1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Special Session 10 Monday, July 26, 2010 11 9:00 a.m. 12 Commissioners' Courtroom 13 Kerr County Courthouse 14 Kerrville, Texas 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge 23 WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 24 BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 4 25 ABSENT: H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 2 1 I N D E X July 26, 2010 2 PAGE 3 --- Visitors' Input 5 --- Commissioners' Comments 6 4 1.1 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on 5 comments from Roy Kilgore regarding his objection to Kerr County spending money to 6 fight the LCRA power project line 10 7 1.2 Bid Opening - Flat Rock and Ingram Dam repair; refer to Freese-Nichols for review/recommendation 24 8 1.3 Bid opening - Kerrville South Wastewater Project, 9 Phase IV; refer to Tetra Tech, Inc., for review/ recommendation 25 10 1.4 Public Hearing concerning placing 3 stop signs 11 and 1 yield sign in Shalako Estates, Pct. 4 26 12 1.5 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action for final approval concerning placing 3 stop signs 13 and 1 yield sign in Shalako Estates, Pct. 4 27 14 1.6 Public Hearing for the Revision of Plat of Lot 17 of Staacke Ranch Subdivision, Pct. 3 28 15 1.7 Presentation by Jimmy Saunders, J3S, Inc., of the 16 Flat Rock Lake bathometric survey and report 29 17 1.8 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action for final approval of revision of Plat 17 of Staacke 18 Ranch Subdivision, Pct. 3, and accept Letter of Credit #26519-S from Frost Bank 55 19 1.9 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 20 release Maintenance Bond #5052992 and accept Mo Ranch Road for public use and Kerr County 21 maintenance, Pct. 4 56 22 1.10 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to approve final revision of plat for Tracts 130 23 and 131 of Y.O. Ranchlands, Section Three, Pct. 4 57 24 1.11 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to approve revised proposal for engineering services 25 from L. Wayne Wells, P.E. -- 3 1 I N D E X (Continued) July 26, 2010 2 PAGE 3 1.12 Request for approval to purchase 2010 Ford F150 Crew Cab Truck for Agricultural Extension Office 59 4 1.13 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 5 discuss Live Springs Lane in Cave Springs Addition, Section 7, Pct. 4 66 6 1.14 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on 7 EMS budget issues for FY 10/11 76 8 1.15 Acknowledge receipt of Quarterly Investment report from Patterson and Associates for quarter ending 9 06-30-10 107 10 1.16 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to release Letter of Credit and accept 3 roads in 11 Headwaters Ranch for county maintenance, Pct. 4 107 12 1.19 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to discuss setting workshop sessions and public 13 hearings regarding tax rates 108 14 1.20 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on Change Orders 10, 11, 12, & 13 in Sheriff's 15 Annex/Adult Probation building project 129 16 4.1 Pay Bills 132 4.2 Budget Amendments 133 17 4.3 Late Bills 133 4.4 Approve and Accept Monthly Reports 134 18 5.1 Reports from Commissioners/Liaison Committee 19 Assignments 135 5.2 Reports from Elected Officials/Department Heads --- 20 1.17 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on 21 property acquisition in east Kerr County for a Road and Bridge equipment yard (Executive Session) 137 22 1.18 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on 23 Animal Control personnel, pending and possible litigation (Executive Session) 137 24 --- Adjourned 138 25 4 1 On Monday, July 26, 2010, 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: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. 8 Let me call to order this regularly scheduled meeting of the 9 Kerr County Commissioners Court which was posted and 10 scheduled for this date and time, Monday, July 26th, 2010, at 11 9 a.m. It is that time now. Commissioner Letz? 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes, sir. Would everyone 13 please stand and join me in a moment of prayer, followed by 14 the pledge? 15 (Prayer and pledge of allegiance.) 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Thank you. At this time, if 17 there's any member of the public or the audience that wishes 18 to be heard on any matter that is not a listed agenda item, 19 this is your opportunity to come forward with and tell us 20 what's on your mind. If you wish to be heard on an agenda 21 item, we would ask that you fill out a participation form. 22 There should be some located at the rear of the room. That 23 helps me to know that there's an individual that wants to be 24 heard on that item. However, if you don't fill out a 25 participation form and we get to an agenda item you do wish 7-26-10 5 1 to be heard on, get my attention in some manner; I will give 2 you the opportunity to be heard. But right now, if there's 3 any member of the audience that wishes to be heard, come 4 forward and tell us what's on your mind. Good morning, 5 ma'am. Give us your name and address and tell us what's on 6 your mind. 7 MS. ROBINSON: Yes. I'm Donna Snow Robinson; I 8 live at 431 Timber Ridge Drive in Kerrville. As president of 9 the League of Women Voters Kerrville area, I'm here this 10 morning to thank the County Judge and the Commissioners Court 11 for your June 28th proclamation declaring our candidates' 12 forum on July 5th as the launching of the 2010 campaign 13 season, and urging all candidates to participate in that 14 forum. We were proud to be able to host the forum at the 15 Cailloux Performing Arts Center, with generous underwriting 16 by the Floyd A. and Kathleen C. Cailloux Foundation. 17 Participating were two of the candidates running for 18 governor, Kathy Glass and Bill White, and two of the 19 candidates running for Attorney General, Barbara Ann 20 Radnofsky and Jon Roland. About 275 people were in 21 attendance that night to hear the candidates' statements and 22 the responses to citizens' questions. The forum was 23 broadcast by KVHC TV on Channel 15, and on local cable 24 companies Time-Warner and Suddenlink Communications. The 25 candidates' forum was also webcast through KHVC.com's 7-26-10 6 1 live-streaming link and the issuing of live-streaming access 2 on an IP platform webcast from the Cailloux Center. We know 3 that the forum was broadcast live in the Beaumont area, 4 Sherman-Dennison, and on two radio stations in Austin. Also, 5 a European-based IP platform network broadcast it in Germany. 6 The forum was rebroadcast locally by KVHC at 10 o'clock on 7 July 19th and July 24th, so we got a lot of -- of air play on 8 that. And we really appreciate your support. On behalf of 9 the League of Women Voters, Kerrville area, I want to express 10 my strong appreciation for your community-minded support for 11 the League's mission, which is an informed and active 12 electorate. Thank you. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, Ms. Robinson. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Thank you. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Any other member of the public or 16 audience that wishes to be heard on any matter that is not a 17 listed agenda item? I see no one else coming forward, so 18 we'll move on. Do you have anything for us this morning, 19 Commissioner Letz? 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. Just can't get over the 21 beautiful weather we've been having; 68 degrees yesterday 22 morning is pretty unusual for late July. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It was 68 this morning. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Oehler? 7-26-10 7 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I don't have anything, thank 2 you. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Williams? 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Meeting tomorrow night in 5 Center Point, 7 p.m. at the C.P.I.S.D. cafeteria for the 6 purpose of seeing if we can work our way through the issues 7 regarding the replacement of the Crossing Street Bridge and 8 improvements at the park. 7 p.m., C.P.I.S.D. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else? 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, sir. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge? 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I forgot to mention something 14 that is rather important that I was thinking about this 15 morning on the way in. For those that haven't been following 16 it, a very big thing happens today related to our water and 17 our future water availability. GMA-9 is meeting in Boerne at 18 10 o'clock this morning, where it's on their agenda today to 19 set the -- what's called the Desired Future Conditions for 20 all counties, which includes Kerr County, and there's a 21 little bit of controversy as to that. They're going to be 22 setting -- it could go anywhere from zero draw-down, which 23 would potentially mean no more wells, which I hope they don't 24 do, to up to a 30- or 40-foot draw-down, which is what our 25 local water district, Headwaters, has recommended. And that 7-26-10 8 1 is a -- it's an average draw-down, doesn't mean on any 2 particular well you have to -- the aquifer's not uniform. 3 But, anyway, it's an important discussion. Interestingly, 4 the kind of, sort of -- I guess you'd call them the chair; 5 comes out of Blanco County -- of GMA-9 came up with a whole 6 new way of doing it last Friday. And I made some comments to 7 the press and some other people that, you know, I have a 8 little bit of a problem with them changing the direction 9 they're going and not allowing the public to have input into 10 that new process they were looking -- they're looking at. 11 The difference was they've always looked at the 12 Edwards-Trinity as one aquifer, and the Trinity as another. 13 They came up with a new mechanism of doing it all under one 14 D.F.C., looking at it one way. Not sure what the reason for 15 that was at that late hour, but anyway, it's an important 16 thing, and hopefully they will decide to support what the 17 local groundwater districts want to do. In our case, what 18 Headwaters wants to do, which I think is a -- they're taking 19 a very reasonable approach. That's it. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: I had a meeting last Friday night, 21 as some of you may have been aware -- some of you may have 22 been there -- out at the Youth Exhibit Center. It was 23 jointly sponsored by the City of Kerrville, Kerr County, and 24 KPUB, dealing with the proposed CREZ -- L.C.R.A. CREZ lines 25 that L.C.R.A. is supposed to do their filing on the 28th of 7-26-10 9 1 this month. Reasonably well-attended. It was primarily 2 informational. By all accounts, most folks were quite 3 pleased with being brought up to date of where we were with 4 respect to that particular subject. Representative 5 Hilderbran was there. Representatives from all of the 6 sponsoring agencies were there. There was a presentation by 7 Mr. Charlie Hastings with the City of Kerrville. It was very 8 informative, provided information to those present to -- to 9 be able to let their thoughts be known to the folks that need 10 to know what those thoughts are. As an aside, the City of 11 Kerrville, Kerr County, and KPUB have jointly agreed to act 12 as intervenors and to share the cost of that intervention 13 before the P.U.C. with respect to this particular issue. 14 One more item, a very pleasant surprise a week or 15 so ago. I received a check in the sum of -- very generous 16 check in the sum of $1,000 from Hal and Charlie Peterson 17 Foundation towards the expansion of the war memorial. The 18 board took this action on its own initiative, and just 19 another example of the fine work that that foundation does 20 here in Kerrville and Kerr County in support of the community 21 projects. So, our thanks to Hal and Charlie Peterson 22 Foundation and the Board of Trustees there. Those of you 23 that are acquainted with those folks, thank them. Again, I'm 24 -- I continue to solicit input as to the manner in which that 25 memorial should be expanded. We have circulated one proposed 7-26-10 10 1 method of expansion so far. I think it's been well received, 2 but if there are other -- other thoughts out there, why, we 3 welcome them. So, if you or anyone you're acquainted with 4 has an interest in that area, why, tell them to get in touch 5 with us. We want to know what they think. That's all I've 6 got. Let's move on with our agenda. The first item on the 7 agenda is to consider, discuss, take appropriate action on 8 comments from Roy Kilgore regarding his objection to Kerr 9 County spending money to fight the L.C.R.A. power project 10 line. Mr. Kilgore, are you present? 11 MR. KILGORE: Yes, sir. My name is Roy Kilgore. I 12 live at 118 Canter Lane. I appreciate your opportunity, and 13 particularly appreciate the Judge's segue on this matter. 14 When I asked to be on the agenda, I had every intention of 15 trying to dissuade you completely from spending any money on 16 this project. I based that opposition primarily on my 17 experience in the Rim Rock case and seeing the amounts of 18 dollars that were expended there. I don't oppose the 19 intervention at all. My wife suggested that I try to give 20 you some credentials for me standing here. I guess probably 21 the best one is that I'm a county taxpayer. The second best 22 one might be that I have endured one of these proceedings, 23 and I think "endured" is a pretty descriptive verb. You -- 24 they're terrible. Finally, I view myself as reasonably 25 technically competent to understand some of the more 7-26-10 11 1 intricate aspects of this, particularly after having been 2 through it. 3 I'm a retired Air Force fighter pilot. I got an 4 undergraduate degree in engineering, but I think most 5 importantly, I have a graduate degree in an arcane discipline 6 called Operations and Analysis, which is basically trying to 7 quantify things that are inherently not very quantifiable; 8 for instance, the aesthetic value of the line. That's pretty 9 darn hard to do. I told you that I had planned to try to get 10 you to completely abandon this. My one cohort here, 11 Councilman Baldwin, is not present, so perhaps that inhibits 12 me. But after the meeting last Thursday, Mr. Henneke 13 approached me and said he'd like to talk to me about my 14 position on the matter and explain his position, or I guess 15 probably your position. 16 So, my wife and I met with him Friday afternoon, 17 and as I understand it, he -- he believes that your current 18 budget, which, correct me if I'm wrong here, is five grand 19 for the City Council, five grand for you, and I think another 20 five grand for KPUB, so we're looking at $15,000. And 21 Mr. Henneke's convinced me that there is a good possibility 22 that that $15,000 could be properly spent on private lawyers 23 who have experience appearing before the P.U.C., to help set 24 up the game plan, which the Judge has already articulated. 25 And, Judge, would you repeat for those here who haven't heard 7-26-10 12 1 it your game plan, which is don't do it at all, run it along 2 the line, I think, and -- it would help if you would tell the 3 audience here what your game plan is. Could you do that now, 4 sir? 5 JUDGE TINLEY: I'd be happy to, Mr. Kilgore. 6 The -- and I articulated this at the meeting last week, last 7 Thursday. I misspoke; I said it was Friday. It was actually 8 Thursday. Appreciate you pointing that out, Mr. Kilgore. 9 And I think there's -- there's consensus in the Hill Country, 10 number one, there's probably not a need for that line, and so 11 let's don't have a line at all. That's position number one, 12 and I think there's unanimity among those of us in the Hill 13 Country in all the various counties. The second position is 14 to build it outside the Hill Country. We've, in fact, 15 received information that there are some counties that would 16 like for that line to go through their county for a number of 17 reasons. Number one, landowners in that county want the 18 extra compensation that might bring. Secondly, the tax base 19 of the county would be improved by virtue of the location of 20 those lines in the county, inasmuch as the L.C.R.A. 21 Transmission Services Corporation is, in fact, a private 22 company, and those are taxable assets. The -- the third 23 position, and this is one that there is not unanimity on, 24 from -- from Kerr County's standpoint, is to locate it on 25 what I call the northern route, which would be a route which 7-26-10 13 1 starts at the McCamey D station, which is in Schleicher 2 County, and proceeds almost due east for approximately 23 to 3 25 percent of the total distance of that line, at which it 4 would then pick up a route along existing transmission lines 5 upon which there are existing aerial structures, and follow 6 those aerial structures all the way down into Mason -- into 7 Menard, then to Mason, then into Fredericksburg, and then on 8 down to Kendall, where it's -- where it's due to go. The 9 line is called the McCamey D to Kendall to Gillespie, so at 10 present it has to hook into those two -- two points. This 11 would do that, and for approximately 73 to -- 75 to 77 12 percent of the distance, would follow existing aerial 13 transmission line. 14 MR. KILGORE: Thank you. Am I correct in saying 15 that the -- the acronym for this project is DKG, I believe? 16 Was that what -- what they use? 17 JUDGE TINLEY: I believe that's right. 18 MR. KILGORE: McCamey D to -- I think it was DKG, 19 so if I use "DKG" from now on, I'm still talking about the 20 same project here, okay? Well, now that you've -- you've 21 told us about what your coalition has in mind. It's not just 22 the Court; it's the other two players that I told you -- I 23 mentioned earlier. I really have no experience in this, so 24 I'm -- I'm going to defer to Mr. Henneke that this is a -- 25 this is a feasible thing to do with limited funds, use a 7-26-10 14 1 private lawyer to help you set up a strategy, get ready to 2 come out of the starting gate. I'm still imploring you to be 3 excruciatingly aware of how big this tab could be, and 4 bounding it somehow, and not letting these private lawyers do 5 things that you can do for yourselves. And I'm going to say 6 a little bit more about what I think about that here in a 7 little while. Let me -- let me start by trying to give you 8 an idea of why I think the dollars are big. 9 At the meeting last Thursday, I told you that I'm 10 aware of one group of intervenors, of maybe about 70 11 intervenors, that spent about $200,000 on private legal fees. 12 Further, they spent another $11,000 just on the court 13 transcripts. And, by the way, I -- I applaud you for your 14 skill. I don't think any mortal person could do that, 15 especially not for 12 hours. I don't know how you -- how 16 these ladies manage to transcribe for that long, because it's 17 excruciatingly boring. (Laughter.) Okay. Let me just 18 compare some stats with -- with Rim Rock and the Gillespie to 19 Newton. Gillespie to Newton, as I understand it, is sort of 20 your linchpin case, because for those who don't know, 21 Gillespie-Newton was another CREZ project about the same 22 size. The Public Utility Commission threw the case out. 23 Which is your first position; don't do it at all. 24 The P.U.C. filings for Rim Rock, 362 of them. 25 To-date for Gillespie-Newton, which still hasn't died 7-26-10 15 1 completely, 1,235. So, it's about three -- on that metric 2 alone, it's about three and a half times the size. The 3 nominal line length for this Rim Rock case was 7, 8 miles, 4 something like that. This one that we're talking about is 5 about 100, mas or menos. There were 297 landowners notified 6 in the CCN for the Goat Creek case. We don't have the CCN 7 for this new case, and I couldn't find the notifying list for 8 the Gillespie to Newton case. But if you had 100 -- or 297 9 people for 8 miles, how many are you going to have for 100? 10 The CCN number of pages, I threw it away. I don't know what 11 it was, but it's about that thick. It's a little bit bigger 12 than the Kerrville phone book for the Rim Rock case. Without 13 the appendices, the -- the Gillespie to Newton is 781 pages. 14 I ask you to consider how long it would take somebody to 15 study 781 pages. 16 The number of intervenors in the Rim Rock case was 17 somewhere around 100. I have no idea what it's going to be 18 here, nor was I able to find and count up all the intervenors 19 on the Gillespie to Newton case, but I'll tell you a little 20 bit more later about how you can make some inferences. I'll 21 give you some data that I sent to -- to the office here by 22 e-mail. Here I think is a key metric when you're considering 23 paying billable hours. The administrative law judge has gone 24 out, did all hearings together. They don't have a 25 prehearing; they're going to set a schedule for doing this, 7-26-10 16 1 and they got to do it all in 180 days, so it's pretty 2 compressed. The ALJ for the Rim Rock case scheduled one day 3 for the hearing on the merits, which is sort of the key 4 hearing. Fourteen for the Gillespie to Newton; 14 days in 5 court. That's a lot of billable hours. I think you can do a 6 whacking good job yourselves. 7 And let me -- let me read something into the record 8 here that I think goes to that. This is extracted from the 9 ALJ proposal for decision for the Rim Rock case. And I 10 quote, "Nevertheless, resolutions by the City of Kerrville 11 and Kerr County are due serious consideration, because these 12 entities composed of elected officials who represent area 13 residents are well situated to provide guidance on community 14 values. The county resolution is particularly significant in 15 that the entire line will be located within Kerr County 16 regardless of which route is chosen." There was some 17 discussion -- informal discussion last Thursday about whether 18 or not the P.U.C. really has said something via the Gillespie 19 to Newton documentation that says, "Okay, governmental 20 entities, get off the sidelines. Stop sending me 21 resolutions. Get in and play as an intervenor." I couldn't 22 find that in the -- in the amount of time that I had 23 wandering around through the Gillespie to Newton case, but I 24 certainly believe that as intervenors, your already 25 considerable clout is going to be more. I'll say again, it 7-26-10 17 1 just costs a heck of a lot of money to do that. 2 Okay. You guys, in addition to having the inherent 3 advantage that you have over a private intervenor by virtue 4 of your -- your function in our community, you have at least 5 two lawyers on staff in your coalition. And I think very, 6 very importantly, you have Mr. McCuan, who is a subject 7 matter expert, a man who has experience in transmission line 8 planning. I don't think very many of your opponents are 9 going to be able to do that. They may be able to hire what 10 they call a subject matter expert, and I saw one of the hired 11 men present in the Rim Rock case. It was embarrassing. The 12 guy had -- I don't remember his details, but he didn't know 13 anything about what he was talking about, as this layman 14 interpreted it, anyway. So, what -- you know, if I can -- if 15 I can go up there as a complete layman and participate in 16 this, y'all certainly can, without paying big bucks to a 17 private firm. I'm asking you once again to constrain your 18 dollars to these private guys to -- what Mr. Henneke 19 basically said was you're going to have them be strategists, 20 advisers. Don't pay them to sit in the courtroom and do 21 nothing, which is what they're going to be doing most of the 22 time. If you have to have somebody with their credentials to 23 pinch-hit -- Mr. Henneke is kind of big on sports analogies. 24 If you have to have somebody to pinch-hit, then maybe bring 25 them in for a little while, but ride herd on these guys. 7-26-10 18 1 Otherwise, the tab's going to be really big. 2 I want to mention some other things to expect, 3 since as far as I know, y'all haven't been in one of these 4 things here. You can expect some overhead costs there that 5 are going to water your eyes. You're going to have to 6 respond to requests for information, and they're going to ask 7 you for everything, and it's going to take time and effort to 8 dig up that everything and assemble it and get a response to 9 the R.F.I. They're going to ask you about every court 10 transcript, every e-mail you ever wrote, every public 11 statement that you made. They're going to ask you for 12 everything. That's not going to cost nothing. It's going to 13 be something there. Also, you're going to incur costs of 14 serving -- and I'm going to need some help here. Define for 15 us, would you, what "serving" really means? You have to -- 16 anything you say or do, everything, you got to tell 17 everybody. Is that a correct -- I'm looking at Mr. Henneke 18 here now and asking, 'cause I'm not up on this stuff. 19 Mr. Henneke tells me that -- that things have changed since 20 the Rim Rock case, in that they allow serving by e-mail. I 21 read the ALJ's position on the Gillespie to Newton case, and 22 it was the Judge's decision to allow it. As far as I know, 23 the P.U.C. regulations still require you to send paper copies 24 to every intervenor. If the -- if my interpretation is 25 correct, and the ALJ in this case decides to make you send 7-26-10 19 1 paper, you're going to waste a few hundred thousand acres of 2 Brazilian rain forest just on paper. 3 Here's another one that I don't think most people 4 realize. I certainly didn't. L.C.R.A. will fight you, 5 especially if their preferred route is I-10. When I was 6 trying to do my thing on the Rim Rock case, one of the -- the 7 option that seemed to be feasible was double the existing 8 line from Turtle Creek to Rim Rock, so I tried to float that. 9 L.C.R.A. said no, you can't double a line. This goes to your 10 argument of running along a parallel existing line, so you 11 can expect them to fight you. One of the things that they 12 said to me was, yes, we can build those lines, but it's 13 dangerous to put another line alongside an existing high 14 voltage line. So, count on it; it's going to be adverse to 15 one of your points, Judge. You're going to spend an 16 incredible amount of billable time doing nothing, sitting in 17 a chair, trying to stay awake, especially with this many 18 intervenors. 19 During our conversation with -- my wife and my 20 conversation with Mr. Henneke Friday, he indicated a concern 21 for -- and this is my term, not his. I can't remember 22 exactly his phraseology, but basically I'm going to call them 23 freeloaders, people who share your position on this matter, 24 see in the news media that you are taking up the fight, and 25 erroneously choose to sit on the sideline and let you fight 7-26-10 20 1 for them. So, here's my suggestion there. And I'm pretty 2 sure that I -- I saw Cecil Atkission at the meeting Thursday 3 night, and if I-10 happens, it's going to be right over his 4 dealership over there. There's probably people in the 5 community, private intervenors who, if it's allowed by law -- 6 and I've got no idea -- would be willing to cough up some 7 bucks and join your coalition and help you pay maybe some 8 additional bucks for the private thing, or just help whatever 9 way they can. So, I'm -- I urge you, if it's legal to do it, 10 to solicit additional people to join your coalition. I -- I 11 can't see why that private people couldn't join a public 12 coalition, but I really don't know. 13 Here's another suggestion I have, because we heard 14 this argument from Mr. Parton Thursday night -- or I know one 15 of the presenters was talking about tax base and whatever. 16 There's probably some way to do a payback analysis on your 17 investment here. Make the assumption that you're going to 18 prevail, that you're going to get what you want, and then try 19 to figure out how you could ever get back the money you're 20 going to have to invest should you prevail. It's worth 21 taking a shot at it just to see where you have to draw the 22 line and say, "I just can't do this any more." Finally, I 23 sent your office here a spreadsheet for your use. You -- if 24 you were present Thursday night, or you have ever tried this 25 before, you can get to the filings on the P.U.C. interchange, 7-26-10 21 1 and there was a rather lengthy list of things that you had to 2 do to get there. I sent a spreadsheet for the Gillespie to 3 Newton case to Ms. Grinstead and asked her to keep it until 4 you tell her to throw it away. It has all of the listings 5 for the Gillespie to Newton case. What did I say, 1,235 of 6 them? However, this spreadsheet has a live link. If you 7 click on the Item Number, you blow by all that other stuff 8 and go right to the item. It'll take you right to the item. 9 I urge to you read the ALJ's proposal for decision 10 in the Gillespie to Newton case, and read the P.U.C.'s final 11 order in the case, if nothing else, because that case is 12 really important to you. If you get the spreadsheet from 13 her, you click on it, you find that entry and click on it, 14 and you're off and running. Finally -- and I've made this 15 appeal some time in the past here. Apparently the Court does 16 not have at its disposal Adobe Acrobat, which is the premier 17 program in the world for presenting documentation, and I 18 think it's roughly 300 bucks. I would strongly urge you to 19 invest in that and the training necessary, which is not all 20 that much, so that when you present your responses to 21 requests for information or whatever serving documents that 22 you have to do, you can do it via Adobe Acrobat format and 23 not by Word. And when you do it, digitally sign it so that 24 it is imperturbable, assuming that this all can be done 25 electronically, which it was done for the most part in 7-26-10 22 1 Gillespie-Newton. If you can't do that, I own the program; 2 I'll do it for you if you want me to. 3 Okay. Thanks for your time. I'm going to try to 4 make this same pitch tomorrow night at City Council, or 5 something shorter, because I didn't get on their agenda in 6 time, but I'm going to stand up and have a go. Thanks for 7 your time. If you have any questions, I'll try to answer 8 them. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, Mr. Kilgore. We 10 appreciate your information. 11 MR. KILGORE: Thank you. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Any member of the Court have any 13 questions or comments? 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There was one -- one 15 statement that was made by the KPUB rep the other night about 16 that if this line were built, it would have little or no 17 impact on our future needs. So, you know, it's really -- 18 it's not coming here to serve us. It's coming -- they want 19 to come through here to go somewhere else. We really don't 20 need it, according to what the KPUB rep said the other night. 21 MR. KILGORE: Commissioner, could I again request 22 that you read the Gillespie to Newton final order? It's not 23 fun reading, and it's going to refer you to some rules and 24 regulations, but I think you'll find upon reading it that the 25 reason that they -- that P.U.C. threw this thing out wasn't 7-26-10 23 1 so much need-based as a series of omissions and screw-ups by 2 L.C.R.A. So, I urge you to read it, and it will -- it will 3 expand upon what you're just thinking about there. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just a general comment, that 5 largely your comments are -- were pointing out the potential 6 costs that we could run up in fighting this. You know, my 7 feeling is we're not going to -- it's not a blank check out 8 here, from my standpoint. And we pretty much -- I won't say 9 5,000 is the total cap that I would vote for, but it's very 10 close to the final cap. I think that we have to do a lot of 11 this internally, and we'll be looking to the County Attorney 12 to give us a -- you know, a little bit more information as to 13 the potential cost. But I think, you know, from my 14 standpoint, and you -- well, I don't know how the rest of the 15 Court feels on it, but we're not going to spend just a huge 16 amount of money on this as an intervenor. We're not -- you 17 mentioned hundreds of thousands of dollars. We're not going 18 there, at least not on my vote. So -- 19 MR. HENNEKE: Well, and Commissioner, just to 20 address -- and I appreciate Mr. and Mrs. Kilgore's concerns, 21 and we did have a very good meeting, and Mr. Kilgore is 22 obviously very knowledgeable about this, and also very 23 passionate about this community, and has a concern. But as 24 this Court is aware, we have a plan. It's a targeted plan. 25 It's an efficient plan, and it's one that we're moving 7-26-10 24 1 forward with in a deliberate process, not just in a -- you 2 know, the opposite. And so, you know, we're getting 3 technical assistance because it's going to help our position, 4 but it's doing so in a way that we thought out ahead of time, 5 and I think will end up serving Kerr County very well. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions or comments? 7 Thank you, sir. We've got a number of timed items that we're 8 going to begin now. First is a timed item, Item 2, for 9:15. 9 Opening of bids on Flat Rock and Ingram Dam repairs. First 10 one we have is from Mac, M-a-c, Inc. Flat Rock, total base 11 bid, 325,000. With add items, 399,760. Ingram Dam, 138,375. 12 With add items, $169,035. Next one is from ProSouth 13 Construction. Base bid, Flat Rock, 155,525. With add items, 14 108,325. Ingram Dam, base bid, $78,200. With add items, 15 $99,390. The last one is from Austin Engineering Company, 16 Inc. Flat Rock, base bid, $701,125. With add-ons to Flat 17 Rock, 781,225 thousand (sic). Ingram Dam, base bid, 18 $290,625. With add-ons, $323,475 thousand. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, I would move that 20 the bids be referred to the Freese-Nichols engineering firm 21 for review and recommendation. There's a representative from 22 Freese-Nichols in the house. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded that the 25 bids be referred to Freese-Nichols for evaluation and 7-26-10 25 1 recommendation. Question or discussion on that motion? All 2 in favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 3 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 4 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 5 (No response.) 6 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion carries. We'll move to 7 our next 9:15 timed item, Item 3, which is a bid opening on 8 Kerrville South Wastewater Project, Phase IV. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Why don't you get a letter 10 opener? 11 (Discussion off the record.) 12 JUDGE TINLEY: First bid is from Lupe Rubio 13 Construction, Incorporated. Base bid, $308,129.87. 14 Alternate 1, $63,634.05. Alternate 2, $164,205.80. Next bid 15 is from RTM Construction, Limited. Base bid of $318,641.50. 16 Alternate 1, $80,634. Alternate 2, $170,952. Next one is 17 from Grand Republic Fabrication, Inc., d/b/a Grand Republic 18 Construction. Base bid, $419,537. Alternate 1, $97,739. 19 Alternate 2, $194,468. Last one is from Allen Keller 20 Company. Base bid, $371,479.70. Alternate 1, $95,552.10. 21 Alternate 2, 149,609. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, I would move that 23 the bids received for Kerrville South Wastewater Project, 24 Phase IV, be referred to Tetra Tech, Inc. -- Mr. Keller 25 Drozdick, the project engineer, is here -- for review and 7-26-10 26 1 recommendation. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded. Question 4 or discussion on the motion? All in favor of the motion, 5 signify by raising your right hand. 6 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 7 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 8 (No response.) 9 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Better than last time. At 11 least we got some bids. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. At this time, I will recess 13 the Commissioners Court meeting, and I will convene a public 14 hearing concerning the placement of three stop signs and one 15 yield sign in Shalako Estates located in Precinct 4. 16 (The regular Commissioners Court meeting was closed at 9:45 a.m., and a public hearing was held in open 17 court, as follows:) 18 P U B L I C H E A R I N G 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Is there any member of the public or 20 audience that wishes to be heard with respect to the 21 placement of three stop signs and one yield sign in Shalako 22 Estates, located in Precinct 4? 23 (No response.) 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Seeing no one coming forward on that 25 issue, I will close the public hearing with respect to the 7-26-10 27 1 placement of three stop signs and one yield sign in Shalako 2 Estates located in Precinct 4. 3 (The public hearing was concluded at 9:45 a.m., and the regular Commissioners Court meeting was 4 reopened.) 5 - - - - - - - - - - 6 JUDGE TINLEY: I'll reconvene the Commissioners 7 Court meeting, and we will go to Item 5, which is a 9:20 8 item; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action for the 9 final approval concerning the placement of three stop signs 10 and one yield sign in Shalako Estates located in Precinct 4. 11 Mr. Odom? 12 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. Thank you, Judge. Mr. Don 13 Thorson made a request on May the 26th of 2010 for the County 14 to install some stop signs and yield signs in Shalako 15 Estates. At this time, we ask the Court for their approval 16 to install one stop sign in Shalako Road and Thunder Road, 17 install one yield sign at Hunters Point and Thunder Road, 18 install one stop sign at Lightning Road and Hunters Point, 19 and install one stop sign at Thunder Road and Lightning Road, 20 Precinct 4. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Move approval. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 24 approval of the agenda item as indicated. Further question 25 or discussion on that motion? All in favor of that motion, 7-26-10 28 1 signify by raising your right hand. 2 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 3 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 4 (No response.) 5 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Thank you, 6 Mr. Odom. 7 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: At this time, I will recess the 9 Commissioners Court meeting and I will convene a public 10 hearing for the review of plat of Lot 17 of Staacke Ranch 11 Subdivision, as set forth in Volume 5, Page 77, Plat Records, 12 and located in Precinct 3. 13 (The regular Commissioners Court meeting was closed at 9:47 a.m., and a public hearing was held in open 14 court, as follows:) 15 P U B L I C H E A R I N G 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Any member of the public or audience 17 that wishes to be heard with respect to the revision of plat 18 of Lot 17 of Staacke Ranch Subdivision as set forth in Volume 19 5, Page 77, Plat Records, and located in Precinct 3? 20 (No response.) 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Seeing no one coming forward, I will 22 close the public hearing for the revision of plat of Lot 17 23 of Staacke Ranch Subdivision, as set forth in Volume 5, Page 24 77, Plat Records, located in Precinct 3, and I will reconvene 25 the Commissioners Court meeting. 7-26-10 29 1 (The public hearing was concluded at 9:47 a.m., and the regular Commissioners Court meeting was 2 reopened.) 3 - - - - - - - - - - 4 JUDGE TINLEY: We will go to our next timed item, 5 which is a 9:30 item, Item 7. This will be a presentation by 6 Mr. Jimmy Saunders of J3S, Inc., of the Flat Rock Lake 7 bathometric survey and report. Commissioner Williams? 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Judge. 9 Mr. Saunders is here to give us the report and his findings 10 of the bathometric survey on Flat Rock Lake. I had the 11 opportunity to look at it over the weekend. I must confess 12 there's a lot about it I didn't understand, but that's why 13 he's here today, to help us all understand what it's all 14 about. Thank you. I want to thank him for the manner in 15 which his company conducted this survey. They said they 16 would do it in a set time. They have done so, and I think 17 the Court's going to find the presentation very interesting. 18 MR. SAUNDERS: Good morning to the Court. I 19 apologize for my voice, but maybe my brain will work better 20 than my voice. We conducted the survey at the lake in May, 21 finished in early June. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Did everybody get these, 23 Jimmy? 24 MR. SAUNDERS: I'm sorry. Yes, I'll pass this out. 25 This is a copy of a survey here, and inside the front cover 7-26-10 30 1 is a copy of the -- 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I have one. We need one 3 for Baldwin. 4 MR. SAUNDERS: -- is a copy of the presentation 5 which I'm about to make. The -- I would explain one thing. 6 The book has some words on the front cover and in several 7 places in the book concerning proprietary information and 8 international traffic and arms regulations. Those apply to 9 us, but they apply to sections of the book that don't have 10 anything to do really with the Flat Rock survey, but more 11 with our internal process, how we determine errors and things 12 like that. So, since we do work for the navy, they sometimes 13 check up on us. And that section that's called the error 14 analysis is subject to nondisclosure through the 15 international traffic and arms restrictions. 16 The -- the survey went well. We had some 17 surprises, which is -- is always the case. I'm going to 18 discuss the bathymetric survey; that is the bottom 19 hydrographic survey. It will offer the apparent bottom, that 20 is the bottom you can see if you drain the lake; the 21 sub-bottom, the things below the loose material that is silty 22 in nature; and the sediment load, or the total volume of silt 23 and where it's located. We'll also then discuss bottom 24 condition survey. Bottom condition is a terminology that we 25 use to refer to things laying on the bottom; trash, trees, 7-26-10 31 1 stumps, et cetera. We were specifically asked to review 2 water intakes, both private, and specifically Comanche Trace 3 intake, and to -- to look at the low flow drain inlet under 4 Flat Rock Dam. The contract called for doing a dense survey 5 in the area shown here as Area A, and a less dense survey in 6 Area B. Our goal was to extract as much information as we 7 could within the budget that was allotted. In the survey, we 8 actually -- you'll see that Area B does not include the 9 shoreline along the city park. That shoreline and all that 10 water that was excluded was actually included in the 11 bathymetric survey, but is not included in the bottom survey. 12 There's the bottom line for the entire survey. The 13 lake from the low-water crossing to the dam contains 105 14 surface acres. We actually have all this out to four decimal 15 places. You don't need that. There's about 3.2 miles of 16 shoreline. That does not include the islands, which would 17 add approximately a quarter mile. Our survey of the bottom 18 was 87.7 acres shore-to-shore from just upstream of the boat 19 ramp to the dam. We collected over 250 million individual 20 data points to produce a million gridded points every 2 feet 21 in each direction. We have essentially averaged the depths 22 that we've recorded in that 2 feet and created one for a 23 2-foot square. If there were areas where data was missing 24 between two 2-foot squares, then we would interpolate across 25 that data, and so you get the -- effectively, the average 7-26-10 32 1 between the two for the one in the center that was missing. 2 The average lake depth is just over 7 feet. The 3 maximum depth we encountered was 21.2 feet. These are all 4 referenced. All of our depths, except where otherwise noted, 5 are referenced to the spillway. The average silt depth was 6 surprisingly low, about seven-tenths of a foot. That was not 7 as surprising, however, as the fact that it's fairly 8 uniformly distributed. There are a few pockets of deeper 9 silt, but by and large, the silt load is 3 to 4 inches. The 10 total silt burden in the lake is 59.7 acre feet, less than a 11 tenth of the lake volume. The lake volume is appropriately 12 quoted in U.S.G.S. publications at about 850 acre feet. Our 13 section that we surveyed encompasses about 750 acre feet. 14 This is a picture in three dimensions. The edges are ragged 15 because of the effect of rendering this in three dimensions, 16 but I wanted to try to give you an idea about something, and 17 hopefully you'll be able to see this. Maybe not. 18 Okay. The northeast -- or the right upper corner 19 is the dam. The left lower corner is the intake near the 20 boat ramp. Boat ramp is on the side upwards on the graph. 21 This -- this chart, as it gets red, it's shallow. As it 22 moves to blue, it's deeper, and then the greens and yellows 23 are the deepest. You can basically see the old channel for 24 the river quite easily. It comes in at the bottom on the 25 boat ramp end and then moves across the river, is fairly wide 7-26-10 33 1 and shallow until it reaches just north of the island that's 2 in the center of the lake, and then you can see it moves to 3 the right side. The shore -- the banks are very steep. It's 4 deep there. It stays deep all the way, essentially, to the 5 dam. On the far left side, you will -- you'll be able to see 6 where the creek inlet is. That's that little red pointer to 7 the left. And then farther down where Third Creek enters, so 8 there -- where those creeks enter, there is some deep water, 9 a little bit deeper for a short period of time. Then it 10 spreads out and runs into the original river channel. 11 This is the apparent bottom. Should be what you 12 see if the lake were drained. There are two islands in the 13 lake. The one in the center you see in red is flat. The 14 other one is just toward the dam from it, also red and flat, 15 but much smaller. This is an example blown up of an area 16 near the dam. The spillway is marked with black marks, and 17 you can get an idea. This is actually the sub-bottom, but 18 the sub-bottom and the apparent bottom surveys are rendered 19 the same way, and they look very similar. So, I just give 20 this as an example of -- what we're showing here are 1-foot 21 contour lines, so each line from the bottom down is 1 foot of 22 depth. Red is the shallowest, green is the deepest, and the 23 data in the report -- there's a C.D. with the actual 2-foot 24 centered data on it for both the bottom, sub-bottom, and 25 silt, and it can be rendered visually in this manner. The 7-26-10 34 1 report has these separated into three sections which you can 2 review in more detail. There are not a lot of surprises in 3 there. 4 This is sub-bottom or silt, and as you can see by 5 the scale, the yellow is essentially zero silt. It moves 6 through the green up to about 2 feet. Then the blue is 3 7 feet and greater. There are some areas in the lake where the 8 silt is 6 and a half or 7 feet deep, but they're very small 9 pockets, typically just downstream of the main island. These 10 small pockets you see on the right side of the silt bottom 11 presentation graph are where creeks enter. One is where 12 the -- there's a wall of limestone that comes -- starts 13 basically at the dam and moves downstream. This little blue 14 dot there of deeper silt is where the water that's running 15 off of the land in general poured in there originally. A 16 little bit upstream of that, then, that's Third Creek inlet. 17 And if we look at all of them, you would see similar things 18 up the lake. The bottom line is that it does not have a big 19 silt load and it's very evenly distributed, which means that 20 there's not a lot of cost-effective way to remove that silt. 21 There aren't any big pockets that you can dive into and 22 easily remove it. But the good news is, it has very light 23 silt load to begin with. 24 Bottom condition survey was more interesting. This 25 depicts most of the lake. These are all the various types of 7-26-10 35 1 obstructions, underwater hazards, underwater interesting 2 objects, trees sticking out, whatever is there. These are 3 marked, and the different coloration shows up in the main 4 report. But my point of this slide is that you can see very 5 clearly two lines of obstructions that go right alongside the 6 old river channel that I pointed out in the depth slide. So, 7 almost all the way along the -- the southwest side of the 8 lake, you see these obstructions running very close to the 9 current shoreline, and then just off of that, typically less 10 than 100 feet, is the next set of obstructions, and these 11 pretty much correspond to one thing, and that is timber that 12 was growing there when the lake was first flooded, impounded. 13 The obstructions that we marked are only those that are in 14 general within 5 feet of the surface, those which are greater 15 than 10 feet from the shoreline. The reason that we 16 eliminated the things close to the shoreline is because it's 17 difficult for our sonar to see them, but primarily there's a 18 lot of it. It's mostly small branches that have floated up 19 there. They're all clearly visible and can easily be removed 20 by hand, essentially, by work crews without a problem. So, 21 there would also be many thousands of them, so they're just 22 not worth listing, nor are they worth a specific contract 23 probably to remove them. If they were large enough that we 24 could detect them and see them clearly, then we marked them. 25 That resulted, using this criteria, in over 700 7-26-10 36 1 objects being marked. Almost half of those are -- 271 are 2 what we call standing timber. That is, these are things 3 which are rooted in their original position as vegetation and 4 which extend above the top of the water, or at least at 5 normal low levels of the water, it would stand below the top. 6 We've done many of these lakes, and one of the interesting 7 things is, of course, that often the standing timber rots off 8 at the top of the water level, where it is typically low. 9 That's not the case for the lake impounded by Flat Rock Dam, 10 because these are all bald cypress. Every one of these 11 standing timber pieces marked, as far as we can tell, is a 12 bald cypress. They're old growth trees; have been there -- 13 were there for a long, long time before the lake was ever 14 impounded, and they're still there. Many of them have been 15 sawed-off, but most of those that we detected as being 16 sawed-off were sawed off very close to the surface, so they 17 were visually sawed-off. 18 This is a picture of our sidescan sonar. To give 19 you some idea about what the -- about what it looks like, 20 you'll see bright spots with very long shadows. Those 21 actually are shadows just like a visible -- visual shadow. 22 Those trees all protrude through the surface, so they're all 23 sticking out at the top. And you can see along the bottom 24 half of that sonar display that there's, moving from right to 25 left, a tree with branches that are under the water, then 7-26-10 37 1 three tall trees in a row with only the trunk below the 2 water, and those stick out significantly above the water. 3 And then on the left side, left in basically a combination of 4 trees sticking out of the water, trees that have broken off 5 and fallen in the water and still lay there. On the topside, 6 moving from right to left, you see four more trees, two of 7 which are very close together, protruding from the surface. 8 Then farther along, another, and then a large tree that has 9 fallen and it's not protruding above the surface. This is 10 typical. 11 But one other thing I'd like to point out is that 12 you see around these trees in general, the bottom is very 13 clean. It's cobbles and gravel. There is not a lot of trash 14 on the bottom. In fact, it's the cleanest lake we've seen, 15 so there's almost nothing on the bottom except these fairly 16 large pieces, and mostly standing cypress, with the exception 17 of the small branches and limbs that have floated up very 18 near the -- the shoreline of the lake, particularly on the 19 north side. We also marked some things that we called 20 objects of interest. That was things that didn't meet that 21 criteria that I provided on the previous slide, but which we 22 thought might be of interest to you. These may be large 23 stumps that don't protrude within 5 feet of the surface, or 24 anything that's greater than 10 feet in any dimension. This 25 primarily applies to limbs, and anything else that might make 7-26-10 38 1 them interesting to you. There's a section in the report on 2 these. You will note that they're basically in the deeper 3 water downstream. 4 I'll make one other point. The cypress trees are 5 typically rooted at about 10 feet. There are none rooted at 6 3 feet or 4 feet. They're deep, so they were basically only 7 growing along the original bank and near the original bank. 8 Even though they can go a long time without in drought 9 periods, apparently, they -- they will eventually need some 10 standing water. So, every two or three years they need some 11 standing water, and that's why they were only growing there. 12 And that brings up some -- as you consider potentially 13 removing them or doing anything with them, it brings up 14 interesting options, because they are -- they are fairly deep 15 at the root. This is an example of an object of interest. 16 I'll again point out that the bottom is very clean. If you 17 go from right to left, you'll see on the far right a large 18 rock. Then you can tell that the bottom has a significant 19 number of smaller rocks; I'll call them cobbles, typically 20 6 to 8 inches in diameter, and then smaller gravel that makes 21 up the bottom that we can't really discern individually in 22 the sonar less than 3 inches in diameter. 23 Lying there then in that entire expanse is one tree 24 limb. Now, that tree limb is 21 feet long, so it's fairly 25 big, 8 to 10 inches in diameter and 21 feet long. It washed 7-26-10 39 1 in at some point, became waterlogged or fell off the side. 2 This sonar picture, then, is next depicted in its rightful 3 position in the lake. So, you'll see on the -- the sonar 4 insert on the left side, this is an area downstream of the 5 island and along the southwest shore, and so the log is 6 laying there some 30 or 40 feet offshore. It's actually just 7 at the point where the bank turns and becomes the bottom. 8 It's a steep bank at that location, and this is a typical 9 sonar picture that we see. The top half of the sonar picture 10 is looking into the bank itself, and so it's pretty bright, 11 and that tends to wash with small objects sometimes. The 12 lower half -- these are taken at the same time, but the lower 13 half is -- starts to get into the bottom, and you can see the 14 tree and the gravel bottom there, tree limb and the gravel 15 bottom. 16 Private intakes, we were less lucky there. They 17 were all -- all that we could see were located visually using 18 GPS from a boat at the location. We tagged those. We found 19 none that were clearly visible in sonar, primarily for two 20 reasons. They do not extend very deep in general. They are 21 typically made of PVC and fairly small in diameter, 2 inches 22 or less, fairly difficult to see. And some of them do have 23 submersible pumps on them, but again, they're not very deep. 24 Now, if you look at the locations as depicted by these little 25 green dots, you'll see that those are generally all in 7-26-10 40 1 locations that are on a very steep bank to the lake. So, it 2 is certainly possible that even though most of these only 3 protrude 2 or 3 feet into the water, they could be extended, 4 because almost all of that is deep water. The northern-most 5 or the upstream-most point that you see there that's in green 6 is actually an intake on the -- on the city property, so that 7 was a trash pump, but all the rest are permanent or 8 semipermanent installations. Some of them are buried and 9 then protrude into the lake. Some are buried as deep as 2 10 feet at the bank, and then they go into the lake. Most are 11 sort of thrown over the side, so to speak, and -- and take 12 suction directly in the lake. Very few -- none of those are 13 what I would call a permanent fixture. They're all -- 14 they're not cemented in or in any other manner made to be 15 permanent. We detected 13 total. About four of them -- as I 16 recall, four had submersible pumps on them. 17 The Comanche Trace intake is more substantial, of 18 course, and more easily seen. We do have these located, all 19 of them, in precise GPS coordinates. They're actually in 20 standard survey coordinates, but we use GPS to obtain them. 21 This is our estimate of what the Comanche Trace end looks 22 like from our sonar alone. We did not dive it, nor did we 23 take pictures. On the left-hand photograph, you'll see 24 there's a purple square. That's the location. It's very 25 close to the shoreline, 8 to 10 feet away, and it's in a 7-26-10 41 1 little notch, which was apparently a part of the construction 2 when it was put in place. So, there was an intake section 3 that was excavated and then filled back in after it was in 4 place. It appears, looking at the sonar -- sidescan sonar is 5 a very difficult thing to look at. It is a matter of 6 perspective. It's an angle like you would see visually. 7 One difference is that all it knows is the distance 8 that it is away from something, so the actual intake here is 9 inverted. So, when you look at the bottom of the little 10 square that you see there, that you can see a fixture in that 11 sonar picture, the main picture with the fixture, and then a 12 blow-up of it inset into it. If you look at that fixture, 13 we're actually looking at the top of it at the -- it's on the 14 bottom. But the shoreline, when you get to the -- what 15 appears to be the top of the fixture, now you can see the 16 pipe running into the shoreline. The picture -- the drawing 17 on the bottom right is actually fairly illustrative. This 18 construction hole was filled in with gravel, fairly large, 19 about an inch and a half in diameter, and it covered the pipe 20 and the trench that the pipe was in. There's a concrete 21 structure that the pipe appears to be affixed to or cast 22 into. It does not appear to have any type of strainer or 23 fixture that it extends beyond that concrete structure. The 24 gravel is -- the pipe is exposed to some extent on the top, 25 just before it runs into the concrete fixture, and then the 7-26-10 42 1 gravel that they filled in with has sort of poured around the 2 fixture. But the fixture is deep, about 4 feet or a little 3 more deep from the top to the bottom. Right in front of it 4 now, there's no silt in front of it. The gravel is -- just 5 encompasses it so that it looks like exactly -- 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Where is that in relation to 7 the drain? Is it lower than the drain that drains the lake, 8 or is the drain about the same level? Or will you get to 9 that? 10 MR. SAUNDERS: Yeah, I'm going to get to that next. 11 But this is very high, so you'll see there the top of the 12 fixture. And, effectively, the top of the pipe only extends 13 5.2 feet below the surface of the water the day that we 14 measured it, and that was only running 3 inches above the 15 spillway. So you take 3 inches off that, and bottom line is, 16 5 feet below the spillway you uncover this, so it is not 17 deep. Now, on the other hand, the lake is deep there, so it 18 is certainly feasible to extend something temporarily or 19 whatever. The Comanche Trace inlet -- and we did not explore 20 the details of the piping arrangement, but it seems to be a 21 basic suction; that is, the pumps -- the primary pumps are 22 set down in a hole, so it's only taking a section of a few 23 feet and pulling it up that few feet, and then dumps it to a 24 secondary pump that provides the pressure. This is -- this 25 is typical of most of the private intakes around the lake as 7-26-10 43 1 well. Most -- four had submersible pumps, but most of them 2 have some other type of pump that's taking the suction up 3 3 to 4 feet to get it up on the bank, and then they're using 4 that pump for pressurization. It's -- it's a substantial 5 structure in the sense that it's probably not going to move 6 around, but it is very close to the shoreline, and it doesn't 7 take up very much space. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And very close to the 9 surface. 10 MR. SAUNDERS: And very close to the surface. 11 There are also trees -- well, it's close enough to the 12 shoreline that trees that are growing on the bank actually 13 hang out and extend farther out into the lake than this. So, 14 if you looked at it from an aerial photograph, it would 15 actually be covered by trees, canopy. This is actually the 16 last slide with any detail. Well, one more after this, but 17 the last sub. This is from the sub-bottom survey. It 18 wouldn't make much difference, because there's not much silt, 19 so whether it's the apparent bottom or the sub-bottom, it 20 shows you the same thing. You'll see indicated with a small 21 "x" and the words there the low flow drain inlet. That's our 22 best guess, and it's not much better than a guess, because we 23 did not have a prior knowledge about what that intake looks 24 like. And we saw very little that supports its position from 25 any of our sonar data, and here's why. 7-26-10 44 1 You'll see that the lake marked up at the top of 2 that depth measurement is 1537. That is the altitude. But 3 just for simplicity's sake, let's say that's 13 feet deep -- 4 not 13; it's 19 feet deep, excuse me. So, that's 19 feet 5 deep. As we move farther downstream, where you would expect 6 it potentially to get deeper, it doesn't. It gets shallower. 7 It goes to 16 feet, and then by the time we get to the 8 position of the low flow drain, the water is only 11 feet 9 deep there. That, we believe, is either by original 10 construction and design, or by transportation over the years, 11 the decades. These are large gravel and cobbles that have 12 piled up against the dam. Most likely after dam 13 construction, there was some of that that was done 14 mechanically to armor the upstream edge of the dam, but it's 15 fairly deep. So, the -- these rocks have piled up against 16 the dam all the way across, and even though it's deeper in 17 front of the spillway, much deeper than it is anywhere else, 18 they are fairly uniformly piled up at 5 to 8 feet of depth, 19 and then they taper off as you go farther down. Our 20 sub-bottom sonar can see into the rock about 2 feet, and what 21 we see is these cobbles. They're very dense, heavy rock, and 22 we see about 2 feet deep into them. 23 And we never see the drain. The reason is that the 24 drain is buried by about 5 feet of gravel. So, if the drain 25 itself is basically perpendicular to the axis of the dam, and 7-26-10 45 1 buried -- and at the bottom of the dam it's about 16 feet 2 below the spillway. If it -- if it were perfectly level, 3 which it appears to be -- well, it -- it has less than a 10 4 degree slope, so for all practical purposes, it's going to 5 come out on the dam at the other side at almost the same 6 level. So, that means that it would be 16 feet deep, but the 7 gravel where it should terminate, the water is only 11 feet 8 deep. And that's above the top, so 16 feet is the top of the 9 level, so basically it's buried with this gravel. What we 10 don't know, it almost certainly still has a valve attached to 11 it. There's a reach rod and probably a low flow valve, which 12 is typical of 1950's construction, because that -- the water 13 was allowed to flow through that drain while construction was 14 underway in the bottom of the -- of the river bed, and then 15 that was an easy way to shut it off. But what we could not 16 discern is, does it extend significantly farther out in the 17 lake? Does it have some other type of plug in it? 18 Now, someone had mentioned a butane tank or 19 something being used as a plug. It may well have had a valve 20 near the dam, then a further extension and a plug in front of 21 that. We thought at some time -- for some time about why 22 that would be used, and it's only speculation, but if there 23 is an extension, then -- and post-construction, the intention 24 was to cover the trench that that resided in, that the low 25 flow drain extension resided in, it may well be that there 7-26-10 46 1 was something placed in the end of it to prevent filling that 2 pipe with gravel. There's no -- there's no discernible leak 3 through the low flow drain, so that's -- that would imply to 4 me that there is a valve and it is shut. I doubt that any 5 other type of -- other than complete grouting would have 6 produced a no-leak condition. That brings up a lot of 7 interesting points for -- for you to think about if you ever 8 do any construction. You already have some seepage that is 9 downstream, and you addressed that in your construction plan, 10 but there's already some seepage downstream that appears to 11 be alongside the low flow drain. It would be -- you'd have 12 to be careful, if you were doing any type of construction on 13 the upstream side, that you didn't disrupt something and 14 increase that seepage. 15 At any rate, we couldn't see what we hoped to be 16 able to see because it's not silt, it's rock, and it's 17 significant. There are other things that we could do. It's 18 covered with gravel and cobble, we think 5 feet deep. I -- 19 my apologies. It didn't like something, did it? It's 20 covered, about 5 feet deep. Doesn't like it at all. We 21 can -- we can do several things that would help us. What we 22 could do -- this was actually my last slide. We could 23 measure precisely the angle on the low flow drain, which 24 would give us the penetration point more precisely where it 25 exits. We can dive the low flow drain from the upstream 7-26-10 47 1 side. That would tell us -- all that would really tell us is 2 what material -- in other words, we can bring up material 3 where the reach rod penetrates the drain, although we're 4 pretty confident of what it is. We can also dive from the 5 downstream side. We can go through the -- through the dam 6 and inspect the valve. The culvert is 3 feet deep -- or 3 7 feet in diameter, and that is a -- that's a doable 8 proposition. That won't get you beyond the dam -- the valve, 9 however. The -- the length of the culvert is at least 100 10 feet. It's about 50 feet on the downstream half and 50 feet 11 on the upstream half. If it has a valve in it and it's 12 working, which I suspect it does, then you're going to have 13 -- you're going to have to make that valve operational or 14 remove it. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We do know what the valve -- 16 it's not a valve like you would think. The original 17 construction was a steel plate that slid on an angle. That 18 was tied to a cable or a chain that was -- that you could 19 pull up and down, but the '59 flood took both those 20 apparatuses off of Ingram Dam and Flat Rock, from what I 21 understand. Ingram has a -- a butane round ball that is the 22 plug, and I assume that probably maybe the same or something 23 similar, because the plates have been gone for years. 24 MR. SAUNDERS: The -- the valve reach rod appears 25 to be a rotary reach rod, so that would normally indicate a 7-26-10 48 1 geared valve stem at the other end. But it could be -- 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It was a slide -- 3 MR. SAUNDERS: -- a cable apparatus. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Because the pipe -- the drain 5 itself is flush with the slope of the dam. 6 MR. SAUNDERS: Yes. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Doesn't stick straight 8 through. It doesn't come in at the bottom; it's off the 9 bottom. 10 MR. SAUNDERS: Well, we can -- we can see the reach 11 rod down to where it penetrates the gravel, so we know that 12 -- so we know the location in terms of -- of across the face 13 of the dam. You can estimate that very accurately. If it is 14 flush with the dam, you can estimate the opening very 15 accurately, and that's the position that we provide in the 16 report. We're assuming that that is the case. But, 17 unfortunately, it would be a significant underwater 18 construction project to uncover all that and use the low flow 19 drain. However, if the lake were drained for some other 20 reason, it would probably be a fairly simple thing to -- to 21 fix so that you could use it again. We were surprised that 22 that volume or mass of gravel was transported downstream. 23 It's pretty substantial. And it would be a -- it would be a 24 trivial project without very much risk if the lake were 25 drained. It would be a very difficult process to remove that 7-26-10 49 1 gravel if it were full, because it's going to -- you'll have 2 to remove a lot of volume, because the gravel is going to 3 transport as you -- as you dig it out. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Right. Very interesting. I 5 can't believe there's no more silt than that in there. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think that is 7 interesting. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Very interesting. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: When we entered into this, 10 the Court will remember we really wanted to do three things, 11 one of which was to get a profile of the lake bottom, which 12 we now have, which we have never had before, and several 13 times have asked Road and Bridge to see if they could find 14 it; it just doesn't exist, and to measure the silt that's 15 gathered or settled into that lake. And like Commissioner 16 Oehler, I'm really shocked that the amount of silt in it is 17 as little as it has been revealed to be. And the third thing 18 was to identify all the submerged objects that are in the 19 lake, and that doesn't surprise me in terms of the number of 20 submerged objects. So, Jimmy, I appreciate this report and 21 the efforts of your company. It's pretty comprehensive. And 22 only Commissioner Letz will read this big book and understand 23 all those formulas in there, and then he'll tell us what they 24 mean. But, any other questions? 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Only question I have is on the 7-26-10 50 1 north side of the lake next to the county property, down 2 towards the dam where that water is very shallow for the most 3 part, what is the bottom? Is it just -- is it just dirt, or 4 is there rock? 5 MR. SAUNDERS: It is -- it's basically the same 6 everywhere. There's a gravel and cobble bottom with some 7 rock horizons exposed, but not very many, so you pretty much 8 have a gravel bottom everywhere. The shallowest and most 9 surprising places, if you were driving a boat, are actually 10 up and downstream of the small island, which is downstream of 11 the large one. There are some large rocks there, 100 to 150 12 pounds, something like that, and then lots of washed river 13 gravel. The whole lake has striations of gravel that run up 14 and down a long ways, just as you would expect. Over on that 15 side, where it's shallow, there is a bigger silt load, 16 particularly just in front of the dam where some water pours 17 in at Third Creek also. And -- but there are small pockets 18 of silt, so it's not to say you couldn't sink waist-deep if 19 you walk along the shore, but most of it is less than a foot 20 deep. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is it -- so one would assume by 22 that that when the lake was constructed, they didn't excavate 23 out material; they just pretty much put up a dam, and what 24 flooded flooded. 25 MR. SAUNDERS: It appears there was no excavation. 7-26-10 51 1 And if you -- if you're up near the upper end on the low 2 water crossing, if you go up there and look in the water, I 3 think that what you see downstream is very much like what you 4 see there, which is all visible, 'cause it's 2 feet deep or 5 less, and it's basically a limestone bottom with a lot of 6 washed gravel on top of it. And some of that is up in -- in 7 dunes that are -- that are bars, or bars that are several 8 feet thick. So -- 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The lake bottom up and down 10 the Guadalupe from one end to the other, I've drilled holes 11 on occasion, or I've had occasion to do that. You think it's 12 limestone, but it's really more of a blue shale. It's very 13 hard and impermeable. Is that -- 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Impervious. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Anyway, it's -- it's a good, 16 hard material, but water doesn't seem to -- it's hard to 17 break through, too. It's fairly thick. 18 MR. SAUNDERS: One thing -- I mean one other thing 19 that potentially can be done is that -- is to core the lake. 20 However, coring down near the dam is going to be very 21 difficult and unsatisfying, because it's all this loose 22 gravel and it's hard stuff, so it won't core -- it'll push it 23 all out of the way, and then it will eventually get something 24 at the bottom. So, it would tell you where the hard 25 continuous bottom is, but it's not going to -- not going to 7-26-10 52 1 tell you much about that first 10 feet. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. I'm just surprised 3 there's not more silt. 4 MR. SAUNDERS: I -- actually, just to illustrate 5 that, we did a survey also of -- of a lake at Marble Falls 6 impounded by Starkey Dam, and that lake, which is roughly the 7 same size, but a lot deeper -- it's about 50 feet deep -- it 8 had virtually no silt. So, the original, quote, marble 9 falls, which were blocks of marble that were sort of 10 displaced and you could see joints in them -- and you can do 11 that if you walk upstream, but those are still clearly 12 visible, and no silt until right in front of the dam, and 13 then only about 3 or 4 feet deep. So, it's -- I think these 14 lakes periodically get a good flushing out, and -- and that 15 occurs and mixes up the silt and drives it out. So, even 16 along here on the county park side, you -- it's 17 uncomfortable, because it may be a foot or a foot and a half 18 deep, but that's all. It goes down to gravel. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Only way we're going to stop 20 that would be to drain it and put a wall up along those 21 shores to keep that dirt and stuff from continuing to slough 22 off in there and create that problem. 23 MR. SAUNDERS: Yes. But it's not -- I guess it's 24 not a serious problem. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No. 7-26-10 53 1 MR. SAUNDERS: In other words, it's not -- you 2 know, no one will sink up to their waist or whatever. So, we 3 walk -- we walked the lake in hip-waders and never really got 4 much more than ankle deep. There's some places we didn't go 5 because of foliage overhang. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay. 7 MR. SAUNDERS: It's a nice, clean lake, very little 8 turbidity, which also means that we can take underwater 9 photographs if that would help in anything. But whatever is 10 in the inlet to the low flow drain is holding water, and if 11 it is a separate piece, I'll say, not a part of the fixture, 12 then it's likely to be very difficult to do anything with 13 that without draining the lake first. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: There's really no reason -- I 15 believe there's no reason to drain the lake. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Knowing what we know, we 17 just -- 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, I don't think so. I 19 think what we'll do -- I thank you, Jimmy. I appreciate the 20 report. Very comprehensive, and we'll take a look at it, 21 study it very carefully. And Commissioner Oehler and I have 22 been talking about this project for some time. We'll 23 determine what we would like to bring back to the Court for 24 future action. And -- 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Money well spent. 7-26-10 54 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It was. And also to find out 2 where that inlet is on Comanche Trace. It's not very far in 3 the water, under the surface. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And that would be a real 6 problem if we were to drain it. We'd have to make sure that 7 they had water. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Closer to the surface than 9 anybody thought it was. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I would assume -- I thought 11 it would have been down at least at drain level, but it's 12 not. 13 MR. SAUNDERS: We are supporting another project 14 now with Lake Worth at Fort Worth -- City of Fort Worth, and 15 they are actually going in and sawing off some timber at 16 about 10 or 12 feet. So, one -- one thing that might be of 17 interest would be as that project progresses, to get an 18 update from them about -- about how that went. It 19 potentially is nice and clean, because they're so deep in the 20 water you can saw them off near the bottom with basically an 21 underwater chainsaw, saw them off near the bottom, and then 22 they're never a hazard to boating or anything because they're 23 so deep. I'll leave these right here. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Jimmy. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else on that particular 7-26-10 55 1 agenda item? Everything we've got are timed items. I'd like 2 to run through a few more before we break. Let's go to Item 3 8; to consider, discuss, take appropriate action for the 4 minor revision of Plat 17 of Staacke Ranch Subdivision, as 5 set forth in Volume 5, Page 77, Plat Records, and located in 6 Precinct 3, and to accept the Letter of Credit Number 26519-S 7 from Frost Bank. Mr. Odom? 8 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir, thank you. Lot 17 was never 9 platted, and should have been, so this cleans up the 10 subdivision of this section of land. Lot 17B is the lot that 11 Dr. Jay Wise is retaining for himself, and 17C is what 12 Dr. Wise is willing to sell. The letter of credit from Frost 13 Bank, 26519-S, as in Sierra, in the amount of 31,000, is for 14 the construction of the proposed road and cul-de-sac called 15 Wise Lane, which will be a privately maintained road. Wise 16 Lane and the cul-de-sac, will be the access for both Lot 17B 17 and 17C, and this letter of credit is good until July the 18 2nd, 2011; therefore, Wise Lane and the cul-de-sac need to be 19 done by that date. At this time, we ask the Court for their 20 approval of the final revision of the plat for Lot 17 of 21 Staacke Ranch Subdivision, Volume 5, Page 77, Precinct 3, and 22 accept the Letter of Credit 26519-S in the amount of 31,000 23 for the construction of Wise Lane and the cul-de-sac. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: One quick clarification. You 25 said Lot 17's never been platted. It was 17A when it was 7-26-10 56 1 split out. That was never platted. 2 MR. ODOM: You're right, okay. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It was originally platted. 4 MR. ODOM: The original was, yeah. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Part of that lot was divided 6 into two tracts. 7 MR. ODOM: That's right. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And now we're fixing that 9 problem, and also making an additional division? 10 MR. ODOM: That's right. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Move approval. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 14 approval. Question or discussion? All in favor of the 15 motion, signify by raising your right hand. 16 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 17 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 18 (No response.) 19 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Our 9:40 20 timed item, Number 9; consider, discuss, take appropriate 21 action to release the Maintenance Bond Number 5052992, and to 22 accept Mo Ranch Road for public use and Kerr County 23 maintenance, all located in Precinct 4. Mr. Odom? 24 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. Wayne and I both checked this 25 for the one-year time frame to make sure before it expired. 7-26-10 57 1 We had several -- a few minor items that needed to be 2 addressed before I would accept it. Those have been done, so 3 at this time, we ask the Court to release the West American 4 Insurance Company Bond Number 5052992 for $79,037.40, to be 5 released, and that Mo Ranch Road be accepted for Kerr County 6 maintenance. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Move approval. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 10 approval of the agenda item as indicated. Question or 11 discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising 12 your right hand. 13 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 14 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 15 (No response.) 16 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Let's go to 17 Item 10 quickly, a 9:45 timed item, to consider, discuss, 18 take appropriate action to approve the final revision of plat 19 for Tracts 130 and 131 of Y.O. Ranchlands, Section Three, 20 located in Precinct 4. Mr. Odom? 21 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. The public hearing was held 22 on June the 14th at 9:30 in 2010. Mr. Voelkel at the time 23 was unable to collect all the signatures for the mylar for 24 this June 14th meeting, so at this time we -- that has been 25 done, and at this time we ask the Court for their approval of 7-26-10 58 1 the final revision of plat for Tracts 130 and 131 of the Y.O. 2 Ranchlands, Section Three. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Move approval. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 6 approval of the agenda item. Question or discussion? 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: That motion does carry. Let's take 12 us about a 15-minute recess. My apologies to our friends 13 from the City. We got behind on our agenda, and everything 14 we got now are timed items that are ahead of y'all. We'll 15 get to you. 16 (Recess taken from 10:38 a.m. to 10:59 a.m.) 17 - - - - - - - - - - 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, let's come back to order, if 19 we might. We'll go to Item 11; consider, discuss, take 20 appropriate action to approve the revised proposal for 21 engineering services from L. Wayne Wells, Professional 22 Engineer. Mr. Odom, I understand that we want to pass that 23 item to be taken up at a later session of the Court; is that 24 correct? 25 MR. ODOM: Yes, that's correct, Judge. 7-26-10 59 1 JUDGE TINLEY: All right. Let's go to Item 12, 2 another 10 o'clock timed item. Request for approval to 3 purchase 2010 Ford F-150 crew cab truck for Agricultural 4 Extension Office. Mr. Walston? 5 MR. WALSTON: Yes, sir. Appreciate y'all giving me 6 the opportunity to come in and visit with you. Y'all may 7 have that. This is some information on a request for a 8 purchase of a 2010 F-150 Ford crew cab pickup. I originally 9 came to -- I thought about this when I got to looking at my 10 budget left over from this past year, and I had some 11 available funds, and thought we might could use that from our 12 vacant position in our secretary's -- vacant secretary's 13 position that we've had open this year. But after visiting 14 with the Judge and Commissioner Oehler, they requested 15 that -- or would like for -- mentioned that this could 16 possibly come out of some capital funds that are available. 17 Having visited with our -- listened to the Ford 18 representative during the budget hearing the other day, and I 19 may be incorrect, but it sounded to me like over a -- if we 20 get in on this where we can turn these vehicles in every 21 50,000 miles or so, we're looking at a $12,000 depreciation. 22 Whether that's over three years is kind of what I'm 23 projecting, so that would be about a $4,000 depreciation on 24 that vehicle. I think fuel-wise, we can reduce it to about 25 $2,500 in fuel and maintenance, including oil changes, tires, 7-26-10 60 1 things such as that. This gets us to about $6,500 a year 2 annual cost on a vehicle. The past several years 3 reporting-wise has been around 15,000 miles, is what I use on 4 a vehicle. Reporting that and what is actual mileage, I 5 think this is very conservative. I wouldn't be surprised if 6 my actual miles isn't closer to 20,000 miles. But at actual 7 15,000 miles, $6,500 maintenance cost, we're looking at 43 8 cents a mile. I think we -- every year I tend to have a -- 9 it's very difficult to stay budget-wise on my travel at 10 $6,000. 3,000 of that typically goes towards fuel, and 3,000 11 of it goes towards lodging, food, things such as that. So, 12 in order to try to meet needs that I need for travel, I think 13 this vehicle will enable me to do that, more so than just 14 charging the 50 cents a mile on out-of-county travel. So 15 that's -- that's my reasons for requesting the purchase of 16 this -- this pickup. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Your -- your total travel cost, when 18 do those funds run out in your budget in this current budget 19 year? 20 MR. WALSTON: Probably a month ago. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 22 MR. WALSTON: Back in June. And typically what I 23 do is I just absorb that myself, and that's what I've done 24 every year. I mean -- 25 JUDGE TINLEY: You're using your own personal 7-26-10 61 1 vehicle? 2 MR. WALSTON: Using my own personal vehicle, my own 3 funds. I mean, I do try to use the van if at all possible, 4 if it's not being used for hauling kids and -- but a lot of 5 times it's not available, or it -- and our priority is for it 6 to be used for transporting youth. Any questions? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Summarize -- go over for me the 8 bottom line, the -- I guess the savings. Go back over the 9 dollars again. 10 MR. WALSTON: Okay. And it -- it has changed to 11 some extent on this -- from this letter, because I didn't -- 12 didn't know really what to figure on the depreciation. I 13 didn't include the depreciation in it, if you're interested 14 in that. But, basically, we're looking at -- on my reporting 15 miles to -- on our county commissioners travel that I report, 16 the past few years has been right at 13,000. This year I'm 17 projecting it to be closer to 15,000 miles a year. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay, stop. Now, that's using 19 your own vehicle? 20 MR. WALSTON: That's using my own vehicle. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And you get reimbursed at 50 22 cents a mile? 23 MR. WALSTON: Fifty cents a mile for out-of-county 24 travel. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Costing -- it's costing about 7-26-10 62 1 7,500, plus or minus. 2 MR. WALSTON: Well, it's costing the County 6,000, 3 because that's what I've got in my budget. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So you're -- basically, you're 5 absorbing personally $1,500. 6 MR. WALSTON: Yeah. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I wanted to make sure I 8 understood. 9 MR. WALSTON: And then 3,000 of that 6,000 is gone 10 for mileage, 50 cents a mile, 'cause that's all out-of-county 11 travel. And then 3,000 for room and board and expenses. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, then -- so in reality, 13 then, if you have a $6,000 budget, 3,000 is going for 14 lodging, you're personally absorbing more like 4,500. 15 MR. WALSTON: Well, the 3,000 -- no, the 3,000 16 is -- is for mileage, and that's -- 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- 1,500. 19 MR. WALSTON: Yeah, about 1,500. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 21 MR. WALSTON: Yeah, 'cause it's all coming out of 22 the same thing at the same line item. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Do you not have a separate line item 24 for stock show travel? 25 MR. WALSTON: The stock show travel is my travel. 7-26-10 63 1 It includes -- 2 JUDGE TINLEY: You don't have two travel -- 3 MR. WALSTON: No, sir. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: -- budget lines any more? 5 MR. WALSTON: There's a stock show, which includes 6 all out-of-county travel, with the exception of conferences. 7 The conferences is a separate section. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Basically, you mix 10 in-county travel and out-of-county travel together all in the 11 same pot, correct? 12 MR. WALSTON: Well, I don't get paid for in-county 13 travel. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 15 MR. WALSTON: I just -- just out-of-county. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But you're using your personal 18 vehicle a lot? 19 MR. WALSTON: I use my personal vehicle for 20 in-county, out-of-county, everything. And at 220,000 miles 21 on it, I'm -- we're going to have to do something. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: So, you're effectively being 23 compensated for 6,000 miles? 24 MR. WALSTON: Yes, sir. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: 3,000. 7-26-10 64 1 MR. WALSTON: Yes, sir. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: 50 cents would be 6,000 miles so 3 you've got another 9,000 dollars that you're eating. 4 MR. WALSTON: Pretty well. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: 9,000 miles. 6 MR. WALSTON: Yeah. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: If you figure it at 15,000. 8 MR. WALSTON: Yeah. And I would be -- and like I 9 say, the 15,000 miles I'm going to say is going to be 10 conservative, because reporting it and actually driving it, 11 I'm probably not reporting all the miles I'm driving. 12 Talking to other agents, they're usually putting 20,000 to 13 25,000 miles a year on it. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. Ms. Hargis, funding? 15 MS. HARGIS: We have some money in the capital. We 16 got a refund on the scanning equipment. We got a refund on 17 the scanning equipment that we had in the election line item 18 of 18,000, and so we would need to only come up with about 19 another 3,000 or 4,000 of the other surplus funds. So, we 20 will have it for this one, but this will be the last one -- 21 the last vehicle that I think I can squeeze out of capital. 22 MR. WALSTON: I visited with the Ford dealership, 23 and they had -- the vehicle that they had priced me comes out 24 to be 23,765. It's basically the same vehicle that they've 25 been purchasing. 7-26-10 65 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Didn't we get a better deal? 2 JUDGE TINLEY: I think Ms. Hargis has been beating 3 them up a little bit more than that, Mr. Walston. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's an appropriate 5 expenditure. I don't think that we should ask the Extension 6 Agent to be absorbing that much. I mean, a certain amount is 7 fine for him to use his personal vehicle, but this is above 8 and beyond. And it's -- this will save funds -- taxpayer 9 funds as well, so I'm in favor of it. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: He shouldn't have to be eating that 11 mileage. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Are we talking about -- I 15 know at one point there was a mention of a Ford Expedition 16 rather than the -- is that an alternative to the F-150? 17 MR. WALSTON: Not -- not for what I'm needing. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You'd rather have a pickup? 19 MR. WALSTON: Yes, sir. I need something I can 20 haul some things if I need to. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 22 MR. WALSTON: With the crew cab, I can still put 23 three or four kids in there. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I make a motion to approve 25 expenditure -- or purchase of a 2010 F-150 crew cab for the 7-26-10 66 1 Agricultural Extension office, with the funds to come from 2 capital surplus funds as determined by the Auditor. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded as 5 indicated. Further question or discussion? All in favor of 6 the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 7 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 8 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 9 (No response.) 10 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion carries. Thank you, Mr. 11 Walton. 12 MR. WALSTON: Thank you. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Let's go to Item 13; consider, 14 discuss, take appropriate action to discuss Live Springs Lane 15 in Cave Springs Addition, Section 7, and located in Precinct 16 4. Mr. Odom? 17 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. This agenda item is a 18 question the lady has on some -- on a road that was built in 19 1997. Deborah Worrell met with Road and Bridge on July the 20 7th, 2010, and inquired about what they needed to do to Live 21 Springs Lane, which is about a quarter of a mile long, in 22 order for the County to consider the road for maintenance. 23 Section 7 was approved on July the 14th, 1997. The road was 24 not taken in for maintenance by Kerr County at that time. 25 And then in 2004, the owner hired a contractor. There were 7-26-10 67 1 some issues that Franklin Johnston had, the County Engineer 2 at the time, and to the best of my knowledge, these listed 3 items were never completed. As a matter of fact, I went out 4 after this request, after meeting with the lady, and it was 5 identical to what I came up with, and then I checked with 6 Franklin's notes, and they were identical. 7 So, now we come to the present time with 8 Mrs. Hailey wanting to complete Live Springs Lane so the 9 County will take it in for maintenance. She hired a 10 contractor, J3 Construction, to go out, and one of the things 11 I wanted to do was to bring that road from 2004 -- it was 12 never approved -- to take a look at it to see what stuck and 13 what did not stick. And they recommended not to do it. They 14 could tell that the subgrade structure was caliche. The 15 current width is 18 feet. Current rules are 20. The road 16 needs drainage and proper signage installed. The road needs 17 to be cleared of brush. The right-of-way is 50 foot, and the 18 current standards are 60. There are also currently no 19 shoulders on the road. So, our question to the Court today 20 is, would you allow this road to be chip-sealed with trap 21 rock over the current substructure, or would they -- you 22 require them to do a total rebuild? This road was built 23 under the old county standards that we had before they were 24 revised. As a matter of fact, the entire subdivision is 25 built that way under caliche, and basically we're not up to 7-26-10 68 1 current standards in the entire subdivision. So I would like 2 -- what I'm doing is to have a direction from the Court which 3 way you'd like to go so I can get back with the lady. Far as 4 I'm concerned, it doesn't meet current county standards. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, it doesn't meet the 6 current county standards in question, but that was done in 7 1997, which was before the current one. 8 MR. ODOM: That's right. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And there doesn't appear -- 10 I've been out and looked at this thing several times. There 11 doesn't appear to be any base failures, anyway. The road has 12 not been traveled. Hasn't been but one lot sold in there, 13 and it comes off of an existing -- of a county road. I mean, 14 it -- it appears to me to be in pretty good shape, and they 15 would agree to reseal it before the County would take it. 16 They'll spend the money to go out and do that. But, I mean, 17 the road is built up. It's not like it's a ditch. And it's 18 not something that's caused -- I mean, it's been there since 19 '97. It doesn't have any base failures. So, we just went 20 through a cold, wet winter where if that was going to 21 happen -- it happened to a lot of our existing roads, and it 22 happened to a lot of the roads up in the Cave Springs 23 Subdivision. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think the problem comes in -- 25 this one isn't as bad as some others I'm looking at, but we 7-26-10 69 1 set a precedent. If we don't make them go to county 2 standards, then I got two roads districts pending that are 3 getting ready to spend close to -- one of them 500,000 or 4 600,000, 350,000. If they pass, I -- you know, I have a hard 5 time going to other people saying, "Sorry, you got to build 6 it to current county standards." 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You know, I think -- and I 9 think Leonard has done this historically, go out, maybe give 10 some -- you know, give some credit to what's out there. But 11 I think that you have to -- the right-of-way's a little bit 12 of an issue. I'm not sure how the ownerships are there, and 13 the cul de sac's too small. It's just getting to a tough 14 situation. I mean, if we start -- if you give an inch on 15 road standards, where do you draw the line? 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I understand that. The thing 17 is, the County did accept the subdivision back then, and 18 accepted the width of all of that to be done at the time. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, but all of mine, we 20 accepted those subdivisions too. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Those same ones? 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Castle Lake, I mean, that's a 23 platted subdivision. It was done in the '70's. This was 24 done -- this is closer, because it was done in the '90's -- 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 7-26-10 70 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- as opposed to being done in 2 the '70's., But still, you end up with that same situation 3 that -- you know, I don't mind giving kind of some leeway in 4 a few areas, but I have a hard time saying we can go ahead 5 and accept a road without getting it pretty much up to our 6 standards. 7 MR. ODOM: Would -- it's not my place to volunteer 8 anything, but a suggestion. You know, when it comes to 9 sealcoat, maybe they bring the road up. They've got to clear 10 the right-of-way of these little shrubs and cedar and stuff 11 like that, not a whole lot. It's only a quarter of a mile 12 long. Sealcoat, we have done for a road district to save -- 13 they pay for the material and we put it into the maintenance. 14 The road is coming apart; it's oxidized. Part of the 15 freeze/thaw is there. You can see it in the road. When I 16 get -- when you get that road totally clear, Bruce, you 17 will -- 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You'll find some base 19 failure? 20 MR. ODOM: The seal won't be there. It -- I'm not 21 saying the entire road. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 23 MR. ODOM: So it has a problem. It needs a double 24 penetration on it. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 7-26-10 71 1 MR. ODOM: Now, can we do that? Can we do some 2 things to look at? The right-of-way is the same all the way 3 through just about on those side roads and all. Why they 4 didn't take it for maintenance in 1997 before the rules 5 changed, I don't know. That wasn't my forte at the time. 6 So -- 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, but I think -- I don't 8 have a -- right-of-way is something you really can't fix. I 9 mean, that's kind of -- within reason, it's what you -- it's 10 what it is. Now, I don't know -- you know, on the road width 11 and some of that, you know, to me, they ought to go up to 12 standards. You know, if -- you know, I'm not saying you have 13 to tear the whole thing out. I think you need to -- one way 14 to be able to get there is do a core sample here and there to 15 see what's there, or, you know, some -- because I think on 16 the road -- historically on road districts, people get some 17 credit for what's there. We don't make them completely tear 18 everything up, but at the same time, should be -- we should 19 be comfortable that they're meeting our standards. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What about if they went and 21 did some core samples and did some compaction on what's 22 there to prove up whether that base that's under there is 23 somewhat -- 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- within reasonable levels 7-26-10 72 1 to the standards? 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And then get them to do a 4 double seal on it if it -- if the base material -- 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. And the drainage isn't 6 an issue on this road? 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: From the standpoint of 9 ground -- 10 MR. ODOM: Not particularly. There is drainage up 11 on that top where it's flat, and they built up a road down 12 that power line right there, so there's a little bit there. 13 But they -- that could have been improved in 2004. 14 Contractor didn't do it. So, anybody that's out there can -- 15 when they clear the right-of-way, can probably take care of 16 most of that. It just falls off, just -- it's flat on top, 17 and then it -- after it crests, it just goes straight back to 18 the cul de sac. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which is the crest? In the 20 cul-de-sac or the other end? 21 MR. ODOM: The other end. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Other end. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It falls downhill toward the 25 cul-de-sac. 7-26-10 73 1 MR. ODOM: It falls downhill toward the cul de sac. 2 You know, I feel sorry for the person at the end of the 3 cul-de-sac. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. 5 MR. ODOM: But other than that -- 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That was before engineering 7 and drainage. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Only one lot's been sold? 9 MR. ODOM: Drainage is what it is. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, and part of the reason 11 for only one lot being sold in there is because it would be a 12 privately maintained road. And you have a whole different 13 issue when you have a homeowners' association having to 14 maintain a road, when all the rest of the roads in there -- I 15 mean, it's not like -- I mean, I have a bunch of roads, say 16 in Ingram Hills, that are side roads, and there aren't any of 17 those that have ever been any more than just a little caliche 18 put on. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mm-hmm. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And this one was actually 21 built. It's a nice road. It's just -- it doesn't have the 22 crushed base like we require now. And it was sealcoated, 23 and, of course, it's oxidized 'cause of no traffic. So, you 24 know, it's one of those things where you do not want to set a 25 precedent, but I think we ought to, some way, have -- be 7-26-10 74 1 reasonable if -- if the base would check out to somewhat of 2 a -- 3 MR. ODOM: Would you like to contact that lady, 4 then? 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'll be glad to. 6 MR. ODOM: And have her get a testing lab to go out 7 there and see if it needs -- 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. If it -- tell us what 9 it -- 10 MR. ODOM: What it is. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- what it is and what it -- 12 you know, what standards it -- what kind of compaction. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Probably three or four. 14 Doesn't take a whole lot, I don't think. 15 MR. ODOM: Every 500 feet is what our specs say, so 16 at least three. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I mean, the road base appears 18 to be pretty thick. Road's built up. 19 MR. ODOM: It's built up, got a crown. It's not 20 all that bad, other than -- 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You know, not some of 22 these -- you know, it's not like the goat trails that we've 23 seen in some areas. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. I don't mind giving 25 credit. I think we -- you know, for having -- I mean, you 7-26-10 75 1 can't expect people to really go in there and tear out all 2 the -- whatever material is there and put in crushed base 3 when there's a -- it's already there, is working, and most of 4 the county roads are something other than crushed base. So, 5 I don't have a problem with that, as long as, you know, we're 6 not giving away -- 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So, if I contact her and ask 8 her to have the -- have some cores taken, tell us what's 9 under that road base -- or under the surface, and then 10 possibly do a double penetration on it if it checks out. 11 They're going to have to spend some money to get that done. 12 It's not going to be -- they want to comply. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right, okay. I don't have a 14 problem with that. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: But it's -- you know, it's 16 one of those old deals where it was previous to 2000 when it 17 was put in, and somehow it got -- ball got dropped. I don't 18 know how. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Are we talking about just granting a 20 variance as to the 60 feet right-of-way, but requiring the 21 expansion of the actual road surface to 20 feet? 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That -- 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Or remaining at 18? 24 MR. ODOM: If you're asking me, it's a local road 25 condition. However -- well, it's local road. It's over 7-26-10 76 1 eight lots, so therefore it comes under local road, so they 2 have to extend it out. What little's there, they may be able 3 to squeeze a 20-foot right at the very edge of it. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That wouldn't be that bad. 5 They can also -- they could, you know, pull the shoulders 6 back and put some base on the edges, then go over it, redo 7 it. So, it's possible. 8 MR. ODOM: If they do a little ditch work right 9 there, they could pull up and make that shoulder off of it, 10 and -- because it's almost solid rock up on top there. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. That isn't dirt up 12 there. It's got a good foundation. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 14 MR. ODOM: So it is possible to do that if they -- 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'll get back to the lady and 16 tell her what we need to know to consider it. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else on that particular 19 agenda item, gentlemen? Anything else, Mr. Odom? 20 MR. ODOM: No, sir. One more item, I think. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's go to Item 14; 22 consider, discuss, take appropriate action on EMS budget 23 issues for FY 2010-11. Commissioner Baldwin asked that this 24 be placed on the agenda. Our good friends from the City are 25 here that provide the EMS services. I started to say 7-26-10 77 1 county-wide, but it's not quite county-wide. We got a couple 2 of pockets that other arrangements have been made. We got 3 the City Manager, Mr. Todd Parton, and Eric Maloney and 4 Mr. Beavers. We got all sorts of folks. 5 MS. HARGIS: Mike Erwin. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Mike Erwin, yeah. It's all yours. 7 MR. PARTON: Thank you, Judge. I appreciate very 8 much the opportunity to come visit with you guys and talk a 9 little bit about EMS and what we have proposed in the budget 10 this year. There is a substantial request for funding that 11 goes directly to EMS, about $90,000. We're currently funded 12 at about 150,000 under this current year. There is a $90,000 13 increase that is being requested or proposed in a draft 14 budget for both the City and for the County moving forward 15 into the fiscal year 2010 budget. One of the key things -- 16 and I'm going to kind of give you some very brief comments 17 and allow our staff, Mr. Erwin and Mr. Maloney, to be able to 18 come through and give you some very specific detail in terms 19 of what we're looking at. But the budget that we have for 20 the city -- the entire city moving forward has been a very 21 difficult one. I know the County is involved in another very 22 difficult budget year as we move forward. 23 One of the things that I had directed all of our 24 management staff to do throughout the entire city is to go 25 back, look at every cost center, look at every profit center. 7-26-10 78 1 Where are we funding? Are we attributing costs correctly? 2 Are we capturing available revenue streams that are there? 3 Are there service levels? Are there other things that we can 4 cut? In looking at the budget across the city, there were 5 three primary core services which we had prioritized in 6 preparing a budget to present to Council. That included 7 maintaining existing levels of fire, maintaining existing 8 levels of EMS, and maintaining existing levels of police. It 9 also included proceeding forward with the appropriate 10 investment in roadway and drainage infrastructure, so those 11 were the last operations that we looked to impact in the 12 budget cuts that we have going forward. The City is looking 13 at about a 10 percent -- a 15 percent budget cut expenditure 14 across the city. 15 The EMS budget included some things that we're 16 doing from a cost savings perspective and cost maintenance 17 perspective across the entire organization. That includes 18 freezing salaries. We have no programmed step or merit or 19 COLA's moving forward into next year. We are also looking at 20 some changes in our major medical benefits plans. Employees 21 are being asked to pick up a larger share of the dependent 22 care coverage, and in addition to that, we're looking at 23 making some additional plan changes, increasing additional 24 out-of-pocket expenses to employees as they stay on our 25 plans. The other issue that we're looking at that's rolled 7-26-10 79 1 into this budget is some additional cost savings that we have 2 regarding our retirement program. We are on the Texas 3 Municipal Retirement System, and there's some retirement 4 benefit plan options that the City currently has that we're 5 just going to cut. Those two cuts save the City about 6 $750,000 or so in expenditures across the general fund side. 7 Again, those are cost-saving measures that are 8 reflected here and reflected as we move forward on each and 9 every line item throughout the entire city. We looked at, do 10 we have to make those expenditures? And where can we cut? 11 Can we economize? You know, and things like training, 12 discretionary expenditures like that, we cut back to 13 minimums. Where we look at fuel supplies, where we look at 14 other things, we said, okay, how much do we really think we 15 need? You know, are we putting the right assumptions? So, 16 one of the key components in looking at this EMS budget is 17 looking at cost allocations that are directly supporting our 18 -- directly going to EMS operations that have been covered by 19 other budgets in other areas. For example, in the fire 20 department, buildings, maintenance, personnel, operations 21 expenses are things that are captured -- have been captured 22 under the fire department that actually are direct EMS types 23 of expenditures, so those things are included here. 24 We have a program for replacement of paramedic 25 units. And this budget includes, as we had done this year, 7-26-10 80 1 about $182,000 for replacement of a new EMS unit. And 2 Mr. Maloney will give you a little more detail why that is 3 included in this budget at this time. And in general, that's 4 what we're looking at here, and I'd like to turn it over now 5 to Mr. Erwin to give you some more specificity on this line 6 item portion of it, and then to Mr. Maloney to walk through 7 with you the operational issues that we're looking at as we 8 move forward. Thank you. 9 MR. ERWIN: Judge, Commissioners, thank you for 10 letting me speak in front of you. This is my first time in 11 front of this commission. To get down to it, the '10 12 approved budget was $1,962,843. The proposed budget that 13 we'll present to our Council tomorrow night for the EMS is 14 $2,525,333. That's an increase of 28.6 percent. Now, if you 15 remove the purchase of the new EMS engine, which in prior 16 years had been put in an asset replacement fund, but it -- 17 but had been -- had been included in the calculation for the 18 City/County split, but if you removed that, it's still about 19 a 19.37 percent increase. The biggest part of the increase 20 is on the personnel side, and there are two or three factors 21 that play into that. First factor is, the merit that our EMS 22 personnel received this year has been factored into the '11 23 numbers. We compared to the '10 number. The '10 number was 24 $1,658,215. The '11 proposed number is $2,018,728, which is 25 an increase of 21.74 percent. 7-26-10 81 1 A couple of other things to consider is there's a 2 new transfer -- transfer tech box that runs. That was not 3 funded for a full year in '10, because the planning -- I 4 think the funding was initially to begin in January. They 5 went on -- they went on in March, so we knew that it would 6 take a few months to get them up and running. And then the 7 third piece of it is we -- we identified a couple of fire -- 8 we identified a couple of positions that were in the 9 firefighter -- that were in the fire department that were 10 actually serving EMS roles and functions. So, that is the 11 changes that we made from '10 to '11 on the EMS personnel. 12 If you take a look at supplies and materials, that dropped 13 5.64 percent. Last year in '10, it was $184,740. This year 14 it was $174,329. That was things such as office supplies, 15 small tools, equipment, the chemical/medical supply, fuel and 16 oil, food supplies, janitorial, things such as that. 17 Maintenance and repairs, which would involve just, like, the 18 maintenance contract with the garage -- with the city garage, 19 building structures, things such as that, decreased zero -- 20 .03 percent. Basically, it stayed the same. It was $57,686 21 last year, $57,704 this year. The total services increased 22 from $24,700 to $54,900. 23 And where the increase came in that is we realized 24 that in the prior years, that EMS budget had not reflected 25 the cost of the lease, the cost of the tower rental, the cost 7-26-10 82 1 of the -- the natural gas, electricity, the water and sewer. 2 Basically, EMS was not paying any of the office costs for 3 their administrative offices, and that was the adjustment 4 that we made there. And then, finally, under other expenses, 5 it went from 37,5 to 37,4, so there was not much of a change. 6 But as you can see, when you look at the operations 7 expenditures, we basically kept it the same or decreased it a 8 little bit throughout the year. One other difference in this 9 year from last year, as the City Manager mentioned 10 previously, is there's $182,295 budgeted to buy a new truck. 11 In prior years, that had been budgeted in the general asset 12 replacement fund and it had been bought out of that, but in 13 the calculation -- it had been included in the calculation 14 between the City and the County split. So, that gives you a 15 quick synopsis of what the '11 budget looks like and the 16 differences that occurred from one to the next. 17 One other point we would like to make is when we 18 began in 2007, the budget for the -- the County's 19 contribution at that time was $231,883. It was the same 20 thing for 2008, $233,880. In 2009, it dropped to 181,000, 21 and last year it dropped to 139,000. This year it's been 22 proposed to move back up to $242,335. So, if you look at it 23 from last year to this year, it is a significant increase, 24 but if you look at the cost over the last five years, it is 25 less than a -- it's about a 5 percent increase from 2007 to 7-26-10 83 1 2011. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: One of the reasons for that, 3 I believe, is 'cause you had a rate increase back then. It 4 took time for rate increase to generate the funds that 5 lowered our contribution. 6 MR. ERWIN: Okay. And there's a rate increase 7 budgeted in this year also. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I hope a good one. 9 MR. ERWIN: Yes. Yes, sir. Mr. Maloney can 10 explain a little bit more, but basically it's about a 12 11 percent rate increase on A L.S. response and on B L.S. 12 response. So, advanced life support -- basically, life 13 support responses, there's about a 12 percent increase on the 14 responses, but I think the stand-by cost has remained the 15 same. And as we -- as the EMS staff -- as Eric looked at it, 16 it's still within -- it's 100 percent of the allowable -- 17 it's 100 percent above allowable Medicare charges, but it is 18 still what you would consider reasonable and customary. So, 19 we're charging what we can without being excessive to our 20 citizens. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mr. Erwin? 22 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir? 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I believe you said your 24 personnel increases are going to be about 28.6 percent; is 25 that correct? 7-26-10 84 1 MR. ERWIN: No, sir. The overall budget was 28.6 2 percent. Personnel was 21.74 percent. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 21.7, okay. 4 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: My question is, are those 6 personnel increases required to perform the services that the 7 County wants, or are those department-wide increases that 8 embody fire as well as EMS? 9 MR. ERWIN: Those -- those personnel changes 10 reflect the total cost to operate EMS in its current state, 11 which would be both City and County operations. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And somebody mentioned -- I 13 think Mr. Parton mentioned you're passing on to the County 14 building costs, so I guess my question would be, if the 15 County weren't your client, what would you do with those 16 costs? 17 MR. ERWIN: If the County was not our client, we 18 would need to go back and take a look at our budgets to 19 reabsorb the cost. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mike, can you, I guess, remind 22 me how the funding breakdown is? Is it fifty-fifty? How is 23 the -- what are we doing on EMS? I can't -- 24 MR. ERWIN: The actual -- what we do is we take a 25 look at the expenditures. We take a look at the revenue with 7-26-10 85 1 the new rates that we're looking at this year, and we 2 subtract the difference. And the decision was made to do it 3 based on population, and right now the County has 52.6 4 percent of the population, and then the City has the 5 remainder of it, which would be the 47.4 percent. And that's 6 -- we just take the difference of what the revenues don't 7 cover, split it that way. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. I just couldn't remember 9 exactly how we -- where we were on that. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How did you arrive at your 11 12 percent rate increase? What's that all about? 12 MR. ERWIN: I would have to defer to Eric on how to 13 come up with the rate increase. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Let's get some more -- get through 15 with Mr. Erwin here. I can understand where you're 16 allocating these -- these new personnel costs, administrative 17 costs. I know that your basic structure over there is that 18 all of your firefighters are both firefighter and 19 EMS-qualified, essentially, to some level, correct? 20 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir. My -- I'm not a fire 21 operation -- my understanding, they're either EMS or 22 paramedic. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: These costs of personnel, I 24 understand there's some more personnel in the mix now because 25 of the administrative aspects. Is that what I'm 7-26-10 86 1 understanding? 2 MR. ERWIN: No, sir. These are actual people on 3 the ambulance. The additional -- the additional personnel 4 costs you're seeing are actual people on the ambulance. And 5 correct me if I'm wrong on that, but the people we move from 6 fire to EMS are going to be actual firefighters that are on a 7 paramedic truck right now. 8 MR. BEAVERS: Yeah. In order -- in order -- 9 everybody in the fire department except the transfer tech 10 personnel are cross-trained, fire and EMS. The EMS budget 11 had 15 fire suppression personnel paid out of the EMS budget, 12 and now there's 18 fire suppression and EMS personnel. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Because of the new transfer? 14 MR. BEAVERS: It takes -- not necessarily, no. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 16 MR. BEAVERS: It takes that many people to 17 successfully operate the EMS system. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 19 MR. BEAVERS: That's why they're in the EMS budget. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let me get back to a 21 follow-up on Bill's question on the building. Are you 22 talking about amortization of the overall cost of the 23 building, or are you talking about maintenance only as an 24 expense item? 25 MR. BEAVERS: That's keeping the lights on. 7-26-10 87 1 MR. ERWIN: Yes. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Maintenance, then? 3 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir. We have a lease on our 4 building, so it's the lease cost, natural gas cost, 5 electricity cost, the water cost. 6 MR. BEAVERS: Basically, the fire department was 7 supplementing the EMS budget all these years, paying all the 8 electricity, all the water, all the gas, you know, the 9 maintenance, janitorial supplies, et cetera. And that's 10 not -- 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Are you talking about the Coronado 12 property? 13 MR. BEAVERS: All the stations. We have EMS 14 personnel at all the stations. And the lease at the Coronado 15 property, they occupy about half the building, so they pay 16 half the lease now. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, you've allocated on the basis 18 of use. 19 MR. BEAVERS: I believe y'all were given some 20 information on some of these issues as far as salaries and 21 what-not. You know, the chief's salary, part of his salary 22 has now been taken into account. Part of my salary's been 23 taken into account. We're trying to get a better handle on 24 what it actually costs to run EMS. In other words, EMS has 25 been getting by without -- not paying their full share, not 7-26-10 88 1 only with building maintenance and janitorial, but some of 2 the salaries, how much time that we're spending. You know, 3 we're spending time right now on EMS. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 5 MR. BEAVERS: So fire was supplementing EMS budget. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: I don't -- I don't -- in fact, I was 7 going to ask Mr. Erwin if he's got a summary breakdown of all 8 these numbers. I don't recall having received that 9 information that you referred to, Mr. Beavers. Maybe someone 10 else on the Court has received it. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Possibly. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis or -- I think Buster's 13 the only one that received it. 14 MR. BEAVERS: I know at that meeting that Buster 15 was at a few weeks ago at City Hall, we discussed this. 16 Maybe he wasn't given a document with the breakdown. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: That would be most helpful if we 18 could have that. 19 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir. Wednesday, we'll be able to 20 give you a document that will have every line item and the 21 breakdown of what goes into each of the line items, if you 22 would like it. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Yes, sir, I would. 24 MR. ERWIN: I need to present it to my Council 25 first. 7-26-10 89 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Will that breakdown 2 indicate what, if any, increase in call volume there is 3 attributable to Kerr County, the service you render to Kerr 4 County? 5 MR. ERWIN: The breakdown on the dollar amount? 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Increased call volume. 7 MR. ERWIN: That would be a discussion -- that 8 would be something Eric can discuss with you, -- 9 MR. BEAVERS: I don't think -- 10 MR. ERWIN: -- the breakdown on call volume. The 11 only thing that -- 12 MR. BEAVERS: We can provide you with a breakdown 13 on call volume. 14 MR. ERWIN: Mm-hmm. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think that's -- I think 16 it's relevant. 17 MR. ERWIN: Yes. Yeah, it's -- in fact, it'll be 18 in the budget document. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Another item I recall when we struck 20 a bargain, as it were, several years ago on -- on how we were 21 going to handle a lot of these joint operations things, is 22 that I believe at that time, that was -- was that before or 23 after we carved out a piece of Y.O. Ranchlands? And I know 24 it was before we carved out a piece of east Kerr County for 25 the Falling Waters Subdivision. I guess my question goes to, 7-26-10 90 1 depending upon at what point in time we did that, whether we 2 attempted to make any adjustment with regard to our formula 3 based upon the bargain that we struck. 4 MR. BEAVERS: No, there was no adjustments made for 5 that. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 7 MR. BEAVERS: It's still based on population, 52.6. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Total county? 9 MR. BEAVERS: Correct. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, a 60-plus percent 12 increase is pretty significant. 13 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Really, I'd like -- I mean, 15 once we get the documentation, it'll be a lot easier for me 16 to go through it. I mean, I heard all the numbers, but you 17 gave us a lot, quickly. 18 MR. ERWIN: Right. Right. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I couldn't write that fast. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You know, and it seems that 21 you're allocating some of your costs that are -- that would 22 be costs with staffing and administration and that sort of 23 thing that's already in existence whether the fire department 24 exists or not, and you're transferring some of that cost, or 25 allocating it to EMS, which increases the amount that we have 7-26-10 91 1 to pay. 2 MR. BEAVERS: We didn't have EMS on -- 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's something that already 4 exists; it's not additional cost. 5 MR. BEAVERS: We're trying to get a true cost of 6 what it is -- it costs to run EMS. And if we did not have 7 EMS, those costs wouldn't exist. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Doesn't matter if you reduce 9 staff or not doing administrative. You'd still have the same 10 amount of staff you have whether EMS exists or not; doesn't 11 make any difference. It's just now you're allocating some of 12 that administrative cost on to EMS, which we cost share. 13 Which we don't cost share much, except for one fire truck, 14 which in my opinion is way overpaid, but that's just my 15 opinion. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, that goes to the 17 question I asked earlier. If Kerr County weren't your 18 client, what would you do with that expense? You'd eat it, 19 'cause you got the EMS box in the same -- in the same 20 facility that you got the fire truck, correct? 21 MR. ERWIN: If -- if the County was not our client 22 on EMS, yes, we'd go back and take a look at our budget, and 23 probably need to make adjustments. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm, I'll bet. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: So hopefully we can get that 7-26-10 92 1 information come Wednesday, right? 2 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 4 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir, and -- yes, sir. What we've 5 done is we've had our staff go through and, on every line 6 item, detail out what makes up that expenditure. And then 7 we'll have the cover page that's on the budget document. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That happens whenever we have 10 shortfalls in revenues, doesn't it? 11 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir, it does. It does. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just one final question 13 that goes to the rate increase. 12 percent, I think, is what 14 you indicated. 15 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What do you project to be 17 your increased revenue off that 12 percent increase? 18 MR. ERWIN: I think we're looking about a $200,000 19 increase in revenue from '10 to '11. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And how does that 200,000 21 wash against these increased expenses? 22 MR. ERWIN: It goes into -- it goes into the 23 formula that we used to calculate the split between the City 24 and the County, the 242 that we're both picking up. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: So it's in there? 7-26-10 93 1 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir. 2 MR. BEAVERS: Yes, sir. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: You anticipated additional revenue? 4 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Eric, I know the issue as to, you 6 know, Medicare allowable is going to -- what Medicare 7 allowable is going to be, we can't control that, and they're 8 going to pay what they're going to pay. 9 MR. MALONEY: Yes, sir. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: And that is a large part. 11 Historically, I think your -- I'm going to call them retail 12 rates, for lack of a better term, have kind of lagged behind 13 some of the -- some of the operations in the area, certainly 14 behind the metropolitan areas, I think. Are the rates that 15 you've put into place now -- are -- do you -- are they 16 comparable to the existing cap rates of -- of the area? 17 MR. MALONEY: Yes, sir. It's very difficult to 18 kind of determine what is reasonable and customary when it 19 comes to the insurance companies, I think is what you're -- 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Private insurance organizations what 21 I'm looking at mainly, yeah. 22 MR. MALONEY: But what we do bill now and what we 23 are intending to change on the upcoming fee schedule will 24 still keep us reasonable and customary, so we'll be 25 collecting at a maximum from our insurance companies, private 7-26-10 94 1 insurance. Remember, most of ours is -- is CMS, Medicare, or 2 the veterans in regards to that. So, we have -- 3 approximately about 60 percent of our customers are Medicare 4 or the V.A., so we try and base that accordingly. So, what 5 we did in the last one when we increased the fee schedule to 6 simplify it, every year Medicare or CMS gives you an 7 ambulance inflation factor. That inflation factor gives you 8 2 percent, 1.5 percent per year of what they're going to 9 increase their allowables on. We set a threshold of 6 10 percent. When it goes over 6 percent, at that point we'll 11 take a look at the fee schedule, look at changing it. It has 12 gone over 6 percent as far as the ambulance inflation factor 13 over the last four years, so it is time to adjust the fee 14 schedule. Adjusting it according to Medicare makes it very 15 simple in the fact that it already gives you a formula to set 16 the next one, as opposed to just saying, "Well, I think we 17 should just charge $800." So, you can just base them off the 18 Medicare allowables, so it makes it a very easy formula to 19 change it, in that we will come back again when our ambulance 20 inflation factor becomes over 6 percent; we'll reevaluate, 21 see where we are at that point. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: But your rate that you quote to 23 private pay and -- and outside of Medicare, Medicaid, V.A., 24 is about at the top of -- of what you can charge and still 25 remain within the policy provisions of reasonable and 7-26-10 95 1 customary charges for like services? 2 MR. MALONEY: Yes, sir. We do not receive 3 assignment from any private insurance companies, so 4 currently, if we were to bill a customer $1,000 for an 5 ambulance transport, if their insurance paid 80 percent of 6 that, paid 800, the 20 percent would still go back to the 7 customer. If they consider reasonable/customary to be lower 8 than that, for whatever reason they would say $500 would be 9 reasonable/customary, yes, the customer would be responsible 10 for the remainder, $500, because we do not accept assignment. 11 Therefore, we bill 100 percent outside of CMS, and that is by 12 federal law, that I have to accept the federal government 13 under assignment. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What kind of collection rate 16 do y'all have on -- 17 MR. MALONEY: Currently -- we made some great 18 changes there. We added a billing clerk last year to the 19 budget, and to really kind of focus on the bad debt and the 20 continuous billing in the billing department, and we're 21 currently set at 82.7 percent net. That doesn't take into 22 factor the disalloweds, because you can't bill for them 23 anyway. So, we're at 82.7, is what were setting at, which is 24 very high in the medical field; definitely in the EMS, 25 absolutely. 7-26-10 96 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Did I understand y'all were 2 talking about a transfer box? I assume that's kind of an 3 ambulance that transports -- transferring from here to San 4 Antonio mostly. Is that part of this increase in what we're 5 being asked to pay? 6 MR. MALONEY: Yes, sir. What we changed about a 7 year and a half ago was the way we were operating our two 8 transfer ambulances, which are 40-hour-a-week, Monday through 9 Friday ambulances. And we did a split shift, so now they're 10 actually covering seven days a week during daytime hours, 11 still 40-hour-a-week ambulance for that. And since then, we 12 took a look at our peak hours, and we saw a need for another 13 unit. We put that unit in place, another 40-hour week, 14 Monday through Friday from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., so that also 15 improved our capacity to respond. That also gives you better 16 911 coverage. It is not just a transfer unit. They still 17 provide 911 coverage, but they also allow us at this point to 18 not send one of our primary ambulances on a transfer to San 19 Antonio, 'cause it's a three-hour turnaround, so they have a 20 better capacity to respond to the county or city. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So we're getting benefit from 22 the transfers now? 23 MR. MALONEY: Yes, sir. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I know at one point, that was 25 a -- some years ago, I believe, the County didn't get any 7-26-10 97 1 credit at all for your transfers and running that service. 2 MR. MALONEY: No, sir, it's always been -- 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Always been? 4 MR. MALONEY: Yes, sir. It's all rolled in the 5 transfer crews, and they do the 911 calls on top of that, and 6 the revenues from those are included in the revenue 7 projections for that. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: A question I had -- and I can't 10 remember on this. Does -- is it customary for a fire truck 11 to accompany on EMS calls? 12 MR. MALONEY: Not customary, no, sir. There are 13 certain calls or categories of calls that do require 14 additional assistance, because we're all cross-trained both 15 as fire and EMS. We do have paramedics on there. On some of 16 those calls, say, for instance, a heart attack call, we do 17 need additional personnel in the back. Only responding with 18 two ambulance personnel in the ambulance, obviously, at some 19 point somebody has to drive, so usually we will utilize 20 personnel from an engine company to actually respond and 21 provide additional manpower. We also utilize the same thing 22 with the First Responder program, so on occasions we have 23 taken First Responders in the back of the ambulance to help 24 with the additional manpower. They don't drive the 25 ambulances, but we do utilize them in the back. 7-26-10 98 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I see fire trucks following 2 ambulances an awful lot. 3 MR. BEAVERS: That is not specific to the city of 4 Kerrville; that is industry standard throughout the state. 5 You cannot work a full arrest with one person in the back of 6 an ambulance. You have to have more manpower. That's how 7 it's addressed not only in San Antonio, but anywhere in the 8 state of Texas on 911 calls. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It goes -- you know, I see fire 10 trucks near ambulances or with ambulances in Kerrville. I 11 don't see that much out in the outlying areas. Obviously, I 12 don't think you send a -- doesn't seem to me you send a fire 13 truck, you know, out to somewhere -- Y.O. or -- 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Somewhere out in my precinct, 15 out in Precinct 4. 16 MR. BEAVERS: That's for the First Responders in 17 the county. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. And I guess I'm 19 wondering, on -- to be a true cost allocation, if it seems 20 that it costs less for an ambulance run in the county because 21 of that personnel difference, that there are ambulances -- or 22 fire trucks accompanying trucks for heart attacks, for 23 example, as you just said, in the city, yet the County's 24 being asked to pay for that portion of it, does that make 25 sense? 7-26-10 99 1 MR. BEAVERS: Well, the -- the calls in the county 2 are inherently more expensive anyway than the city calls. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The city -- 4 MR. BEAVERS: We're not actually talking apples and 5 apples, the same type of thing. This is Priority 1 calls 6 only, not Priority 2 or Priority 3 calls, so you can't lump 7 all the county calls and all the city calls. You know, fire 8 trucks respond to all the calls. That's simply not the case. 9 So -- 10 MR. MALONEY: But the cost to send a fire truck 11 into the county as a First Responder is not in the budget 12 there. I don't -- is that what you're asking, sir? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It just seems that there's an 14 additional level of service in the city. And I'm really 15 asking the question just 'cause I see that whenever I'm 16 driving in Kerrville, but I don't see it -- you know, if the 17 level of service is actually the same in the county and the 18 city, the city limits -- 19 MR. BEAVERS: We have volunteer fire departments 20 throughout the county. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 22 MR. BEAVERS: And -- 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: First Responders. 24 MR. BEAVERS: Yeah, some of which work with the 25 volunteer fire departments, and so that's supposed to, you 7-26-10 100 1 know, take up that slack in the county. First Responders do 2 make the scene. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess what I'm looking at -- 4 MR. BEAVERS: As opposed to sending a fire truck 5 from the city of Kerrville out to Hunt, when there's a Hunt 6 Volunteer Fire Department there. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What I'm -- I just want to make 8 sure that the -- on this more detailed cost allocation, that 9 we're cost allocating both ways. 10 MR. MALONEY: And that cost is still in the fire 11 department for an engine company to respond. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: That's not included in the EMS. 13 MR. MALONEY: Correct, sir. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. That's really what I was 15 trying to get to. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Solves the issue. 17 MR. BEAVERS: Yes, sir. 18 MR. MALONEY: But they do respond in the First 19 Responder capacity to the ETJ, and then after that is when 20 you -- you utilize the First Responders at that point to 21 assist us from there, as far as any medical assistance in the 22 field, which has worked out great, definitely, as far as Zone 23 5, Precinct 4. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions for these 25 gentlemen? 7-26-10 101 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: One more quick one on the cost 2 allocation. I know you mentioned that your -- part of your 3 salary's been allocated, and the chief's. Does it go beyond 4 that to other city departments, such as H.R., City Manager, 5 beyond -- 6 MR. BEAVERS: Not at this point, no. It's all just 7 within the department. 8 MR. ERWIN: Yeah. Just very quickly, in fact, 9 there's no cost allocation for worker's comp that's being 10 charged to EMS. There's no cost allocation currently for 11 risk and liability that's being charged to EMS. There's no 12 cost allocation for payroll costs or for hiring costs that 13 are currently being charged to EMS. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So really, just the 15 personnel -- 16 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- that was in the fire 18 department only? 19 MR. ERWIN: Yes, sir. 20 MR. PARTON: I appreciate y'all's time this 21 morning. I just want to leave you with a couple thoughts. 22 First of all, the -- one of the questions came up with regard 23 to call volume. We're running about 7,500 calls for EMS 24 service across our entire service area, including the city 25 and the county. The county represents about 25 percent of 7-26-10 102 1 that call volume, so about 1,300 of those calls are there. 2 We are not -- we are staffed and we are resourced to provide 3 a level of service consistently across all 7,500 service 4 calls. What we're looking at is an allocation that looks at 5 the eligible operational expenses, looking at plugging those 6 into our funding formulas and processes, and looking at what 7 those cost allocations look like. So, if I understood 8 Commissioner Williams' question a little bit earlier, what 9 would happen if the County didn't contract with the City, 10 then we would go back and reevaluate what service levels, 11 what service demands are out there, and we would budget 12 according to that. So, I just want to lay that out. So, 13 this is based on eligible operational EMS needs to be able to 14 provide service levels for the entire area that we serve 15 within the city, and that we have agreed to serve within the 16 county. So, I don't know if that helps explain a little bit 17 about what we are looking at in the numbers there. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Question, to be sure I heard 19 something right. There's $7,500 -- I'm sorry, 7,500 calls. 20 MR. PARTON: Yes. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And 1,300 of them go to the 22 county? 23 MR. PARTON: Yes. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 25 percent. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 7-26-10 103 1 MR. PARTON: That's right. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think the only thing I would 3 say is that you might mention, you know, that -- I know 4 you're meeting with -- evidently with Council tomorrow night. 5 That the service area has been contracted on the perimeter 6 since -- you know, in recent years, and that's a pretty -- 7 you know, and population-wise, I'm not sure how many 8 population -- probably, you know, maybe 1,000, something like 9 that. You know, 700 to 1,000 people, I would say, based on 10 the eastern part of the county. And -- and also, if you go 11 down towards -- on the point of Kerr County that goes down to 12 Bandera, that area is all covered by -- we're actually 13 working on an agreement right now with Bandera picking up all 14 those. They've been picking up those areas anyway. And then 15 the far western part of the county went to Kimble County, so 16 there has been a reduction of area in the last three or four 17 years. 18 MR. PARTON: In 2005, there were 6,660 calls, and 19 1,130 of those were our contracted area. In 2008 -- I'm 20 sorry, in 2009 -- let me go back to 2008. In 2008, actuals, 21 there were 7,480 calls. 1,226 of those were county. That's 22 a 10 percent increase. So, even though the geography may 23 have shrunk, the call volume actually has increased within 24 that time period. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. But what you had said, 7-26-10 104 1 though, that you have to -- you have to staff and have your 2 department for the potential demand, essentially. 3 MR. PARTON: Correct, for what we're committed to 4 serve. We have to staff to be able to -- 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Serve that. 6 MR. PARTON: -- continue the level of service. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And we've reduced the service 8 area of geography and population-wise, is what I'm saying. 9 The call volume may have gone up, but we've still reduced 10 the -- 11 MR. PARTON: Well, you still have the call volume. 12 That's what it's about. How quickly are we responding to the 13 call? What level of service? Do we have the -- the 14 equipment? Do we have the personnel there to be able to 15 respond to that? And if you look at the -- at the volume of 16 calls that are coming in, those -- that's what we have to be 17 able to respond to. Whether it's a dense population or a 18 sparse population, we still have got to provide that level of 19 service. And for -- between the two entities, for about 20 $450,000 taxpayer allocations, we're -- I think it's 21 achieving a very high level of service. Within the county, 22 including all of the extended limits that we serve, an 23 average call is less than 13 minutes for an average EMS call. 24 Within the city, we're about a little under five minutes. 25 So, we offer a very high level of service that we're able to 7-26-10 105 1 be out there. We're very proud, and hopefully the citizens 2 feel proud with what we're able to deliver on a very 3 cost-effective basis. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Can't argue with what you're 5 saying. Service is good. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: You're justifiably proud of that 7 service. 8 MR. PARTON: Well, I think we all are, 'cause it's 9 a commitment that the City and the County have worked on 10 together. So -- 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mr. Parton, could you -- 12 with the material that's going to be provided by Mr. Erwin, 13 is it possible to have a chart that indicates the call volume 14 increases over, say, the last five or six years? 15 MR. PARTON: Yes, sir. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And corresponding personnel 17 that was required to service those calls? 18 MR. PARTON: Yes, sir, absolutely. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 20 MR. PARTON: Absolutely. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: I apologize for the delay in getting 22 you folks in line here. 23 MR. PARTON: I appreciate the opportunity to come 24 visit with you guys -- 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 7-26-10 106 1 MR. PARTON: -- and discuss this. Thanks. 2 MR. MALONEY: If I may real briefly, Commissioner 3 Letz, just in regards to the -- on the population, if I'm 4 right, I believe the PSAP for the Y.O. Ranchlands does still 5 come through our dispatch here. And in regards to 87, we 6 still maintain that capacity to respond as the primary 7 ambulance. And the fact that they only offered up Comfort 8 EMS if there was one there, that we still have the primary 9 response for that, so we did maintain that. I think that was 10 one of the reasons why we did not do any changes in regards 11 to both of those. Now, in regards to the eastern edge, not 12 sure what's -- 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, Kimble County still 14 serves that first. There's no agreement between us, but they 15 still respond, because they're closer. 16 MR. MALONEY: On the Y.O. Ranchlands? 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yes, sir. 18 MR. MALONEY: Yes, sir. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Anyway, I just thought -- I 20 think there is another way to look at -- at what we're 21 paying, and basically, it's somewhere between $185 and $190 a 22 call, based on 1,400 calls, is what you're asking us to 23 contribute. Hadn't thought about it that way, I bet. 24 MR. MALONEY: We still maintain the capacity to 25 respond to all the citizens of Kerr County. 7-26-10 107 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If you call -- if you're 2 getting $800 a call, we're basically subsidizing those calls 3 to those individuals, basically $192. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: $190. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate 7 it. Let's try and take care of another item or two. Item 8 15, acknowledge receipt of quarterly investment report from 9 Patterson and Associates for quarter ending June 30, 2010. 10 You've included the report here? 11 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: You merely want us to acknowledge 13 receipt; is that correct? 14 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: So acknowledged. 16 MS. WILLIAMS: Like we do every quarter. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 18 MS. WILLIAMS: Thank you. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Let's go to Item 16; to consider, 20 discuss, take appropriate action to release the letter of 21 credit and accept the three roads in Headwaters Ranch for 22 county maintenance, located in Precinct 4. Mr. Odom? 23 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. This is very similar to the 24 other one from Mo Ranch. We had the year coming up for the 25 expiration of whether or not we would accept it for 7-26-10 108 1 maintenance. I called Wayne and we went out and we took a 2 look at this. With our notes, we had some discrepancies. 3 They were minor. They were completed, so at this time, we 4 ask the Court to release the Letter of Credit November Zulu 5 Sierra 617077 in the amount of $152,533.80, and accept 6 Headwaters Drive, Midwaters Drive, and Northridge Drive for 7 the public use and Kerr County's maintenance. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Move approval. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 11 approval. Question or discussion? All in favor of the 12 motion, signify by raising your right hand. 13 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 14 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 15 (No response.) 16 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. We still 17 got a ways to go, gentlemen, so why don't we go into recess 18 and come back at 1:30. 19 (Recess taken from 12:05 p.m. to 1:34 p.m.) 20 - - - - - - - - - - 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's go ahead and come back 22 to order, if we might. Let's go to Item 19 on the first 23 addendum, to consider, discuss, take appropriate action to 24 discuss setting workshop sessions and public hearings 25 regarding the tax rates. There's Ms. Hargis. 7-26-10 109 1 MS. HARGIS: Okay. Basically, what I want -- I 2 want to go over a few things on this so that you can kind of 3 understand we need to kind of stick to the schedule. So, let 4 me just go over the legal requirements, and then -- you know, 5 so that you can kind of understand. The proposed budget has 6 to be filed with the County Clerk, which we already know, 7 once it's there. But it needs to be for the date -- the 15th 8 day of the month next following the month in which the budget 9 was prepared. So, you know, we need -- the 15th of the month 10 is pretty -- of September would be the last time we could -- 11 but we really need to get that to the County Clerk, the draft 12 of a budget, as soon as possible. Commissioners Court shall 13 publish notice before a public hearing relating to a budget 14 in at least one newspaper. Notice published under this 15 section shall be published not longer than the 30th or later 16 than the 10th day before the date of the hearing. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: We got 10 to 30 days notice on the 18 budget? 19 MS. HARGIS: Right. And then for the salary 20 considerations, if we do anything for elected officers or 21 county officers, the Commissioners Court shall set the items 22 at a regular meeting of the Court during the regular budget 23 hearing and adoption proceedings before the 10th day before 24 the date of the meeting. So, we need that somewhere in the 25 month of September, and we have to publish that in the paper. 7-26-10 110 1 That's the elected official form that I do the salary, if 2 there were any increases. And all of this is using a 3 newspaper that we would have daily. We're going to run into 4 some problems if we only use a once-a-week newspaper on some 5 of these things. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: You say before the 10th day 7 preceding -- preceding the -- is that the adoption of the 8 budget? 9 MS. HARGIS: No. It just says that before the 10th 10 day before the date of the meeting, the Commissioners Court 11 shall publish in a newspaper of general circulation. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Ten days. You got to make 13 the publication before you schedule a meeting. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 15 MS. HARGIS: And adoption proceedings, yes. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 17 MS. HARGIS: Yes, that was in the sentence above. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Before the adoption of the 19 budget. 20 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. And then we have to have a 21 public hearing to have -- to approve the budget. Usually we 22 have the public hearing, then we approve the -- approve the 23 budget. That has to be done, and you have to adopt the 24 budget before you adopt the tax rate. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 7-26-10 111 1 MS. HARGIS: All right? And then, of course, once 2 it's approved, then it goes to the -- effective tax rate 3 calculation is being prepared. We did get the certified 4 rolls, so we're looking at -- and I believe we got the 5 certified rolls -- I want to say Thursday, maybe. But 6 there's a -- this is really our biggest problem, because we 7 have to zone in on this. This is the deadline to adopt a tax 8 rate, okay? You must adopt a tax rate before September 30th 9 or by the 60th day after the taxing unit receives the 10 certified tax appraisal roll, whichever date is later. 11 Failure to adopt a tax rate by this deadline results in the 12 unit adopting its effective tax rate or last year's rate, 13 whichever is lower, as its tax rate for the current year. 14 So -- 15 JUDGE TINLEY: We got till September 30th. 16 MS. HARGIS: Period. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 18 MS. HARGIS: Now, to back yourself up, though, you 19 have to have two -- if we increase the tax rate, which you 20 automatically have to have public hearings anyway because of 21 the fact that the effective rate usually shows an increase in 22 tax revenue. Whether it's a dollar, you still have to do it. 23 So, we have to have two public hearings in there, which I had 24 shown earlier. The whole premise that I'm dealing with is 25 that if we keep pushing all of these decisions, you know, 7-26-10 112 1 closer to September, we're not going to have enough time, 2 because these public hearings on the tax rate can't be sooner 3 than three days, not later than seven, and you can't -- you 4 know, once the effective rate is published, you have to wait 5 seven days. She's trying to get that in the paper now so 6 that we can have -- we can discuss it on their meeting on the 7 9th. And once you -- on the 9th, you discuss it, you decide 8 if -- you know, sort of what you're going to do. It's not 9 what you adopt, but it's your parameters. And then you kind 10 of move forward with your public hearings. So if there is 11 any type of a tax increase, you want to put the maximum that 12 you think you might levy, even though you're not going to 13 levy that, because once you've got these deadlines in place, 14 it just -- it has to move. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: You're talking about the proposed -- 16 MS. HARGIS: Right. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: -- tax rate, which is the first one 18 that we adopt -- not adopt, the first one that we approve. 19 MS. HARGIS: No -- well, if you're going to 20 increase the tax rate, if you -- let's say you decide to go 21 up a penny, and you have a public hearing. You have to 22 publish in the paper what you're going to do, so if you're 23 going to do a penny or a penny and a half, or you decide to 24 do that, the simple way of doing it is to choose those two 25 dates on the 9th of your public hearings, so that you can 7-26-10 113 1 publish them both at the same time. That way you're covered 2 for your not less than seven or not sooner than three days. 3 So, we have them scheduled for August the 23rd and August the 4 30th right now, if you look on the calendar that -- that you 5 had. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: You said not sooner than seven and 7 not -- isn't it not sooner than three and -- 8 MS. HARGIS: Once the publication hits the 9 newspaper, you can't have the first public hearing sooner 10 than seven days -- sooner -- 11 JUDGE TINLEY: No sooner than three and not longer 12 than seven. 13 MS. HARGIS: Not longer than seven, excuse me. I'm 14 backwards, sorry. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 16 MS. HARGIS: And then you have to have a second 17 one, so you go through the same thing again. So, what we 18 have is we have one set on August the 23rd and then one set 19 for August the 30th. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me -- let me address something 21 there. You said publish a notice as to both of those 22 hearings? 23 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: At the same time? 25 MS. HARGIS: At the same time. 7-26-10 114 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Your publication date, then, is 2 going to be -- as to the second one, at least, is going to be 3 stale. 4 MS. HARGIS: They allow you to do that, but in -- 5 you have to go ahead and give the date. You still have to 6 run with the requirements. Once it's published and you have 7 -- you know, you've gone the seven days, that's when the 8 clock starts. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 10 MS. HARGIS: And I may be wrong, but I think you 11 may have to put it in there a second time. I'm not sure, 12 okay? But you have deadlines that -- that click so quickly 13 that it creeps up on us, and then we're not -- you know, I 14 had hoped that we could kind of stay within this calendar. 15 The reason I'm stressing this is we've got two large 16 components here that we haven't made decisions on, and I 17 would really like to see a workshop on the 9th of August, 18 either that or the 10th, so that we can possibly resolve one 19 or the other. I don't know that we're really going to 20 resolve -- my big fear is -- on the insurance is that we're 21 going to have to look at the worst scenario, because we're 22 not going to know what that is, what it's going to be, 23 probably until September or October. We're also not going to 24 know what -- what people might -- you know, regardless of 25 what scenario we come out with, we're not going to know 7-26-10 115 1 whether they're going to opt in or opt out, whether they're 2 going to drop their children or keep their children. There's 3 going to be a gap that we're going to have to fill, so we're 4 going to have to budget for that gap, whether it's 100,000 or 5 200,000. It could very well be that much of a gap. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, I understand your 7 logic. I'm going to give the devil's advocate on logic. 8 MS. HARGIS: Okay. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If they opt in, they're going 10 to pay the money that we -- that we approved to be paid for 11 dependents, and we kind of know where we stand on that. If 12 they don't get in the program, then there's no money, but 13 there's also no expense for those dependents. 14 MS. HARGIS: Well, we still have to -- there may be 15 some expense still coming in. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There may be some minor 17 changes, but I think whatever we come up with, we'll be able 18 to be -- best we can do. I mean -- 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. It's going to be a crap shoot 20 either way. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. We're going to roll 22 the dice either way. We're not going to know till January, 23 basically, or December when you have the -- 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Enrollment. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- enrollment what you're 7-26-10 116 1 going to have and what you're not going to have. 2 MS. HARGIS: Well, I understand that, but we only 3 have one shot to set the tax rate. Unfortunately, we only 4 have one revenue -- 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Are you talking about the proposed 6 tax rate? 7 MS. HARGIS: Tax rate. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. That's the first one that -- 9 and setting the proposed tax rate is not something that we're 10 bound by at the end of the day. 11 MS. HARGIS: No. No, you can go back to whatever. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: However, if we set a proposed tax 13 rate, let's say, for no tax increase, and it's later 14 determined that there is a necessity for a tax increase, what 15 kind of shape does that put us in, having set the so-called 16 proposed tax rate at something less than what we're 17 ultimately heading towards doing? 18 MS. HARGIS: I've only -- I've not participated in 19 anything like this, but I only know of one instance -- or a 20 couple of instances in the Houston area where an entity found 21 themselves in this particular position, and they had to 22 publish a new rate, have new public hearings, and change it. 23 And -- Diane? 24 MS. BOLIN: Once you put in the paper your proposed 25 tax rate, if you do increase it, you will have to do your two 7-26-10 117 1 public hearings and the notice again. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I understand you have do to 3 public hearings anyway. 4 MS. BOLIN: Right. 5 MS. HARGIS: You just redo it all. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: But -- 7 MS. BOLIN: The publication of the proposed tax 8 rate would have to go in the paper again. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 10 MS. HARGIS: You have to have the two public 11 hearings. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: There's a flip side of that. Let's 13 suppose we put a cushion in on the front end and say the tax 14 rate's going to go up by whatever as a proposed tax rate. As 15 we get further down the road and start solidifying the tax 16 rate, it appears like, appropriately, it's going to be less 17 than that. 18 MS. BOLIN: Then we should be fine. 19 MS. HARGIS: You'll be fine, as long as you don't 20 go over. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: That's how you protect it. 22 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 24 MS. HARGIS: That's why I would rather see your 25 parameters larger than smaller. 7-26-10 118 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 2 MS. HARGIS: And -- and, you know, even if we put 3 something in the newspaper to that effect besides the public 4 hearing notice that said, you know, "We're reviewing this tax 5 range because of the unknowns that we have currently out 6 there," I'm sure that we can do that. But in order to move 7 us along so that we have time in case something were to 8 happen, you either set the maximum -- you can always go back 9 to the original rate. You can also go lower. You just can't 10 go higher without all of this -- 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Without publishing a new notice -- 12 MS. HARGIS: Right. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: -- of the proposed tax rate and then 14 going through all the steps again. 15 MS. HARGIS: That's right. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 17 MS. BOLIN: Now, on the initial publication for the 18 public hearings, it always puts both public hearing dates in 19 it. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 21 MS. BOLIN: The initial -- and it's called the 22 notice of public hearing on tax increase, and it does -- 23 JUDGE TINLEY: And if it's going to be more than 24 the effective rate, you do it anyway, even if your tax rate's 25 going to be the same. 7-26-10 119 1 MS. HARGIS: That's correct. 2 MS. BOLIN: Right. 3 MS. HARGIS: That's right. So, I guess I'm asking 4 you to think about some of the proposals that have been given 5 to you. Would you like to have a workshop before we meet on 6 the 9th so that we can kind of go over the other variables 7 that we have out here? We can't tie the health insurance 8 down. There's no way -- 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, Mr. Looney is -- he wants to 10 get at least one more month claims experience. He thinks he 11 can get that the first week in August. I asked him about the 12 9th. That's cutting it awful close. Commissioner Baldwin is 13 scheduled not to be here on the 9th. Is that what I'm given 14 to understand? 15 MS. GRINSTEAD: I think he'll be back by the 9th. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: He will be back? 17 MS. GRINSTEAD: I think so. 18 MS. BOLIN: He's not going to be back until the 19 9th? 20 MS. GRINSTEAD: He comes back on Wednesday for, 21 like, a day and a half, and then he's gone again. But I 22 don't -- I don't know exactly when he's back in the office 23 full time. 24 MS. HARGIS: Well, we have two -- two proposals out 25 here that I think are very large, one of which is a salary 7-26-10 120 1 increase or no salary increase for employees and elected 2 officials, as well as the insurance. And I think those are 3 two very large items that are difficult to take up even at 4 the same time. I think it's better, perhaps, if we we could 5 have a workshop on the salary part and then a workshop on the 6 insurance, because I think it's kind of hard to concentrate 7 on both. Because we're changing variables -- a lot of 8 variables on the health insurance, so you want to be focused 9 on that, and I think we would run into a three- or four-hour 10 session alone on that. And if we get into salaries and 11 raises, we're going to get into the same situation. So, I'm 12 thinking if we could just zone in on the salaries and the 13 raises prior to the 9th, and then work on the insurance after 14 that, it would be great. That would be my rathers. Now, we 15 can -- we can get ready anything you want us to have ready 16 for raises or -- or scenarios or anything of that nature, so 17 that you can review them. At least you'll have an 18 opportunity to absorb that already, and -- and then on the 19 9th, you're going to get the presentation. We can give you 20 some of our scenarios on another workshop with the salaries 21 as to what we -- I mean, we've been given all kind of 22 different scenarios to come up with, and -- and we've worked 23 several. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How will we know what 25 dollar amounts we're working with for salaries until we know 7-26-10 121 1 what the insurance costs are going to be? 2 MS. HARGIS: The salaries and the insurance are not 3 coinciding, I don't think. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They're all part of the 5 same budget, aren't they? 6 MS. HARGIS: They are part of the same budget, yes, 7 sir, but one doesn't necessarily depend on the other. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I didn't ask that. 9 MS. HARGIS: Okay. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How are we going to know 11 full impact or dollar amount available -- that might be 12 available for salary adjustments until we know what our total 13 net's going to be for insurance? 14 MS. HARGIS: We pretty much, according to what you 15 asked us to do, zeroed out the insurance. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Zeroed it out? 17 MS. HARGIS: Except for, I think, what, maybe 18 100,000. Well, with the scenarios that we have -- 19 MS. HYDE: The scenarios that you guys have 20 asked -- am I allowed to speak in this? 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Pretty difficult to get there, but I 22 know you can get there if we give -- if we say, "Here's your 23 target." I know we can get there, but what you have to do to 24 get there in some areas may be perceived as a little strong. 25 But -- 7-26-10 122 1 MS. HYDE: Well, we gave the options, worst-case 2 scenario, and I stand by what I gave you guys on the 6th of 3 July, which was a 300/300, and then the 5 percent across the 4 board. That was the recommendation on July 6th, and I 5 haven't changed. All I've done is given you the options that 6 you've requested. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Do you know if Commissioner 8 Baldwin is going to be here next week? 9 MS. GRINSTEAD: I don't know. I can try and call 10 him. I don't know if he's going to answer his phone or not. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, if you're going to do anything 12 before the 9th, why, you know, I'm sure -- 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Only day that I can't do it 14 is -- is August the 4th. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I can't do it before the 16 9th; I'm out of the city 5, 6, 7 and 8. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Back the 9th, 'cause that's 19 Commissioners Court, also airport day. 20 MS. HARGIS: Is there anything in this week that 21 you'd be willing to look at? 22 JUDGE TINLEY: I'm going to be gone come Wednesday. 23 MS. HARGIS: Okay. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Juvenile law conference. 25 MS. HARGIS: Okay. So, we've got -- you're leaving 7-26-10 123 1 on the 4th, Commissioner Williams? You're leaving on the 3rd 2 or 4th? 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 5th. 5, 6, 7 and 8, I'm 4 out. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I can't do it on the 4th. 6 MS. HARGIS: We've got the 2nd or the 3rd. 2nd or 7 the 3rd, which is a Monday or Tuesday. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Not a problem with that. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The 2nd -- 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 2nd or 3rd. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The 2nd -- I have something on 12 the 2nd, I believe. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Afternoon of the 3rd, I'm open. 14 Question is whether or not Baldwin's going to be here. 15 MS. GRINSTEAD: I'll try and call him right now. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Are you saying the 3rd, 17 you're -- when do you leave? 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm just gone -- I've got 19 some -- I'm not sure which one of my things. I've got 20 something on the 2nd, I know. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 3rd is fine with me. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 3rd is fine. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I can make either day, 2nd 24 or 3rd. 25 MS. HARGIS: Morning? Afternoon? 7-26-10 124 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Afternoon. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Afternoon. 3 MS. HARGIS: 1 o'clock? 4 JUDGE TINLEY: 1 o'clock would work. 5 MS. HYDE: On the 3rd? Which -- say it again? On 6 the 3rd? 7 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 8 MS. BOLIN: 1 o'clock on the 3rd. 9 MS. HARGIS: 1 o'clock on the 3rd. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 1 o'clock on the 3rd. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: We'll check on Baldwin. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 13 MS. HARGIS: We just -- I just want to make sure 14 you have enough material to -- to, you know, make that 15 decision as to what you need to do or want to do on the 9th. 16 Yes? 17 MS. HYDE: But that would not be on insurance, 18 right? 'Cause Gary and I gave the 9th as absolute -- 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, that -- and that's cutting him 20 awful close. 21 MS. HYDE: Right. We have told the insurance -- 22 JUDGE TINLEY: No, that's non-insurance issues. 23 MS. HYDE: We have told the insurance companies 24 that we've got to have everything in, so they are going to 25 work with us on that. But that -- that is -- like, the 9th 7-26-10 125 1 is going to be -- 2 MS. HARGIS: No, I think -- I never mentioned that. 3 But what I would like to do is present the additional 4 scenarios that we have for y'all, based on the premium he's 5 given us now. If he comes in with a better premium, that's 6 real easy to change, but at least you'll have some scenarios 7 in front of you so that you can look at that scenario 8 alongside the salary scenario, decide what you might want to 9 do. You know, it's really going to be pinning us down, 10 'cause on August 9th you got to publish it. You got to 11 publish seven days, so see, that really starts the clock. 12 And I hate to see us backed up into a particular corner to do 13 this. And, to be honest with you, it's hard for me to be 14 able to put those numbers in as fast as you guys are going to 15 want them. I mean, I -- we've got spreadsheets set up so 16 that they will click with different rates or not, and so that 17 you can see what you want. But, you know, I'm going to try 18 to bring every one that you possibly can think of, but that 19 doesn't mean that you're not going to think of another one. 20 Bruce is already thinking of one. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: This is not a city type of 22 deal, is it? Where you try to baffle everybody with a lot of 23 information? 24 MS. HARGIS: No, I'm going to try keep the Power 25 Point as simple as I can so that you can, you know, just see 7-26-10 126 1 what you need. I just want to give you the tools that you 2 need to make these decisions, and I'd rather give them to you 3 sooner than later. If you want more tools after the 9th, 4 we'll have to do them, but at least you'll have some. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So, the 3rd at 1 o'clock? Is 7 that what we got down? 8 MS. HARGIS: Did we call him? 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Jody's, I think, doing that now. 10 MS. HYDE: Would it help the Court if some of these 11 scenarios, we went ahead and e-mailed them to you? Because 12 just like at lunch, I got some more permeations for some 13 other options. So, I mean, would it be faster to start 14 throwing them to you in e-mail? 15 JUDGE TINLEY: The more information we have would 16 be helpful, if we're -- 17 MS. HARGIS: Can we do that? 18 MS. HYDE: Yeah. He just walked back in the door. 19 MS. HARGIS: Can we e-mail them scenarios, all 20 three of them? 21 MS. HYDE: Can we e-mail scenarios if it's not 22 within the workshop? 23 JUDGE TINLEY: I don't know why you couldn't. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just information. We're not 25 taking a vote. 7-26-10 127 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Just information. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Not discussing it amongst 3 ourselves. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: No, that's not a problem. 5 MS. HYDE: Okay. 6 MS. HARGIS: All right. Just want to be sure. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: No, that's not a problem. And then 8 on the 9th -- 9 MR. HENNEKE: The prohibition is on deliberations, 10 but there certainly can be provision of information. 11 MS. HARGIS: Okay. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Then we're looking at the 9th. 13 That's Commissioners Court meeting, so we're looking at 1 14 o'clock on the 9th also? 15 MS. HARGIS: Well, if we go over on your regular 16 agenda -- 17 JUDGE TINLEY: That's sure a good incentive not to 18 go over, isn't it? 19 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. 20 MS. HYDE: Not to have any reports. 21 MS. HARGIS: Want to make it 1:30 just in case? 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I'm going to have to do 23 something with my juveniles on that day anyway. 24 MS. HARGIS: Okay, let's go with 1 o'clock. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 1 o'clock? 7-26-10 128 1 MS. GRINSTEAD: He's available on the 3rd. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 3 MS. HARGIS: Okay, great. 4 MS. GRINSTEAD: He will be here. 5 MS. HARGIS: All right. So -- 6 MS. BOLIN: What are we doing on the 9th? 7 MS. HARGIS: The 9th is regular meeting, and then 8 they'll discuss the tax rate and tell you what to do. 9 Hopefully on the 9th, you'll have -- you may not. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Don't assume you're going to walk 11 away from here with all the information you need to start 12 running. 13 MS. BOLIN: I won't. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: We still got plenty of time. I love 15 your best case scenario, but the real world has worked so 16 far, particularly with all that we've got up in the air. 17 We've got a good cushion. We got a good cushion time-wise. 18 MS. HARGIS: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I can see it coming. 19 All right. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That light at the end of 21 the tunnel is a train, right? 22 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The lightning hasn't struck. 24 It's getting close. I'm starting to feel a tingle. 25 MS. HARGIS: Just remember, we don't want to go 7-26-10 129 1 over the 30th. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think we won't. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Diane wouldn't let us do 4 that. 5 MS. HARGIS: Well, I understand y'all did once. 6 Sometimes you can get by with it when certified rolls don't 7 come in on time. That gives you that -- that leeway, but 8 it's already here. So -- 9 MS. HYDE: On the -- one thing that did come to 10 pass last Friday night, and I was able to tell Commissioner 11 Williams and Commissioner Letz. The president did tell 12 everyone how he's going to help offset some of the cost, and 13 those tax increases that I gave you during the July 6th 14 meeting, that is -- that's done. They will take effect 1/1. 15 So, that means that those numbers -- and I'll pull those back 16 out, and I'll start shooting you guys some bullets on that as 17 well, because that's a big impact to the employees. So, that 18 goes right back to why I said a 5 percent. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Make it simple. 20 MS. HYDE: I'm going to try and make it simple, 21 sir. 22 MS. HARGIS: Okay, thank you. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Oh, boy. Okay, that's all for that 25 particular addendum. Let's go to Item 20; consider, discuss, 7-26-10 130 1 take appropriate action on Change Order 10, 11, 12, and 13 in 2 the Sheriff's Annex/Adult Probation building project. I put 3 this on the agenda. I assume I'm only one that has copies? 4 MS. GRINSTEAD: Of those, yes. Well, they're on 5 the -- they're on theirs computers. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Okay. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're in a different spot. 8 MS. WILLIAMS: I didn't get one. 9 MS. HYDE: I didn't either. We don't need one. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I think I can summarize them 11 for you. Number 10 has to do with part of the site work 12 going from the -- the detention pond over to the channel that 13 goes onto the drain-out, and it had originally called for a 14 precast type of arrangement. 15 MR. ODOM: A wing wall. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Huh? 17 MR. ODOM: Wing wall. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: And the thinking was that if it 19 didn't get washed out on the first decent rain, it was going 20 to get washed out on the second, or maybe both. So, the 21 decision was made to cast that -- pour that in place so as to 22 have some reasonable expectation that it would be there after 23 heavy rains. That's the lion's share of the additional cost. 24 That's just under $8,400. 11 deals with the installation of 25 additional technology, wire-ins in that middle multipurpose 7-26-10 131 1 classroom, training room, so forth. We can blame that on the 2 Sheriff. He's the one that originally proposed it. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Get it out of his budget, 4 then. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How much is that, Judge? 6 JUDGE TINLEY: That's $852.95. The third one are 7 two keypad rough-ins. These are the electronic keypads. 8 They were put in for the Sheriff, but they weren't put in for 9 the one place where they needed them in the probation area. 10 That's 171.37. The last one is rerouting sprinkler piping 11 and sprinkler heads and providing smoke detectors. When the 12 server room was carved out of the mechanical room, they 13 didn't change the piping for the sprinkler, and so the 14 sprinkler runs right overhead the server room, and John 15 doesn't want that -- 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I don't either. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: -- in the server room. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Please, no. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Not a good place. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: So -- 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Need to put a silent piece 22 across there. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: So they're going to reroute that. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: At a cost of? 25 JUDGE TINLEY: That one is $1,130.98. 7-26-10 132 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That would be the only place 2 it would break. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I move we approve the five 5 change orders -- four? Four outlined. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Bifocals do that to you, 7 don't they? 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 10 approval of the four indicated change orders. Question or 11 discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising 12 your right hand. 13 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 14 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 15 (No response.) 16 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion carries. Why don't we go 17 to Section 4 of the agenda, payment of the bills, to include 18 direct payables. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move we pay the bills. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for payment 22 of the bills. Question or discussion? All in favor of the 23 motion, signify by raising your right hand. 24 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 25 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 7-26-10 133 1 (No response.) 2 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion carries. Budget 3 amendments. Looks like we have two on the summary sheet. 4 MS. HARGIS: Basically, on the first one, we 5 budgeted the revenue coming in, but we didn't budget the 6 expense, so that's all that is. That was the surplus money 7 that he had sold his equipment, and then today we just need 8 to budget the other side. And we're just moving a little bit 9 of money around from software to the phone for the County 10 Attorney. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Move approval. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 14 approval of the budget amendments. Question or discussion on 15 the motion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising 16 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 carries. Late bills. 21 Looks like we have two. 22 MS. HARGIS: Yes. One is the -- is the truck that 23 Leonard purchased, and the other one is the -- the Ford 24 pickup for the airport. We -- I'm not sure if this is the 25 proper time to tell you, but we did get our check this 7-26-10 134 1 morning for $75,000 from the City. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good. So, which -- which 3 vehicle is this? Is this the one that goes to the airport -- 4 MS. HARGIS: That's Bruce's, yes. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Move approval. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 8 approval of payment of late bills as indicated. Question or 9 discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising 10 your right hand. 11 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 12 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 13 (No response.) 14 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. I've been 15 presented with monthly reports from Kerr County Treasurer for 16 June 2010; Justice of the Peace, Precinct 1; Constable, 17 Precinct 3; District Clerk; District Clerk, amended report; 18 and Justice of the Peace, Precinct 2. Do I hear a motion 19 that these reports be approved as presented? 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Second. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded. Question 23 or discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify by 24 raising your right hand. 25 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 7-26-10 135 1 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 2 (No response.) 3 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Okay. 4 Reports from Commissioners in connection with their liaison 5 or committee assignments. Commissioner Letz? 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have a -- just for 7 informational purposes, the library's proposed -- or the 8 City's proposed budget for the library. I'll be circulating 9 that around if y'all want to take a look at it. We don't 10 have any approval or anything regarding it. We just send 11 them a check every year; they can do what they want, but in 12 case you are interested. And I think that's it from my 13 standpoint. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Oehler? 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No, not at this time, thank 16 you. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Williams? 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Commissioner Letz and I are 19 going to begin discussions tomorrow with the County Attorney 20 and the -- as to -- what's his name? 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ed McCarthy. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Ed McCarthy about the 23 agreement we're going to need between Kerr County and Kendall 24 County W.C. & I.D., get some direction on that. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 7-26-10 136 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Actually, Judge, another one 2 that Bruce and I forgot about, there's been a little bit of 3 concerns from the livestock -- from the Ag Barn community 4 about what we're doing out there, and so we're going to meet 5 with those folks -- 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yes, I forgot about that. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- when it's convenient. I 8 mean, it amazes me, but -- 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'll also talk to -- good you 10 brought that up. Sandra Yarbrough called me about the fair 11 this year, and was concerned about not having an arena to put 12 bulls in for the fair -- Kerr County Fair in October. So, I 13 told her I would recommend that we not tear down the existing 14 arena until the fair was over. If we need to take action on 15 that, I'll put it on the next agenda, or we can just wait 16 until the time to -- 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Probably need to take action to 18 make sure that the other -- Peter and others are formally 19 advised, so we don't go out one day -- 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, and it's gone. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: I -- you might ought to check with 22 whoever did the bid on that, that it'll be good to wait until 23 after that. I think that they'd probably be happy to do it 24 in cooler weather. But I, too, have had inquiries. You 25 know, "We're not going to tear down the old one till we got 7-26-10 137 1 the new one in place?" I said, "That's the plan." 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Not going to be too far off, 4 anyway. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No, by the time everything 6 gets done. Anyway -- 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, anyway, we're -- we're 8 aware. I'm sure y'all are hearing the same things. We're -- 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If we don't, we're going to 10 get tarred and feathered by the Stock Show Association and 11 4-H; they'll be here at the next meeting. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: I see, okay. Well, we got Leonard a 13 little black dirt. 14 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. Thank you. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Reports from elected officials? 16 Department heads? Wonderful. Okay. Anything else in the 17 public portion of the agenda at this time? If not, it is 18 2:12, and we will go out of open or public session into 19 executive or closed session. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Jeannie, you might stay for the 21 first one. 22 MR. HENNEKE: Judge, we're going into executive 23 session under three items, one with regard to potential 24 issues affecting purchasing of real property, second 25 involving attorney/client communications on pending 7-26-10 138 1 litigation, and finally, personnel matters, all three of 2 which are subject to executive session. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 4 (The open session was closed at 2:12 p.m., and an executive session was held, the transcript of which 5 is contained in a separate document.) 6 - - - - - - - - - - 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. It is 2:43, and we're now in 8 open or public session. Any member of the Court have 9 anything to offer with respect to matters considered in 10 closed or executive session? Hearing nothing, anything more 11 to be handled on this agenda, gentlemen? We'll be adjourned. 12 (Commissioners Court was adjourned at 2:44 p.m.) 13 - - - - - - - - - - - 14 STATE OF TEXAS | 15 COUNTY OF KERR | 16 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 17 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 18 official reporter for the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 19 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 20 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 30th day of July, 2010. 21 22 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 23 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 24 Certified Shorthand Reporter 25 7-26-10