And so we've got to do something. Now, -- 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, that's a nice -- 15 JUDGE TINLEY: -- whether we do it now and come 16 back and revisit it later, or whether we do nothing now and 17 revisit it later, or -- you know, it's probably -- 18 MS. HYDE: Would the Court like for me to get -- 19 JUDGE TINLEY: When are we going to have a 20 probability of an answer on this FMLA -- 21 MS. HYDE: I think if Congress can put it off -- 22 JUDGE TINLEY: -- FMLA being paid or unpaid? 23 MS. HYDE: -- until the new president-elect goes 24 into effect, they will, but it's in there right now. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, it'll happen, then. 11-24-08 89 1 Well, I brought this today just to kind of stir up some 2 thinking, and I'm assuming that that's -- that's enough. We 3 don't have to go through this whole exercise, but we can be 4 thinking about it. And I'm assuming that we will go into a 5 workshop session a little -- you know, in the next month or 6 so to nail these things down, so be thinking about it, 'cause 7 you got to make these decisions. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are you talking about in 9 conjunction with finalizing the new employees' handbook? 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Got to make these decisions, 13 and it's the tough decisions. I can make them today, but 14 they're not going to be palatable and people are not going to 15 like me, but I'm not hired to be liked. I'm hired to take 16 care of the people's business. But that -- I think that's 17 the route we need to go, is to just be thinking about these 18 issues. And we'll -- we'll put together a workshop -- a 19 larger workshop a little later on, I guess an overall -- an 20 overall policy handbook workshop. This would just be a part 21 -- just one small part of it, actually. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're going to need to do 23 that before the end of this year. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir, we do. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We really do. 11-24-08 90 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: My understanding, we were 2 going to adopt the thing by January 1. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: We can do that in lieu of your 4 Christmas party that you've talked about. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: You don't think so? 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We could do it in lieu of 10 Peter Lewis' show, though. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: I hadn't thought about that. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. See, that's half a 13 day right there. So -- 14 MS. HYDE: Is there anything y'all want me to get, 15 like quotes? 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'd like to -- I think you 17 probably have this, is a list of -- I don't want employee 18 names; doesn't make any difference to me, but the number of 19 hours that we have accumulated. I mean, I heard numbers 20 that, you know, 25 percent have less than a week, whatever it 21 was, and -- but if we could get -- I'd like to see the 22 numbers broken out in some kind of categories as to what that 23 liability is. Both -- 24 MS. HYDE: We've got over 60,000 hours in sick. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. But, I mean, I need 11-24-08 91 1 more -- how many employees are we affecting if we cap it at 2 six months? 3 MS. HYDE: Okay. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: How many employees are we 5 affecting if we cap it at three months? Nine months? 6 What's -- I mean -- because, I mean, we're not going to make 7 everyone happy with whatever we do. But I think, you know, 8 in my decision, I'd like to kind of do what's best for most 9 of the employees. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You want a scary number? 11 60,000 hours times an average rate -- wage of 15 bucks. Just 12 for sake of suggestion, you're looking at better than 13 three-quarters of a million contingent liability. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's what I was referring 15 to. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That may be off by a couple 17 hundred thousand. Well, that's close enough for figuring. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What's there in the back of 19 our minds on this whole thing is -- is abuse, people abusing 20 the sick leave issue. Well, if I -- if I had a number of 21 employees -- and just as an example, Jody comes in and she 22 disappears for two days, and she comes back and says, "I was 23 sick yesterday," I'm going to believe her. You know, because 24 I trust people and I trust my employees. She was sick. Now, 25 if there -- if it looks like there is a -- a history of this 11-24-08 92 1 thing going on, you know, every Monday morning, that we have 2 -- we're sick, sounds like a hangover to me. So I'm going to 3 -- you know, if I see a history there -- yeah, Jody. 4 (Laughter.) And if I see a history go down there, I'll kind 5 of start checking on it a little bit. And she was -- she was 6 saying after three days, we're requiring a doctor's note. 7 You know, can you get into your doctor's to get -- to get a 8 note in three days? 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Take another three days to 10 get in to the doctor. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Or three months, sometimes. 12 So that's -- those things are -- those things are tough to 13 see. I mean, you can't get -- can't get in to a doctor in 14 three days to get a note, so, therefore, you're removed from 15 your employment, or dinged somehow. So, those are the kinds 16 of things we've got to -- I say if they -- if they don't show 17 up with a doctor's note after three days, they're removed 18 from their position, period. Need to get a different doctor 19 if you can't get in within three days. How tough is that? 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Pretty tough. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ms. Hyde, also, I think quotes 22 on short-term and long-term -- 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Disability. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- disability rates for the 25 County. And, as -- you know, I guess I'm thinking of 11-24-08 93 1 changing our -- capping -- you know, capping the amount that 2 they can accrue and replacing it with long-term disability. 3 MS. HYDE: You want me to look at seven days? 4 Fifteen days? 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Whatever you think is 6 appropriate. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Short-term, and then six months and 8 beyond, up to, say, like, two years for LTD. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 'Cause I think that -- I mean, 10 I don't -- I think most businesses -- most use it or lose it, 11 is my -- what I understand. That's pretty standard in the 12 business world in vacation and sick time. 13 MS. HYDE: Right. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, the fact that we're 15 accruing it as high as we are, I think, is a little bit 16 unreasonable to -- for the employees to think that we're 17 going to continue that, I mean, with no cap on it. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, this would be an 19 easy -- I think that's an easy decision to say lose it or use 20 it -- or use it or lose it. But what about those people that 21 have accrued all these years? 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, you have to -- 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What do you do? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't know what you do with 25 them, but I think first you -- kind of like the border. You 11-24-08 94 1 know, stop the problem; then we'll figure out how to work on 2 the -- what we've accrued. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That would give us a start. 4 You can always -- you can always red-circle these; they're in 5 a certain category, and -- and protect what they have, but 6 with the understanding they're not going to accrue more until 7 they use it down to the new limits. You can always do that, 8 can't you, Eva? 9 MS. HYDE: Right. Like I had talked to 10 Commissioner Baldwin, though, another thing that a lot of 11 entities do out there is, if they have the use it or lose it 12 policy, they typically will pay out something, because if an 13 employee has a choice to use it or lose it, they're going to 14 use it. But if you give them -- let's just -- for example, 15 we're going to let them have seven days. If they don't use 16 any of their seven days, you pay them for eight. And that's 17 an incentive for them not to use it, because now they get 18 paid for an additional day. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm going to play like I 20 didn't hear that one. 21 MS. PIEPER: I think on use it or lose it, we're 22 going to have employees out sick all the time. 'Cause I've 23 got employees right now that, they earn a day, they take a 24 day, and that puts a hardship on the rest of the staff. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If they abuse the sick 11-24-08 95 1 leave, you need to fire their butts. 2 MS. PIEPER: I can't prove that they're -- 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Bingo. 4 MS. PIEPER: -- abusing it. You now, they call me, 5 "I'm sick today." 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Doctor's -- doctor's note. 7 MS. PIEPER: Well, but they're not out for three 8 days yet. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: We can change the policy to provide 10 at the discretion of the elected official or department head. 11 Any employee for any purpose can be required to provide -- 12 you know, to justify their absence. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just think we need to 14 toughen the thing up. I just -- it's the only -- 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree with that. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That is the only choice we 17 have, is to get really tough on this thing and tighten it up. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: When do you want to set the 19 workshop? 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Confidential information, 21 Bill. I can't release that till tonight. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Or you have to kill me? 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd have to kill you if you 24 knew as much as I did. What -- I don't know -- what month 25 are we in? This is November. 11-24-08 96 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're in, I guess, first two 2 weeks of December, in reality, to do the workshop. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And we meet December the -- 5 JUDGE TINLEY: 8th. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 8th. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- 8th. How about that 8 afternoon? 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That works. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How about Tuesday morning? 11 Is that -- 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The 8th. I like the 8th. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The 8th, in the afternoon. 14 After we get through here, we can just stick around. Okay. 15 Jody, does that make you happy? 16 MS. GRINSTEAD: Of course. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm at airport. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: At what time? 3:00? 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 1:00. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Airport's at 1:00? 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That Airport Board can't 23 function without y'all? 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It can. It better. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: On that day, it probably can. 11-24-08 97 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It better. Yeah, we can 2 miss it. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: What are we talking about, 1:30? 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 1:30. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Workshop, okay. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And that's the overall book. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Primarily this. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And then -- just a second, 10 Rex. And then the last meeting is the 22nd of -- 22nd? 11 THE CLERK: Yes. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So maybe we'll be able -- be 13 ready to, at that point, adopt it on the 22nd. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sounds like a plan. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes? 16 JUDGE TINLEY: You got anything else you want to 17 run into this item, Commissioner? 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think Rex has something. 19 MR. EMERSON: Just a quick comment for the Judge. 20 If we're going to have a workshop that afternoon, we probably 21 need to change our juvenile agenda. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Are you going to make that last 23 longer than an hour and a half? 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, this is not an agenda 25 item; we can't talk about this. (Laughter.) 11-24-08 98 1 AUDIENCE: Oh. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Touché, counselor. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Ring one up for the boys up 4 front. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Is it going to last longer than an 6 hour and a half? 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Will it last longer than an 8 hour and a half? This could be days. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. 10 MS. PIEPER: Yes. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm afraid so, Judge. 12 I'm -- we're going to limit -- limit it at two hours. And if 13 it runs over two hours, you lose it. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Or you get to leave. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, you have to leave. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Get to leave. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: So, we can set up our juvies at -- 18 set up our juvies at 4:00. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: With a doctor's excuse why 20 you have to leave. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, that's right. Okay, 22 two hours. 23 MS. HYDE: Two hours? 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Set up the juvies at 4:00. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's why it's important 11-24-08 99 1 that we be thinking about these things, be ready to make 2 decisions on it. Okay. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Ms. Hyde, I think whenever 4 you have information available on some of what we've talked 5 about, maybe share it with the Court in the form of a memo so 6 we can have something to think about before we go into that 7 workshop. 8 MS. HYDE: Okay. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Like on those disability, 10 short-term and long-term. 11 MS. HYDE: I'll shoot y'all e-mails as I get 12 information. 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What our liabilities are in 14 certain areas, and recommendations. 15 MS. HYDE: Recommendations? So I can get shot? 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: From your point of view. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's all. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: That's all you got for us on that 19 one, Commissioner? 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: All right, sir. Let's go, then, to 22 Item 15; consider, discuss, take appropriate action to 23 approve library agreement between City of Kerrville and Kerr 24 County. Commissioner, do we need to pass that for now 25 because of the confusion over the terms of the -- 11-24-08 100 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The memo that I got also 2 stated that there was some confusion over whether we needed 3 to adopt another agreement or not. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Sounds like it was already -- 6 I don't know. It's in Mike Hayes' same letter -- same little 7 memo that I got, wherever it is here. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where did this come from? 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: From Mike Hayes over to the 10 City. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think that our County 12 Attorney has a -- 13 MR. EMERSON: It's my understanding that part of 14 the rationale for drafting a new agreement is because of the 15 significant change in responsibilities at the library. And 16 that doesn't necessarily mean, in reference to his memo, that 17 every agreement we have needs to change, but because of the 18 way the library was changed specifically, it was a good idea 19 to create a new agreement. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We did a new one on the airport 21 with significant changes at the airport. I mean, I think 22 that makes sense. I mean, those that we significantly 23 change, we need to redo. Those that we're operating, like 24 fire, EMS, basically we didn't make a change on, we don't 25 change. I don't know what other agreements we have, other 11-24-08 101 1 than -- 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, it just says here -- I 3 don't know if you got a copy of this. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I got it. He referred to all 5 the agreements. Well, I'm not sure what "all" means. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: There's going to be a change in 7 the -- you had mentioned something about a prior agenda item, 8 a one-year term versus a two- or three-year. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I was just -- I was just 10 hoping to do it for a one-year term, thinking that maybe we 11 could opt out of that Library Board. Really, I'm not sure 12 what impact we're having on being a -- I'm on it as a voting 13 member now, which I can't see that there's any benefit to 14 that, and we have a couple of county appointees on that 15 board. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Should be sufficient. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Which, you know, if they want 18 to -- I just don't see any point in -- in doing any more. 19 The City is in control of the library 100 percent. Their 20 employees. They're allocated funds, except for basically 21 200,000, which we -- 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: They own it. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: They own it, so I really 24 don't know why we need representation on that. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. 11-24-08 102 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I guess my point -- 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't disagree with you. 3 But going to Number 5, based on the level of our 4 contribution, this only memorializes '08-'09 for 400,000. It 5 ought to memorialize everything that takes us down to 6 200,000. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's right. That's what we 8 agreed to. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This is one year. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, I agree, so we don't have 11 failing memories in the months to come. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Exactly, 'cause they will 13 have failing memories. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's right. I agree, 15 because it goes from 400 this year down to 300 next year and 16 200 the following year. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Am I correct on that? 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's correct. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Bottom line is, we don't want to 21 take action on this library agreement for the coming year 22 now. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Not yet. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. We'll move to the next agenda 25 item; consider, discuss, take appropriate action to approve 11-24-08 103 1 the bond for Angel Garza. We've -- we're going to have to 2 make some modifications to that, so we're going to pass that, 3 and we'll get something with real meat in it here. Consider, 4 discuss, take appropriate action to schedule the annual 5 Christmas party. County Christmas party, Item 17. 6 Commissioner Baldwin. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's me, isn't it? 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Yes, sir. Here comes the meat right 9 here. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Here comes the meat 11 providers. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And the bulls. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I'm going to recommend 14 that we have the annual meeting at the Ag Barn. Is our last 15 day the 24th? 16 MS. UECKER: No. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's Christmas Eve. 18 MS. GRINSTEAD: We work Christmas Eve, 24th. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 24th? 20 MS. HYDE: Yeah. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, we'll hold the party on 22 the 24th at noon. Are we providing the meat? 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 23rd. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Try the 23rd. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 23rd at noon. Are we 11-24-08 104 1 providing the meat? 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We're taking donations for 3 that from all elected officials and department heads. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that how we're doing it? 5 We're -- 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's the way we did it 7 before; seemed to work real well. Anybody else that wants to 8 kick in on the thing is more than welcome to do so. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And we're going to need 11 approximately $700 this year to do it. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. Do we continue with 13 different departments bringing -- so we're providing 14 everything? Donation? 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's going to be a very 16 simple menu. Two kinds -- maybe -- at least two kinds of 17 meat, and that'll be determined by how much money we get in. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And a salad and some beans. 20 And then I think one of the departments gets a cake or two 21 from H.E.B. every year and they're going to contribute that 22 to the deal. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, super. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Road and Bridge will do the 25 tea and... 11-24-08 105 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Now we know. That's it. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's our Christmas 3 holiday this year, 24, '5, and '6? 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No, '5 and '6. 5 MS. HYDE: '5 and '6. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's good like that. From 8 my perspective, on the 23rd, that's a regular all-day work 9 day for everybody, and I think our participation will be -- 10 it was good last year. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see where you're going 12 with that. Yeah, okay. Okay. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: As opposed to the 24th. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: As opposed to the 24th, when 15 everything might be different. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Message received, Commissioner. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's fine. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do it at the -- 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: At the Ag Barn. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Ag Barn, 23rd, noon. 22 Everybody needs to donate money. Everybody needs to donate 23 money. What else do we need to talk about? 24 MS. HYDE: Who does the money go to? 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Bruce. 11-24-08 106 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Me. Oh, Bruce? Jody. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Jody, and then I can take it 3 and purchase the food with it. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. Judge, that's all. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: You got this thing under control. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm just trying to get it -- 7 coordinate it. Bruce already had it, of course, but he needs 8 to let us know. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, I figured -- well, I 10 was going to. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You already had it on the 13 agenda whenever I came in with it. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, right. Sure. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You were ahead of me. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, sure. Yeah, I know. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You were ahead of me. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Everybody on the same page? 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Requires zero action. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Except for the day of, and 21 all the cooking that goes with it. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I mean, court orders. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do you have a recommended 24 donation? 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Recommended? I think, total, 11-24-08 107 1 about $700, if you want to divide that up. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do you have a recommended, 3 per -- 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Individual. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- elected official and 6 department head? 7 MS. HYDE: Fifty bucks. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Figure out how many of those 9 there are, Judge. Are you figuring that up? 10 JUDGE TINLEY: No, I'm not. I'm just trying to -- 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Somewhere between $25 and 12 $50. If somebody wants to give $75 or $100, depending on the 13 size of their offices, that would be nice. In Rusty's case, 14 he can probably fund three-fourths of it. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, Rusty can do at least 16 two or three -- two or three increments. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: At least. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: $150 for the Sheriff. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Out of his salary. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure. Road and Bridge can 21 do three. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. I think, you know, 23 we'll get money gathered up pretty quick if we get $75 or 24 $100 out of everybody. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Good luck. 11-24-08 108 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Evidently, then, Rusty's not 2 going to contribute. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you for those good 4 wishes. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We did serve the jail people 6 last year, though. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, that's exactly right. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We're going to do it again 9 this year. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: He's actually got two departments, 11 the Sheriff's Office and the jail. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So that's 150 for him. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: At least. It's a larger department 14 on top of that. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. If you take a third -- 16 it's a third of the county employees, and it ought to be a 17 third of the total dollars. That makes sense. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Makes sense to me. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: H.E.B. cake ain't going to go 20 very far, is it? 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And to remind the Sheriff, 22 when we had our convention in here a couple years ago, 23 after -- that you did the catfish, we loaded all that extra 24 up and took it to the jail and fed the jail people. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's right. 11-24-08 109 1 MS. HYDE: We forgot the J.D.O. -- we need to 2 remember the J.D.O.'s this year. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think we did that. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We did. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: At the catfish thing. 6 MS. HYDE: We did them some? 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yes, we did. Somebody did. 8 I packed it up; somebody took it over there. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I did. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: The Sheriff, to this point in this 11 entire meeting, has been noticeably silent. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Don't stir him up, Judge. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: I guess the question is, do we want 14 to give him an opportunity to stick his feet in his mouth? 15 Do you have anything you wanted to say about this, Sheriff? 16 Okay. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's amazing. Whenever the 18 word "money" comes in reverse fashion, he gets real quiet. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You got it. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Let's go to Item 18, an 11:30 timed 21 item, and we are on the money. Consider, discuss, take 22 appropriate action on proposed site plan and related work for 23 Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center and surrounding properties. 24 Mr. Lewis. 25 MR. LEWIS: Your Honor, Commissioners, it's good to 11-24-08 110 1 be here today. I've got something I'd like to give you, and 2 again, I've got some exhibits to put up on a board, and I'll 3 put them over here by Jody. Jody's got one of these. 4 There's enough of that for y'all. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Uh-oh, I hope there's no 6 increase in price on this. 7 MR. LEWIS: No, I printed those in-house, so 8 they're -- it's almost like they cost you nothing. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Wow. 10 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 11 MR. LEWIS: With your indulgence, at our last 12 presentation, we presented the site plan, and you sent me 13 away with a couple requests or directives, and those were to 14 revisit the site plan with respect to the exhibit hall and 15 the ability to expand that in the future, as well as to come 16 back with some budget numbers. And I'm here today to do 17 that, and so the first thing I want to do is go through it. 18 You have your packet -- packets there in front of you that 19 has all these elements in it. If you can -- you can turn 20 to -- I'm sorry, I can't tell you what page it is right now, 21 but there is a copy of that site plan in there somewhere 22 around the middle of the book. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Talking about the exhibit hall? 24 MR. LEWIS: Beg pardon? 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Are you going to the exhibit hall 11-24-08 111 1 first? 2 MR. LEWIS: Well, I think we'll just go to the site 3 plan. Then we'll go right -- and I'll take that down and go 4 to the exhibit hall. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What page? 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 12. 7 MR. LEWIS: Just so that you know, we still -- the 8 site is generally laid out as it was at our last meeting, and 9 when we get to the budgeting, we'll talk about some phasing 10 on this. But you can see on the site plan that we have 11 allowed -- there's a dashed line that shows how that exhibit 12 hall can expand, and we have deliberately done no other 13 construction behind the exhibit hall except paving, which is 14 fairly easy to modify. Now, the pertinent elements of the 15 site plan were realigning the site entry along Highway 27, 16 opening up Riverside Drive to the parks, and so that that 17 becomes -- the parks become an integral part of this overall 18 campus plan, and connecting this to River Star park to the 19 north. That would also allow it to function as -- as an 20 integral part of the exhibit center. I'm going to take this 21 down, and we'll go to the exhibit hall. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Next page. 23 MR. LEWIS: The program requirements for the 24 exhibit hall originally looked at something in the 25 neighborhood of a 30,000 square foot building as we put all 11-24-08 112 1 those program requirements together, and those being 2 significantly -- significantly a large exhibit hall that 3 could be divided into multiple spaces, meeting rooms, 4 catering kitchen, and all of the support facilities that go 5 along with those, as well as office space for county offices 6 and the potential for leasing to compatible other offices 7 which are now on the second floor. The entrance is -- the 8 main entrance faces Highway 27. It's on the diagonal; it 9 faces the entrance -- the site entrance on Spur 100. We've 10 got meeting rooms on the Highway 27 side that break out into 11 a concourse area, and then the expo hall on the flip side of 12 that that also breaks out in that concourse area, and exits 13 directly to parking off to the left-hand north side. 14 All of the common elements that support this -- 15 restrooms, concessions, catering -- will share space with the 16 indoor arena. And so -- and then there is a -- there is a 17 connection both up at the vestibule on the top side of the 18 floor plan, as well as down between the catering and the 19 women's restroom. And the spaces down below, that green room 20 is a prep room that can be used for staging events, whether 21 that is -- you know, whether that is for some kind of a 22 performance that's going on in there or anything, anybody 23 that is using that hall that might need a place to stage as 24 they enter and exit. And then storage. And then on the 25 Riverside side of the expo hall, we indicate storage and a 11-24-08 113 1 stage area, which at some time in the future, when you find 2 that you're at capacity on this expo hall, the walls can be 3 easily removed. There's nothing other than a little bit of 4 electricity and ceiling in there, and the building can then 5 be expanded towards the river, you know, on whatever order of 6 magnitude that you see fit. And the other pertinent piece -- 7 and I have some handouts here. And if you have any questions 8 about this, please, you know, we -- let me go ahead. We'll 9 look at the image of it, 'cause Jonathan was interested in 10 how many trees I had shown. Everybody can see that you've 11 got -- 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's the cover here? 13 MR. LEWIS: Yes, sir. You've got a black and white 14 version of that, but you can see, if you start to the left of 15 the drawing and work back towards the center, we've got the 16 existing indoor arena and then the show barn. Those are 17 large engineered metal buildings, and then the exhibit hall 18 on this end. We are showing a covered concourse across the 19 front of that that's on the outside of the building, so that 20 you could walk -- you'd be able to walk either inside the 21 building or outside the building from one end to the other of 22 the series of buildings. Sir? 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't see it. In my mind, 24 I've always thought that that covered -- outside the front 25 door, I always thought that you would be able to drive under 11-24-08 114 1 there. 2 MR. LEWIS: That's possible. That's not what we're 3 showing, but we could have a covered canopy that could come 4 out over the walk here. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Rainy weather. 6 MR. LEWIS: We could do that -- certainly do that. 7 But you see we've got covered here, and my -- our thought was 8 that would all be out of a galvanized steel, much like the 9 outdoor pavilion at River Star. Low maintenance -- zero 10 maintenance for a lifetime. And then we're showing some 11 green roofs, so that it relates to the green standing-seam 12 metal roofs; relates to what's going on also at River Star, 13 so this whole campus begins to look like one planned event. 14 And then the -- the major entry and the area that is -- that 15 encompasses the second story office has some glass -- large 16 glass curtain wall on the front that brings light in and 17 makes that concourse area a pretty open and inviting space. 18 Makes it a functional space, not just a place to -- it's much 19 more than just a corridor. It's a place that events can 20 overflow into, or could be an event unto itself. And then -- 21 and we are showing trees, because that's what we do. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Lots of trees. 23 MR. LEWIS: That's what we do as architects. Or -- 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You like trees. 25 MR. LEWIS: We like trees, and we think that we'd 11-24-08 115 1 like to see a few more on here. When you look back at the 2 site plan, there are -- certainly, we're keeping all that 3 buffer that's along Riverside Drive. When we do the -- our 4 thought about all the paved areas as well, there would not be 5 curbs in those, and any -- any areas that are indicated that 6 might look like they'd have a landscape area, those would be 7 at grade. We know that many events that come here like the 8 -- when the circus or the fair comes, and they have to set up 9 all their equipment, they just need a large expansion of 10 paving, so we're not going to put curbs in here, but we will 11 have where we do have sidewalks that connect the buildings 12 together, or connect the highway to the buildings. Those 13 would be curbed just for -- curbed for safety. Showing a 14 median coming in and some monumental signs. We see -- and 15 right above the E in exhibit, you see a sign at the entrance, 16 and we envision that as a monument sign. That could have an 17 electronic sign on it that would be able to allow you to 18 announce events and change those announcements easily and 19 frequently as -- 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Message board. 21 MR. LEWIS: Message board, yes, sir. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's provided we stay out 23 of the city limits of Kerrville. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 25 MR. LEWIS: Well, you are in the ETJ, and you're 11-24-08 116 1 subject to their sign ordinance. But there's also 2 flexibility in that. So, I'm going to hand you the budget 3 here. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Uh-oh, here comes the bad 5 news. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You probably explained this 7 and I missed it. Talk to me about those cute little lines. 8 MR. LEWIS: Standing-seam metal roof as a bird 9 would see it looking down on it. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. So -- so, on that 11 second floor, you have all these offices and -- 12 MR. LEWIS: We have restrooms -- men's and women's 13 restrooms, two exits, an elevator, and office suite, so you 14 can configure it in any number of ways, depending on the 15 demand for those spaces. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And that's the only thing 17 that's on the second floor? 18 MR. LEWIS: Yes, sir. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Which is a lot, don't get me 20 wrong. 21 MR. LEWIS: Yes, sir, it's almost 5,000 -- 4,400 22 square feet there, and the total for that building is 35,000 23 square feet. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The major portion of that 25 building is -- is metal building? 11-24-08 117 1 MR. LEWIS: Yes, sir. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And the front portion where 3 the offices are is -- 4 MR. LEWIS: It would all be steel frame, but one 5 would be a -- we would envision that the big part might be a 6 pre-engineered -- what we call a pre-engineered metal 7 building like the indoor arena, and the addition would be 8 conventional steel frame that would be tied together. And 9 we've done that on a number of projects in the past. It's an 10 effective way to get the economies that large open spaces get 11 out of these engineered buildings, and then get some 12 flexibility in the supporting spaces. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You talked about a 14 concourse, Peter, that runs the length of the three basic 15 facilities. I see it on the outside. Was there also one on 16 the inside? 17 MR. LEWIS: Yes, you're able to walk from -- from 18 the indoor arena all the way to the end of this exhibit hall 19 inside or outside and be -- be covered and conditioned, in 20 one case, or just covered and protected on the outside. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 22 MR. LEWIS: If you will look at the handout I've 23 given you -- if you have other questions, please don't let me 24 preempt you, but I know you're interested, everyone, in 25 cutting to the chase. And I'll -- 11-24-08 118 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I've got a question about 2 this. 3 MR. LEWIS: I'll give you -- let me walk you 4 briefly through it. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 6 MR. LEWIS: The budget that we put together is in 7 three phases. If you'll look at the very last page of your 8 book, there is a phasing plan that shows five phases, and the 9 fourth and fifth phase are the amphitheater that's looking 10 down on the river side of Riverside Drive and the vehicle 11 bridge that would connect the east park. And we did not put 12 a price to those. We visited with Commissioner Letz last 13 week, and felt that we could defer any consideration of 14 those, and wanted to focus on the buildings at hand and the 15 site development that go with those. To put these numbers 16 together, we engaged the services of J.M. Lowe, general 17 contractors, because nobody trusts architects' numbers, and 18 we worked with them. 19 Obviously, these are budget numbers. They are 20 based -- and I'll explain the detail here. They are based on 21 a certain level of detail that doesn't benefit from completed 22 sets of construction drawings. We don't -- you know, we 23 haven't gone that far yet, so we've attempted to be 24 conservative and consider all of the things that each of 25 these phases would require and put a number to them, and 11-24-08 119 1 arrive at a bottom line number, including such mundane things 2 as architect and engineering fees and contractors' overhead 3 and profit. So, the Phase 1, if you'll -- I'll just go 4 through it. It's repair the roof and the skylights -- 5 replace the skylights. Repair the roof would be to go in and 6 test all the screws and the washers on them and refasten 7 those. We propose to put new 6-inch full-faced insulation on 8 the underside of the existing insulation. We'd use piano 9 wire. I'll go -- I'll talk about the detail, but use piano 10 wire instead of chicken wire, 'cause the chicken wire allows 11 the birds that are living in there now to get good perches, 12 so this would be a way to insulate that and sort of minimize 13 the amount of wildlife you have up in the structure. Upgrade 14 the restrooms, enhance the ventilation. 15 We need new electrical service in that, so we would 16 be replacing electrical service in its entirety, which would 17 also include replacing the light fixtures there with similar 18 lighting, energy-efficient lighting. Renovate the pens. 19 Again, we don't have a good scope on that, so there's a 20 budget number in there for that, though. New fire protection 21 to the building, and fire protection within the building. 22 The -- the Building Code stipulates that assembly 23 occupancies, which this is, when they reach a certain 24 occupant capacity, needs to be sprinklers, and this building 25 meets that requirement. It meets that threshold, so we've 11-24-08 120 1 got a budget number for that. We also propose to replace all 2 the building trim. Not the siding, and not the roof panels; 3 we're just going to replace the -- repair the fasteners, but 4 we felt replacing the trim, the gutters and downspouts that 5 have been boogered up and that may be failing in some places. 6 And then you see, replace all existing lighting, including 7 the nominal overhead and profit and AE fees that -- the 8 pittance in the budget number we have for that is. 9 (Laughter.) $885,600. Again, these are in 2008 dollars, and 10 we'll talk at the end of this maybe what that might mean in 11 2009 or 2010. 12 Phase 2 would be -- and so that is just the indoor 13 arena, the storage by itself. That doesn't have much to do 14 with the site, other than just the stuff that touches it 15 immediately. And we felt that that was one of the easily 16 achievable things, and because that building's so well used 17 year-round for various things, at least it would be a 18 worthwhile endeavor. Phase 2 would be to renovate and repair 19 site paving, provide new site paving, and then build a new 20 45,000 square foot show barn, which means that the existing 21 exhibit hall and the area that has the hog pens would be 22 demolished. The paving in front on the highway side of -- of 23 the event center is in pretty good condition. We thought 24 that we could just retop that, do some patching and retopping 25 and restripe it. New paving would be on -- principally on 11-24-08 121 1 the east side of -- and all the parking that is between your 2 east property line, structure parking, and the overflow 3 parking, which is the grass area -- field area that is now 4 used for overflow. A new -- a new show barn -- indoor show 5 barn, heated and ventilated, not air-conditioned, and new 6 electrical service, plumbing, and storm sewer as required, 7 including the area in between -- in between -- or the area in 8 between the arena and the future exhibit hall. And then new 9 sprinkler. Again, we have an assembly occupancy that 10 requires sprinklers, and the -- the number -- budget number 11 for that is $3,891,840, in round numbers. 12 And then Phase 3 would be the exhibit center 13 itself, the building, and which would involve the exhibit and 14 events building and site and paving. That would be attendant 15 to that, which would include the realignment of the site 16 entries, or the main -- certainly the Spur 100 entry during 17 Phase 2; may involve the realignment of the east-most entry 18 off of Highway 27. This -- this would be a point in time 19 when the Extension Office would be removed, and following the 20 construction of space where the -- the Extension Office could 21 continue to function, which is programmed for this second 22 story area of the exhibit building. Walks and paving and 23 building to go with that, and then all these indoor elements. 24 We would have an elevator, as I said, stairs, double exits 25 from the second floor, all the interior finishes, mechanical, 11-24-08 122 1 electrical, plumbing, to support all this, sprinklering. 2 We've thrown in something for acoustic and sound treatment in 3 the exhibit hall so that it could be used for a variety of 4 functions and perform in that way. Catering kitchen, as 5 discussed, operable partitions, folding walls to divide these 6 spaces, and the miscellaneous earth work and site work that 7 goes with that, and the budget number for that is $5,948,812. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Does Phase 3 envision not 9 just taking down the existing Extension Office, or moving it 10 to another location -- 11 MR. LEWIS: That is up to -- 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- over to River Star or 13 someplace else on campus, or what? 14 MR. LEWIS: I think it is a movable building, and 15 it's an asset, and so it could -- I don't have a clear 16 direction on that, but it could find a place on this site or 17 could find a place on River Star on the far end of the site. 18 That would be up to Commissioners, how you might direct that 19 to be. But I think it has -- it will continue to have a 20 useful life in another location. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The phasing -- 22 MR. LEWIS: Commissioner Baldwin, you had a 23 question when I started? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The phasing just -- that's what 25 made sense to you? That's something that you and I met last 11-24-08 123 1 week and said that's something that, really, the Court needed 2 to look at as to what makes sense, and just one, two, three. 3 It can go in reverse order or any way we want. Really, it's 4 just kind of -- 5 MR. LEWIS: We packaged them how we thought they 6 might be. Again, as I said, these are in 2008 dollars. 7 Historically in the industry, we see, over a 20- or 30-year 8 time period, about 5 percent per annum inflation in the 9 construction market, and, you know, sometimes we see great 10 spikes, and other times we may be in a period of very low 11 inflation in the construction industry for the next year or 12 two. But -- so if you were to project into 2009 or '10 or 13 '11 what these dollars might mean, a 5 percent index would be 14 a reasonable number to use as a modifier -- or multiplier. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: In Phase 1, renovate pens. 16 What does that mean? 17 MR. LEWIS: Well, they just -- it would be to -- to 18 go in and assess the pens that you have there, and if they 19 need -- if they need repairs, scraping, sanding, repainting, 20 and make them like new. The thought is that at the end of 21 the day, when all this is done, you have a like-new facility, 22 and so the things that you have that have a useful life, you 23 know, but may be in some distress would be repaired as 24 needed. So, it's a plug -- we put a plug number in there. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Phase 2 -- I'm willing to 11-24-08 124 1 bet that Letz talked about this when you were talking about 2 site paving and re-topping and stripe existing paving and new 3 paving and all that. Could the county Road and Bridge 4 Department do that? 5 MR. LEWIS: Yes, sir. We did talk about that, and 6 we talked about it being a chip seal. And this is not 7 7 inches of reinforced concrete paving; this is something 8 that -- 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's a good thing. 10 MR. LEWIS: -- that we think is -- you know, the 11 things that we budgeted for are things that we think are 12 reasonable and have a history -- that the County has a 13 history of using. And so, yes, I think -- 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, the -- 15 MR. LEWIS: -- it's a good thing. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The 3 million could be -- 17 could be reduced by whatever. 18 MR. LEWIS: We did it as an at-market, so, yes, it 19 could. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Back to Phase 1, you talk 22 about the renovation of the pens. That is the pens that 23 are -- that are part of the arena now? Not the pens that are 24 behind the exhibit hall? 25 MR. LEWIS: That is correct, yes. 11-24-08 125 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: New fire protection 3 underground, what is that? And is that a requirement or 4 what? Tell me about that. 5 MR. LEWIS: That is bringing fire -- water service 6 to the building. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 8 MR. LEWIS: Yes, sir, so that would be a 9 requirement. That would be a part of the protection, the 10 sprinklering of the buildings. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, is that a different 12 size -- 13 MR. LEWIS: Yes. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- line? Two and a half 15 inch or something? 16 MR. LEWIS: That would be something larger than 17 that, probably. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think a 12-inch. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You're kidding. 20 MR. LEWIS: I don't know what it would be, but it 21 would be larger than 2 and a half. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: A lot of water. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: At least six. 24 MR. LEWIS: If you've got several hundred thousand 25 -- you know, a couple hundred thousand feet of space, by the 11-24-08 126 1 time all this is done, or 150,000 square feet of space, -- 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wow. 3 MR. LEWIS: -- that if -- if you need it protected 4 all at one time, this is for the fire department and for the 5 sprinkler system, so -- independent of domestic water. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The current city rules, which 7 are based on some national guidelines, you need to be able to 8 pump 15 -- 1,500 gallons a minute? 9 JUDGE TINLEY: A minute. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You're talking about -- 11 you're talking about a truck being able to -- fire truck? 12 MR. LEWIS: Yes, sir. You have a fire department 13 connection, yes, sir. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And also sprinklers. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, okay. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, it all happens -- 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Different ball game, 18 1,500 gallons per minute, yeah. 19 MR. LEWIS: One of the questions that came up in 20 our meeting with Commissioner Letz last week was, if -- if 21 the fire sprinkler system could also be used to -- double 22 duty, to replace the system that you use to wet down the area 23 inside the indoor arena, and the answer is no. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Answer is no. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I tried. 11-24-08 127 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You can't use that unless 2 it's -- 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Fire only. 4 MR. LEWIS: Fire only. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Have to replace all the 6 sprinkler nozzles or something every time it comes on? 7 MR. LEWIS: On those systems, you got pretty -- 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: As soon as the water starts 9 flowing, the fire trucks start rolling. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Oh. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You didn't understand that. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Nice try. 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We can put a separate nozzle 14 next to the one that -- 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, if we add up the 885 and 16 the 3.8, and add that to the 5.9, we got -- 17 MR. LEWIS: 10 million, 586 -- 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Say again? 19 MR. LEWIS: 10,586,252. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: 10,6. 21 MR. LEWIS: 10,6. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Means we got to raise a lot 23 of money from somewhere. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think we can do it. 11-24-08 128 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, shoot, Obama can do it 2 overnight. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Maybe you need to call him. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, this is one of those 5 things that we could submit as a plan in the making and see 6 where it goes. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think we -- you know, from 8 what -- the way things are today, I think the best thing to 9 do is to pursue grants. I don't believe we're going to pass 10 a bond issue to do this, and I wouldn't be for that anyway. 11 But -- 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And we started talking about 13 bonds -- grants and -- 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, grants is the way I 15 think we need to go. And I think it's possible it just -- it 16 will take time. I think we need to figure out which one of 17 these is the project that needs to be done first, so we can 18 raise the money to do that one and then move on with the 19 others as well. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think a lot of them can 21 be dual-tracked, Commissioner. There are pots of money out 22 there that might be available for the agriculture components. 23 There are pots of money that we may want to tap for the 24 public events facility. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'd say if we're going to run 11-24-08 129 1 two of them in tandem, it would be Phase 2 and 3. I think 2 the renovation can be the very last thing, because that is 3 one that -- it's not optimum, but it functions, and continues 4 to function, and I think it can -- it can continue for a 5 little while longer. I do believe that the show barn part of 6 it is maybe not the most critical, but it's getting pretty 7 critical, and I would like to see that probably proceed, that 8 or the exhibit hall. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. The -- we talked a fair 10 amount last week about it, which goes first. The -- you 11 know, the -- probably the most critical, in my mind, is show 12 barn, something that's needed out there. The benefit to 13 doing the exhibit hall first is that while that's being 14 constructed, the old exhibit hall can continue to function, 15 so you don't have downtime of a facility out there, and then 16 you -- immediately after the stock show period, you tear it 17 down and rebuild the show barn. That can be done in a year. 18 The exhibit hall is going to take more than a year. 19 MR. LEWIS: Show barn's probably a 10-month deal. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, but with scheduling and 21 timing, and -- but if you build the exhibit hall first, then 22 you have the ability to, you know, not really ever have to 23 shut the facility down, whereas if you tear down -- do the 24 reverse, you have to limit use. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, we can start putting 11-24-08 130 1 some of our agriculture services in that thing to offset some 2 of our cost of operation with income. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That would be a plus. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Would be a good thing to do. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think that Commissioner 6 Oehler and I talked a little bit about it, but, you know, the 7 phasing may be largely dictated by the funding. I mean, if 8 somebody wants to give us an exhibit hall, I don't think 9 we're going to turn it down just because we want to build a 10 show barn first. I think you kind of -- or vice-versa. If 11 somebody wants to give us a new show barn, I think that 12 becomes number one. We need to be flexible. But this gives 13 us, I think, what we needed and asked for, is something that 14 we can now go forward with and say, "Here is a plan. Here 15 are some estimated costs." And now we can go to local 16 foundations and other sources. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Wherever. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And Department of Agriculture 19 is a source, and Homeland Security is a possibility of 20 looking at that for evacuation-type center, things of that 21 nature. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This is great, Peter. I 23 like what you've done. 24 MR. LEWIS: Thank you. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And this is necessary for 11-24-08 131 1 us to go forward. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: This is looking 50 years into 3 the future. What's been there for 50 years is -- 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Let's see if we can cut 5 that time -- oh, take us 50 years out? 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, take us 50 years into 7 the future. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Absolutely. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And I believe the spaces are 10 right, you know, for what our needs are, and that we have the 11 ability to expand on this plan if need be in the future, and 12 it's expandable. And if we can pull it off and we can get 13 the funding, I tell you what, it'll be a big asset to Kerr 14 County. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No question about it. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Hear, hear. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think -- and I see a couple 18 of representatives from the Stock Show Association here in 19 the audience, and I think that the -- this is the first step. 20 Next step will be to look for funding. And once the design 21 part comes along, which I know is their, probably, biggest 22 concern, I think certainly they'll be included at that point. 23 I think the square footage side of it is -- is adequate, from 24 all prior discussions I've certainly had with that 25 association. But the -- you know, I think when we get into 11-24-08 132 1 the design phase of it -- hopefully we'll get to that 2 phase -- at that point, we'll bring in the users of those 3 facilities. Certainly, Stock Show will be included on that 4 part, and I think when we get to that point, the 5 Convention/Visitors Bureau will be included for the exhibit 6 hall part. So -- 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's something that will 8 really, really be used, and the demand for it is already 9 existing, and it'll go up if we have a nice facility. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: A major Kerr County asset. 11 Major. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And I think that there will 13 be a lot of people that recognize that with a plan like this, 14 it's a nice plan, but it's not an extravagant plan. We're 15 not talking about marble and granite, just talking about 16 basic spaces, nice and finished, but nothing extravagant. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Peter, we thank you. 18 MR. LEWIS: I thank you. I want to say I 19 appreciate the opportunity to assist in this planning effort. 20 I appreciate how engaged you were in the process in our 21 workshop, and then these open events, as well as Commissioner 22 Letz' and Commissioner Oehler's involvement, you know, 23 whether it was on-site or at my office. And -- and I'm not 24 going away, so I'll be around to answer questions and 25 continue to have dialogue as you move forward with it. 11-24-08 133 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You have extra copies of 2 this so we can get them if we need them? 3 MR. LEWIS: Yeah, and I can get you copies. I can 4 send electronic copies to Jody, however you want to do that. 5 I've been -- and also had a request from the newspaper to 6 send them an electronic copy of the site plan. If that's -- 7 if you're in agreement, I'll do that as well, so you get the 8 word out. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you very much. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Absolutely. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And I believe it's styled kind 12 of to wrap up your duties, that we'll accept the -- we'll 13 accept -- what did we hire you to do? (Laughter.) I move we 14 accept the final site plan for Hill Country Youth Exhibit 15 Center as presented. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Site plan? It's entitled 18 Master Plan. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Master Plan. Master site plan. 20 Master plan, that's fine. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: I have a motion and second as 23 indicated. Question or discussion on that motion? All in 24 favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 25 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 11-24-08 134 1 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 2 (No response.) 3 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion carried. Thank you, sir. 4 MR. LEWIS: Excellent. Thank you. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you, Peter. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Thank you. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Why don't we go ahead and move 8 forward now, and I don't know of anything we have as far as 9 an executive session item. Any member of the Court have 10 anything? Okay. Why don't we move to Section 4 of the 11 agenda, payment of the bills. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move we pay the bills. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded to pay the 15 bills. Question or discussion? All of these first items 16 that are here under Nondepartmental, Ms. Hargis, are those 17 accruals going into this budget year for insurance 18 requirements, or do they relate to this budget year? 19 MS. HARGIS: It's this budget year. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Any other questions or 21 comments? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising 22 your right hand. 23 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 24 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 25 (No response.) 11-24-08 135 1 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Do we have 2 any budget amendments? 3 MS. HARGIS: No, sir. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Any late bills? 5 MS. HARGIS: No, sir. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: I've been presented with monthly 7 reports from Environmental Health; District Clerk; Justice of 8 the Peace, Precinct 1; Justice of the Peace, Precinct 4; 9 Constable, Precinct 3; and Road and Bridge. Do I hear a 10 motion that these reports be approved as presented? 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 14 approval of the indicated reports as presented. Question or 15 discussion on the motion? All in favor of the motion, 16 signify by raising your right hand. 17 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 18 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 19 (No response.) 20 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Reports 21 from Commissioners in connection with their liaison or 22 committee assignments. Commissioner Letz? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Commissioner Baldwin and I are 24 really trying to meet with the City Councilmen assigned to 25 meet with us on ETJ issues, and the first date that we could 11-24-08 136 1 get where they could meet with us is December 10th, I 2 believe. So, we're on schedule to meet with them in 3 mid-December. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Anything else? 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We've been trying for about a 6 little over a month. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Oehler? 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: One thing, I guess. We did 11 have a -- have a little problem with a cat killing a bat, and 12 we have confirmed rabies in the bat. And it happens to be in 13 one of these cat colonies that has been established, and so I 14 think there's some action being taken on that issue. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Golly. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And it's unfortunate, but 17 those things happen. Doesn't matter. When we have this kind 18 of problem, we have to deal with it, and Janie is doing that. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: The good news is, most of -- or part 20 of the process is to vaccinate the cats in these colonies. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's true. It just depends 22 on how long it may be since that was -- since that was done. 23 Anyway, that's -- that's probably the biggest news, I guess, 24 I have on one of mine. Of course, Environmental Health is 25 still cruising along. They have some issues they're trying 11-24-08 137 1 to resolve with things that have been discovered in areas of 2 concern. And, anyway, that's about all. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Commissioner Baldwin? 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, sir. Thank you. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Williams? 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Airport Board is alive and 7 well. Judge Tinley swore them in the other day, and I think 8 we've got a good group of guys working for that airport. One 9 thing that Court probably ought to really take a look at in 10 that connection is that the -- the construction project 11 that's going on out there has been billed as a taxiway 12 relocation, but the reality of it is, it's a stormwater 13 takeoff project more than taxiway relocation. It's massive. 14 And this is Phase 1 of two phases, and so if you're out there 15 sometime, take a look at it. A lot of heavy work going on in 16 there. Huge box culverts going in right through the heart of 17 this particular phase, which will take care of the flooding 18 problems that have been at Mooney for all these years, take 19 that water down to Silver Creek, I believe it is, and then 20 Phase 2 takes care of the rest of the problem east of -- of 21 this particular phase of the project. If you're out there, 22 take a look at it. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Where's the funding coming 24 from to pay for that? 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 90 percent TexDOT, 11-24-08 138 1 10 percent City/County. That's about $5 million this year, 2 and we put up our piece, City's put up its piece, TexDOT 3 Aviation the rest. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Actually, I think the master's 5 provided out of E.I.C. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Somebody asked me; I just 8 wanted to know. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We have to deal with the 10 next phase, though, which is an even bigger phase than that 11 one. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Right. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I wasn't really aware of it 14 till last Airport Board meeting. Never really was presented 15 that way, that one of the problems they've had is that all 16 these years, we keep on fixing the main runway, having 17 problems with it. Whenever we get a wet period, all that 18 water gets under the runway and causes the base to fail, 19 'cause you can't -- it gets trapped like a bowl. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Saturated. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Saturated. It's a big bowl 22 down there, and this is getting all that water out from under 23 those runways. So, it's a -- and it's -- I think it's a 24 board member -- King was one that really brought this up and 25 said, "Hey, we need to quick look can at what the project is, 11-24-08 139 1 quit calling it a taxiway relocation." Which it does that, 2 but the dollars are -- probably 80 percent of the dollars are 3 drainage. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else, Commissioner? 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, sir. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Any reports from elected officials 8 or department heads? I know the Sheriff's not here; that's 9 good news. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We were talking about getting 11 money from him; he took off. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, okay. Is that it? We're 13 adjourned. 14 (Commissioners Court adjourned at 12:08 p.m.) 15 - - - - - - - - - - 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 11-24-08 140 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 2nd day of December, 8 2008. 9 10 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 11 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 12 Certified Shorthand Reporter 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 11-24-08