1 2 3 4 5 6 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 7 Workshop 8 Monday, December 13, 2010 9 1:30 p.m. 10 Commissioners' Courtroom 11 Kerr County Courthouse 12 Kerrville, Texas 13 14 15 16 17 Alamo Regional Rural Planning Organization Priorities 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge 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 December 13, 2010 2 PAGE 3 Review and discuss with TxDOT representatives Kerr County's and the Alamo Regional Rural Planning 4 Organization's (ARRPO) priorities for projects in the years beyond the current TxDOT four-year plan 5 (FY 2015 and beyond) 3 6 --- Adjourned 59 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 On Monday, December 13, 2010, at 1:30 p.m., a workshop 2 of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in the 3 Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, Kerrville, 4 Texas, and the following proceedings were had in open court: 5 P R O C E E D I N G S 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, why don't we come to order. 7 This is a workshop of the Kerr County Commissioners Court, 8 Monday, December 13th, 2010, at 1:30 p.m. It is a bit past 9 that time. The purpose of the workshop is to review and 10 discuss with TexDOT representatives Kerr County's and the 11 Alamo Regional Rural Planning Organization's priorities for 12 projects in the years beyond the current TexDOT four-year 13 plan, that being FY 2015 and beyond. We have here with us a 14 number -- I've invited some of our colleagues from the City, 15 'cause they're vitally interested in all of this stuff too, 16 and we've got his honor, the mayor, David Wampler; we've got 17 a councilperson, Mr. Bruce Motheral. We've got former 18 councilman Chuck Coleman, and we've got Charlie Hastings, 19 who's the honcho over there -- 20 MR. HASTINGS: Public Works. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: All the public works now, okay. I 22 think that's pretty much it from the City. Mike, who have 23 you got here with you? 24 MR. COWARD: We have two folks; Jonathan Beam, 25 who's our advanced planning engineer, and with him is Lorri 12-13-10 wk 4 1 Pavliska. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. I'm going to drop it in your 3 lap for now, Mike. 4 MR. COWARD: I'm going to -- I think I'm going to 5 immediately turn it over to Jonathan. They're kind of -- 6 they're doing this across the San Antonio district, 12 7 counties. I think of those 12 counties, 10 of them are a 8 part of the COG in San Antonio. 9 MR. BEAM: Right. 10 MR. COWARD: And then Gillespie County is also part 11 of the -- 12 MR. BEAM: Gillespie and Karnes County, part of the 13 COG. Not in our San Antonio district, but they're going to 14 be part of this R.P.O. They're part of AACOG currently, and 15 so the boundary for basically the R.P.O. match the -- the 16 AACOG boundaries. So, Kerr County's falls right in there, 17 and we're here today, I guess, to talk to y'all about your 18 priorities in transportation. And I have a couple of 19 handouts. I've got 10, so we'll go as far as we can with 20 those. There's three for you guys. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 22 MR. BEAM: They kind of go along with what I'll put 23 up on the Power Point here. But I want to, first, just thank 24 y'all for allowing us to come talk to you, and it's always 25 good to have help from the local folks to tell us what the -- 12-13-10 wk 5 1 what the priorities are out here. And so, can't see with all 2 your eyes and ears, but wanted to kind of take us through, 3 and listen to both the county, as well as the city folks that 4 are here to see what the priorities are in Kerr County. The 5 priorities as we like to see them -- maybe you look at them a 6 little bit different way, but we divide them up into these 7 basic three categories of system preservation, which would be 8 basically our pavement issues, potholes, any cracking, that 9 kind of thing; the pavement's falling apart. Need to fix 10 those. And then operations, which would be safety; 11 intersection improvements, right turn lanes, left turn lanes, 12 low-water crossings, drainage issues, those types of things. 13 And then lastly, mobility, which would be your added 14 capacity, additional lanes that are needed on existing 15 routes. 16 If you'll go to the next slide. And that first 17 slide is basically the agenda of what we hope to talk about 18 today. And those three categories look at what we're -- the 19 priorities are in those three areas. And then after this 20 workshop, and after we go around and talk to the other 21 counties, and leading up to a January 26th R.P.O. meeting, we 22 hope to kind of pull all the projects together into one list 23 for everybody to kind of see and look at. And what we'll 24 first need to look at is some of these areas we have up on 25 the slide. Yes, sir? 12-13-10 wk 6 1 JUDGE TINLEY: When and where -- I know when, 2 January 26th. Where is that R.P.O. regional planning -- 3 MR. BEAM: That will be at the AACOG meeting. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 5 MR. BEAM: January 26th, at the AACOG -- 6 JUDGE TINLEY: And, needless to say, it would 7 behoove both the City and the County to be well represented 8 there. 9 MR. BEAM: It would. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 11 MR. BEAM: It would benefit you. And I believe the 12 mayor is -- is on the -- 13 MR. WAMPLER: Mayor pro tem, Bruce Motheral. 14 MR. BEAM: Okay, my bad. I'm not sure who the 15 representative from the county on that is. Is it you, Judge? 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, Commissioner Williams, who we 17 -- who recently passed away, was involved in our AACOG 18 matters, including the transportation issues down there. 19 MR. BEAM: Okay. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: But I'm going to do everything in my 21 ability to make sure we got somebody to -- or maybe several, 22 because of any new commissioner having to come up to speed, 23 of course. We'll have to take that into account. 24 MR. BEAM: Okay. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: But we'll be ably represented there, 12-13-10 wk 7 1 I assure you. 2 MR. BEAM: Great, okay. This is the analysis. We 3 hope to take the priorities that you give us today and take 4 them through. We need to compare them to what we're already 5 planning to do in 2011, 2014. It could be one of your higher 6 priorities we're already taking care of. But then, also, 7 compared to, you know, how the project ranks, its functional 8 classification. And we're having to look at things more from 9 a tier analysis, and how we can spend our funds -- you know, 10 where is the highest traffic routes? Where are the highest 11 truck traffic routes? And so we kind of have to compare it 12 there, and we'll have a lot of that information for the 13 January 26th meeting. And then I noted two of our main 14 categories that we typically look at for the rural counties, 15 which will be Category 1 and then Category 4. As you can 16 see, Category 4 is a very low dollar amount; it's at zero 17 right now, and so really we're looking at Category 1 funds 18 for the preservation and operations. There's really no money 19 for mobility as of right now in our projections, but we still 20 want to gather those priorities. Funding could become 21 available somehow through future legislation; we want to go 22 ahead and gain those priorities. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I guess they could call an 24 F.M. road to be into that category, a new extension or a 25 connection? 12-13-10 wk 8 1 MR. BEAM: That is correct, new roads as well as 2 new lanes on existing roads would all be in that category. 3 We'll look at -- you know, one of our highest priorities is 4 to maintain what we've got. You know, we don't want to just 5 let it fall apart. So, a lot of our funding in the lower 6 times with the money that we have, we're going to be spending 7 it on the preservation. But there will be a smaller 8 percentage that will be used for things like operations, 9 safety. You know, I threw in there 10 percent just as a 10 rough number. We don't know exactly what that percentage 11 will be, but it'll be a lower number than the -- the amount 12 we spend on preservation. 13 If you'll go to the next slide. So, I guess I'll 14 turn it back over to y'all. What is -- what are your 15 priorities in the area of pavement condition? The map that 16 you have in front of you shows the existing condition of the 17 pavements, from very good to very poor. What you see in blue 18 is very good. Green is good. Yellow is fair. Orange is 19 poor. And red is very poor. Some of these, like I said, may 20 be taken care of with our current plan. But we just kind of 21 wanted to get from you, driving the roads every day and 22 seeing what's out there, what -- what do you see as a 23 pavement issue? And Lorri's going to be jotting these 24 thoughts down. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think, talking from the 12-13-10 wk 9 1 eastern part of the county, I mean, it's accurate. 2 Obviously, I think 1341 is our worst condition road from the 3 paving -- from a quality standpoint. Then we have -- I think 4 there are probably more problems on Highway 27 than you seem 5 to be showing. But my problems may be more mobility or 6 operation, those types of issues, as opposed to actual 7 pavement condition. I guess the road's in pretty good shape; 8 it's just that there's still more and more increased traffic 9 and more and more accidents. 10 MR. COWARD: We do have a project, Commissioner; 11 we're going build a turn lane down there at Hermann Sons. 12 That project should be starting after the first of the year, 13 so we have been doing little piecemeal -- Lane Valley and a 14 couple of those. Boardwalk, we striped that turn lane there. 15 Maintenance, we're building some improvements right now 16 for -- adding back some room for decel on it. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: A turn lane, too, in Ingram, 18 from the light up to the school or to the dam. That's shown 19 on here too. That's -- that needs to be done. I know it's 20 been in the works for a long time. I think, what, four or 21 five years ago we first discussed it? 22 MR. COWARD: It was five years ago. 23 MR. BEAM: Which road is that? 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Out Highway 39. 25 MR. BEAM: Okay. 12-13-10 wk 10 1 MR. COWARD: It's a program project, Jonathan. 2 MR. BEAM: I was thinking that was probably one of 3 our 2011-2014. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's in the works. I think 5 funding is the only issue that I know of. 6 MR. COWARD: Plans are about 60 percent done. 7 MR. BEAM: Okay. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That also involves -- 9 MR. BEAM: Good to know it's still a priority, 10 though, if it's something we're working on. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. Mike's been really good at 13 staying on top of things and keeping us apprized, and he's 14 got his thumb on what the current status is, I think, in 15 virtually all these areas. I think probably what we're 16 looking at is -- is probably dreaming, or a wish list of what 17 we want in addition to the upgrading and maintaining of what 18 we already got is -- is some new things. You know, even 19 though there's currently -- not currently any money existing, 20 yeah, we want to get these in the hopper anyway. Plus I 21 would want to listen to any thoughts that you may have 22 that -- that might involve funding assistance by local 23 governments, or for that matter, even to some extent by 24 private developers, I guess, and how that might interplay 25 with what we would get accomplished on some sort of a 12-13-10 wk 11 1 partnership basis or prefunded and those sorts of things. I 2 know you've got a number of those that you've done in the 3 past. I heard about them -- I think Comal County, not too 4 long ago, entered into a program with you where they -- they 5 bond-funded a project. And -- 6 MR. BEAM: Yes, sir. There's -- 7 JUDGE TINLEY: -- hopefully, if everything works 8 out just right, over a period of time they'll get that money 9 back from you folks, if the traffic count holds on it. 10 MR. BEAM: That's correct. You're referring to our 11 pass-through -- 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 13 MR. BEAM: -- program. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 15 MR. BEAM: And that is a very good program. And I 16 believe there is one more call this next year. I'm not 17 certain of that, but I understood that there was one more 18 call coming from our commission. And then they'll have to -- 19 I believe it takes legislative action to continue that 20 program, but it's a very good program that the locals 21 basically, like you're saying, front the money up front, the 22 funding, and then TexDOT pays the local entity back based on 23 the amount of traffic. There's a maximum and minimum on the 24 traffic as to how quickly the local entity gets paid back, 25 and it's a very good program. Basically, the locals are out 12-13-10 wk 12 1 the -- the financing now, but they get the project much 2 sooner at today's costs, and the traveling public gets to 3 benefit from that. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Based upon the tea leaves as they 5 now exist with the Legislature, looks like that may be one of 6 the few ways to get something -- some new projects done. 7 MR. BEAM: Correct. And it could be a cost 8 sharing; you mentioned that as well. Just totally outside of 9 the pass-through program, we have other projects and areas 10 that, you know, private developers are funding 100 percent of 11 the project, and some of it is local entities are -- are 12 funding a portion of it and TexDOT funds a portion of it. 13 So, those are all options we can definitely entertain as we 14 get into it, and those are mostly our mobility-type projects. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 16 MR. BEAM: So, I think I heard 1341 being one of 17 the highest priorities, to Highway 27. One of the other -- 18 the next area to get us thinking as well is the operations 19 priorities. This map is relatively self-explanatory. I 20 think the red is less than 28 feet, and then the green 21 roadways are greater than 28 feet, so it's to try to 22 highlight what we would consider a narrow roadway -- narrow 23 two-lane roadway. So, I don't know if -- if those areas, if 24 you have a priority of those roadways that maybe you'd like 25 to see widened, or maybe another -- not -- doesn't even have 12-13-10 wk 13 1 to be a narrow roadway in the operations area. It could be a 2 specific intersection, a specific bridge or low-water 3 crossing, or -- 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: An intersection, I think, that 5 continues to be a concern is at Airport Loop Road and Highway 6 27. That is a -- the traffic speed there is -- is high. 7 There's not a turn lane there, is there? 8 MR. COWARD: Yeah, we put -- we put one in this 9 summer. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. It's still -- it's a 11 dangerous intersection. I don't know what else can be 12 done -- you know, what can be done there necessarily, other 13 than speed limit possibly, but that's one that I know is a 14 dangerous area. 15 MR. BEAM: Okay. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The other, I guess, on 1341, 17 it's not just the width; it's the visibility. I mean, that 18 road is a very narrow, winding road, and I don't -- it's -- 19 you know, it's a difficult problem to tackle. I'm not sure 20 what the traffic count is on 1341, but it's more of a rural, 21 you know, farm-to-market road. But it's a -- it is just a 22 winding, difficult road, and as you get into a situation on 23 that road, though, the residents may not want it upgraded a 24 whole lot. 25 MR. COWARD: And it's a farm-to-market road, and 12-13-10 wk 14 1 so, you know, any right-of-way, the County would be a pretty 2 big player in that, and that right-of-way's probably got a 3 lot more expensive over the last few years. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Another one, too, is at 1338, 6 which is Goat Creek Road, and Highway 27. 7 MR. BEAM: And that's from a width standpoint? 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, not -- 9 MR. BEAM: Pavement quality? 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Not really width. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Traffic control. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Traffic control. 13 MR. BEAM: Okay. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There's a -- there's a light, 15 you know, 400, 500 feet away, but it's real hard to get out 16 of that intersection onto Highway 27. 17 MR. BEAM: Okay. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If they -- I believe if the 19 light had been moved to that location rather than -- than the 20 Mount Wesley, it might have been a better place to put it, 21 because it doesn't come in at a 90-degree; it comes in at a 22 real angle. I mean, it has been -- over the years, they -- 23 you know, they have redone to it where you get more of a 24 90-degree where you can see better, but it's a dangerous 25 spot, 'cause you're coming up out of a dip right up to this 12-13-10 wk 15 1 -- the stop sign. But that's another one that -- and, of 2 course, the new bridge has helped some. People have started 3 going that way to the light rather than trying to access 27 4 down 1338, so there has been some improvement, but that's 5 another one that's just not that -- 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Charlie, have you got any thoughts 7 on that 27/Goat Creek Road? 8 MR. HASTINGS: No, I don't. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 10 MR. BEAM: Honest man. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Don't give us a short answer, 12 now, Charlie. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: The Aggie answer is either "yes" or 14 "no," right? 15 MR. HASTINGS: That's correct. 16 MR. BEAM: I guess the last area of priority is 17 mobility. The map that you have in front of you shows the 18 good and then those that exceed capacity, and then everything 19 in between. Orange is good and red exceeds capacity. You 20 have, in Kerrville, one red spot there, I believe, on 27 up 21 to 1338, as was mentioned. And then you have yellow -- 22 several yellow areas. 23 (Commissioner Baldwin arrived.) 24 MR. BEAM: But most everything else everywhere is 25 -- appears to be orange, in relatively good condition. It's 12-13-10 wk 16 1 based on -- you know, there may be some spot areas that 2 aren't picked up by the analysis. This is just the traffic 3 volume, based on the number of lanes. So, if there's some 4 other bottleneck issues in that area, it wouldn't be picked 5 up by this. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: When speaking of the mobility issue, 7 the new -- the wish list, Commissioner Baldwin, who was 8 conflicted, wasn't able to be here this afternoon. He wants 9 to go on the record of -- he told me he was. Did he lie to 10 me? Not again. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: He's hiding in the corner. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: I see. He just wanted to see if I'd 13 put it out there on the table. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let him say it before y'all 15 say anything. There's no telling what he was fixing to say. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: The south of the River Road, 17 extending on out to Hunt, I guess, would be a take off Bear 18 Creek, going over Freedom Trail, Indian Creek, and onto the 19 west, south of the river, which has been on the wish list 20 here because of the difficulty with trying to do anything 21 with 39 areas, but Mike's fully aware of that. This is not 22 the first time he's heard this little song. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: First priority would be just 24 getting it over to Bear Creek. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 12-13-10 wk 17 1 MR. COWARD: This will be a new location. I mean, 2 it would parallel 27 and 39, and get you, I guess, to Hunt or 3 maybe -- 22 years ago, I think, when I went to a meeting out 4 at Camp Arrowhead or Heart of the Hills, one of those, we 5 talked about it at that point. We're probably exactly in the 6 same place right now as we were 22 years ago. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just tougher to get the 8 right-of-way. 9 MR. COWARD: So it's going to be millions and 10 millions and millions of dollars. You know, you think about 11 Spur 98; that project cost $10 million, and Holdsworth cost 12 $12 million. You know, that project you're looking at, you 13 know, who would know; 30, 40 million dollars. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Your -- your memory recall is much 15 better than Baldwin's too, obviously, if you can remember 16 that far back. In fact, I was -- I mentioned to Buster 17 earlier today that I was concerned about his memory recall. 18 He was talking about senior citizens, felt like he was 19 eminently qualified because of that. Come on in here and 20 defend yourself, Buster. 21 MR. BEAM: He's trying to pull you in here. 22 MR. COWARD: I think there's a route people used to 23 call the high line route or something; you could make your 24 way along there somehow. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You could, but it would be -- 12-13-10 wk 18 1 you know, you could get it relatively easily with -- you 2 know, if you didn't have right-of-way acquisition all the way 3 from Spur 98 to all the way to Ingram, on Beaver Road. 4 MR. COWARD: Yeah. I mean, and it's not going to 5 help when y'all write this down, but, I mean, there's another 6 project out there that's out there that's a little bit more 7 of a bite, and it would get you from Spur 98 over to Freedom 8 Trail. And that picks up a whole bunch of folks that, right 9 now, when it used to rain around here, they'd be trapped for 10 a couple days and they didn't have a lot of access out. You 11 know, if you could get them tied in to Spur 98, they gain 12 access to a bridge, and that's a much smaller project. 13 That's, like, probably half a mile. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, it's not long. Not 15 long at all. 16 MR. COWARD: I'll show y'all on a map in more 17 detail. 18 MR. BEAM: Right. Great. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just that the property that 20 it needs to go -- the closest route is some very nice 21 property that has river frontage. 22 MR. BEAM: Yikes. 23 MR. COWARD: It may take us 10 or 15 years to do. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You need to stay away from 25 the river quite a ways anyway, just -- but it's not far. 12-13-10 wk 19 1 MR. BEAM: Okay. We'll get with Mike on that one. 2 Sounds like one you've had on your list for a while. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. Well, that just -- 4 since the new bridge is in, you know, it becomes a lot more 5 important, because what happened was when the new bridge went 6 in on the one side, it cut off access from Arcadia Loop onto 7 the bridge -- or onto Highway 27. Those people have to drive 8 all the way back around a couple of 3 miles to get to a place 9 where they can come to town. And you can throw a rock and 10 hit the bridge, but the bridge cut off that access. So, this 11 would -- this would help them too, because they can go down 12 across the river, access that road, and be right in downtown 13 Kerrville in five minutes. 14 MR. BEAM: Okay. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Or less. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Another stretch I see you have 17 marked in yellow was, I guess, Harper Road, kind of between 18 I-10 and 27. 19 MR. BEAM: Okay. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Which is -- part of it you show 21 a good flow, and then part of it's undesirable. The part 22 closer to I-10 is undesirable. And I don't know where the 23 city is. At one point, there was a little bit of a debate 24 whether that road is an arterial -- kind of a main road or 25 not. I'm aware the city has it right now, but that stretch 12-13-10 wk 20 1 to me probably needs some work, long-term. 2 MR. BEAM: Okay. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: They're doing some remediation out 4 there now, just sealing cracks. 5 MR. COWARD: We're getting ready to do a project; 6 we're going to put some underground storm sewer from our -- 7 Jackson down there to Moore. That's going to drive -- that 8 water would come roaring across the road down there. We're 9 going to get that water to go underground. Then we're going 10 to put sidewalk on that starting the first of the year. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Talking about further out to the 12 north? 13 MR. COWARD: Oh, we're going to resurface from I-10 14 out to the county line here in March. There will be a piece 15 between I-10 and Jackson which will look just like this. I 16 think it's got a sealcoat coming up in a year or two. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's a segment that's shown 18 in yellow on this map. It just seemed that is -- that red is 19 going to become more and more important. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: The city folks have mentioned to me 21 that they have a particular item on their wish list that 22 involves between Harper Road and -- and 16, which would 23 involve essentially access -- access roads to I-10. And 24 they've got, I think, an overall plan to increase mobility as 25 well as provide a lot of opportunity for economic 12-13-10 wk 21 1 development. So, you know, if -- we'll give them an 2 opportunity to get their two bits worth in here too, while 3 we're at it. 4 MR. BEAM: Yeah. 5 MR. COLEMAN: Is that me, Judge? 6 MR. MOTHERAL: Yeah, we've asked Chuck to -- 7 because he's put a bunch of information together, to make a 8 presentation so that -- 9 MR. BEAM: Okay. 10 MR. MOTHERAL: -- that everybody can have it. 11 MR. COLEMAN: And I really do -- how are you, 12 Judge? How are you, Commissioners? 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Good. 14 MR. COLEMAN: I really do appreciate y'all letting 15 me visit. I'm not with the City any more. Enjoyed my time 16 there, but I'm not representing the City. I'm working on 17 this as just an innocent bystander. And this is more from a 18 focus of -- of economic development and improvement. I have 19 -- I have some handouts here, and I have a power stick, if 20 y'all want to do the Power Point, but we don't have to do 21 that. Just tell me your -- what you want. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: I think -- I think it's an exciting 23 idea, and as far as I know, we got plenty of time to look at 24 it. 25 MR. BEAM: I'll hook you up over here if you want 12-13-10 wk 22 1 me to. 2 MR. COLEMAN: Sure. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I didn't bring my hammer, so 4 you're going to have to do it. Who else needs one? 5 MR. MOTHERAL: Let me have one. 6 MR. COLEMAN: I'm going to keep one of those, and 7 y'all two share back and forth. There should be only one 8 Power Point on there. I think it's the top one. 9 MS. PAVLISKA: This one on the top? 10 (Discussion off the record.) 11 MR. BEAM: Our Power Point may be too old to run 12 it. 13 MR. MOTHERAL: I think everybody's got the book. 14 MR. BEAM: Yeah, it's trying to download something 15 from the Internet, and I don't think -- 16 MR. COLEMAN: Okay. Well, that's good. Give me my 17 stick back. (Laughter.) 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me -- and Mike may not know the 19 answer to this question. When I-10 was originally put 20 through in that area in Kerr County, other than the obvious 21 reason, which is probably money, was there any other reason, 22 to your knowledge, that we didn't have access roads like you 23 have, say, down near Boerne and so forth? 24 MR. COWARD: Probably it was solely driven by -- 25 probably when the interstate was built, I mean, the -- the 12-13-10 wk 23 1 original purpose of a frontage road would have been to give 2 people access. I mean, so if you cut them off and they have 3 no other way to get access -- and I think if you were to go 4 back and to look at how those properties laid out, I mean, 5 it -- you simply did not need to build a frontage road in 6 order to get access. They had access through other roads. 7 And so, you know, much of Boerne does not have a continuous 8 frontage road system. Little bits and pieces, and all those 9 were out there to simply get -- to make sure we didn't 10 landlock people when we built the interstate. So, I think it 11 probably had more to do with just the lay of the land and the 12 ownership as it was built, that there was no reason to build 13 frontage roads, because we didn't cut anybody off. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 15 MR. BEAM: There's several areas -- like in 16 Guadalupe County, this is a similar issue that they -- they 17 bring up, is the fact that they don't have frontage roads, 18 and it's the same reason that Mike -- Mike discusses. There 19 was no need for the frontage road. When you compare the cost 20 to buy their access versus build a frontage road, it was, I 21 guess in some cases, less expensive to buy the access. 22 MR. COLEMAN: Well, if everybody would look on the 23 lower right-hand corner, we have page numbers. Go to Page 2, 24 which is our Objective page. We've been working on this 25 report for the last two months, and just recently completed 12-13-10 wk 24 1 it. We were going to wait until January to roll it out and 2 talk to people about it, and then I found out about this 3 meeting and decided it would be a good opportunity. What 4 we're trying to do is gain community involvement -- 5 community-wide involvement for a joint application to TexDOT 6 to create access ramps along both eastbound and westbound 7 side of I-10, along that Town Creek development frontage. 8 And we don't know what funding may be available. We know 9 that Congressman Lamar Smith has wanted to assist our total 10 area as he could, and we know there are a lot of other 11 agencies, both local and state level, that might help. So -- 12 and I'm speaking of state level E.I.C., maybe even local 13 E.I.C., maybe -- maybe grant money out there. I know that 14 Todd Parton is looking for those avenues. 15 Page 3. What we did, we took our development 16 property -- and we'll get to the graphics in a minute. And 17 we have 375 acres there. When we looked at it, and we looked 18 at 50 or 60 acres just west of us that belongs in the Higgins 19 estate, and we have about 50 acres just east of us that 20 belongs to that Keystone development. And we have all that 21 Holdsworth frontage from Harper Road all the way over past 22 the golf course and up to the farm-to-market road. And we 23 thought that if we had access -- and we have all that land 24 north of I-10. And we thought that if we had access, if we 25 had -- had exit ramps there, all that land would open up for 12-13-10 wk 25 1 future development over the -- over the next 7, 8, 9, 10 2 years. And so we tried to quantify what that would be, and 3 -- and we came up with an estimated tax benefit that assumed 4 that our acreage was built out, and the acreages right next 5 to us, the two 50-acre pieces, and we calculated the ad 6 valorem tax base and the sales tax revenue based on our 7 specific site plan, and we came up with -- with construction 8 costs through Matkin-Hoover. They did an opinion on the 9 probable cost on what it would cost to do this. 10 Now, Page 4, the benefits. Again, I'm kind of 11 getting ahead of myself. The benefits are that we'd have 12 commercially developable land for the entire community, and 13 I've already talked about that. So, let's go to Page 5. We 14 figure the land will be absorbed over a 7- to 10-year period, 15 and we'd have a constant stream of revenues, tax revenues 16 throughout that period. But once it was fully built out, 17 that's -- that's how we came to the number -- the benefit -- 18 the annual benefit number that we're looking at. And what 19 it's going to do, we know that the city and the county has 20 limited developable land out there for the future growth. 21 I'm talking even out 50 years. I think this -- if we could 22 do this, it's going to shift the burden from residential tax 23 base to the commercial tax base, and it's going to help 24 mitigate the impact of the residential tax freeze. 25 If you look at Page 6, this -- this is our 12-13-10 wk 26 1 calculation of the benefits. Again, this is the annual taxes 2 that the community would receive once it was fully absorbed. 3 The City of Kerrville got all -- the portion for Town Creek 4 development and Higgins and Keystone is assumed to be city 5 limits, and so they'd be getting both ad valorem and sales 6 tax, and then E.I.C. would get sales tax. Kerr County would 7 get both; they'd get sales tax and ad valorem tax. And then 8 K.I.S.D. would receive their ad valorem tax. And we have 9 detailed schedules that support that calculation. If you go 10 to Page 7, some of the other benefits -- and we kind of 11 talked on the edges of this a while ago. Town Creek Parkway, 12 which would be the I-10 road cutting straight down four-lane 13 road cutting straight down to Holdsworth, would, in essence, 14 create a third north-south corridor that could be linked all 15 the way on down to Highway 27 following Town Creek. And it 16 would help take some of the traffic off Harper Road, which is 17 primarily residential, and it would also relieve some, we 18 think, from Sidney Baker, and maybe even Junction. 19 Page 8, economic development. We haven't shown any 20 impact of what the construction jobs created from the 21 construction over the next seven to ten years would be, or 22 the material -- sales tax on materials, or staffing on new 23 businesses. Again, the community would have an inventory of 24 land available for business growth and relocation, in 25 accordance with the TXP report for technology, health care, 12-13-10 wk 27 1 educational. We have in this -- and you'll see this later. 2 We have three sections of multi-family. For delayed 3 baby-boomers -- and we think there's two ages that -- the new 4 -- the new folks that are just newly retired, and the folks 5 that have been in single-family residences that need to 6 downsize even more as they get older. And we have a spot for 7 a possible corporate meeting center and hotel. Cost of I-10 8 access, again, Matkin -- we have a more detailed schedule in 9 here. Matkin-Hoover came up with this; 11,519,000, and we'll 10 look at that in detail in a minute. Page 10, Payback. If 11 you look at the 19 million, divided by 12 months, it takes 12 7.2 months to pay back the ramps. 13 Page 11, Contributors to this report. I did all 14 the clerical stuff. Now, Kit Corbin from Grubb-Ellis, he is 15 the top commercial real estate broker within the country. 16 He's the guy that did the Toyota plant on 1604 in San 17 Antonio. He's a very solid professional. Barry Middleman; 18 he did all the graphics, and he has -- if you go out to his 19 web site, he's done most of the graphics planning throughout 20 San Antonio for all the later projects that you've seen. 21 Page -- next page. The page right after 11, Page 12 doesn't 22 show. That's -- that's the land that we're talking about. 23 You see I-10 curving across the corner. Our property, you 24 see the straight line next to Keystone; Keystone has three 25 elements of development. And then you have our property, and 12-13-10 wk 28 1 then you have the Higgins property. 2 Now, it's hard to see. Granted, this is very small 3 print and it's hard to read. Go to the next page; then it's 4 a little easier to see. Along I-10, we have several retail 5 pad sites. The orange or the green colors are multi-family 6 sites. Go to the next page, which is 14, and that shows the 7 whole acreage assigned to each of these applications. And, 8 again, what happened, they determined -- based on their 9 experience and what they had seen in the last few years, they 10 looked at Kerrville and they looked at this Town Creek site 11 predominantly, and they determined what applications they 12 thought they could fill relatively -- 13 JUDGE TINLEY: When you say "they," you're talking 14 about the -- 15 MR. COLEMAN: Kit Corbin. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 17 MR. COLEMAN: Todd Gold with REOC, and Barry 18 Middleman with M.D.N. And based on what they thought the 19 application would provide, they looked at -- they looked at 20 slope analysis -- and there's a page in here we'll get to -- 21 and they actually placed the sites in accordance with slope 22 analysis so that they're all good, valid sites, and 23 determined on Page 14 what these uses could be. And based on 24 those uses, what they did -- I'm -- they actually determined 25 land cost that they thought they could sell it for. And then 12-13-10 wk 29 1 REOC went to their Austin customers and San Antonio 2 customers, and they determined, based on those sites, based 3 on those applications, on their comparable history of their 4 actual customers' retail development, what building costs 5 were, and they correlated that to the San Antonio ad valorem 6 tax base, and that's how they came up with the ad valorem tax 7 base that we applied our rates to. 8 And then the same thing on sales. They got -- for 9 the retail sites, based on their clients and based on 10 information that they had through some of the retail 11 organizations, they calculated the exact square footage of 12 the proposed buildings and how much retail sales that would 13 generate a year, and then we applied current sales rate. If 14 you go to Page 16, that's the actual graphic that Jeff 15 Carroll came up with that shows -- that shows the access, and 16 the four-lane Town Creek Road. There would, in essence, be 17 frontage road all along the Town Creek development that would 18 -- we would build a development road that extended on into 19 Higgins property and on into Keystone property, and then on 20 the north side, the blue line is pretty limited there. That 21 would be future development. Then the next page is -- 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Essentially, that'll just be exit 23 and entrance ramps with the cross-over? 24 MR. COLEMAN: Right now, the calculation that they 25 did, the 11 million, -- 12-13-10 wk 30 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 2 MR. COLEMAN: -- it's all the green line, and it's 3 the blue line, and it's the red line going all the way down 4 to Holdsworth. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: It includes the parkway too? 6 MR. COLEMAN: Yes, it does. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Eleven and a half million? 8 MR. COLEMAN: It does. And there's also -- and I 9 did not ask him to do this, but there's also some sewer and 10 water within some of that. We have sewer all the way to 11 Holdsworth Drive bridge, and we have water all along 12 Holdsworth Drive. Now, as this thing is -- if we're 13 fortunate and we can make this thing develop, there's all 14 kind of ways to work this. Obviously, the developer is going 15 to have to pay his fair share. Now, Page 17 is just a photo 16 overlay, and it -- and Page 18, the next one, really shows 17 generally how flat that -- that piece of land is out there. 18 The slope analysis shows dark blue and dark purple. That's 19 where we have significant topo. Otherwise, it's relatively 20 flat and lends itself to very, very low-cost, very efficient 21 development. You go to Page 19, and this is a summary 22 schedule of the annual tax benefit. City of Kerrville, 23 property taxes, that first column, City of Kerrville, we're 24 expecting again, after full absorption, one year, 2.3 25 million. Sales tax, 4.8 million. Hotel money, 306,000. You 12-13-10 wk 31 1 come down to Kerr County, it will be 1.8 million in ad 2 valorem and 2.4 in sales tax. And then K.I.S.D. would bring 3 up 4.8 million, total of 19 million a year. 4 MR. MOTHERAL: Chuck, this does not include the 5 benefit to the state from this? 6 MR. COLEMAN: Well, that's a good point. Good 7 point. Let me -- let me go to -- go to page -- two pages 8 down, Page 21. The state sales tax portion of this is 9 $30 million, based on their 6 and a quarter percent, so it 10 would be a strong benefit. Actually, the strongest benefit 11 is for the state. Come back up to Page 20, and that's where 12 -- that's one of the detailed schedules on the ad valorem 13 benefit and how -- how we calculated it by various entities. 14 Again, the housing -- or the building construction portion of 15 this, and even the land portion is very, very conservative. 16 We really think it'll be better than that, far better. 17 Keystone and Higgins, we didn't have a specific site plan for 18 them, so we used a percentage pro rata based on Town Creek's 19 development. And, again, you go to the next page, and that 20 is the annual sales tax benefit, which shows the state 21 receiving 30 mil. And then Page 22, that's -- it's kind of 22 hard to read, but that was Jeff Carroll's calculated opinion 23 of the probable cost on the construction. Frontage road is a 24 big piece of it. Eastbound, you have two culverts that 25 you've got to install, which is a big piece of it, and then 12-13-10 wk 32 1 they do have sewer and water in a couple of those places, and 2 that's it. I'll answer any questions if anybody has any. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ambitious plan. 4 MR. COLEMAN: Pardon me? 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ambitious plan. 6 MR. COLEMAN: Well, it is. It is ambitious. And, 7 Jonathan, when you look at it, when you look at that much 8 acreage for commercial development, look at it 20, 30 years 9 out. It makes a lot of sense for -- to me it does. If you 10 look at an 11 million price tag, that's big dollars, but I 11 truly believe -- we have not done anything that tells us that 12 the absorption is five to seven years. We don't know. That 13 is -- that was my guess. Back before the downturn, we -- we 14 had an application or site plan for Town Creek where we were 15 going to build 200 acres of single -- single-family housing, 16 and we engaged Robert Charles Lesser to do that, to determine 17 how long it takes to build out. And they came back, even for 18 the Kerrville market -- and this has been, like, five or six 19 years ago, or six or seven. They determined that it would 20 fill up in seven years, and they couldn't believe it. They 21 thought it was too strong. But they kept looking at the 22 retiree side and baby boomers that are supposed to be coming, 23 and they stuck with their -- their seven years. Now, when I 24 asked Kit about it, I said, "Well, Kit, there's one piece we 25 haven't really talked about or done any planning on. What if 12-13-10 wk 33 1 they ask me about that? What do I tell them?" And he was of 2 the opinion that it would absorb a lot quicker, because we've 3 been in two years of economic downturn, and you've got all 4 these investor/developers that are sitting out there on the 5 sidelines with their investor money just waiting to go. 6 Coupled with the baby boomers that have deferred retirement 7 because they lost a lot of their portfolio, and those -- that 8 group that is building behind them, that's coming right 9 behind them. So he thinks it'll be -- he -- he said five 10 years. I don't think that's possible, but I do think 7, 8, 11 9, 10, and I think even beyond that, 20 years. This is a 12 long-term project that makes sense 20 years out. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Chuck, the thing that excites me 14 about it is the shifting of the tax base. 15 MR. COLEMAN: That's right. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: That's probably the most important 17 thing that we've got to accomplish here from an economic 18 development standpoint, because the commercial industrial 19 business end of it pays more than its fair share, as it were, 20 because it generates sales tax too, as well as the values on 21 its capital investment. But if we're ever going to get our 22 tax base on an equitable footing, we've -- it's absolutely 23 essential we get more of that. 24 MR. COLEMAN: I -- you're absolutely right. And 25 working with you all in economic development over the last 12-13-10 wk 34 1 five years, as this thing kind of evolved and people were 2 looking at it, it made a whole lot of sense to me from that 3 standpoint. Now, I'll hasten to add that what they've come 4 up with is based on their expertise, and they think it's 5 right. And when -- if this thing begins to pick up momentum 6 and go forward, we're going to have them down and come before 7 Commissioners Court. I'm going to bring in the experts. And 8 we'll do it for -- the same thing for City Council as well, 9 and all the other entities around town, and let everybody 10 quiz them and ask them the hard questions. But if you look 11 at it and -- and you look -- you look at the fact that we're 12 running out of land, it just makes a whole lot of sense. 13 We're running out of easily developable land. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mike, is this the kind of 15 project that could be done like the -- the pass-through 16 funding type deal, where the bonds were issued by city/county 17 jointly to build it, and then TexDOT will reimburse down the 18 road? 19 MR. COWARD: I guess theoretically it could. I 20 think there was some question about how much more 21 pass-through is going to be out there. Because, essentially, 22 we have sold bonds, and this is kind of another way -- we're 23 ending up paying back a lot of money that -- that we don't 24 necessarily have either. But -- 25 MR. BEAM: Theoretically, I believe it is a good 12-13-10 wk 35 1 project there for that, because it is a local -- of local 2 interest. So, these types of projects of local and regional 3 significance, they -- I believe 35, for instance, in 4 Austin -- I don't know this for sure, but I believe the 5 frontage roads that you're seeing being built out there 6 are -- some of it's the pass-through money. It's -- those 7 projects are selected by the commission through a very 8 competitive process, but theoretically, projects could be in 9 the mix. 10 MR. COLEMAN: Judge, I'm sorry. 11 MR. BEAM: I'm done. 12 MR. COLEMAN: Judge, I lost my train of thought a 13 while ago. What I was going to say, too, this is what the 14 experts think is appropriate for the site plan. You never 15 know what's going to happen. If the access were committed 16 and gained, you never know what might happen. I mean, there 17 might be somebody through the state E.I.C. program looking 18 for 500 acres that were to come in. So, that's the other 19 thing it does. I know that we need to be focused on economic 20 development to enhance our local groups and our local 21 businesses, and I support that 100 percent. But if we have 22 some of this available over the next 5, 7, 10 years, we might 23 gain more of that outsider economic development coming in, 24 like education or technology or that kind of... 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Enterprise funds on infrastructure 12-13-10 wk 36 1 projects, you know, of course, there's -- for the really big 2 projects, there's a pretty good size fund over there. But, 3 you know, every little bit helps. 4 MR. COLEMAN: Sure. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: With respect to financing the 6 pass-through or partnership arrangement, which do you see as 7 most probable, just off the top of your head, at this point? 8 MR. BEAM: San Antonio hasn't done any frontage 9 road -- continuous frontage roads like this. I know one of 10 the things that we've -- we've done, sort of from a more 11 conventional funding, is at an intersection, you have an 12 existing exit ramp. We've converted that exit ramp into more 13 a frontage road, and pulled it back just a little bit to open 14 up some land, and then have the exit ramp come down to a 15 frontage road, if you will, where you -- you used to not be 16 able to access, say, the interstate directly. But then you 17 could -- these continuous frontage roads, typically what 18 we're seeing is, barring the one I mentioned on 35, those are 19 typically done with local funds. I mean, the one I'm 20 thinking of in Guadalupe County, we've got an agreement with 21 the city of Seguin. They're funding it 100 percent, but 22 we're building it. We will be managing the construction, 23 because it's on the interstate. And in this case, it would 24 be probably a similar situation. If I were to try to -- to 25 guess, it would not -- barring any funding source that's out 12-13-10 wk 37 1 there that I'm aware of, I'm thinking it would probably be 2 more of 100 percent local funding. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: The pass-through arrangement? 4 MR. BEAM: I hate to be the guy with the bad 5 message, delivering the bad news, but I -- I don't see -- and 6 maybe a pass-through would work. But off the top of my head, 7 I don't even know that there's going to be another call. But 8 I understood that there would possibly be one more call 9 before the legislative action would have to take place to -- 10 to keep that program going. So, I can't speculate beyond 11 that. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, you never know what the 13 Legislature's going to start doing in January either, do you? 14 MR. BEAM: You don't. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's about half scary again. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Little worse than scary. 17 MR. COLEMAN: And do you think a pass-through is 18 a -- 19 MR. BEAM: It's theoretically a possibility. 20 MR. COLEMAN: And that would be one without 21 financing from TexDOT, but if we put together financing or 22 monetary sources from other locations -- 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Local government and/or developer, 24 but with a payback based on traffic counts, depending on how 25 that -- I haven't really analyzed in detail how those 12-13-10 wk 38 1 pass-throughs -- I suspect if the perceived targets are met, 2 it's close to a 100 percent payback, at least discounted as 3 to time value for money? 4 MR. BEAM: They're not always 100 percent payback, 5 but you'll know that up front. It doesn't -- the amount of 6 payback is not based on the traffic. The amount of payback 7 would be whatever up-front percentage is worked out and 8 negotiated. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 10 MR. BEAM: And then the traffic would dictate how 11 quickly over time you get that funding back. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: So, you fix the percentage in the 13 agreement going in? 14 MR. BEAM: Correct. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: And the cash flow on it is 16 determined by the traffic? 17 MR. BEAM: Right. I believe that's how it works. 18 Now, the percentage is typically based on how regionally 19 significant, and in my experience, it's how the commission or 20 our administration views it as regionally significant. If 21 it's more of a regional significance, adding capacity to a -- 22 to a major -- let's say we're adding capacity to I-10. That 23 would, of course, be a regionally significant corridor. But 24 adding a frontage road, they might deem it more locally, so 25 the percentage might drop off. We can talk more details as 12-13-10 wk 39 1 we get into it if you guys want to. 2 MR. COLEMAN: Any other questions from 3 Commissioners? Really appreciate you guys letting me present 4 this. 5 (Commissioner Letz left the workshop.) 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. I appreciate it, Chuck. 7 It's really exciting. 8 MR. MOTHERAL: Judge, may I say from the City's 9 perspective -- 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Sure. 11 MR. MOTHERAL: I can't speak for the whole Council, 12 but certainly this has a lot of merit from the standpoint of 13 economic development, and we -- I will present it to the 14 Council and do my best to support whatever the commission 15 wants, that it can do. Thank you for your interest, and look 16 forward to working with you on it. 17 MR. BEAM: The call for pass-through projects 18 has -- and the last couple of calls have been towards the 19 beginning of the calendar year, so it may be good timing to 20 start talking about it. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: If we're even going to be considered 22 for a pass-through type project, now's the time to throw it 23 out there on the table. 24 MR. BEAM: Correct. Correct. There will be an 25 official -- there will be an official call, though, and I was 12-13-10 wk 40 1 just saying it may happen in the next couple of months. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 3 MR. MOTHERAL: Who will get notice on that? 4 MR. BEAM: I'm going off memory, but I believe we 5 sent letters out to all cities and counties, I believe. But 6 we'll definitely let you know, since we know there's an 7 interest here, one way or another. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Sure got some exciting numbers there 9 post build-out. 10 MR. COLEMAN: Judge, they really are conservative. 11 They let me know they've been about twice through that. And, 12 you know, truly, seriously, it's such a good benefit for the 13 whole community, not -- not just -- not just one element. I 14 mean, it's everybody within the community. Takes pressure 15 off the residential folks. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 17 MR. COLEMAN: It helps the county, helps the city, 18 helps the school district. It helps transportation flow. 19 And I think on the basis of that, at some point it will 20 become viable, and money will be available at some point, 21 just because it is such a good deal. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Of course, talking economic 23 development, when you approach me on that basis, you know you 24 got a -- you got a real pigeon. I'm a softy when it comes to 25 those issues. 12-13-10 wk 41 1 MR. COLEMAN: I hope so. Thank you. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: We got to do it. It's got to 3 happen. 4 MR. COLEMAN: If you had -- if you've got this 5 element available and cranking, and we were to revive that -- 6 that commerce park out by the airport, across from the 7 airport, if we had that going and then we had the new 8 economic development foundation really working their 9 objectives and goals, we'd be hitting on all three cylinders. 10 We'd just really be going well. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: And we can get that new wastewater 12 project in for east Kerr. 13 MR. COLEMAN: That's right. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: For higher density housing. That's 15 a real essential piece of the puzzle, too. 16 MR. COLEMAN: Right. 17 (Mr. Medina entered the courtroom.) 18 JUDGE TINLEY: We've got the man here. 19 MR. MEDINA: How are you doing, Judge? 20 JUDGE TINLEY: How's it going? Good to see you. 21 MR. MEDINA: Good morning, Judge. How've you been? 22 JUDGE TINLEY: I'm doing well. 23 MR. MEDINA: I apologize for my delay to get here. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, we've been -- we've got you 25 guys jumping through hoops here. And this -- 12-13-10 wk 42 1 MR. MOTHERAL: It was the highway. (Laughter.) 2 JUDGE TINLEY: This is the guy with the money that 3 came in late, right? 4 MR. MEDINA: Yes. For those of you that don't know 5 me, I'm Mario Medina. I'm the TexDOT District Engineer for 6 San Antonio. And I see that we already got started on the 7 meeting, which is good. And I really just came down here to 8 kind of listen, to kind of figure out what y'all's priorities 9 are, what your concerns are regarding the transportation 10 systems. So, appreciate it. Thanks for the opportunity. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just wanted to drive up to 12 Kerrville, didn't you? 13 MR. MEDINA: Any opportunity I can. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: We get that answer a lot, people 15 coming from Austin, coming from San Antonio. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Sometimes in multiples. 17 MR. MEDINA: Okay. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Mike's got a real good handle on -- 19 I mean, virtually on a day-to-day basis here. 20 MR. MEDINA: Yes, sir. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: He keeps a real close watch on this. 22 And we've thrown a new one out on the table today which is 23 pretty exciting, and -- 24 MR. MEDINA: Okay. I'm assuming this is it? 25 MR. COLEMAN: Yes. 12-13-10 wk 43 1 MR. BEAM: Mario, they had questions about the 2 pass-through program, so maybe there's some things you know 3 that maybe I didn't know. But I -- I told them -- and you 4 can correct me where I've erred. 5 MR. MEDINA: Go ahead. 6 MR. BEAM: The -- my understanding is, you know, 7 we've had a pass-through program the last couple of years; 8 we've had a call, and I understood there would be one more. 9 MR. MEDINA: Yes, sir. 10 MR. BEAM: Prior to any legislative action. And 11 so -- and probably in the next couple of months, we expect to 12 see some kind of a call. And they're looking at that on 13 I-10, as far as a new frontage road between two 14 intersections, as well as a parkway that would connect to 15 that frontage road. 16 MR. MEDINA: Regarding the pass-through, Jonathan's 17 correct. I'm thinking it's -- we probably will probably get 18 something around February-March, with the program call -- 19 it's really a program call. And what it is, is pretty much 20 we advertise and go ahead and say, "Who's got projects out 21 there that would like to apply for this program?" Usually we 22 go ahead and have a closeout around May. That's kind of the 23 deadline to get projects in, and then during the summer 24 months, the commission goes in and selects it -- selects 25 projects. It's completely up to the discretion of the 12-13-10 wk 44 1 commission. And when I say "commission," that is the 2 transportation commission. They go ahead and select them. 3 We been -- we've had -- as a district, we've had several in 4 San Antonio that have gotten picked, counties moving forward 5 on those. 6 The way the process works -- and what y'all need to 7 realize is -- is the local entity or the sponsor of the 8 project, which here in this case could be either the county 9 or the city, would go ahead and pretty much say, "Hey, we'll 10 go ahead and fund -- we'll pay for all of this and we'll do 11 all this work." The reimbursement that comes back from the 12 department is paid back over time, and it's based on the 13 traffic that utilizes the facility. The traffic -- the 14 payment itself that we'll provide to y'all would cover the 15 overall construction cost of the project. Any financial cost 16 associated with any bonds will be at the -- the local entity 17 would pay for that, along with any design work, unless maybe 18 we've already done some of that. Or any right-of-way costs, 19 utility adjustments, all that would be paid by the local 20 entity, okay? It's a way to accelerate a project. We've 21 gone ahead -- in San Antonio, like I mentioned, done a few in 22 San Antonio and been able to move forward on projects, in 23 reality, we probably would not have been able to do for 24 another 10 years at least, based on funding scenarios. I 25 think it's a worthwhile program, and we'd be glad to help you 12-13-10 wk 45 1 with any -- you know, tying to put the application together 2 and kind of start doing some homework on this. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: You say the applicant can be either 4 the city or the county. Is it permissible for there to be a 5 joint application? 6 MR. MEDINA: Well, sir, the way we usually go ahead 7 and -- the way we've done them before in the past is, one 8 entity goes ahead and says, "I'm going to go ahead and be the 9 lead entity on this." Then that entity has an agreement with 10 the other local -- with the other local folks. But we got to 11 have one person or one entity to step up to the plate. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 13 MR. MEDINA: Okay? And there's nothing wrong with 14 you having internal agreements with other entities to go 15 ahead and get it done. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: If it's known to the commission that 17 you've got both local government entities, -- 18 THE WITNESS: Oh, yeah, it's a good thing. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: -- does that give it strength before 20 the commission? 21 MR. MEDINA: Yes, sir, it does. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: I figured it probably would. 23 MR. MEDINA: It does. Usually what we see is a 24 resolution from both parties going ahead and supporting the 25 project. 12-13-10 wk 46 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 2 MR. MEDINA: And I'm assuming this is access roads 3 that we've talked about going between 16 -- 4 MR. COWARD: It's a little bit modified plan, but 5 I'll visit with you about it. 6 MR. MEDINA: Okay, good. Good. All right. Well, 7 we'd be glad to talk to anybody about this and try to move 8 forward. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Good. 10 MR. MEDINA: Okay. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: All the right-of-way's going 12 to be part of the deal. Donate the right-of-way. There 13 won't be any right-of-way cost. 14 MR. MEDINA: That's great. 15 MR. COLEMAN: That's correct. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I figured it was -- if you're 17 going to have -- 18 MR. COLEMAN: Good man. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If it's going to benefit your 20 cause, why couldn't you donate the land for the right-of-way? 21 MR. COLEMAN: Absolutely. Let me give you -- I'm 22 Chuck Coleman, by the way. Don't get up. Good to meet you. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I don't think we're going to 24 buy the land too. 25 MR. BEAM: I think we've been through all the 12-13-10 wk 47 1 things we came to -- to -- 2 MR. COWARD: Jonathan, if I could, I just maybe -- 3 I think I have -- I wanted them to think about some other 4 projects too. 5 MR. BEAM: Okay. 6 MR. COWARD: Just a couple things. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 8 MR. COWARD: Just because -- 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Mike's got that good memory working 10 again, and he remembers what we've told him before. 11 MR. COWARD: Just -- I mean, just for y'all to be 12 thinking about. I mean, one that's there is for 2014, and so 13 when you're thinking about maintenance, maybe -- maybe think 14 about what 27 might look like going through Kerrville 15 between -- maybe between, say, Highway 16 and Harper Road in 16 three or four years. I mean, if you're going out there right 17 now, we're starting to patch it and stuff. So, I mean, as 18 you're thinking about maintenance, even though that's not 19 showing up as being in bad shape on that map right now, don't 20 be surprised if, in a year or two, it starts to not look as 21 good as it -- as it does. And if you pay attention, if you 22 look at it like a highway department engineer, you'll start 23 seeing the signs of failures and things out there. Downside 24 wheel path, that's not going to be a cheap one to do, because 25 that's a -- you know, it's a -- that job's about six years 12-13-10 wk 48 1 old, so it's probably got about three years left in it. 2 So -- because the first question they asked was maintenance, 3 and so we don't want to forget about taking care of 27 and 16 4 and some of those roads, you know, that do reflect on our 5 community when they're in poor shape and they're patched up, 6 that we'd like to keep -- you know, 16 and 27 for sure are 7 the two highest traffic roads. We do have some plans to -- 8 not this summer, but next summer, resurface 27 between Harper 9 Road and Ingram, and that road is in pretty -- pretty poor 10 shape, and we are going to do that, I think, in summer of 11 2012. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You are going to re -- when 13 you talk about repaving it, you're going to grind it up and 14 put new hot mix? Or are you going to sealcoat? 15 MR. COWARD: No. I mean, too many cars to 16 sealcoat, Bruce. I mean, I think what we're -- we're going 17 to be looking at putting three products against each other. 18 One, you mill 2 inches off, put down 2 inches of new. That's 19 pretty expensive in Kerrville, 'cause we have to haul those, 20 you know, 80,000, 100,000 cubic yards of material that we 21 have to haul back to San Antonio and bring up here. There's 22 some products out there that would actually allow us to 23 recycle all or a portion of -- 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Of the milling? 25 MR. COWARD: Of the milling, and so that's what 12-13-10 wk 49 1 we're actually -- I'm doing it. And then when you put the 2 brand new people against the people that recycle, you get 3 some pretty competitive bids. That's actually what we're 4 looking at doing. We're not going to sealcoat that. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think that's just too much 6 now. 7 MR. COWARD: There's a possibility, one of the 8 products where you recycle it, they come in and they put a 9 sealcoat on it. If we do it, it would be real small sealcoat 10 like we did on Interstate 10, smaller rock that doesn't -- 11 but, you know, I would prefer not to sealcoat it. But if -- 12 you know, if it's a matter of doing nothing or having to live 13 with the sealcoat, I mean -- 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Take the sealcoat then. 15 MR. COWARD: And then y'all may remember, there 16 used to be a project they talked about; it's another one of 17 those projects that have been out there forever and ever and 18 ever. At one time they called it a State Highway 39 19 extension. It's not a very good name, but, you know, Spur 98 20 comes and makes a big, sweeping curve, ties into Goat Creek 21 Road. You go up Goat Creek Road, and there's two roads that 22 kind of head generally toward Interstate 10. One's Doris 23 Drive, and the other is Wren Road, okay? And over the years, 24 various people have thought, you know, between State Highway 25 16 and 783 is about 2 miles; that's pretty standard spacing 12-13-10 wk 50 1 for a highway interchange. Between Harper Road and Goat 2 Creek is about 4 miles. And -- and, you know, the thought 3 was, looking out there again, is that, well, do you at some 4 point want to have another interchange between Harper and 5 Goat Creek? And you could maybe do that by going up Doris 6 around -- or Wren. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, either one. The thing 8 is, if it's going to be done, it needs to be on the front 9 burner every now and then, because that's going to build out 10 one of these days and you're not going to -- right-of-way's 11 going to -- 12 MR. COWARD: You saw the number we had for mobility 13 was zero, and so I'm not -- you know, I'm just mentioning 14 those as things that have been talked about in the past. 15 Now, there's been, you know, an unknown -- actually, we 16 visited with Judge Tinley about a possible extension of -- of 17 Lemos Street around. You know, that's a pretty local 18 project, but, you know, that's -- but that's something else 19 that we have talked about and done some estimates for y'all. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Talking about tying into 21 Sheppard Rees? 22 JUDGE TINLEY: That one, yeah. Extension of that 23 F.M. I thought that would be a wonderful extension of the 24 state system, and they very politely declined. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Maybe -- 12-13-10 wk 51 1 MR. COWARD: We would propose to just turn the 2 whole thing into a county road. (Laughter.) We'll give 3 y'all a brand-new bridge. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: I offered to you first. 5 MR. COWARD: Yeah. I guess it would be a city 6 street. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, you know, we could do 8 that or extend the highway, one of the two. 9 MR. COWARD: Those are just a couple of the other 10 ones that have been out there, Judge. I don't think there's 11 anything else. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, obviously, from a -- from a 13 three-plus year out there, we probably need to be looking at 14 27 to Harper Road back this way. 15 MR. COWARD: And just -- you know, kind of one 16 other thing that been talked about would be on 27 between 17 Kerrville and Comfort. You know, it's not showing up as 18 being that it's at capacity level, but 20 years ago we 19 widened a lot of the structures to get wide enough, you know, 20 and there -- there are some times out there it would be nice 21 to be able to have some more passing lanes or -- you know, 22 and it -- I would imagine if you could look in a crystal ball 23 and look down 30 or 40 years, I mean, I kind of see 27 as 24 being five lanes. At least, you know, from Comfort to 25 Kerrville. You know, whether you want us to start moving up 12-13-10 wk 52 1 that way and get Third Creek bridge widened and, you know, 2 some of those things would be something else to think about. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, with the -- if the -- if we 4 keep that Center Point and East Kerr wastewater project 5 moving, that's going to increase that traffic out there, you 6 know, from a timeline standpoint. 7 MR. COWARD: You know, there's -- going back to -- 8 you know, there's a fair amount of crashes on 27. If you'll 9 notice, I mean, we're putting a lot of buttons down. If 10 y'all have -- anybody's driven through there, there's a 11 button about every 8 inches. And all that is because there's 12 been a lot of over-the-center, head-on crashes through there. 13 And some of those are driver inattention. Some of those are 14 people getting frustrated and passing when they shouldn't be 15 passing. And, you know, in front of the airport, we did some 16 things trying to help out there. But, I mean, 27 is 17 something else that needs to be -- you know, take a 18 long-range plan anyway, I would think. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, you're our guy. We depend on 20 you. 21 MR. COWARD: And, you know, I -- we'll look at it. 22 I just think that -- you know, I think that, you know, this 23 process is -- you know, we're going to get our customers, the 24 counties, helping us prioritize, but this gives you a couple 25 other priorities. You know, whenever you go up against the 12-13-10 wk 53 1 judge in Comal County, don't forget about -- one day it will 2 be nice to have a little bit nicer road between Kerrville and 3 Fredericksburg on 16. 4 MR. MEDINA: Yes, sir. That's what I was going to 5 mention with y'all, is that 16 to me is -- is maybe an 6 opportunity there to do what we call a super two project. 7 I'm trying to make sure -- you got just two lanes on 16, 8 right? 9 MR. COWARD: In Kerr County we've got a fair amount 10 of passing lanes, but in Gillespie County there's not much -- 11 there's not many places to pass. 12 MR. MEDINA: Right. That's one of the things that 13 you have to realize. The regional planning organization that 14 we're going to go ahead and report a lot of this information 15 to includes Gillespie County, so I see that there may be some 16 partnerships between Gillespie County and Kerr County to go 17 ahead and upgrade State Highway 16 to what we call a super 18 two, which -- or these very long passing lanes that -- at 19 night, back and forth. In some cases, we may have some two, 20 three, maybe even up to five miles between them, but then the 21 passing lane itself can be about a mile and a half long. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Kind of like some of those on 23 83 going out of Junction. 24 MR. MEDINA: Yes, sir, exactly. And it's a good 25 opportunity. To me, it's a -- it's a stop -- not a stopgap, 12-13-10 wk 54 1 but an interim to ultimately having a four-lane facility 2 between here and Fredericksburg. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: You know, it helped somewhat 4 slightly when the signs that said "Do not drive on paved 5 shoulder" were removed. 6 MR. MEDINA: Yes, sir. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: State law says you shall use that to 8 allow faster moving traffic behind to you pass. 9 MR. MEDINA: Right. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: But -- 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There's some people -- 12 JUDGE TINLEY: -- some of those old Germans over 13 there, if there was a sign that says, "Thou shalt not," they 14 believed in it, by golly, and they wouldn't move over if you 15 had a gun to their head. But we finally took the signs down. 16 That helped a little, but still there's a whole lot of -- 17 particularly all the motor coaches that move up and down that 18 road; they just won't move over to that paved shoulder. 19 MR. COWARD: I guess just a long list of things. 20 Don't forget about Loop 534 between, you know, 27 and 16. I 21 mean, it would -- there's opportunities in there, if that's 22 developed, utilities don't come in out there, where you might 23 want to see some improvements, and those will be capacity 24 kind of improvements also. But, you know, that's really just 25 a two-lane roadway with shoulders on it on a chunk of it. 12-13-10 wk 55 1 And, you know, the school's out there and utilities are out 2 there, and I have a feeling that if you don't -- when the 3 economy turns around, a lot of these properties that are 4 sitting idle will develop quickly. And, you know, if we can 5 look ahead and foresee some of the those things, it'll 6 probably be a good thing. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, now, Commissioner Williams, 8 for a number of years, was looking at the F.M. that goes 9 across there. 10 MR. COWARD: He would like to see us go -- 11 JUDGE TINLEY: 171, to extend that on over from 16 12 over to 173. And then -- 13 MR. COWARD: Right. You can almost see from one 14 end to the other there. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. And that -- that's down the 16 road, but it needs to be in the mix somewhere. 17 MR. COWARD: Yeah. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Also, that high water bridge 19 crossing was being talked about. Is that similar to what 20 you're talking about? 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. That would have to be there, 22 coming from 173 over to 27. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Over to 27. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 25 MR. MOTHERAL: One of the things, Judge, that in 12-13-10 wk 56 1 planning and thinking, I know -- and Commissioner Oehler was 2 saying about dis-alignment and that sort of thing, the 3 build-out. As those properties are subdivided, it would help 4 a lot if we would coordinate between the City and the County 5 and reserve rights-of-way through there for these particular 6 types of -- of roads, so that we didn't have to go back and 7 purchase -- 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Purchase. 9 MR. MOTHERAL: -- or remove structures or whatever. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I couldn't disagree with 11 that. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. If you specify -- if you 13 specify the routing, that gives you a leg up when it comes to 14 development to require the developer to -- 15 MR. MOTHERAL: Exactly. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: -- to put in the infrastructure. 17 MR. MOTHERAL: Well, we do have -- in the city's 18 transportation plan, we do have some of this Wren Road and 19 Doris and so on where we're anticipating -- and so as those 20 areas become active, I hope that we can work together to 21 reserve that right-of-way that we need through there. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Where are we specifically on Spur 98 23 going west? Do y'all have -- you've got something plugged in 24 there, Charlie? 25 MR. HASTINGS: We've got that in our master 12-13-10 wk 57 1 thoroughfare plan. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 3 MR. HASTINGS: To have Spur 98 extend west. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Over to hook up with Bear Creek? 5 MR. HASTINGS: Yes. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 7 MR. HASTINGS: And then cross the -- across the 8 river there, and make it back over to State Highway 27. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That would be wonderful. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah, it behooves us 11 to do that. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If we could get that one 13 thing done, that would be at least one little step going to, 14 you know, climb a big mountain. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, and the cost of -- the 16 dedication of the right-of-way and the cost of development of 17 the infrastructure, then, you generally lay in the hands of 18 the developer, which is who's going to benefit most from it, 19 so that's what you want to do. What else you got for us? 20 MR. COWARD: That was it. That is the one, I 21 guess, going back -- I guess I've been here long enough, I'm 22 almost like the official historian. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: You've got the best memory. 24 MR. COWARD: I don't know about that. I could just 25 make up stuff, and nobody will -- 12-13-10 wk 58 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Nobody will contest it. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There's some of us that might 3 be able to remember. 4 MR. COWARD: That's right; Bruce has been around 5 too. Indian Creek hanging tree days. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: I'm not going to challenge you. I'm 7 at the age where somebody tells you, "Don't you remember that 8 a number of years ago, you said or did..." I -- I'm not 9 going to challenge them. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I might buy that, but I'm not 11 sure. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Charlie? Bruce? 13 MR. MOTHERAL: I want to say thank you for the 14 opportunity to participate with you guys, and I think this is 15 good. We can move forward on whatever we can, and obviously, 16 this area's going to grow. We just need to try to do it the 17 best way that we can do it. 18 MR. COLEMAN: And I thank you guys as well for 19 letting me speak. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: You bet. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Now, if y'all will just 22 upgrade your sewer on the west side and take more of Ingram 23 and more of everything, it will be wonderful. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Another issue. 25 MR. MOTHERAL: We are working on it. 12-13-10 wk 59 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I sure got a bunch of people 2 that want to hook up. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: We'll be adjourned, then. Thank you 4 for being here. 5 MR. BEAM: Thank you. 6 (Workshop was adjourned at 2:53 p.m.) 7 - - - - - - - - - - 8 STATE OF TEXAS | 9 COUNTY OF KERR | 10 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 11 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 12 official reporter for the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 13 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 14 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 21st day of December, 15 2010. 16 17 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 18 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 19 Certified Shorthand Reporter 20 21 22 23 24 25 12-13-10 wk