1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Regular Session 10 Monday, January 12, 2015 11 9:00 a.m. 12 Commissioners' Courtroom 13 Kerr County Courthouse 14 Kerrville, Texas 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: TOM POLLARD, Kerr County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 TOM MOSER, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 BOB REEVES, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X January 12, 2015 2 PAGE --- Commissioners' Comments 4 3 1.1 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 4 fill a funded Administrative Assistant position in Road and Bridge Department 8 5 1.2 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action regarding 6 Kerrville South Wastewater System, Phases 5 & 6 - 7 1.3 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to approve the submission of a General Victim 8 Assistance grant application to the Office of the Governor for F.Y. 2015-2016, to fund Kerr 9 County Victim’s Rights Coordinator position 9 10 1.4 Report from Hill Country District Junior Livestock Show Association regarding upcoming event 14 11 1.5 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action 12 regarding dog laws in Kerr County (re: pit bulls) 23 13 1.6 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to appoint/reappoint members to the Kerr County 14 Historical Commission and submit current membership list to Texas Historical Commission 34 15 1.7 Annual report from Kerr County Historical 16 Commission 36 17 1.8 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to authorize County Treasurer to advertise for 18 depository and banking services contract RFPs 46 19 1.9 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to file a request for Kerr County pro rata 20 distribution of proceeds from Tobacco Settlement Permanent Trust Account 47 21 1.10 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action 22 regarding possible funding opportunity in Texas disaster-eligible areas 48 23 1.11 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 24 open responses to Request for Proposals (bids) for flooring on the 2nd floor of the courthouse 25 and refer for evaluation and recommendation and 51, award as appropriate 146 3 1 I N D E X (Continued) January 12, 2015 2 PAGE 3 1.12 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action regarding bond ballot options, setting of 4 election date, and update of jail expansion from architect 52 5 1.13 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action 6 regarding Emergency Management Plan for Kerr County and Cities of Kerrville and Ingram, and 7 establishing the position of Emergency Management Coordinator for Kerr County 110 8 1.14 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action 9 regarding Center Point Lions Park improvements 134 10 1.15 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action regarding liaison for Law Enforcement/Jail 138 11 1.16 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action on 12 marketing at Hill Country Youth Event Center and Kerr County Public Relations 142 13 1.17 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to 14 fill two vacant/budgeted positions in County Clerk’s Office 143 15 1.18 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action 16 regarding Change Proposal #22 (installation of gutters) for Event Hall at Hill Country Youth 17 Event Center 144 18 1.19 Consider/discuss, take appropriate action to retain the services of outside counsel to 19 represent Kerr County on various water-related issues. (Executive session as needed) 146 20 4.1 Pay Bills 148 21 4.2 Budget Amendments 149 4.3 Late Bills 149 22 4.4 Approve and Accept Monthly Reports 150 23 5.1 Reports from Commissioners/Liaison Committee Assignments 151 24 5.2 Reports from Elected Officials/Department Heads 152 25 --- Adjourned 155 4 1 On Monday, January 12, 2015, at 9:00 a.m., a regular 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 POLLARD: It's January 12th, 2015, and it's 8 now 9 a.m. Kerr County Commissioners Court is declared in 9 session. We'll start with Mr. Reeves, who is up on the 10 prayer and the pledge. 11 (Prayer and pledge of allegiance.) 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Hear, hear. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. This is the visitors' 14 input portion. These are folks that wish to address the 15 Commissioners Court on matters that are not on the agenda 16 this morning. Is there anyone? There being none, the next 17 portion is comments of Commissioners. We'll start with 18 Precinct 1. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, I don't have anything 20 this morning. Thank you for asking. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I don't have a thing. I think 22 we've got a full agenda, so -- 23 JUDGE POLLARD: I don't have anything either. You? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have something. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay, go ahead. (Laughter.) In 1-12-15 5 1 spite of the fact we have a full agenda? 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Despite that. This is an 3 important point; I'm surprised Commissioner Baldwin didn't 4 bring it up. Several years ago at this point, there was this 5 thing called the Southern Edwards Habitat Conservation Plan 6 that was put together. The driving force was Bexar County, 7 City of San Antonio, and originally Kerr County was to be 8 part of that plan. This Court passed several resolutions 9 opposing that, as did other rural counties. I was asked to 10 serve on a committee, which I took a lot of heat over, but 11 anyway, I did serve on this committee called the Citizens 12 Advisory Committee, and ended up being chair of that 13 committee. We were able to help the process of getting Kerr 14 County removed from being part of the actual plan, as well as 15 the other counties around here. 16 The reason I'm bringing it up now is that I just 17 received word late last week that on February 5th, at the 18 Y.O. Conference Center, there will be a public hearing on the 19 final draft of that plan, and Kerr County is listed, as are 20 the other five rural counties, as part of the plan area. But 21 when you read it -- at least as I read it, no one in Kerr 22 County can use the plan for any kind of -- for anything. I 23 guess if an individual in the county wants to use their 24 private property and use it for mitigation as a private deal, 25 they are eligible to do it. It is in the plan area, but it 1-12-15 6 1 has no impact directly on Kerr County. We can't use the 2 plan. We're not subject to the plan or anything like that. 3 But the devil's in the details. It's still a draft thing; 4 they can always change it at the last minute, so I do 5 encourage the public to stay aware of it, as I will. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What if we were in the plan? 7 What would -- what would we need to look out for? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If you were in the plan, you'd 9 have a large funding issue as to how it's paid for. There's 10 -- like, the way -- or the intent of it is to make 11 development easier in the plan area. But the plan -- we were 12 in the plan, but since we're not in the plan directly, it 13 means it would make development easier for the City of San 14 Antonio or residents of Bexar County, because much of the 15 development's on the -- especially on the northwest side and 16 west side of San Antonio, those areas with a lot of 17 endangered species, and there's mitigation that has to be 18 done before any development. The developer has to pay a fee, 19 and there's a bank established of -- you know, controlling 20 all that money. It's about 200-, $300 million that'll be 21 funneled through this. If somebody had an interest in doing 22 some sort of conservation easement or something similar to 23 that in Kerr County, you could. It's up to them. You -- you 24 contact them, and I guess and they'll find you. But it 25 cannot be utilized in Kerr County. 1-12-15 7 1 If we were part of the plan, a developer in Kerr 2 County could use it as well, but then you'd end up with an 3 administrative problem. So, we maybe can -- we're out of it, 4 so from that standpoint, the impact is negligible. It was 5 interesting that a lot of demographics, a lot of the studies 6 and data of Kerr County's in there. And I was -- the thing 7 that really stood out to me was the population projections. 8 I would have assumed they would have to use what's been 9 approved by the State, those numbers, which are very 10 conservative for Kerr County. Their numbers in this plan 11 show that our population between now and 2040 will increase 12 36 percent, over 80,000 people. That's a lot. Bandera -- 13 Kendall County, I think, is increasing 98 percent during that 14 period, but they're a lot smaller county right now 15 population-wise. So, anyway, it's interesting if you want to 16 read that kind of stuff. It's online. I think all the Court 17 received copies of it. But, anyway, I just want to keep 18 everyone aware of that. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: Mr. Reeves? 20 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Just briefly, and I know the 21 entire Court was there Saturday night. We had a -- I guess 22 what you could call a soft opening of the new event center. 23 Very favorable comments from the audience that was there. As 24 with the opening of any new facility, a few little hiccups 25 along the way, but I want to compliment Tim and his staff for 1-12-15 8 1 taking care of them as they arose. And Tim came out there 2 mid-morning Saturday, and was there almost the whole time to 3 make sure everything went good, and I really compliment all 4 of your staff -- 5 MR. BOLLIER: Thank you, sir. 6 COMMISSIONER REEVES: -- for what you did. So, 7 that's it. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. We'll go to Item 1.1 on the 9 agenda; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to 10 fill a funded administrative assistant position at the Road 11 and Bridge Department, Precincts 1, 2, 3, and 4. Mr. Odom 12 and Mr. Hastings. 13 MR. HASTINGS: Thank you. With the Court's 14 approval, we'd like to fill a funded administrative assistant 15 position. On December 31st, we had an individual that 16 retired from that position, and we're asking the Court for 17 their approval to advertise and hire an administrative 18 assistant to fill that funded position. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Move approval. 20 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Second. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: Been moved and seconded to fill 22 that position in Road and Bridge. Any -- is there any 23 discussion? There being none, those in favor, signify by 24 raising your right hand. 25 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 1-12-15 9 1 JUDGE POLLARD: It's 4-0, unanimous. 1.2 on the 2 agenda; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action 3 regarding the Kerrville South wastewater system phases 5 4 and 6. Commissioners Moser and Baldwin. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Judge, I'm going to have us 6 pass on this. Expected to get a bill from KPUB, and we're 7 going to need to take some action, but that hasn't come forth 8 yet. So, -- 9 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- delay that. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. We'll proceed to 1.3, 12 then; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to 13 approve the submission of a General Victim Assistance grant 14 application to the Office of the Governor for fiscal year 15 2015-2016 to fund the Kerr County Victim's Rights Coordinator 16 position. Rosa Lavender. 17 MS. LAVENDER: Good morning. 18 JUDGE POLLARD: Good morning. 19 MS. LAVENDER: This is basically the same grant 20 that we've had for several years. As you all remember, we 21 lost it one year, and then got back in the cycle. This will 22 be the second cycle year -- I mean, second year of the new 23 cycle. Also in conjunction with that -- and I ran this by 24 Ms. Bailey on Friday. What we're doing by confirming this is 25 also extending our community plan to cover this grant, and 1-12-15 10 1 also Jason's juvenile grant for another year. We'll have to 2 do a new community plan probably this fall, but for now, by 3 virtue of doing this, we have said we want to continue to use 4 this as our number one goal under the victims category, and 5 likewise on the juvenile grant when Jason brings it in; it 6 will be the number one. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Rosa, this is the grant that 8 was cut last year? 9 MS. LAVENDER: The money was cut, yes. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do we have any idea what the 11 funding looks like, the potential of it, or -- 12 MS. LAVENDER: No. We're going to ask for just a 13 little bit more than we asked for last year, based on the 14 numbers that Ms. Hargis provided for me. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And this is a grant that 17 goes through the governor's office, not AACOG? 18 MS. LAVENDER: Correct. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does any of it go through 20 AACOG? 21 MS. LAVENDER: Well, they have -- you have to send 22 it to AACOG, and then they review it and then make any 23 recommendations they have on it, and then send it back, and 24 then you direct -- send it directly to the governor's office. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, it is reviewed in San 1-12-15 11 1 Antonio. 2 MS. LAVENDER: Right, it goes through the CJAC 3 committee down there. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: CJAC? 5 MS. LAVENDER: Criminal Justice Advisory Committee. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, thank you. 7 COMMISSIONER REEVES: On the attached resolution, 8 fourth paragraph, are we actually designating the County 9 Judge pro tem, or do we need to change that to County Judge? 10 MS. LAVENDER: Well, it says that you have to have 11 an authorized official for the grant. And last year, we went 12 ahead and used the County Judge pro tem, and I checked with 13 them, and they said that was fine if we wanted to continue to 14 do it. I believe Jody checked with Judge Pollard -- is that 15 correct? -- and you indicated that you'd like to leave it 16 like that for this year. 17 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Okay. 18 MS. LAVENDER: At least. 19 COMMISSIONER REEVES: That's fine. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Who's the County Judge pro tem? 21 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Number one, isn't it? 22 MS. LAVENDER: Number one. But I didn't -- 23 JUDGE POLLARD: It's Buster, isn't it? 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't remember that. 1-12-15 12 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm in charge, man. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I know you're in charge, but I 3 thought that -- 4 JUDGE POLLARD: This is drafted -- however, that 5 paragraph does say County Judge pro tem, but then the 6 signature blank is set up for me as County Judge, so it needs 7 to be revised. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess -- 9 MS. LAVENDER: At the bottom, if you'll look beside 10 his name, I put "pro tem" on Buster's. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I thought that there was -- 13 and, Buster, you'll remember this since you're, I guess, 14 appointed on this, but I thought that we looked into that, 15 and the word from the County Attorney's office was no, we 16 can't create a position. We can authorize you to sign, but 17 we can't create a -- 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I don't care one way 19 or the other about the name. The title's not the issue. The 20 issue is that I think -- personally, I think either one of us 21 can sign this thing. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But it's just having 24 somebody here to -- 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 1-12-15 13 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- sign off on these things. 2 There's lots of this stuff that comes through here. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Sure. 4 MS. LAVENDER: Basically, it's just to be able to 5 log onto the eGrants website and accept, and -- 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Why don't we just change the 7 resolution to say "County Judge"? 8 MS. LAVENDER: Well, the reason we did -- 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just ask him. 10 MS. LAVENDER: Go ahead. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: Whatever. Whatever's the most 12 convenient. 13 MS. LAVENDER: We'll be glad to change it if y'all 14 want to do it. I'll have to go back and create an eGrants 15 account for Judge Pollard. And that's one of the reasons 16 that we were going to leave it, was because -- 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You can leave it the way it is. 18 MS. LAVENDER: It's up to y'all. I'll be glad to 19 change it. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I move we pass the resolution 21 and make application. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: And authorize everybody to execute 24 this. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Anybody that's -- 1-12-15 14 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Either of the two. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Correct. 3 JUDGE POLLARD: Or the Commissioners Court and the 4 County Judge. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. And is there a second? 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I seconded. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. Is there any further 9 discussion? There being none, those in favor, signify by 10 raising your right hand. 11 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 12 JUDGE POLLARD: It's 4-0. Did you raise your right 13 hand? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: 4-0. It's unanimous. There we go. 16 MS. LAVENDER: Thank you. 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Thanks, Rosa. 18 JUDGE POLLARD: 1.4, report from Hill Country 19 District Junior Livestock Show Association regarding upcoming 20 event. Mr. Steve Bauer. 21 MR. BAUER: Good morning, Judge, Commissioners. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: Good morning. 23 MR. BAUER: Appreciate the opportunity to come 24 speak to y'all this morning. I want to thank each and every 25 one of you for coming out Saturday evening. Hope you enjoyed 1-12-15 15 1 yourself. And like Commissioner Reeves said, it was a soft 2 opening. Very positive comments for the new facility from 3 the community and our buyers and supporters who were out at 4 the appreciation dinner on Saturday night. As y'all are 5 aware, we're fixing to get a little busy here the next couple 6 weeks. We'll be holding our 71st annual stock show and sale 7 on the 18th through the 24th. Hill Country District Junior 8 Livestock Show is not only the county stock show for Kerr 9 County, but also encompasses 33 surrounding counties for the 10 district show as well. We're the fifth largest in the state 11 of Texas. Very proud of that. We also have a statewide 12 Angora goat show, also the largest in the nation, and I 13 believe at one time the largest in the world. I'm not going 14 to verify that stand on that one. But we also have the 15 statewide ag mech program, which we're very proud of. So, 16 anybody from the state can enter that program as well here. 17 I'll give you a little bit of our numbers. Kerr 18 County District -- our Kerr County show this year, there are 19 618 entries, which will be exhibited by 276 exhibitors. So 20 that's just our Kerr County kids coming from 4-H and F.F.A. 21 chapters within Kerr County, the schools. Our district show, 22 there are 2,960 entries. It has grown. Entries are up a 23 little bit again, so we're proud of that fact, that we keep 24 growing and getting a little bit bigger. There's 1,400 25 exhibitors that will exhibit those entries. And like I said, 1-12-15 16 1 two of those programs are statewide. The rest of them come 2 from those 33 counties around. Last year we had a sale that 3 was over a million dollars, a million point one. We're very 4 proud of that. We're working very hard. I've got a sales 5 committee that in the last month has been working very hard 6 on getting sales, buyers committed again, and we anticipate 7 having a great sale on the 24th to pay these exhibitors off. 8 Along with that quality is the quality of our 9 judges. We use judges that are leaders in their industries, 10 many times university officials, Extension officials, or just 11 individuals that are the tops in their fields, so we take 12 pride in bringing in top quality judges to judge these 13 exhibits. These exhibitors not only compete here, as Kerr 14 County being the first show for many of these exhibitors; 15 they then go on to compete at the major -- San Antonio, 16 Houston, Austin, and San Angelo, and they are very successful 17 there. So, we kind of feel we're the fifth largest, but 18 we're that stepping stone helping them compete at a bigger 19 level. Not only do we support them during this next week, 20 but throughout the year, we support the youth with 21 scholarship programs, another part that Hill Country District 22 Junior Livestock Show is very proud of. Up through 2014, our 23 scholarship program, we have given out in excess of -- 24 distributed in excess of $669,000 worth of scholarships. 25 $498,000 of that is academics; $171,000 is what we call our 1-12-15 17 1 breeding -- our breeding show scholarships and our ag mech 2 scholarships. This year alone, we've committed another 3 $75,500, 50,000 of that being academic, 25,500 being the 4 breeding show and ag mech. At the end of this year, we will 5 have almost hit three-quarters of a million dollars worth of 6 scholarships that we've given to the youth of the district 7 and the county as well. We're very proud of that. 8 Our commitment to the County, the partnership that 9 we've had, like I said, the beautiful new facilities out 10 there were finished. In addition to what the association has 11 done with y'all working, adding $500,000 to the new building, 12 we have also completed replacing all of the pens and all the 13 show rings in the facility. Everything out there will be 14 new, to the sum of about $400,000, plus or minus. We're very 15 proud of that, and we'll have new equipment for all of our 16 exhibitors this year. There won't be any... It makes it a 17 lot easier to handle. We've had kind of a soft opening with 18 those as well with our school shows, seeing that everything's 19 functioning and working, making it go real smooth. We are an 20 all-volunteer organization, as y'all have heard me say many 21 times before. Without these volunteers, none of this would 22 happen. These volunteers work year-long, and the last couple 23 of weeks they have really turned up their volunteer hours. 24 They're out there setting up barns, setting up those pens. 25 The indoor arena and what we call the eastern part 1-12-15 18 1 over there has been set up for a couple of weeks already. 2 That's where the school shows were held. During that time, 3 we've logged about 140 hours of volunteer time out there with 4 our volunteers setting up alongside, with Tim's crew 5 directing and making sure that everything's loaded correctly. 6 So, we've logged that. I know this morning and this week, 7 our volunteers are out there again setting up the new show 8 barn as well. It will be volunteers, as well as some 9 businesses. I know Fritz family, Mini-Mart, they will send 10 their maintenance crew in today, and they will work out there 11 as well setting up the new show ring -- or the show rings and 12 pens out there. 13 We invite to you come out the 18th through the 14 24th. It's going to be a week long, a lot of activities. 15 We're going to have some fun. It's fun to watch these kids. 16 If you haven't been out there, I encourage -- I know all of 17 you have come out there, but it's really neat to watch these 18 kids. They walk in there and they're pretty intense. 19 They've worked these projects all year long, pretty serious 20 look on their face. But their faces light up when they get 21 that ribbon, or they get something said to them by a judge or 22 one of our volunteers commending them on a job they've done. 23 And that's our reward. That's our payback. It's not 24 monetary. It's the fact that we see these kids succeed, and 25 we're seeing them succeed in the fact that they're coming 1-12-15 19 1 back to us and working for the organization, as well as 2 volunteers. And that shows the success of this program over 3 the many, many years. Ahead of time, I want to thank those 4 of that you are going to come out and announce. I think 5 y'all have all been approached with that, and we appreciate 6 your time for volunteering, coming out and helping us do 7 that. We invite you to stop by our office. The eats are 8 generally pretty good in there. We take care of our staff, 9 Buster. Gumbo, enchiladas. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I told you. 11 MR. BAUER: We'll take care of you. (Laughter.) 12 Come see us. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll be there. 14 MR. BAUER: We figured you would. We want you to. 15 We want y'all to stop by. The other thing is, remember this 16 Friday out here on the courthouse square starting at 17 6 o'clock, Cowboy Breakfast to kind of kick everything off. 18 And then we'll -- I believe from there, at 10 o'clock we'll 19 go to the ribbon cutting, and then we'll rock and roll. We 20 look forward to it. It's great. If you know anybody that 21 wants to participate at a buyer level or volunteer level, 22 have them look us up. We always welcome more. I'll answer 23 any questions I can. If not, again, I thank this Court very 24 much for what y'all do for the youth and the community of 25 Kerr County. 1-12-15 20 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I've got a question now, and 2 a comment. 3 MR. BAUER: Yes, sir? 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You were talking about the 5 $400,000. 6 MR. BAUER: Yes, sir. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is any of that taxpayer 8 money? 9 MR. BAUER: No, sir. That was raised through 10 applications to foundations, fundraising, different ways like 11 that. It is not anything that came out of taxpayer coffers. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I know that. I just wanted 13 to get that word out. 14 MR. BAUER: Yes, sir. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: For those people that are in 16 this room right now that don't go out there on a regular 17 basis, I beg you to come and look at what's going on out 18 there. You see these kids that may get a 20th place; they'll 19 stop the judge and thank him. 20 MR. BAUER: Yes, sir. Yeah. And as I said the 21 other night, that was one of the former County Judge's 22 comments, is that, "I don't have to worry about seeing these 23 kids in this court." And that's what we're very proud of, 24 the -- the help we can give these kids, and on their way to 25 success in the future. 1-12-15 21 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 2 MR. BAUER: Thank y'all. 3 JUDGE POLLARD: Do you have any comments, Tom? 4 That judge you were referring to, the previous judge was 5 Judge Pat Tinley. 6 MR. BAUER: Yes, sir. 7 JUDGE POLLARD: Maybe some of the public's not 8 aware that the County Judge is also the juvenile judge in 9 Kerr County, and so he was speaking from experience, 13 years 10 on the bench, that he had never seen any of these kids that 11 came through the ag programs or participated in the -- in 12 this particular show in his court. And I can tell you that 13 in the nine months that I've been on the bench as juvenile 14 judge, I've not seen any of them, so I can confirm the same 15 thing. There's another benefit that the public may not be 16 aware of. They've heard a lot of talk about money passing 17 through kids' awards and all of that, but there's a big 18 benefit to the -- to the business community of Kerrville and 19 Kerr County. There was a study made, I believe by Jonas 20 Titas, about the effect -- economic effect of this particular 21 show on our community, and the impact on our community for a 22 one-week show was $1 million. 23 You know, so you're going to see -- for those that 24 don't go out -- don't go out to the show very much, just as 25 you drive around town during that week, you'll notice that 1-12-15 22 1 all of the motels are full. You're going to see pickups with 2 trailers parked there, all kinds of ag products. All of the 3 ranch stores are going to be really busy. The restaurants 4 are going to be full of people that are kind of 5 cowboy-looking type folks, and they're spending a lot of 6 money in our community and shopping in our community. This 7 is a very important thing for our community. And so, Steve, 8 on behalf of the Commissioners Court, we really appreciate 9 all of your efforts in this particular show, and making it 10 such a success. I just want to know, how can we beat San 11 Angelo and move up to number four? (Laughter.) 12 MR. BAUER: We're working, Judge. Believe me, 13 we're always trying to step it up another notch. 14 JUDGE POLLARD: See, we're behind the Houston Stock 15 Show, Fort Worth Stock Show, San Antonio Stock Show, and then 16 San Angelo, and we're going try to move up past San Angelo, 17 okay? Is that right, Steve? 18 MR. BAUER: We keep working. We're going to get 19 there. 20 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. 21 MR. BAUER: We're going to get there. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: Do you have any comments, Jonathan? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. 24 JUDGE POLLARD: How about it, Bob? 25 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Just one comment. And I know 1-12-15 23 1 from working with Steve, we're fortunate to have one 2 individual coming back to judge this year. Buster probably 3 saw him in about 1990, when Ingram Tom Moore won a state 4 basketball championship. He grew up out there, grew up in 5 west Kerr County out on Highway 39. I still refer to him as 6 "Andy," but it's Dr. Andy Laughlin from Lubbock Christian 7 University. And he always loves coming home. And that shows 8 what the 4-H program does. He's not the only one with a 9 "Dr." In front of his name that's come through that barn, but 10 he's coming back 'cause he loves to come home and judge. And 11 Buster is grinning over there; he knows the young man. He's 12 not a young man any more, but -- but he's coming back. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: Well, he is compared to Buster. 14 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Well -- (Laughter.) 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What have I done? You still 16 have some of that wine? 17 MR. BARTON: It's a true statement. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, it's true. It's true. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. The next item on the 20 agenda, then, will be 1.5; consider, discuss, and take 21 appropriate action regarding dog laws in Kerr County, 22 reference in particular, pit bulls. Sherry Egloff. 23 MS. EGLOFF: That's me. 24 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you, ma'am. 25 MS. EGLOFF: I'm -- I'm the proud owner of a 1-12-15 24 1 dachshund that has achieved a title in a dog sport called 2 Earthdog. Now, Earthdog is specifically for terriers and 3 dachshunds, dogs that have been bred to hunt underground. 4 Dachshunds were bred to go underground and kill a badger. 5 So, today, we have a sport that a dog enters a maze of 6 tunnels, and the object is to locate a caged rat, and he's 7 supposed to try to kill it, and so this is a beautiful 8 example of dog breeding. But everyone here in this room 9 knows that dogs have been bred for very specific purposes for 10 centuries. You know that, of course, we have shepherds and 11 we have retrievers and we have hounds, and we even have dogs 12 that are bred specifically to be companion -- companion lap 13 dogs. Which brings me to the problem of pit bulls. You 14 know, even dogs that -- these dogs that have been bred for 15 their purpose, you'll find that they will do what they were 16 bred to do with no training whatsoever. If you watch a 17 beagle, he is going to follow scent. If you watch a 18 retriever, he is going to jump in the river. He is going to 19 be carrying around that stick. So, most dogs will do what 20 they were bred to do, which is the problem with pit bulls. 21 I have brought several articles here that are 22 recent. One is from Austin. It says, "Smithville City 23 Council flags pit bulls as a danger." Austin could learn 24 something from their country cousins, Smithville, for taxing 25 the pit bull registrations. The kennels of the city of 1-12-15 25 1 Austin and Austin Pets Alive are filled with unwanted dogs. 2 Smaller dogs find homes. The big pit bulls and their crosses 3 linger sometimes for a year, sometimes for life. We are 4 spending $5 million for 100 new kennels to hold the backlog 5 of forsaken pit bulls. That should be paid for by the 6 enthusiasts. We need to discourage ownership in this breed 7 for the simple reason we can't get them adopted. 8 Then there's this next article, which is from San 9 Antonio. Severe dog bites on the rise. Last month, a 10 9-year-old was walking to her grandmother's house when a pit 11 bull mix pushed her against a metal fence and bit her hand 12 and leg. A neighbor intervened before it got worse, but the 13 child received stitches, pins, a cast on her hand after she 14 suffered lacerations, deep puncture wounds, and a ring finger 15 broken in three places. Her case is one of several severe 16 animal bites that occurred in the past few months. This is a 17 cause for concern, since many of these severe bites involve 18 young children. These are beyond simple nips; these are 19 attacks. The animal agent also described another case in 20 which an unsterilized pit bull bit an 11-year-old girl 21 causing gaping wounds to the child's arms and chest. She may 22 lose an arm and be in the hospital through Christmas. 23 Another attack was on an 83-year-old woman. She was killed 24 by two pit bulls while she was feeding her cats. As for the 25 9-year-old, her cast has come off, but she still has numbness 1-12-15 26 1 and lack of movement in some of the fingers of her left hand. 2 She has a difficult time going out to play. Sometime after 3 the attack, she was roller skating near her home when she saw 4 another dog nearby, and quickly fled away in fear. She fell 5 and broke her right ankle in the process. 6 Then we have the pit bull in Ingram. Now, the pit 7 bull in Ingram enters a neighbor's yard, kills a pet dog 8 right in front of family, and before the police arrive, it 9 tore the hide off the dog and began eating it. So, you can 10 see that pit bulls are dangerous. We have a problem with 11 them. That pit bull in Ingram did exactly what he was bred 12 to do. Pit bulls were bred for one purpose, and that is dog 13 fighting. They were bred to kill another dog, and that dog 14 in Ingram did it. They -- they have -- they're strong. 15 They're abnormally strong for their size, and particularly 16 the jaw. The jaw is oversized, so that it's designed to 17 crush bone and rip flesh. And if you Google "pit bull 18 attacks," you find a record unlike any other breed. There 19 are many, many, many attacks. There are disfiguring injuries 20 and there are deaths. These dogs kill. You can find 21 pictures of the injuries. Now, a normal dog, if you get bit, 22 within a couple weeks, you'd never know you ever had it, but 23 with a pit bull, these are -- they rip the flesh, they rip 24 the skin off, they rip the muscle out. And this occurs to 25 arms, legs, neck, face, and you can have pictures of it right 1-12-15 27 1 here on this -- on the internet. Then they also list deaths. 2 And the majority -- okay, they have killed, like, joggers and 3 elderly people, but the vast majority are children and 4 infants. Then they have a map showing where these 5 injuries -- these deaths have taken place, and you get one on 6 Texas. 7 Now, so far, at this point, there has not been a 8 death here in Kerr County. But I think it's a lot like the 9 deer question. It's not a matter of when -- I mean, of "if" 10 you will; it's "when" you will. I personally have been 11 threatened a number of times by pit bulls, one when walking 12 my dog on a leash beside me. There was the lady who was 13 straining for all her might to keep her dog, who was 14 thrusting on the end of his leash, trying to break loose to 15 attack my dog. And she yells out, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. 16 He's a rescue, and I cannot control him." Then the other 17 time was the pit bull crashing into the fence. A normal dog 18 runs back and forth along the fence and barks. We all know 19 that. But the pit bull, he charges the fence repeatedly 20 trying to break through to get my dog. But the most scary 21 one was being stalked by a loose pit bull who followed right 22 behind us all the time, keeping his eyes on my dog. And when 23 I moved between my dog and it, it quick circled and kept 24 watching. Finally, I picked up the dog, and I was -- it 25 continued to follow, and I was very concerned that it was 1-12-15 28 1 going to attack me to take my dog. I went to my veterinarian 2 and I said, "What can I do if my dog were attacked? Is there 3 something I can carry or someplace I could hit him?" And 4 they said, "Pit bulls are bred to have no pain. They are 5 bred to continue a fight until the death of their adversary, 6 and that if you get involved in this, you are going to get 7 mutilated." 8 So, I think that we need some regulations to 9 control pit bulls. And if you Google "pit bull laws," you 10 find that there are restrictions and bans in Europe, Canada, 11 and 700 cities in the United States. I'm asking for 12 common-sense regulation, to ban the breeding and sale of pit 13 bulls, to require neutering, which diminishes aggression, 14 micro-chipping so that you can trace who owns the dog, secure 15 fencing, signs on gates and doors announcing a pit bull is 16 there, to protect police, firemen, visitors. Just recently, 17 I think it was a policeman in Austin had to shoot a pit bull. 18 And that if the pit bull is off the owner's property, that it 19 be on a leash no longer than 8 feet, and definitely forbid 20 pit bulls in dog parks. Putting a pit bull in a dog park is 21 a lot like a pedophile in an elementary school. These 22 regulations would also protect pit bull owners from lawsuits, 23 having their dog put down, and particularly surprise attacks, 24 which happen regularly. 25 For example, there was this child that went to a 1-12-15 29 1 neighbor's door, and the pit bull broke right through the 2 screen and killed the child. The owner then said, "I'm 3 shocked. I cannot believe that dog could do that, and he's 4 always been a good dog." Now, this is a very common comment 5 after a pit bull attack, is that the owner didn't believe 6 that that dog would do these things. But he was bred to do 7 it. So, Commissioners, there is a pit bull problem, and I'm 8 asking you to prevent attacks, because the next victim may 9 not be a dog. Anyway, can I clarify anything? Do you have 10 questions or anything? 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I do. You say there's -- 12 you named all these other countries -- 13 MS. EGLOFF: Yes. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- that have regulations, 15 and then there were some cities in the United States. 16 MS. EGLOFF: Mm-hmm. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I didn't catch the number, 18 but you said there's cities. 19 MS. EGLOFF: Hundreds. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Hundreds? 21 MS. EGLOFF: Mm-hmm. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How does -- how does a city 23 go about adopting the regulation? Is it like -- by what 24 authority do they do that? 25 MS. EGLOFF: I don't know anything about city 1-12-15 30 1 government; I'm afraid I don't know how they do that. But 2 they do. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 4 MS. EGLOFF: In fact, whole countries -- like, I 5 think in France, I don't think you could have a non-neutered 6 pit bull. And I think in France, the only person who could 7 ever have an unneutered pit bull would be a licensed breeder, 8 and there they license breeding, and that you just couldn't 9 own or have such a thing. And if you had your dog on the 10 street, it would have to be muzzled. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I couldn't care less what 12 they do in France. 13 MS. EGLOFF: But, anyway, they realize and protect 14 their people. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, like cities here, cities 16 have ordinances. 17 MS. EGLOFF: Yes. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And I'm wondering if -- is 19 that the vehicle that they use to put in their law? 20 MS. EGLOFF: I don't know that. I don't know much 21 about that. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: Ilse can probably answer that 23 question. 24 MS. BAILEY: Yes. Unfortunately, the State 25 Legislature and the Health and Safety Code has specified that 1-12-15 31 1 counties may not make breed-specific regulations, so we can't 2 do anything in that respect. However, our Animal Control 3 folks have been pretty proactive about trying to make sure 4 that people obey the regulations we do have in place, which 5 are as restrictive as state law allows. We have a dangerous 6 dog order that requires an animal who has bitten to have the 7 owner then have to have insurance and other protective 8 aspects. Just to give you some background, the Animal 9 Control here has been keeping statistics, and I have them 10 from 2013 through today, and of the domesticated animals that 11 they have received reports on, cats are the most, having been 12 reported biting as 36. Pit bulls are second, with 23 over 13 those two-plus years. Next is Labs. The next are 14 chihuahuas, and the fourth is dachshunds. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: How many -- you said 23 for 16 pit bulls. How many for labs? 17 MS. BAILEY: 23 for pit bulls, 11 for Labs, 10 for 18 chihuahuas, and 9 for dachshunds. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 20 MS. BAILEY: So, I guess the short version is, I -- 21 I agree with all of the things that she said about the -- 22 those dogs are bred for more aggressive behavior. However, 23 since we can't do anything about it, what we have to do is 24 use the orders that we do have in place to try to encourage 25 people to obey the leash law, obey the rules about dangerous 1-12-15 32 1 dogs, and to keep their animals in such a way that they can't 2 put our citizens in danger. 3 JUDGE POLLARD: So the plan is, Mrs. Egloff, that 4 perhaps you need to talk to the City about a city ordinance. 5 Maybe they could do something like that. 6 MS. BAILEY: Well, municipalities are also 7 prohibited from doing breed-specific regulations. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 9 MS. EGLOFF: Well, my understanding of what she 10 said is that you can't do anything until the dog has actually 11 killed somebody or done something really exciting to call it 12 a danger. There's nothing that is going to protect me and my 13 dog. Nothing. And your -- your views -- we all agree these 14 are dangerous dogs, and that there is absolutely nothing that 15 you have mentioned that would protect me. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, it's not her view; it's 17 state law. If the law needs to be changed, it's up to the 18 Texas Legislature to change it. Then we can certainly 19 consider it. But it's -- you know, we don't -- you know, we 20 cannot just enact a rule or a law without authority from the 21 Legislature. So, what you're saying is -- 22 MS. EGLOFF: True. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You're right, until something 24 is done that allows our Environmental -- or our -- Ray 25 Garcia's group -- 1-12-15 33 1 MS. EGLOFF: Well, it's obvious that this one town 2 has done something to go around it. They've taxed people who 3 own them. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But cities can do that. 5 Counties can't. 6 MS. EGLOFF: Oh, really? 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's what he just -- yeah. 8 But she can't do it -- as the attorney says, you can't do it 9 as breed-specific. 10 MS. BAILEY: Breed-specific. 11 MS. EGLOFF: This particular town did. And that's 12 in Texas, I presume. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're not a town. 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But we're not a town. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: We're not a town. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: We're not a city, so you 17 might -- 18 MS. EGLOFF: So, what are the -- the protections I 19 have from -- 20 MS. BAILEY: Well, at this point, particularly 21 right now, since the Legislature is just going into session, 22 I think all of your concerns would be appropriately addressed 23 to your State Legislators, as opposed to county government. 24 Because if they change those rules, then we have the ability 25 to -- to put in place the kind of order that you're 1-12-15 34 1 suggesting. But right now, our hands are tied; we can't. 2 MS. EGLOFF: Okay. Well, I hope the next victim is 3 not a child. Thank you. 4 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. Is there anything 5 further on that issue? If not, we'll go to 1.5 -- 1.6, 6 rather; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to 7 appoint and reappoint members of the Kerr County Historical 8 Commission, and submit current membership list to the Texas 9 Historical Commission. Julie Leonard. 10 MS. LEONARD: Morning. I think I sent Buster the 11 list of the proposed members. Louis Romero, Sylvia Lewis, 12 Joe Lewis, Lillian Warren, Evelyn Shields, Mary Jane Jones, 13 Wayne Musgrove, Betty Musgrove, Louis Strohacker, and Dub 14 Haney, Gilda Wilkinson, Terry Laurendine, and Kaye Davenport. 15 Are any of these -- are you -- stand up, please. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Louis, would you stand up? 17 Oh. (Laughter.) 18 MR. ROMERO: I need a booster chair or something 19 like that, Commissioner. (Laughter.) 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Don't feel bad about it. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Consider the source. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah, he does it to me all the 23 time. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Great group. Super group. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 1-12-15 35 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, we'll take this list 2 now, and Jody and I will send it to Austin to be a part of 3 the official -- 4 MS. LEONARD: And I'll add the current members to 5 that list so you have a complete list. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Super. Very good. 7 JUDGE POLLARD: Commissioner -- 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do we need to accept the list, 9 or is it just -- 10 JUDGE POLLARD: I think we need to appoint the 11 members today, as far as -- 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We're going to appoint. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: -- as far as the County's 14 concerned. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I think the Judge pro tem just 16 made that decision. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: I think he did, yeah. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. Well, we do this 19 every other year. 20 JUDGE POLLARD: Yeah. Is that a motion, 21 Mr. Baldwin? 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sir, I move that we accept 23 this list of new members to the Historical Commission. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And I'll second. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: Any further discussion? There 1-12-15 36 1 being none, those in favor signify by raising your right 2 hand. 3 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 4 JUDGE POLLARD: It's 4-0, unanimous. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I think Wayne doesn't want to 6 do it; he's leaving. 7 MR. MUSGROVE: I got a doctor's appointment. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 9 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you very much. Number 1.8; 10 consider, discuss, and take appropriate action to authorize 11 the County Treasurer to advertise for the depository and 12 banking services contract RFP's. 13 MS. LEONARD: I need to give my report. 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: 1.7. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: Oh, there's an annual report from 16 the -- all right, I'm sorry. 1.7, annual report from the 17 Kerr County Historical Commission. Yes, ma'am? 18 MS. LEONARD: I'm sure you're waiting with bated 19 breath. Incidentally, we have 52 members with the addition 20 of our new members. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: The majority of which are on the 22 Historical Commission list, huh? Board. 23 MS. LEONARD: This is my 2014 Kerr County 24 Historical Commission report. To remind everybody, the 25 purpose of the Kerr County Historical Commission is to 1-12-15 37 1 protect and preserve Kerr County's historic and cultural 2 resources for the use, education, enjoyment, and appreciation 3 of present and future generations. We are a unit of the 4 Texas Historical Commission, and we work under the guidance 5 of the Kerr County Commissioners Court. The Kerr County 6 Historical Commission meets at noon on the third Monday of 7 each month, with the exception of June, July, August, 8 December, and we meet at the Union Church Building, Broadway 9 and East Main Street, Kerrville, Texas. Our public meetings 10 begin with a program and last an hour, including a formal 11 meeting. Local newspapers inform the public of our programs 12 and meetings. We had 39 members that volunteered 3,878 hours 13 last year in service to Kerr County. The officers of 2014 14 were Julie Mosty Leonard, chairwoman; Francelle Robison 15 Collins, vice chair; Mary Lee Jobes Stewart, secretary; Wilma 16 Council Teague, treasurer. The Kerr County Historical 17 Commission has been awarded the Distinguished Service Award 18 by the Texas Historical Commission for the last five years. 19 Our programs for 2014, Francelle Collins was in 20 charge. Mike Bowlin gave a program on Kerr County citizens 21 involved in saving the Alamo. Dr. Rand Zuber gave his report 22 on his grandfather, Martin Palmer, Dr. Zuber's great great 23 grandfather, who was a signer of the Texas Declaration of 24 Independence, and one of the authors of the Constitution of 25 the Republic of Texas. Dr. Bill Rector gave a program on the 1-12-15 38 1 Great Western Cattle Trail. This trail went through 2 Kerrville and Dr. Rector's ranch. Thousands of horses and 3 cattle were moved to Kansas and Nebraska. This trail carried 4 more cattle and existed longer than the Chisholm Trail. 5 There's a Western Cattle Trail historical marker on Harper 6 Road. Irene Van Winkle gave stories of her family and 7 others' escape from the Ukraine during World War II. Deborah 8 Gaudier gave a program on war memorials in Kerrville. Carlos 9 Juenke, a Fredericksburg writer, gave a program on a book 10 about his grandfather, Caspar Fritz, a German immigrant, and 11 his memories of perils, including mob lynchings and murders 12 during the civil war. Two programs were show and tell; 13 members brought family artifacts and photographs and 14 interesting articles. 15 Our projects were a Texas Treasure Business Award 16 to Stephens Cedar Yard established in 1939. This award is 17 given by the Texas Historical Commission to businesses that 18 have existed for 50 years or more. Another project that Mary 19 Lee Stewart chaired and hosted is the -- we hosted the 20 20-county Edwards Plateau Historical Association in May. We 21 had four speakers. After the meeting, Deborah Gaudier 22 conducted a tour of downtown Kerrville historical buildings. 23 In November, the Historical Commission honored World War I 24 hero Francisco Lemos with the dedication of a bronze and 25 stone grave marker. A seven-member committee led by Mike 1-12-15 39 1 Bowlin researched this grave site, military records, and 2 present-day family connections. Private Lemos was the last 3 American killed in World War I to be returned and buried on 4 American soil. The interment happened to be in the Mountain 5 View Cemetery in Kerrville, Texas. There were over 100 6 people in attendance. Several retired military groups, 7 individuals, and Tivy Honor Guard assisted in the ceremony. 8 Boy Scout Troop 111 members Chase Hall, Gabe 9 Torres, Antonio Flores, Julian Torres, Adrian Ozuna, Aidan 10 Chacon restored the historical markers at Center Point 11 Cemetery, Camp Verde, Martin Cemetery, and Cypress Creek 12 School. The Kerr County Historical Commission was granted a 13 Rescuing Texas History mini-grant from North Texas University 14 to establish a Kerr County portal on their Portals to Texas 15 site. This is the statewide digital collaborative effort 16 with 250 partners. This is a free online site to provide 17 access to educators, museums, students, researchers, and 18 general public. It will assist us to -- to preserve our 19 unique historical documents and artifacts through the 20 digitization process. There are over 250 partners that have 21 established sites. We have submitted our 77 oral histories, 22 and the university will add all of our historical markers. 23 Mary Elaine Adamek Jones is chair of this project. This is a 24 long-term project that will be submitting county documents 25 and artifacts, and we're very excited about this project. 1-12-15 40 1 The Kerr County Historical Commission has approved 2 a project by the Friends of the Kerr County Historical 3 Commission. Friends Chairwoman Nancy Alford has organized an 4 exhibit at Schreiner Mansion titled "The Story of Us: The 5 Impact of Tuberculosis on the Development of Kerr County." 6 This opening is planned for March 7th, 2015. Besides digital 7 exhibits, it will include lectures and a musical program 8 during the six-month exhibit. The organization's future 9 project is help to establish a Kerr County museum, and I 10 think -- hopefully y'all saw the article in the weekend paper 11 on this project. Our historical markers, we have received, 12 not dedicated, Notre Dame School, Mosty Brothers Nursery, and 13 the Gatlin site, Famous Door. Center Point First Christian 14 Church's application has been submitted to the Texas 15 Historical Commission. Kerrville Downtown Buildings Walking 16 Tour brochure was prepared by Dr. Deborah Gaudier and 17 Dr. Bill Rector. The Kerr County -- the Kerrville Convention 18 and Visitors Center and City of Kerrville helped finance the 19 printing. 20 We have some endangered properties: The Comparette 21 House at Jefferson and Tivy Street, the A.C. Schreiner House, 22 the Tivy Hotel, and the Scofield School for Girls, which is 23 the property next to the Western Art Museum. Our cemetery 24 committee, Linda Nielsen-Reynolds documented and photographs 25 all Kerr County cemeteries, and the photographs are sent to 1-12-15 41 1 the Find-a-Grave website. Oral history, Francelle Collins. 2 Eight oral histories from 2013 have been transcribed and 3 archived and available to the public at Logan Library at 4 Schreiner University and the Kerr History Center. Our 5 archives, Louis Stephens, he's archived all of our agendas 6 and items given to us, and they're also located at the Logan 7 Library at Schreiner University. The Kerr County Historical 8 Commission stay connected with the Commissioners through 9 Buster Baldwin, and we do that through e-mails and meetings. 10 And I thank Judge Pollard, Commissioners Baldwin, Moser, 11 Letz, and Reeves for your support of our commission, and 12 especially Jody, who keeps everybody organized. And are 13 there any questions? 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: A couple questions. Julie, 15 thank you for all you do in the entire committee and 16 commission. It's fantastic to keep the history in 17 everybody's minds and preserve it, so for both of those 18 things. The -- the historical center over by -- next to the 19 library, tell me what the interaction with your group and 20 that facility is. 21 MS. LEONARD: Actually, that's a city, you know, 22 facility. And, you know, our members use it, you know, 23 occasionally. Of course, it's been kind of limited in the 24 last couple months, so I think there's been some difficulty 25 in, you know, getting information. 1-12-15 42 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right, okay. Well, you know, 2 somehow if that could -- what you guys are doing and what 3 that facility over there is, it just sounds like the -- the 4 integration of those two would be great. 5 MS. LEONARD: Well, we do archive all the oral 6 histories in the history center, so, you know, people can go. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. 8 MS. LEONARD: But that's our only official 9 connection with the history center. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: There's some absolutely 12 fascinating projects happening here. One of my favorites is 13 to go and see, of course, Dr. Rector's cattle drive issue, 14 but Rand Zuber's great-grandaddy being a signer of the Texas 15 Constitution, and he dresses up in the deal, and it's really 16 fascinating. But I want you to talk a little bit more -- 17 maybe Francelle would want to talk a little bit more about 18 the oral history thing. 19 MS. LEONARD: I'll let Francelle tell you about 20 that. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That is one of the most 22 incredible ideas and things that happen in this county. 23 Would you come up and tell us how that works right quick? 24 MS. COLLINS: I have eight set up for this year. I 25 set up between eight and ten every year. One of the 1-12-15 43 1 ladies -- you probably saw her picture in the paper about a 2 month ago; she's 100 years old, Mrs. Grona. And it was 3 funny, I talked to her the other day and she said, "Now, what 4 was your maiden name?" And I said Robison, and she said, 5 "Oh, well, I graduated with your aunt." So -- and my aunt's 6 been dead forever. So sometimes it's hard to think that, you 7 know, your relatives -- there's somebody still alive that 8 knew some of your relatives. But this little lady has some 9 great history. She worked for the telephone company, and 10 she's going to be the first interview with somebody that 11 worked for the telephone company. But I -- I try and do as 12 many as I hear about. Louis Romero is one that I've been 13 working on for years, and he's finally said he'll do it. 14 So -- and the Mosty brothers. I've been working on them for 15 a long time, and I think I'm finally going to get them done 16 this year. But anybody -- 17 MS. LEONARD: Talk about the videos and stuff. 18 They're all -- 19 MS. COLLINS: Yes, we video them, and we also 20 record them, and all of that goes into the three places we 21 talked about; to North Texas, to Schreiner University, and to 22 the history center. So, you can go over there; you can read 23 the actual transcript, or you can look at it on a disk. And 24 if anybody has somebody they think I need to interview, 25 please let me know, 'cause I'd be glad to do them. So, it -- 1-12-15 44 1 it's a wonderful project. It really is, and everybody enjoys 2 doing it. It takes one hour, so -- 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's just fascinating. If 4 Louis Romero had great great grandkids -- imagine that. I 5 know you have to really stretch your mind to think like that, 6 but say he did, and they were raised in Dallas and they lived 7 there in Dallas, and they come into Kerrville to check on 8 their family. Well, they can go and check that video out and 9 see their great granddaddy, and him to talk about his life 10 and the history of his family. It's just one of the neatest 11 things done. It is so cool. 12 MS. COLLINS: And Boss Merritt, I did him a couple 13 of years ago, and his great-uncle was a friend of Wyatt Earp. 14 So, you never know who you're going to find down the line, 15 you know, that knew somebody. So -- 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You may want to get me in 17 there when you do Louis, just to keep that thing straight. 18 (Laughter.) 19 MS. COLLINS: And I'm going to do you, too. I'd 20 like to do everybody in Kerrville. Thank you. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you very much. 22 MS. LEONARD: Well, when you're talking about the 23 oral history, that is going to be on the Portals, the Texas 24 website. So, you could get on your computer, go to the 25 Portals website, type in "Kerr County," and they're in the 1-12-15 45 1 process of getting all these digitized, so you could type in: 2 "Boss Merritt" or "Louis Romero," and then you can watch the 3 video and read, you know, the transcript. So, it's going to 4 be wonderful. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's exciting. Thank you. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Can you see the video also? 7 MS. LEONARD: Yeah. Yeah, they're planning -- 8 they're working on that. Of course, they've got 77. I don't 9 know, you know, how long that's going to take, but they were 10 very excited about it, 'cause we already had them on DVD's, 11 so it was going to be much simpler for them to transcribe 12 our -- all of our materials. So, we're hoping it will be up 13 soon. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, I move that we accept 15 the annual report from the Kerr County Historical Commission. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Second. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: Is there any further discussion? 18 There being none, those in favor, signify by raising your 19 right hand. 20 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 21 - - - - - - - - - - 22 JUDGE POLLARD: It' 4-0, unanimous. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you very much. Very 24 well done. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you, Mrs. Leonard. All 1-12-15 46 1 right. Now to 1.8; consider, discuss, and take appropriate 2 action to authorize County Treasurer to advertise for the 3 depository and banking contract services. Tracy Soldan. 4 MS. SOLDAN: Good morning. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: Good morning. 6 MS. SOLDAN: I've provided all of you with a copy 7 of the RFP, as well as the backup documents that will go 8 to -- 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I can't hear you. 10 JUDGE POLLARD: Why don't you wait and let the -- 11 let this clear out so he can hear you. Okay. Thank you, 12 Tracy. 13 MS. SOLDAN: Sure. I have provided all of you with 14 a copy of the Request for Proposal for our banking services, 15 as well as the backup documentation that will be provided to 16 any banks that request it, and I just want to get your 17 permission to advertise for this service. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Is this RFP about the same as 19 the previous RFP? 20 MS. SOLDAN: Yes, it's almost exactly the same, 21 with the new Treasurer. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: Been submitted to and approved by 23 the County Attorney's office? 24 MS. SOLDAN: Yes. 25 MS. BAILEY: Yes. 1-12-15 47 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Do you need a court order, 2 or just a blessing? 3 MS. SOLDAN: I'm not sure. Court order. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I move for approval of the 5 agenda item. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: Yeah. 7 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I'll second. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Been moved and seconded that we 9 advertise for an RFP for our bank depository and banking 10 services contract on the form presented. Is there any 11 further discussion? There being none, those in favor, 12 signify by raising your right hand. 13 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 14 JUDGE POLLARD: 4-0, unanimous. 15 MS. SOLDAN: Thank you. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you, Tracy. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: 1.9; consider, discuss, and take 18 appropriate action to file a request for Kerr County pro rata 19 distribution and proceeds from the Tobacco Settlement 20 Permanent Trust Account. Ms. Hargis. 21 MS. HARGIS: Good morning. I think all of you 22 remember that several years ago, there was a big tobacco 23 settlement amongst all the states, and we participated in 24 that and received moneys until last -- I think 2012 and 2013, 25 we didn't receive any money. We got a little bit of money at 1-12-15 48 1 the end of 2013. But in order to be eligible, we have to 2 print out this grant application we have ready to go, so I 3 need your permission to send the application in. Last year, 4 I believe we got about $49,000. It's not a large amount of 5 money, but it is -- it does help with our programs. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Move approval. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Any further discussion? There 9 being none, those in favor, signify by raising your right 10 hand. 11 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 12 JUDGE POLLARD: 4-0, unanimous. Thank you. 1.10, 13 consider, discuss, and take appropriate action regarding 14 possible funding opportunity in Texas disaster-eligible 15 areas. Ms. Hargis? 16 MS. HARGIS: We received an e-mail from the U.S. 17 Department of Housing and Urban Development in conjunction 18 with the Rockefeller Foundation to do a National Disaster 19 Resiliency grant. And I have the web -- the webinar is this 20 afternoon, so I haven't had a chance to see it yet, so I 21 don't know whether we're eligible or not. But there have 22 been 158 counties identified, and I'm assuming since we 23 received an e-mail, we are one of those 158 counties. So, 24 I've -- basically, if there is a grant to apply for, I'm sure 25 that we probably don't have but about 10 days, and I wanted 1-12-15 49 1 the Court to go ahead and authorize -- if we do qualify for 2 the grant, if I could go ahead and get the application ready 3 to go prior to the next meeting. If I don't need to have it 4 done prior to the next meeting, of course, I'll provide the 5 documentation to all of you in the meantime. 6 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And you'll know more -- 7 MS. HARGIS: This afternoon, yes. 8 COMMISSIONER REEVES: -- after the webinar? 9 MS. HARGIS: It's something new. I really don't 10 know too much about it, but it's been -- you know, just 11 listening to the Bastrop situation where they had the fire, 12 if we're -- if we're proactive and we're on that list in 13 advance of any kind of disaster, it does make it easier for 14 us to get grant money. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: Is there a motion? 16 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I would say if -- after you 17 hear the webinar and you see if we're eligible, we'll still 18 have 72 hours to put it on by Friday, wouldn't we, Jody? If 19 she knows today, then we could put it back on for Friday and 20 know what grants we're applying for. 21 MS. HARGIS: All right. 22 COMMISSIONER REEVES: So pass on it till Friday, if 23 need be. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, my preference would be 25 to find out a little bit more about it. I can't imagine why 1-12-15 50 1 they're going to have that short of a turnaround. You know, 2 they're governmental entities. 3 MS. HARGIS: Well, the turnaround for lots of 4 grants right now is the end of February, so I'm sure it's not 5 -- it's not a long -- because of the Legislature being in 6 session, I think they push them through even faster. But we 7 may not even be eligible; I have to see that, so I can't tell 8 you that. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: "Possible funding 10 opportunity in Texas disaster-eligible areas." How could we 11 possibly be eligible? 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Drought. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Drought. Flood. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll take it. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. So, we're going to 16 pass, then? Is that -- 17 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Pass it. If we need to take 18 some action, we'll -- we can do it Friday morning. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. All right. Item 10 is 20 passed, then. All right. It's -- anybody need a break? 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I do. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, I do. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: All right, let's take about a 24 10-minute break. 25 (Recess taken from 10:07 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.) - - - - - - - - - - 1-12-15 51 1 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. It's now 10:15 a.m., 2 and the Commissioners Court is back in session. We'll go to 3 Item Number 1.11; consider, discuss, and take appropriate 4 action to open responses to Requests for Proposal, bids for 5 the flooring on the second floor of the courthouse, and refer 6 for evaluation and recommendation and award as appropriate. 7 Tim? 8 MR. BOLLIER: I think that's the only one you got. 9 JUDGE POLLARD: Only got one? 10 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir, far as I know. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: There it is. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. This is from Kustom 13 Karpets, with K's instead of C's on there. Dale Groll, 14 owner, 517 Clay Street in Kerrville. And it's for flooring 15 amount, $81,685.50. Is that in accordance with what 16 everybody expected? 17 COMMISSIONER REEVES: We need to let Tim look at 18 it. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I move we accept the one bid we 20 received and refer it to Maintenance for review. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: Is there a second? 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Second. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: Any further discussion? There 24 being none, those in favor, signify by raising your right 25 hand. 1-12-15 52 1 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 2 JUDGE POLLARD: It's 4-0, unanimous. Let's go to 3 1.12; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action 4 regarding bond ballot options, setting of election date, and 5 update of jail expansion from architect. Commissioner Moser, 6 Sheriff Hierholzer, and the architect. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Just to set the stage on this, 8 the Sheriff and the Judge and myself -- wasn't it, Sheriff? 9 -- several months ago looked at what the -- what we thought 10 the requirements would be for the jail 20 years from now. 11 The current jail requirements were established 20 years ago, 12 and it's about at capacity now. We looked at it primarily -- 13 it took us several hours to do that, and we looked at what we 14 thought the population would be, but also what the crime rate 15 had been doing over the past several years, and tried to 16 extrapolate that. And with that, and trying to be very 17 conservative, came up with the recommendation that the 18 requirements for the jail expansion be such that it could 19 accommodate 144 more beds. And with that, the Sheriff took 20 some of the funds that he had and pursued concept development 21 on the -- on the jail, and that's what's here today. So -- 22 and then the other part of that is, if we -- if we want to go 23 with something like that, then move forward with a mechanism 24 by with which to fund it, and it would be a bond. So, 25 that -- that, I think, kind of brings us up to where we are. 1-12-15 53 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That is. The Court may 2 remember, we appointed a committee, which was the Judge and 3 everybody, and did all this -- this study and looked at all 4 the past history. The jail is 20 -- a little over 20 years 5 old now, and paid off, but we've been facing overcrowding 6 issues at times off and on for the last 10 years. We face a 7 constant overcrowding issue with females. So, all of it was 8 looked at. A number of beds to carry over for the next 20 9 years was arrived at through all the studies and looking at 10 all the past and everything, and then the architect that the 11 County hired, Wayne Gondeck, and his firm looked at, you 12 know, concepts, trying to draw it up however -- what else has 13 to be changed? Does, you know, medical? Does kitchen? Does 14 all the different issues, and what other issues do we have? 15 So, where we are today, Wayne has put together the 16 preliminary kind of concept and idea, and what all the 17 facility needs assessments over the last number of years that 18 have been done by the Jail Commission have shown, and what 19 our trends are. And then I think the financial advisers are 20 also here, and hopefully the outcome that we're kind of 21 hoping for today is, if the Court agrees with what all's 22 being presented, that we can come up with a bond election 23 date of preferably in May, at the May election, 'cause I 24 think that's one of the ones that can be done, is in May. 25 And that -- so that we can go ahead and start moving forward 1-12-15 54 1 with the bonds and all the extra costs that are associated 2 with the jail expansion. 3 JUDGE POLLARD: Just to refresh my memory some from 4 that meeting, your maximum capacity now is right around 190, 5 I think; is that right? 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We have 192 beds. 7 JUDGE POLLARD: Yes, sir. 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But you cannot use your 9 maximum number of beds due to classification. 10 JUDGE POLLARD: Right. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You know, rating the males, 12 females, medium -- minimum/medium/maximum security, it's 13 about 80 percent of that, which we would normally stay over. 14 I have a total of 32 female beds, and then Monday's 15 population was 28 on females, which is down. It's just -- we 16 just -- we're out of space, and have been. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: You're seeking, based on what I 18 recall, an additional 144 beds; is that correct? 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes, an additional 144 beds. 20 Because if the voters approve it, if this Court approves 21 putting it on the ballot, you know, to me, it has to do with 22 this current facility today. You have to add enough in there 23 and build it large enough that it will cover the needs of 24 this county for the next 20 years. And that's where all the 25 studies in the past and the crime rates and crime statistics 1-12-15 55 1 and populations and all where it's been, and where we've 2 been, because the last thing we want to do is cut that short, 3 and 10 years from now, while we're still trying to pay off 4 one bond issue, we have to go out for another one because we 5 don't have enough space, or we have to start housing out of 6 county at that time. 7 JUDGE POLLARD: You're not figuring on a population 8 in Kerr County like we heard from the federal statistics this 9 morning of 80,000? 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I hope not. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. All right, thank you. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I'll let Wayne come up and 13 give his deal. 14 MR. GONDECK: Morning, Judge and Commissioners. 15 For the record, my name is Wayne Gondeck from DRG Architects 16 out of San Antonio, and we were hired previously by the 17 Commissioners Court to perform certain professional services 18 related to the jail. On the studying or bringing forth this 19 phase we've done previously on the needs, and developing a 20 conceptual design to present for the -- the bond, some 21 potential bond program, I want to go over a minute or two 22 here to sort of bring everybody up to date on what has been 23 accomplished. Because as we -- as we go forward with this 24 and begin to present this to the public, which we're today 25 presenting it not only to Commissioners Court, but the public 1-12-15 56 1 is seeing what we have been developing here, I want everybody 2 to realize, you know, what we are basing our recommendations 3 on and how we've developed this over time. 4 I don't want to get too far into it, hopefully to 5 not, you know, put everybody to sleep, because I know that 6 there's been a wealth of information over time that's been 7 produced here. But as you recall, back in February of 2012, 8 so probably three years ago, we had a very extensive 9 presentation to Commissioners Court that went over quite a 10 bit of information, with the Jail Commission analysis of the 11 jail population trend between 2005 and 2011, all the 12 requirements that the Jail Commission does have and how they 13 affect the County, and how we interpret those and utilize 14 those for designing and planning a jail facility. We looked 15 at some of the state policies of what the State was doing, or 16 more what the State was not doing, and how that was affecting 17 jail populations. We've looked at some of the up and down 18 and sort of flatline trends in the jails, jails as a whole 19 around the state. 20 We looked at the needs at the time, current needs. 21 We looked at projected needs, and then we made some 22 recommendations at that time, what to do on an interim basis, 23 and then maybe to look at what to do about the future. In 24 looking at those averages, you know, if we look at the total 25 population, the male population, the female population, and 1-12-15 57 1 looking at those numbers, you know, over the last five, six 2 years, there's a lot of counties that have seen a real 3 downward trend during that time, and we've seen some relief 4 in the county jail population. Kerr County has pretty much 5 stayed and managed their population pretty well. It really 6 hasn't dipped off, and, you know, you might say the bad guys 7 didn't all go away. But your -- your population stayed 8 pretty steady, while we've seen a pretty major decrease in 9 statewide jail population. 10 I could stand up here and give you all sorts of 11 reasons and what-fors and everything of why that may or may 12 not be. Some of them may be totally valid; some of them may 13 not be at all, and most of them probably wouldn't even apply 14 to Kerr County. The main thing is -- is that y'all's 15 population has been fairly consistent, whatever the upward 16 trend or downward trend the remainder of the state has really 17 had. And one thing that that shows us is that as we grow 18 here in Kerr County as a county, that whatever the trend will 19 be will more than likely not be a spike up or whatever; it 20 will be a gradual growth over time. So, in looking at this, 21 you know, over a 20-year span, probably doubling the size of 22 the facility would probably be a little bit strong. Half the 23 size of the facility is going to be a little bit weak. And 24 -- and so that's where we really met that somewhere in 25 between on -- on some of those expectations. 1-12-15 58 1 As the Sheriff had mentioned a little bit ago, we 2 had to look at -- at those classification requirements and 3 how the Jail Commission, you, know, does look at those as far 4 as the offense and conviction, offense history, escape 5 history, and all those things that bring you down to, you 6 know, those maximum/medium/minimum security inmates, and then 7 those inmates that have to be separated from each other as to 8 whether or not they're going to cause harm to somebody, or 9 those that need to be protected from others. And what that 10 really does is, first, of course, taking that previous look, 11 is that it really establishes going from that 192-bed 12 facility that we really have out there, and really brings 13 that down to about 154 beds as to what we need to be 14 occupying on that facility to be able to maintain that 15 classification. In other words, as you arrest somebody off 16 the street, do you have a place that you can put them in on a 17 regular basis? 18 In other words, every day the Sheriff's Department 19 is arresting people, Kerrville Police Department is arresting 20 people, D.P.S. is arresting people and bringing people to the 21 county jail, and having to place them in different 22 compartments there based on their classification. And you -- 23 you need to have available space within these compartments to 24 be able to place them appropriately. So, the functional 25 capacity now -- right now is really around that 154. When we 1-12-15 59 1 look at that, and a little bit more focused in, you know, you 2 can see that you've been above that and below that a little 3 bit, but not very much. And really, for 2014, where we had 4 an average daily population of around 149 inmates, that's 5 still 96 percent of your functional capacity. That's very 6 high. That's right there at the maximum use of that facility 7 right now. And as the Sheriff says, that's not even looking 8 at -- at the biggest problem that you have as far as your 9 classifying, and that's female inmates. 10 And you've been pushing almost 100 percent of the 11 female population, or above the -- the capacity, about 110, 12 120 percent on the actual functional capacity for your 13 females, so that is one of the real critical issues as we go 14 through this process and move forward between now and any 15 time that you decide to call a bond election. The 16 information that is presented is that we're not just talking 17 about a capacity or facility, but the operational use of that 18 facility. And why do we need to have certain things as far 19 as capacity, as far as the compartmentation, and as far as 20 how many for males and females and other spaces within the 21 facility? The facility has to operate in certain ways and be 22 able to be maintained in compliance, and so when we're asking 23 the public to fund certain things, these are the things 24 that -- that we deem important to -- to express and be able 25 to provide them that information out here as to why are we 1-12-15 60 1 asking for the support for this program? 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, Wayne, what you just said 3 is 154 with 192, so that's about 80 percent. 4 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Functional capacity. 6 MR. GONDECK: Yes. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Is that 80 percent? Has that 8 been -- 9 MR. GONDECK: That's pretty much the norm. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: It is? Okay. 11 MR. GONDECK: You can push it, you know, and that's 12 going to fluctuate. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. 14 MR. GONDECK: That's a good planning number. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 16 MR. GONDECK: Most of the time, you know, you're 17 going to push that number when you -- you have to. You know, 18 some of the cells are going to be at 90 to 95 percent at some 19 period of time. It's going to be higher and lower, and it's 20 going to -- there's an ebb and flow in the jail on a daily 21 basis as to where the prisoners are housed. That 22 classification of your medium, maximum, and minimums, now, 23 those are only three classifications, but then you have 24 subclassifications of those inmates, that either by nature of 25 their gang affiliation or other reasons, you know, cannot go 1-12-15 61 1 together. Or co-defendants in a trial cannot be housed 2 together, all those other issues that you have to be 3 separating out those individuals in their actual cell 4 assignment. As a matter of fact, there is a daily shuffling 5 of prisoners back and forth, and that's where that 80 percent 6 is a -- a good number as far as a good operational capacity. 7 And anything above that becomes very difficult to be able to 8 be in compliance. And that's what a lot of this has to deal 9 with, is being in compliance with Texas Commission on Jail 10 Standards, which would -- we do understand that as you 11 maintain that compliance, one, you reduce your exposure to 12 liability as far as the county. In other words, you don't 13 have that exposure to the lawsuits for not being in 14 compliance. And secondly, that you can maintain your 15 insurance for your liability on that facility. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 17 MR. GONDECK: So, those -- those are all issues 18 that, you know, sort of tie in together, is compliance and 19 operational efficiency. One of the things that's not always 20 discussed here too much is some of the other population -- 21 the other items that are affecting jails. And I know going 22 in this legislative session, the Sheriff's Association is 23 really pushing on how to deal with the mentally ill and the 24 mental health issues of prisoners, and it's because this 25 funding is reduced for mental health agencies around the 1-12-15 62 1 state that the jails have become a place to bring mentally 2 ill individuals, and they end up staying there for a lot 3 longer time than anticipated. I just put in this graphic 4 that sort of carries over from three years ago of some 5 percentages here, and I think the Sheriff will probably 6 address this, but we've noticed that statewide, this number 7 that says there 10 to 16 percent mentally ill is a very 8 under-represented number. And we've seen that in a lot of 9 counties being looked at, it's 20 to 25 percent, even as high 10 as 30 percent in a lot of counties as to having some amount 11 of mental health issues. And in the facility also are 12 substance abuse and other issues that -- that are a 13 population that has to be dealt with. 14 And what this does is that it builds in issues of 15 managing the jail and those operations, and also builds in 16 staffing requirements, medical staff requirements and things 17 that, you know, have to be looked at down the road. From our 18 planning perspective here, what we're looking at is trying to 19 make some things as flexible as possible as we move into the 20 future. One, we want to make sure that we have as much 21 processing area. We want to start looking to see, do we have 22 adequate space for medical and mental health screening? Do 23 we have adequate space that we can properly hold or house 24 people that need to be separated from the general population? 25 So, when we move forward, these are just some of the other 1-12-15 63 1 issues that we're looking at. In the facility right now, the 2 way that our cells are broken down, as far as medium/maximum 3 security, we have 72 beds that are minimum/medium security. 4 We have 100 medium/maximum beds, and we have 20 separation 5 cells. 6 Just reviewing again what we looked at, you know, 7 three years ago, we came up with that we really have half and 8 half, 85 and 85, between the medium/maximum and the 9 minimum/medium. That's a lot of words and stuff that just 10 say that we really need more maximum security beds. We don't 11 need to be building a lot of minimum security beds or 12 low-risk type beds in the facility. So, as we go forward, we 13 don't need to be building, you know, low-risk type housing, 14 unless it's specialized programs. We don't need to be 15 building, you know, tents or things that we let them wander 16 out there on their own. We also do need to have more 17 administrative and just ordinary segregation cells that go 18 along with that. This is just a breakdown of the natural 19 housing of what we have there, but it also shows that we have 20 a very limited number of female housing breakdowns. 21 In looking at what we really have as far as 22 existing facility deficiencies, on the female, as we 23 discussed, or the female housing, the number and space, both 24 the capacity and the number of compartments is lacking, and 25 we also do not have an adequate number of separation cells to 1-12-15 64 1 put those individual -- or female inmates that need to be 2 housed individually and place them in that cell. Also, we do 3 not have any detox area. And, in fact, we now have one detox 4 cell in the jail presently. We cannot -- if we bring in a 5 male and a female and they're both intoxicated at the same 6 time, we do not have that capability to separate them out, so 7 we need to look at that need also. Male housing, right now 8 we know that we are pushing the actual capacity limit, but 9 that's pretty well infrequent. The capability of 10 classification is where we're at on that as far as 11 insufficiency. 12 And then we have the single-cell areas that were 13 originally built to be housing maximum security that are 14 arranged in a way that are very staff-intensive, one, to 15 utilize as far as maximum security, and placing inmates in 16 there of a maximum security becomes a very dangerous 17 situation. So, they are being utilized more for a trustee, 18 or you might say a benefit housing, so that if you act right, 19 you know, that's where you get some of the benefits of being 20 a trustee, and an incentive area, rather than being utilized 21 as a maximum security unit. And we've seen that statewide as 22 far as the old design of the -- the linear single-cell 23 housing. It just takes so much time and effort, and it's 24 dangerous to send officers down a narrow corridor to check 25 the single-cell -- single-cell open-bar fronts, that they can 1-12-15 65 1 be either assaulted or have stuff thrown on them or whatever 2 it may be. 3 As far as the support areas, as population has 4 increased or capacity has increased in the jail, we do need 5 to make the changes in the kitchen area, and that needs to be 6 upgraded some. What we've decided the best thing to do with 7 that is to push the kitchen functions down into the laundry, 8 and rebuild the laundry in the storage, and then replace the 9 storage on down in the new construction, so sort of just 10 dominoes on that. On the medical, we need to look at the 11 medical, and then look at the -- the intake and processing. 12 So, we've outlined, you know, those areas and what we need to 13 address. So, basically, roll everything in, what is 14 deficient into what would be upgraded. One of the things 15 that we didn't touch on is a little bit more in the 16 administrative area. The dispatch, you know, we're running 17 the same -- within the same area as 20 years ago on dispatch 18 area, which we know that there's been major improvements over 19 the last 20 years, and we're still working the same to find 20 space. That's more of a transfer of areas and assignment of 21 areas, but we do -- I think there's a need for placing some 22 public restrooms at the Sheriff's Office lobby. Which there 23 are none now, so people that are released from jail either go 24 someplace else, or -- 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: On the porch. 1-12-15 66 1 MR. GONDECK: -- on the porch. (Laughter.) We 2 need to provide some public restrooms, so when people are 3 released late at night, that there's a place for them to go. 4 In looking at the -- are there any questions up to now as far 5 as the needs, or -- or are we all on board where we're at? 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: One question, Wayne. You 7 showed the increase in -- for mental health, mentally ill and 8 substance abuse and homeless. Those are -- those are minimum 9 security type, -- 10 MR. GONDECK: No. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- are they not? No? 12 MR. GONDECK: No. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. That's really a 14 question for the Sheriff. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Just real quick, those -- and 16 his figures are more the statewide stuff. 17 MR. GONDECK: The source on there was not from us. 18 I just want to make sure -- 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: In the county, what you're 20 looking at on that, mentally ill is at least 25 or 30 percent 21 of my population, okay? Now, when you're trying and say, 22 okay, now, what's substance abuse? Substance abuse is 23 probably, if you really look at the bottom line, 85 to 24 90 percent. They may be in there on theft, but it's due to 25 their substance abuse. Now, also your mentally ill, a lot of 1-12-15 67 1 that is commingled with the substance abuse, but these 2 figures are -- are drastically low for our county, okay, on 3 that. Those are statewide type figures. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: When we're talking about 6 reassigning dispatch areas, are you talking about -- 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You'll see that. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- talking about completely 9 changing where it is now? 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Enlarging it out. You'll -- 11 he's got it in here a little bit farther. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Should we have the 13 conversation about a single dispatch in the county -- 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- along with this? 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. You answered my 18 question; you don't have to get angry. (Laughter.) Thank 19 you, Wayne. 20 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir. Just to give a reference 21 here of the -- the site, the addition was originally planned 22 to go -- or continue on the back side of the jail. As y'all 23 know, the back side of the jail is elevated quite 24 substantially. I think during the original construction, a 25 lot of the fill that was excavated was placed up on the hill 1-12-15 68 1 there. We have to find another place now for the fill that 2 was there, because we are going to have to excavate again 3 quite a bit and cut back into the hill there, but it can be 4 done. And it works out fairly well. We've gone back and 5 forth as to whether or not there would be an actual 6 separation between the two structures and sort of ramp up or 7 not. For now, we're not, you know, proposing that. At some 8 point in the future, as we look at that as to more detailed 9 drawings or whatever, that may change. But right now, for 10 budget purposes, that really doesn't affect us, I think. 11 We'll look at some value engineering things down the road, 12 but right now, I think we are going to look at money to 13 build. 14 Generally, we look at three areas of improvement. 15 The one on the left-hand side is the actual housing addition, 16 the 144 capacity addition. To make sure that everybody knows 17 where that starts, right at this line here, it says "existing 18 jail" to the right. That part on the left there is the 19 addition. And I didn't bring my little laser pointer with 20 me. We got to get into more detail on these, too. And then 21 the support and intake upgrades are basically around the 22 sallyport area, and then the upper right would be the 23 upgrades to the admin, which are mainly some reassignment of 24 some dispatch and warrants areas, and then the new public 25 restrooms. 1-12-15 69 1 In looking at the housing areas, one of the things 2 that we want to do is to try to keep as much of the housing 3 in a multiple occupancy type housing, and what that means is 4 8-capacity or less. We do have a couple more dorms that are 5 12-capacity in there in the center section, but most of the 6 -- the additional housing is in 8-capacity. And we have ten 7 8-capacity multiple occupancy cells. We have two 12-capacity 8 dorms, and then we have a 24-capacity work release, and this 9 is for prisoners that can be let out into the population to 10 go perform their daily salary jobs out in the public, and 11 then be able to come back in and serve their time. That 12 population needs to be separated from your general population 13 so we don't have this issue of bringing back in contraband 14 back into the facility, or bringing back in communication 15 back into the facility. That would degrade the security of 16 the facility. 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Let me ask a question, Rusty. 18 What's the current policy, or what are you able to do with 19 work release? 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We aren't. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: We're not? 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We are not able. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's what I -- okay. I 24 think that's a good -- 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Everybody's asked for it, but 1-12-15 70 1 we -- because of the situation, we haven't -- we're not able 2 to. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's an important point to 4 make here, I think. 5 MR. GONDECK: Right. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That we can talk more about 7 the benefits of being able to do that. Okay, thanks. 8 MR. GONDECK: In here, we also have some additional 9 support areas here. We have added additional exercise area, 10 and even though we have a large existing exercise area in the 11 facility, with added capacity, we now can have another 12 smaller exercise area to be utilized both for general 13 population, but also to be able to get out the separation 14 cell inmates or those in administrative disciplinary 15 segregation, because you cannot put a bunch -- a group of 16 those out at one time. So, you can either bring out one or 17 two of those prisoners at a time, so having an additional 18 exercise area is important in that respect. Also, we have 19 added some female separation cells there at the top, and 20 we've added the male separation cells down at the bottom 21 there. Also, the -- we have some multipurpose space for 22 additional program space that is required, but also we've 23 relocated some of the Law Library and other -- 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Video visitation. 25 MR. GONDECK: The video visitation or video -- 1-12-15 71 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Conferencing. 2 MR. GONDECK: -- conferencing equipment into that 3 space to open up some of the original office space for some 4 of the jail administrative functions that need to occur in 5 the intake and processing area. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: Pardon me. Are we required to have 7 exercise areas? 8 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir, we are required to. 9 JUDGE POLLARD: Who requires that? 10 MR. GONDECK: The Commission on Jail Standards 11 requires it. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: State. 13 MR. GONDECK: The State requires it. 14 JUDGE POLLARD: State regulates all of this. 15 MR. GONDECK: Yes. 16 JUDGE POLLARD: And you mentioned the Law Library 17 area, and are we required to have that? 18 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir. That is -- you have to 19 have access to the courts. I'm not an attorney; I have to 20 say that first. That as far as how you provide that access 21 to the courts, you know, is up to the County and how they do 22 that, whether you have their attorney go and do that for 23 them, if they have an attorney. If they don't have an 24 attorney, there are many ways to do that. Having that Law 25 Library is one of the ways to meet that need. 1-12-15 72 1 JUDGE POLLARD: And all the way down to the details 2 of classifying prisoners, which the Sheriff has talked about, 3 that's required by the State jail standards also? 4 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And even up to how much square 6 footage each inmate has in their cell areas is all required 7 by the State. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. That's the point I'm 9 trying to make here, is we're trying to comply with the state 10 rules and regulations. Now, what do we -- what happens when 11 we get at capacity? When we're regularly over capacity, -- 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: -- and get inspected, what happens? 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, if we got inspected or 15 they show up, like they can any time, and we were over 16 capacity, we would be in noncompliance. But putting -- 17 JUDGE POLLARD: What does that mean? 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Being put in noncompliance 19 means, number one, your insurance rates -- liability 20 insurance rates, as he said, very well could go up 21 drastically. Number two, your insurance may get canceled 22 because you're in noncompliance, your liability insurance. 23 Number three, if you're in noncompliance long enough, the 24 State can mandate -- actually, they can come in and close you 25 down. 1-12-15 73 1 JUDGE POLLARD: All right, that's what I was 2 getting to. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But the other thing that they 4 will do is require that you start housing out of county, any 5 of those, because they consider your jail as not suitable any 6 more, which is where your liability goes drastically 7 sky-high, because then your cruel and unusual punishment, all 8 the rest of that stuff starts. So, then they start requiring 9 that you -- you have to house inmates somewhere else. 10 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay, that's my point. We're 11 beginning to get close and bouncing off of this maximum 12 capacity type -- 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We have been. 14 JUDGE POLLARD: -- situation. And if we have to 15 house -- and if they shut us down and we have to house them 16 somewhere else, what does that mean to the average citizen? 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What it means to -- I'll stand 18 up. What it means to us right now, the closest place I could 19 house overflow inmates is Burnet. That's about a 200-mile 20 round trip, okay? 21 JUDGE POLLARD: Uh-huh. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And that pulls officers off 23 the streets having to haul those prisoners. 24 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. What does that cost? 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Their housing -- their cost is 1-12-15 74 1 $50 a day per inmate. That's what we pay them. Where we get 2 medical and that, we're under contract -- and all our 3 prescriptions and all that kind of stuff, we're under a 4 contract price with hundreds of other jails. We get it real 5 well right now. If you have an inmate sick in Burnet County 6 Jail while we're housing them there, number one, they're 7 going to be ambulanced to Austin. That's their -- that's 8 their area to take them. And number two, we're going to pay 9 full medical cost for that inmate in Austin. That's one 10 major cost. The other biggest cost we have is right now, I 11 have, in essence, four officers per shift on the street, 12 okay? If I have to start housing inmates somewhere else, 13 you're going to take those officers off the street protecting 14 this county and put them in transports, and all they're going 15 to be doing is hauling inmates back and forth. They're not 16 going to be out here protecting our citizens. 17 Because the issue I have is, we don't have inmates 18 that don't have court dates. Every one of our inmates has 19 got court dates, so you're going to be constantly hauling 20 these inmates back and forth for court. Or -- and on top of 21 that, not an "or," you're going to be paying their attorney's 22 fees, okay, where -- and most of them are Court-appointed 23 attorneys. You're going to be paying -- that Court 24 appointment's going to go up drastically, 'cause that 25 attorney's going to charge us for the mileage and everything 1-12-15 75 1 going back and forth to see his client. So, it's a snowball 2 going downhill once you start housing out of county. 3 JUDGE POLLARD: So, it's a lot more expensive -- 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Than the $50 a day. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: -- to house prisoners out of county 6 than it is to have our own jail; is that correct? 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. Plus the next part, 8 which is one of my biggest concerns, is the State says -- and 9 the way it's set up, and the law reads the Sheriff shall -- 10 not a "should" or an "ought to," but the Sheriff shall safely 11 keep anybody committed to their custody. Even though that 12 inmate is housed in Burnet or Comanche or wherever we have to 13 go, okay, they're still in this county's -- my custody, all 14 right? And I'm still liable for anything that happens to 15 that inmate while they're in that jail over there or 16 wherever. And it's not just me that's -- you know, I say me, 17 'cause it can be personal, but in reality, what it is, is 18 this county -- this court, this county is totally liable for 19 anything that can happen with that inmate. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: You're liable, and you're out 21 of control too, if you're placing them there. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Totally out of control. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: They decide if they're going 24 to send them to Austin or wherever to the hospital. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 1-12-15 76 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: They make that decision. They 2 decide what protection they -- they need to provide, what 3 medical services they need, and you're still -- or, pardon 4 me, this county is still responsible. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And it's not -- 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, the $50 a day is minuscule 7 compared to what is at risk for every day. 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: True. And it's not only they 9 decide that. They decide who they hire to take care of that 10 inmate. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And that can be big. I mean, 13 most jails and most sheriff's offices try and hire the best 14 people they can, but as anybody can tell you, I take it very 15 personal who we hire with our department and our jail. They 16 go through a lot in this county that most jails don't go 17 through. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We don't have a say-so on 20 their employees. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: That's our situation now. We're 22 about to be faced with having to have either a new jail, or 23 maybe having to house our prisoners out of -- out of county 24 somewhere else, which is a lot more expensive. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We aren't "about" to be faced 1-12-15 77 1 with it, Judge. A lot of things -- and I know most of the 2 media is sitting here. How many times have you seen -- 3 especially Sean likes to do it in the Daily Times, until his 4 duties changed -- somebody that's been arrested for their 5 45th time, or 39th time, okay? These people are being 6 released because of our housing issues, because of our 7 crowdedness, to keep it low. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: So it's -- 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Our citizens -- 10 JUDGE POLLARD: -- safety of our citizens. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- are paying for it. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I want to add one thing to 13 it. Looking at it from the -- I appreciate you bringing all 14 that up, 'cause it's all true. But also, building a new 15 facility, I remember going through the old building, the old 16 one, and I think somebody mentioned it a while ago -- I think 17 Mr. Gondeck did, the -- the space that is required for a 18 prisoner to have in his little room -- actually, big room, 19 but things like the candlepower. That's the one thing that 20 blew my mind, is how much light is required in every inch of 21 his -- I mean, that -- those are state rules that cost our 22 local taxpayers a lot of money. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. And, you know, I'll be 24 the first to say, a lot of us -- and I've gone to the 25 Commission on Jail Standards and I've argued things, and -- 1-12-15 78 1 you know, during some of their meetings, and some I've won, 2 some I've lost. But the one thing about it is, 99 percent of 3 their rules I agree with. And the public looks at it like, 4 "Why would you do that?" Okay, the biggest example I can 5 give you is Arizona. Everybody says, "Why don't you do it 6 like Sheriff Arpaio out of Arizona and put them in tents, and 7 put them -- do this and do that?" Arizona does not have a 8 state jail commission. That's why -- 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We like the pink underwear 10 thing. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. That's why he can do 12 what he does. But my deductible for a lawsuit is $10,000 per 13 lawsuit. His is over a million; I think it's closer to five 14 million per lawsuit, if he were to ever pay for the lawsuits 15 that he has lost. And these are civil rights -- you know, 16 federal lawsuits, okay. Arizona -- that county would be 17 broke, because it's well over $100 million that he has not 18 paid in judgments against that county. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Those are judgments that have 20 been rendered? 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Those are judgments that have 22 been rendered, okay, that have not been paid. I can't even 23 justify -- you know, we work off of -- look at what our 24 entire income tax base is, 27, 28 million for this county, 25 okay? If I had a $5 million deductible for every lawsuit 1-12-15 79 1 that was brought against this county, this county wouldn't 2 have anything, because we get sued. It's a sue-happy world. 3 I've never ever lost one. We don't give; we don't settle. 4 We've won every lawsuit we've ever had. But I probably have 5 two pending right now. It's just normal. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: But even if you win them, it's 7 expensive. 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, if my deductible's 9 $5 million a whack, what's going to happen to this county and 10 our tax base? 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right now, it's $10,000? 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right now, my deductible's 13 $10,000. 14 MR. GONDECK: Being that you brought up the 15 tents -- tent cities, I know in this legislative session 16 that, again, the ability of counties to house inmates in 17 tents will be presented as a bill. And, basically, it's 18 modifying a statute that already exists. Allowing counties 19 to build tents, temporary structures, which tents are a -- a 20 part of, has been allowed by the Jail Commission for over 20 21 years. The problem that counties have with that most of the 22 time is that, one, the Jail Commission limits that to three 23 to five years without getting recertified, because typically 24 they're fabric structures and need to be rehabilitated or 25 refurbished after that time. But secondly, the Jail 1-12-15 80 1 Commission -- and the statute puts a caveat on that, that 2 they should be operated in some programmatic means. In other 3 words, as a -- a boot camp or some other type of program that 4 has a specific structure to it, instead of just pushing 5 inmates out of the jail into that environment. 6 Whether you have tents or not -- and this will come 7 up. This subject will come up; it will be asked in between 8 now and whatever time that you have a bond election, why you 9 shouldn't put inmates in tents. The real issue is on any 10 type of structure or temporary structure or light-duty type 11 structure, is how you are you going to supervise that? 12 Because the supervision of those facilities is very 13 intensive, to be able to have an officer to be able to keep 14 that type of facility secure. In Arizona, one of the things 15 that gets missed a lot of times is that Sheriff Arpaio does 16 have 3,000 hardened jail beds right next door to his couple 17 hundred beds of tent city, so most of the prisoners that are 18 in their tent city want to be in their tent city in the nice 19 Arizona climate, rather than be being in the stuffy, hardened 20 jail beds. So, when you look at that, it is a benefit to 21 them, or an incentive to be in that program and outside. 22 That's not what we're looking at here, or anyplace in Texas. 23 Most of the programs that have been tried is that, okay, 24 we're either going to take a low-risk facility, or we have 25 overcrowding; we need to move people out of the jail. One, 1-12-15 81 1 we're looking at mostly small facilities that don't really 2 have the population. Most of the people in -- in the 3 counties in Texas right now that could be housed in tents 4 have already gone through that process, and we released them 5 on the streets. They're out of your jail already. So, if we 6 build tents to house them in, we're going to be doing what 7 they used to call "net widening"; we're going to have to go 8 find prisoners that are acceptable to house in the tents. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: They take minimum security 10 inmates, and most of ours are either medium, or really where 11 we're headed now is mostly getting up around the maximum. 12 Y'all can tell when we try and do the outside trustee 13 program, I just don't have the inmates any more that 14 classify, even to go out and work with Officer Johnson on 15 outside trustee, so that's why sometimes he only has one or 16 two inmates. It's not because that's all I want him to have; 17 it's 'cause that's all, out of our entire jail, that will 18 classify for him to be able to. 19 MR. GONDECK: The other issue that comes up is 20 that, okay, well, can we use them for, like, work release or 21 something else like that? The problem comes out is that once 22 you separate that outside the building, that becomes an 23 independent unit, and it becomes an element that we have to 24 staff on its own. If we keep that element or that operation 25 within the jail, then we can utilize that staff for other 1-12-15 82 1 functions. In other words, we don't just have that officer 2 managing the 24 inmates here; they're managing the entire 3 area that they're working in. So, that's why -- one reason 4 why we have to make sure, when we're answering these 5 questions, that, one, we're well-informed, and two, that we 6 know why we're doing the things we're doing, and why we're 7 not doing some of those things. Because to me, I think tents 8 are a great idea. They're inexpensive and everything else. 9 Put up a big fence, and it's -- let's separate it that way. 10 However, then we don't have the unlimited -- you know, as far 11 as construction costs, it's very low. As far as operational 12 costs, it's very high. 13 And when we look at constructing jails -- and I've 14 only been doing this for 30-something, maybe more than that, 15 years. As far as jails, you know, the construction costs, we 16 complain and complain and complain as to how high the 17 construction cost has gone, but then we get into the 18 operational cost, and operational cost is really about almost 19 ten times what that actual initial jail cost was. When we 20 look at what the 20-year cost of this facility will be over 21 the life of the bonds, that -- that actual cost of the 22 construction is going to be somewhere probably in the -- the 23 8 percent range. So, anyway, I don't want to get too much 24 into that, 'cause then I have commissioners come back to me 25 and say, "Well, let's reduce the cost of the jail so our 1-12-15 83 1 overall cost of operations will be less." It doesn't work 2 that way. I just want to -- this is the housing module, and 3 I'll move on from there to go into some of the other things 4 that we want to do to make this more effective and efficient 5 operation. 6 The intake down at the bottom by the sallyport, we 7 don't have a pedestrian door right now. We want to put in a 8 pedestrian door to allow prisoners to be either released 9 there, or at least allow deputies to come and go in that 10 door. We've got to have -- open up the big overhead door, 11 which just takes time and effort and everything else that 12 goes with that. It's also a security issue, that it opens up 13 a big wide space every time somebody needs to walk out the 14 sallyport. That area right above there, we're going to have 15 a -- reclaim some of the pantry space into that space for the 16 intoxilyzer and the arresting officer to do their paperwork, 17 to be able to move that, not have that in the booking area, 18 but before those prisoners go into the jail proper, to get 19 all that taken care of. And then they can move into the 20 booking area, which is just off to the right there, the 21 intake now. Then that gives us several rooms there that we 22 can dedicate to those administrative functions of the jail 23 that -- that are required for the classification for -- and 24 those administrative recordkeeping and all the things that 25 have to be done in the jail. 1-12-15 84 1 As we move up into the left of there, we have the 2 inmate property storage, all the things that they come in 3 with. We can upgrade that and utilize some of the same space 4 by going with the conveyor system with bags, instead of some 5 of the tubs and buckets that they've been using, and be able 6 to get more within less space, so that's what we're intending 7 to do there. Moving up a little bit higher, we're looking at 8 the medical area, to take one of the 8-person multiple 9 occupancy cells and expand the medical in there. On the back 10 side of that, we'll take some of that space for a female 11 holding and detox cell that is near the actual intake area, 12 and by the control room there. Right now there is a female 13 holding cell way at the top of that corridor by the 14 visitation. I can't even reach up there, but if you go 15 straight up there, you can see it says "HC sep cell." That 16 is right now the holding cell for females. And if you 17 remember that you put somebody back there, then they can be 18 actually supervised from time to time. 19 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 20 JUDGE POLLARD: She's pointing up here. Do we have 21 some kind of pointer? 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I can get one. 23 MS. GRINSTEAD: You have one right there. 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That was close to probably the 25 last one. 1-12-15 85 1 MR. GONDECK: That's really the only thing that I 2 really need to point out. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's really about it. 4 MR. GONDECK: We don't really have to look at too 5 much more there. But I did just want to say that we are 6 providing a new detox and holding cell in that area. The 7 hatched area -- the shaded areas there are three of the -- 8 the male housing areas right now that we will convert to 9 where, as needed, that we can utilize those for female 10 housing, and we're adding new male housing so that we can 11 reclaim some of the existing male housing for the female 12 housing. And that -- which we keep that all in one area. 13 And then the females that we showed before from the 14 separation cell can all come on the topside, and not have to 15 pass in front of the males. It's just the nature of the jail 16 operation that when you -- even though you can have males and 17 females walking down the same corridors and everything else, 18 it's just that any time do you that, it's like a parade, and 19 everybody gets into it and excited that, "Here comes the 20 parade." So, we try not to have too many parades in the 21 jails, and try to keep them as separated as possible. Within 22 their housing areas, though, and we do have to keep that 23 sight and sound separation. 24 As far as the dispatch and the restrooms, what 25 we're doing is that we're -- you can see the dispatch area up 1-12-15 86 1 there, and there's a little note that says "Reception." That 2 used to be the dispatch -- or it's currently the dispatch 3 area now. We're expanding the dispatch into the warrants 4 area, moving warrants down in the training room, and then the 5 training is going to occur in the training room at the annex. 6 So, there's really not a whole lot construction-wise that'll 7 be going on there, but just some more moving back and forth 8 of spaces. But the public restrooms will be built out, 9 basically taking up part of that porch area out there in 10 front. The only other thing to discuss is always the 11 bottom-line issue of what the dollars are. We have developed 12 a -- a budget at this time, looking at if you go forward with 13 a bond election for general obligation bonds in May. 14 Probably the earliest that we would be looking at 15 getting construction documents finished and be able to start 16 taking some pricing on this will be in the early fall to the 17 -- towards the end of the year, so we're pushing almost 12 18 months out before we really get some firm numbers or start 19 some construction. So, the contractors would be looking at, 20 you know, 2016 prices that they would be giving us. We 21 aren't sure what that is right now. We know that gas prices 22 are coming down right now. Some people are saying, well, 23 that's going to bounce back up. Some people are saying, oh, 24 it's going to continue back down. So, again, you're at a 25 fluctuation state of the market of where that's going. We 1-12-15 87 1 don't want to be overly conservative on this as far as our 2 numbers and our estimating, but the one thing we don't want 3 to do is to get the numbers too tight, so that once we -- we 4 go forward on this and get some real construction costs from 5 contractors, then we say, oops, either, one, we can't do 6 everything that we've told the public we're going to do, or 7 two, we have to go back and ask for more money. As your 8 architect, I don't want to do that, and I know as 9 Commissioners and Judge -- 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't think you'd see us 11 doing that either. 12 MR. GONDECK: Well, I wouldn't be -- you wouldn't 13 ask me to come back up here again, I know that, if I put you 14 in that situation. And I think my by reputation, y'all know 15 that I don't put counties in that situation, as far as not 16 having, you know, adequate funds. Probably if we did this 17 today, I'd say that, yes, the numbers are high for starting 18 today, and I think we are a little bit above what I see the 19 current pricing of jails. But jails are very expensive. 20 Everything that goes in a jail is expensive. Everything is 21 either concrete, steel, stainless steel, concrete, concrete, 22 -- (Laughter.) -- or some other hard surface. Epoxy 23 flooring. We do have epoxy. We do not -- I think we do, a 24 lot of times, put carpet in a control room, but just for 25 sound deadening, but we do not put carpet in the cells. We 1-12-15 88 1 do not make things nice or whatever. It's epoxy, hard 2 surface floors, just to make them very cleanable. 3 But the numbers that we have here is on the actual 4 construction cost, about a 12 -- 12,445,000 is where we put 5 that at. Some testing and other site work, some furnishings, 6 another 45,000, 150,000, 400,000. Coming down with 7 professional fees of 920,000 based on that. Travel and other 8 expenses, printing, 15,000. Civil engineering for the site, 9 engineering of 40,000. Geotechnical surveying, 13,000. And 10 then we've placed in there about three-quarters of a million 11 for contingencies, just whatever happens with the market in 12 between the time we start now and the time we start 13 construction. That places us around 14,778,000. That's what 14 we're looking at as a construction budget right now. That's 15 where we're at on that. I've talked with the Sheriff and the 16 financial advisers, is that -- you know, could I sharpen my 17 pencil and get it tighter? I could probably do that. Would 18 I recommend that at this time? I -- I really have a hard 19 time with doing that, even though these numbers do represent, 20 you know, some pretty strong numbers. But we are dealing 21 with, you know, conceptual designs right now. We know that, 22 you know, some things are going to -- you know, we're dealing 23 with adding to an existing building. There are going to be 24 some things, you know, coming up in that. I'm hoping that 25 nothing was placed -- 1-12-15 89 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. 2 MR. GONDECK: -- back on the site there. You know, 3 we have run into things on other sites -- you know, the 4 deeper you go, the more you find. But -- 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You know, we still have camera 6 systems that have to go into all those cell blocks. You got, 7 you know, the video conferencing stuff. There's a lot of 8 other -- but I do think it's a good number. 9 MR. GONDECK: In effect, general things that are 10 included in here. When you talk about the building 11 expansion, the interior renovations, you know, those are not 12 very detailed breakdowns. You know, when we're talking these 13 numbers, yes, those are comprehensive numbers, but we're 14 looking at probably about 35 to 40 line items that we're 15 basing those on, as far as all the secure electronics 16 upgrades and mechanical, electrical, plumbing, even upgrades 17 as required. On this building right now, we know that we 18 have to make sure that we protect the roofing that is there 19 right now. If there is adequate moneys within this project 20 as we move forward, my best recommendation is that as we're 21 adding onto the building in the back, to try to do that as a 22 standing-seam metal roof on the back end. If we have money 23 available, to come in and rebuild that on the front end, and 24 move the mechanical equipment up as we can on that. Now, 25 that's going to be a thing as to where are we at six months 1-12-15 90 1 or nine months from now in the market, and whether or not we 2 have a successful, you know, bond issue. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: There's no land acquisition 4 calculated; we got enough territory. 5 MR. GONDECK: Right, and that's a good thing, is 6 that, you know, we have now placed in there -- and I think 7 this is a little bit more detail that we presented there, 8 rather than in the Power Point presentation, but, you know, 9 that's one thing we do say; there is no land cost in that. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, Wayne, you -- in site 11 development, the 450,000 that you have, that's the cost of 12 all the excavation and getting -- 13 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir. We are going to have to 14 excavate and remove a lot of material -- 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. 16 MR. GONDECK: -- on the back side, and reshape 17 that, haul it off or, you know, try to do something different 18 with that. But we have places that we may be as much as 19 15 feet that we're having to remove. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Let me ask two things in that. 21 If we just take the, quote, conservative things that you 22 had -- in your judgment, conservative -- if we -- if the 23 public votes for a bond for something of this magnitude, and 24 if we don't use that money, Jeannie, where does that 25 unexpended bond obligation funds -- what do we do? 1-12-15 91 1 MS. HARGIS: I may defer -- I wish Tom Spurgeon was 2 here. I'm not an attorney, but I defer to them. But I don't 3 think, in a bond issue, that you can defer that to anything 4 else. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: One thing I have heard some 7 people are doing is you sell a certain portion of those bonds 8 first -- and the bond people are here. Sell a certain 9 portion, and as you need more, you sell more. I don't know 10 how -- 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. The reason I ask that 12 -- and I don't want to get into the bond thing, because I 13 know we're going to do that. But, you know, we've used some 14 of the county assets for the Ag Barn, you know, excavation 15 and tearing out foundations. We used it at the airport. We 16 use it a lot of places. I know we've got a workshop on 17 discussing how we're using that, but that's a pretty 18 big-ticket item right there that could be, okay, decreased by 19 -- by some of our own capabilities to do. And that's the 20 reason I asked if we -- if we do a big bond and we don't need 21 it all, then, you know -- 22 MR. GONDECK: And, Commissioner, as we get into 23 more details of that, that plan development, we can talk 24 about each of those -- 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 1-12-15 92 1 MR. GONDECK: -- issues individually. But I will 2 make some generalized recommendations, is that I have no 3 problem with counties utilizing crews, as far as where they 4 -- they have the capabilities to do so. Underneath the 5 building, if there's an area to be excavated or materials to 6 be removed, I don't have a problem with that, typically. 7 Once we get the material excavated and removed, anything that 8 goes back underneath that building, from the time that we 9 proof-roll it to building anything back up, should be the 10 contractor's responsibility. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And I think that's been the 12 case on everything I mentioned, right? Correct? 13 MR. GONDECK: And I say that because there's been a 14 lot of horror stories across the state, across the country, 15 of owners or counties doing their own work underneath the 16 building, and then wanting to find fault with somebody else 17 after something goes wrong, and it -- it's always been a 18 disaster. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Let me be on the record; I'm 20 not an advocate for that. 21 MR. GONDECK: I'm trying to make sure that I'm on 22 the record that I'm not an advocate for that also. But, you 23 know, any time that we can, you know, save some cost. But in 24 our experience, you know, in working with counties on this 25 type of anticipated funding, that, one, you know, you do not 1-12-15 93 1 have to sell any more bonds than you're going to expend on 2 the project, and two, that any money that is not expended, 3 you know, would not basically be utilized for anything other 4 than this project. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Wayne, question. If we decide 7 to go forward with the bond election in May, are you done 8 until then? You know, or is this just like the first pass? 9 I mean, is this like the completed package from your 10 standpoint? 11 MR. GONDECK: Well, y'all kind of tied my finger, 12 that until y'all get the bond election passed, that I'm at 13 your beck and call to present, represent, and rework this 14 until we get that accomplished, so that's -- that's what I'm 15 on board with. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: This is a concept level. 17 MR. GONDECK: This is the concept level. But as 18 far as -- you know, if there are -- if we need additional 19 information, if we need additional detail, if we need to 20 present this to public meetings or however we need to do 21 this, yes, sir, I am still on board to assist in that 22 process. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. I guess what I'm 24 getting at more -- 25 MR. GONDECK: If we need to make adjustments to 1-12-15 94 1 this, or if y'all have more input and we need to go back and 2 say, "Well, you know, we either need to add or deduct this, 3 or change the scope," yes, it's still open to that also. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess the level of detail -- 5 this is the level of detail we get. We may say we don't like 6 something and tell you to modify it, but this is the type of 7 information that we would go to the voters with? 8 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 10 MR. GONDECK: Is that -- 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's it. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: See you next year. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: In terms of what it will cost the 14 voters, let's just say they passed that bond issue, almost 15 $15 million. What's that going to cost? 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We need to let them come up 17 and talk. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Does she need a break? 19 JUDGE POLLARD: All right, let's break -- short 20 break. 21 (Recess taken from 11:20 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.) 22 - - - - - - - - - - 23 JUDGE POLLARD: We're going to resume the meeting. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Hey, Zeke. We're going, Zeke. 25 Hey, Zeke, we're going. 1-12-15 95 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Zeke is still... After the 2 meeting, Zeke. 3 JUDGE POLLARD: I'd sure hate to hold you in 4 contempt, Zeke. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Hell, throw him out; it's a 6 lot more fun. (Laughter.) 7 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. Let's continue, then, 8 with the presentation. I think we get to the financial end 9 of it now. 10 MR. HENDERSON: Well, thank you, Judge and 11 Commissioners Court. It's a pleasure to be before Kerr 12 County. As Buster and I were reminiscing a few moments ago, 13 I had the honor and privilege of working with the County last 14 time you did a bond election for a jail, which was 1993. 15 We'd actually worked with the County for several years before 16 that, but that was the actual first bond election. I think 17 everyone here knows my partner in crime in San Antonio, Dusty 18 Traylor. He has run all the numbers, working with your 19 County Auditor, Jeannie, and I'll turn it over to him. 20 MR. TRAYLOR: Very good. Thank you, Bob. And, 21 again, it's always great to be out in Kerr County. I hope 22 that we -- I don't think that our presentation is going to 23 take up the amount of time that Wayne's detailed presentation 24 did. I know there's just a few details that you're really 25 interested in in ours. I hope I don't take too much of your 1-12-15 96 1 time. The bottom line is, in our presentation, what we did 2 is we took all the County's bonding financial information and 3 kind of boiled down a number of key assumptions related to 4 what your current tax base is, and assumptions related to 5 very modest growth in that tax base, as well as your existing 6 debt service, to run a bond issue on the sale of $15 million 7 worth of bonds following a successful election. And 8 effectively, what we would come up with there is if we go out 9 and sell $15 million, and also keeping in mind that the new 10 expanded jail facility will also require probably some 11 additional M & O expenses -- we got those from the Sheriff, 12 estimated at about $880,000. Once we -- once we tack on the 13 estimated increase in the I & S rate -- 14 JUDGE POLLARD: Is that an annual figure? 15 MR. TRAYLOR: Yes, sir. 16 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 17 MR. TRAYLOR: We're looking at an estimated 18 increase in the I & S rate of about 1.3 -- 1.75 cents on the 19 I & S rate, and then the estimated increase on the -- on the 20 M & O rate to justify the additional expenditures for the 21 jail, we're looking like -- that expenditure would be just 22 under 3 cents, so we're looking at a total increase in tax 23 rate for the county for this project of about 4.5 cents in 24 total. If you'll look -- 25 JUDGE POLLARD: That's per $100 of evaluation? 1-12-15 97 1 MR. TRAYLOR: Per $100 of evaluation, Judge. 2 That's a great point. If you'll look on the spreadsheet that 3 I've -- that we've prepared for you, inside Section 1, I do 4 want to point out you a very important part of that, and it 5 has to do with the fact that the -- the bonding piece of this 6 is structured for 20 years, but it's also structured around 7 your existing debt. And so when we talk about that four and 8 a half cent total increase, one thing to keep in mind is, if 9 you'll look over at Column K, that four and a half cent 10 increase is really only needed for a handful of years. And 11 because of your decreasing existing debt structure, that four 12 and a half cent increase can go down to somewhere in the 13 3-cent range for most of this -- for most of the life of this 14 transaction. So, I think that that's an important -- 15 JUDGE POLLARD: That assumes we don't pick up any 16 other debt. 17 MR. TRAYLOR: That's just looking at this project 18 by itself, Judge, that's correct. We used a four and a 19 quarter percent interest rate in our assumption. That's a 20 very conservative rate in today's -- in today's interest rate 21 environment. I think it would be probably below 3 percent if 22 we would sell bonds today, but because we're looking at a 23 bond election, not being able to sell bonds for probably six, 24 seven months from now at the earliest, we wanted to be 25 conservative on the interest rate assumptions, so that's why 1-12-15 98 1 we built in that factor. 2 COMMISSIONER REEVES: In your assumptions, I notice 3 you talk about assuming that the County continues to use 4 frozen tax exclusions for its M & O. What happens to the tax 5 rate with I & S and frozen? 6 MR. TRAYLOR: For the record, the tax rates for the 7 frozen values is not impacted as part of a bond issue. If 8 you're over 65, your values are frozen. This bond election 9 would not affect those -- those tax rates. 10 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Thank you. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: We'd all be frozen up here. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We end up paying. 13 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I knew we were going to pay 14 the bill anyway. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You're frozen. I'm not. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Jody, write him a thank-you 17 note, if you would, please. 18 MR. TRAYLOR: Do y'all have any other questions on 19 the financing piece of this -- of this presentation? 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, let me understand. So the 21 $15 million is roughly the -- what Wayne presented, the 22 14,778,000, whatever it was. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But then the 900 -- the 25 roughly 900,000 that you mentioned for maintenance and 1-12-15 99 1 operation, that's not included in this? 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes, it is. If you look at 3 Column I -- 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I? 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- is where it's also 6 included. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, I see it. Okay. 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: So, it's all included. 9 MR. TRAYLOR: That's included in the tax rate 10 impact. It's not necessarily included in the $15 million 11 figure. You know, that would be an ongoing annual expense. 12 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Now, would we be voting on 13 the expenses in Column I? 14 MR. HENDERSON: There's no provision under state 15 law to hold an election for that purpose. And for each of 16 you, we handed out an example of an election that we had done 17 in Gillespie County, which is where I got the -- where we had 18 to disclose to the citizens there, as we need to here, that 19 there's an O & M component to this. But you can't vote -- we 20 inform the voters of that. We would advise you, as we did in 21 Gillespie County, to go ahead and start, you know, 22 incrementally preparing for that M & O increase, but it would 23 not constitute a voter approval of that tax rate. 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But it is figured in -- 25 MR. HENDERSON: It is technically in the 4.75. 1-12-15 100 1 It's not voted on in that figure. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Say it again, Rusty? 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It is figured in the 4.75 -- 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- tax increase. It's just 6 not voted on. You're not voting on that part. You're just 7 voting on the debt service of the -- 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, what -- 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- other. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What it says is that we vote, 11 as a Court, a 3-cent tax increase to cover the M & O. The 12 voters are voting on the 1.7 -- 1.75, so we get yelled at 13 twice. But that goes with the job. 14 COMMISSIONER REEVES: That additional three could 15 impact a rollback -- rollback, and we could build the jail, 16 set the tax rate, and then go through a rollback election, 17 and not have the money for Rusty to operate. 18 MR. HENDERSON: That's a possibility which is why, 19 again, in Gillespie County and some other counties we've 20 worked with, we advise you to go ahead as you go through the 21 construction process to raise the maximum M & O rate that you 22 can under the 8 percent effective tax rollback calculation, 23 so by the time you actually get ready to occupy the 24 system, -- 25 COMMISSIONER REEVES: You've got some built in. 1-12-15 101 1 MR. HENDERSON: -- you'll be there, most of the way 2 there. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, got you. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, you're saying that what you 5 do is you get that 3 cents in a couple of increments. 6 MR. HENDERSON: Yes, sir, probably three 7 increments. 8 MS. HARGIS: Three increments. 9 MR. TRAYLOR: 'Cause you don't need all the M & O 10 expenditures till your jail's fully open. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Which is -- you know, you're 12 talking a year before construction. You're talking close to 13 two years after that before it's occupancy-ready, so you're 14 talking about at least two and a half, three years down the 15 road before you're hiring. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Since we're talking finances, 17 I know we've discussed the possibility of housing inmates 18 from other counties, so are you going to talk about that now, 19 or -- 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You know, it's all a 21 possibility. Gillespie County, true, is building a 96-bed 22 jail. I personally told them I didn't think it was big 23 enough, 'cause they had been housing 50 or so out of county 24 at times already. You know, how much is that going to -- 40 25 beds going to last them? You can only use 80 percent of 1-12-15 102 1 that. It's not going to last them another 20 years. I don't 2 think they quite built a big enough jail, my personal 3 opinion. But when I first took office as Sheriff, we were 4 not totally at capacity, if you'll remember that, so we 5 immediately contracted with some of our surrounding jails, 6 okay, and housed some of their overflow that they were 7 having. Now, we were bringing in close to a little over half 8 a million dollars a year for those first few years of the 9 County housing here. Now, you've got Bandera that's built a 10 jail, Gillespie that's built a jail. I don't expect that 11 much to be coming out of those two. But for the first number 12 of years, you still have Edwards, Real, Mason, Menard, 13 McCullough, Junction, all those surrounding counties that 14 don't have funds in any way, shape, or form to build a jail. 15 And we did house for them off and on at times when I could. 16 I haven't been able to for a number of years. It helps them, 17 and it helps the attorneys, 'cause they're all one group of 18 attorneys that pretty well do it. And we could do that and 19 charge those counties, and make up some of this difference in 20 -- in where we're doing it. 21 It's all something that needs to be looked at, 22 because, personally, I think you need to add the personnel as 23 you add to the population. Now, there are some -- some 24 ratios that we have to stay in compliance with. You know, 25 when this thing opens, you're not necessarily going to hire 1-12-15 103 1 all the personnel necessary to run it if it was at full 2 capacity. So, you only hire as you need to, you know, when 3 it's -- when it's growing. And depending on if we housed 4 out-of-county inmates, there would be some that you would 5 need to hire, and how -- you know, is it worth the number you 6 need to hire at that point compared to what you're going to 7 be bringing in on the cost? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's just something you've got 9 to look at. But the plan would be -- 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, this M & O assumes that 11 you're at capacity? 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The M & O is at capacity, 13 okay? 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Now, there are a couple of 16 things in that M & O -- we're looking at 10 additional jail 17 employees to meet the requirements and jail standards at the 18 staffing there. I'm looking at one additional dispatcher to 19 meet the requirements that we just got, all in all. And then 20 we're also looking at in here the four additional deputies -- 21 patrol deputies to give us what we need there. Plus if the 22 jail capacity does go up, I've still got to haul more and 23 more inmates back and forth to court, okay, and it takes care 24 of that issue at the same time that we've had, all right? 25 So -- 1-12-15 104 1 JUDGE POLLARD: More patrol. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: So you're talking patrol, 3 you're talking dispatch, and you're talking 10 jailers. 4 That's the -- and a clerk to help with the paperwork inside 5 the jail. That's what that M & O is based off of. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. And just to go back 7 from when we -- when Wayne and the guys were here in 2012 and 8 looked at the expansion then, you said you thought you could 9 take care of that expansion without any increase in staff. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So this is -- so it's 12 somewhere between a maximum of 800-and-something thousand 13 dollars per year, okay, ballpark, but starting with something 14 significantly less than that? 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Correct. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, okay. Got you. Okay, 17 thank you. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And this is trying to project 19 it out 20 years. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. Right. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: One question that may be to 22 Wayne. The number was 14,778 for the budget for the jail. 23 There's a second page you had of furniture, fixtures, 24 equipment allowances of 400,000. 25 MR. GONDECK: Yes, sir. 1-12-15 105 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So the amount's -- 2 MR. GONDECK: The line item for F.F.& E. is within 3 the budget. I just broke it out farther as to what was 4 included in that 400,000. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. So it's included? 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah, it's included. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Thank you. 8 MR. GONDECK: And going back to the 2012, that was 9 sort of an incremental -- add a little bit; a few years down 10 the road, add a little bit. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 12 MR. GONDECK: That wasn't the 144-bed addition. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 14 MR. GONDECK: As far as what the Sheriff said he 15 could absorb as we're adding a little bit at a time. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. All right, thanks, 17 Wayne. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Could someone give us the 19 timeline for calling an election? 20 MR. TRAYLOR: It's in the second section. Second 21 section, we laid out a quick calendar for calling the bond 22 election and the process leading up to the actual election. 23 We got some dates from your bond counsel, Tom Spurgeon. 24 According to those guys, the last day for you guys to call 25 for a bond election for the May election date is February the 1-12-15 106 1 27th. And then some other key dates between that 2 February 27th date on which the Court would have to call the 3 election and the election, is you've got to -- early voting 4 would begin on April 27th. The actual election day is -- is 5 May the 9th, and then the canvassing date after you have the 6 election will be -- the last day to canvass the election 7 would be May the 20th. At the time you canvass the election, 8 we've got to have about a 30-day election contestation 9 period. That's a period in which you really could not sell 10 bonds. We probably wouldn't recommend selling the bonds, 11 anyway, until sometime July or August, after you get your 12 certified rolls for the next fiscal year and things like 13 that. So, I think the key dates for you guys right now is 14 that election date to call it would be February 27th. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, we've talked about 16 bricks and mortar and talked about dollars and cents. I want 17 to bring it down to my level of keeping bad people off the 18 streets and out of my neighborhood, and out of your 19 neighborhood too, even you. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Well, I'm there. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. So -- so I think this 22 thing needs to move hard and fast as it possibly can, because 23 I'm just totally sold on the idea of Rusty doing his job and 24 getting bad people off the streets. I think that is the 25 primary point that we should focus on. And then we get into 1-12-15 107 1 the bricks and mortar and dollars and cents. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: Protection of our citizens. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Absolutely. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Amen. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And so, I mean, is there -- 6 what could -- what would keep us from setting the May date 7 today? 8 MR. HENDERSON: We're going to need an official 9 order calling the bond election that's drafted by your bond 10 attorneys that would outline the election polling places, 11 the election judges, the alternate election judges, so 12 there's a lot of details that we have to get to the bond 13 attorney to include that in the order of calling the bond 14 election. So, that's probably why we need to put it on an 15 agenda-specific, you know -- 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, yeah. 17 MR. HENDERSON: Outline the approval of a bond 18 election. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We can call him; he can put 20 that together and e-mail it to us, and we can print it out 21 and do it. 22 MR. HENDERSON: You could. Or Dusty and I could 23 come bring our smiling faces back again as well. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let's call him, and... 25 (Laughter.) 1-12-15 108 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So we need to -- we need to 2 pass a court order today? Authorizing -- 3 MR. HENDERSON: I think you can have an indication 4 of -- of the direction. You can give us direction, but we do 5 need to specifically instruct the bond attorney to get 6 together with your County Clerk, and -- 7 JUDGE POLLARD: What would be a reasonable time to 8 get -- to allow him to get back with a proposed order and all 9 that? 10 MS. HARGIS: I think the next regular meeting. 11 He's going to need some time. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: All right, that's it. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right. 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So -- so, action is required 15 or not? 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No action is -- 17 JUDGE POLLARD: No action is required, but I think 18 they kind of want some direction from us, I think they said, 19 today. 20 MR. HENDERSON: That would be helpful, I think. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What if we -- what if we did 22 pass an order asking him to have that presented by that time? 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's what I'd like to do. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That would be -- that would 25 be the step -- I think a firm step in what everybody's 1-12-15 109 1 looking for. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 3 MR. HENDERSON: Whatever is permissible under your 4 agenda item. 5 MS. HARGIS: In addition to that, we'll have Tom 6 draw up a resolution so that we can spend funds in advance of 7 the bond issue and be reimbursed, as we've always done in the 8 past, so that's the second resolution that we need. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I make a motion that we request 10 our bond counsel and bond legal -- bond counsel and our bond 11 advisers to proceed with preparing the necessary documents 12 for us to vote to call an election in May, on May 9th, 2015, 13 in the amount $15 million for a jail expansion project. 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I'll second that. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: And that it be on the next regular 16 agenda? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If it's possible, I mean, yeah. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And I'll second that. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. Is there any further 20 discussion? If not, those in favor, signify by raising your 21 right hand. 22 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 23 JUDGE POLLARD: It's 4-0, unanimous. Thank you 24 very much, gentlemen, for a very thorough -- 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: See y'all. 1-12-15 110 1 JUDGE POLLARD: -- presentation. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Good presentation. 3 MR. HENDERSON: Thank you. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I told you they were nice. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: 1.13; consider, discuss, and take 6 appropriate action regarding Emergency Management Plan for 7 Kerr County -- 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Just a second. 9 MR. HENDERSON: Thanks, everyone. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Thank you. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: Picking up where I left off, 12 Emergency Management Plan for Kerr County and the cities of 13 Kerrville and Ingram, and establishing the position of 14 Emergency Management Coordinator for Kerr County. 15 Commissioners Moser and myself. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. Thank you, Judge. I'll 17 kick this off, if I may. Sort of the headline on this is I 18 think the county is -- is as high-risk as we've been in a 19 long time for an emergency, and primarily in two areas, maybe 20 three areas. Number one, fire. Number two, flood. And 21 Number three, probably some incident that happens on 22 Interstate 10. If -- if that's the case, and the risk is 23 higher, the probability is those emergencies are going to be 24 outside the city of -- of Kerrville; probably going to be in 25 the county. 1-12-15 111 1 JUDGE POLLARD: And, believe it or not, terrorism. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And terrorism, yeah. And 3 terrorism too. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Absolutely. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That was the fourth item. The 6 -- the situation is we have an emergency management plan. 7 There's a couple of parts of that which are interesting. 8 Number one, the emergency management plan is led by the 9 emergency management coordinator, which has been the Fire 10 Chief for the City. I looked at this plan for the last two 11 years, and I think there's some major deficiencies in it. 12 The public is at risk, and this Court is at risk for not 13 having a comprehensive plan that's executable. I think it's 14 questionable whether or not it's executable. The -- we've 15 not done this in the blind. I organized a meeting in 16 November, and I asked the City to have the Mayor, the City 17 Manager, and the Fire Chief, and they were there, and the 18 Judge and the Sheriff and myself from the County, and the 19 City of Ingram. So, we met and we looked at this, and we 20 agreed that there were deficiencies in the plan. 21 Number one is, one of the major deficiencies is the 22 resources of the County are not incorporated as a primary 23 response. The emergency management coordinator, even though 24 I'm sure they're qualified and all that kind of stuff, they 25 don't know what's happening in Mountain Home. They don't 1-12-15 112 1 know what's happening in Center Point. They don't know 2 what's happening in a lot of things. The volunteer fire 3 departments in that plan are responsible for hazardous waste. 4 They do not know anything; are not trained, are not qualified 5 to be responsible for hazardous waste. For human resources, 6 the City librarian is responsible for that. So, with that, 7 we looked at the responsibilities. We had another meeting 8 December the 18th, I think is when we met, the City and the 9 County. What we proposed from the County, just for 10 discussion purposes, was to have two emergency management 11 coordinators, and if the incident -- emergency is in the 12 city, the City takes responsibility; the County provides 13 support. Just the opposite if the emergency is outside the 14 city; the emergency management coordinator from the County 15 takes the responsibility, and the City provides their 16 support. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: Takes the lead. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Takes the lead. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: County takes the lead, and they 20 support -- the City supports. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And I think this is important. 22 And I gave each of you a little copy -- sorry I didn't get it 23 earlier, but I didn't. On the second and on the third and 24 fourth page, it shows the responsibilities that are currently 25 in the plan, and as you can see in that, all the 1-12-15 113 1 responsibilities at the top, they're filled by people from 2 within the City, and the Sheriff is in there at some point. 3 And so I looked at that, and I thought, golly, there's a lot 4 of resources that are not tapped in this plan that the County 5 has. Justices of the Peace are not, constables are not, 6 volunteer fire departments are not effectively, in my 7 judgment, utilized. Road and Bridge is not identified as an 8 asset. So, on the -- the last page in there is what the 9 responsibility matrix would be should the County have the -- 10 have the lead, okay, in an emergency. And so that brings 11 together all these resources. 12 So, we discussed that with the three entities, 13 City/County -- the two cities and the County, and from that, 14 without any formal adoption, it was a gentleman's handshake 15 that, yes, we can move forward with that. The other -- the 16 plan has a major deficiency in it. Deficiencies, I should 17 say. And that there should be and could be and would have to 18 be two emergency management coordinators, one with the lead, 19 and the other support. Now, the City would like to have the 20 -- the City still maintain the emergency management 21 coordinator and the County be the assistant emergency 22 management coordinator. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: Doesn't matter what -- 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I don't care what you call 25 them, Jack or Jane or primary or assistant, whatever. But 1-12-15 114 1 should we move forward on -- on something like this, and 2 should the County identify an emergency management 3 coordinator, then I think the next step would be -- and that 4 was what came out of that meeting, was that these two 5 individuals, okay, emergency management coordinators would 6 rewrite this emergency management plan. And there's another 7 reason to rewrite it. The current court order authorizing an 8 emergency management plan in 1983 -- is that correct, Rusty? 9 1983. It was updated in 2005, updated in 2010, but it was 10 never approved by court order to approve that change in the 11 Emergency Management Plan. So, legally, from a County 12 perspective, the only emergency management plan we have is 13 what existed in 1983. Another little issue of deficiency is 14 the emergency management plan dated 2010 identifies Ray 15 Holloway -- no, 1983 -- named Ray Holloway, Raymond Holloway, 16 Fire Chief, as the emergency management coordinator. The 17 existing plan says it's the fire chief, okay? So, that's a 18 -- that's something that needs to be fixed too. 19 So, there are a bunch of little detail deficiencies 20 that require an update to this thing. So, it was a working 21 group, if you will, okay, to bring -- to rewrite this plan -- 22 update the plan, I should say. Update it, rewrite it, 23 whatever you want to say. It's primarily boilerplate from 24 the State with all the words that are in there. And have 25 these two individuals take this plan, look at it, update it, 1-12-15 115 1 bring it back to the respective bodies to submit for their 2 consideration and approval. So, that's what this thing is 3 about. A part of this is -- that's the emergency management 4 plan. Another part is, the job of emergency management 5 coordinator is big. Should we have -- should we have an 6 emergency, that person is the operating officer for the 7 emergency. He's guided by a -- quote, a board of directors, 8 if you will, for the judge and the two mayors. They serve as 9 the directors for the emergency management plan, for the 10 emergency. They are the directors of it. They make sure 11 that the emergency operations center's there. They are 12 leaning on the emergency management coordinator, whoever it 13 is, to execute responding to the emergency properly. 14 So, with that, to do that, I'm going to 15 recommend -- I'm going to make a motion that we identify the 16 position of emergency management coordinator, and -- and to 17 do that effective -- as quickly as we can, okay? The funds 18 for that are in the budget this year. We -- we in the past 19 have given a stipend of $9,600, to the Fire Chief to serve as 20 emergency management coordinator. I'm going to recommend 21 that we not provide those funds to the City; that we use that 22 for our own emergency management coordinator. And the 23 Sheriff's Department, I believe -- correct me if I'm wrong, 24 here, Rusty or Jeannie, that there's funds for personnel that 25 will not be expended this year, so there's sufficient funds 1-12-15 116 1 for a -- and I'm going to suggest a temporary or part-time, 2 if that's the right term, employee, not a full-time employee, 3 to be a -- to fill the position of emergency management 4 coordinator for the County. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: Somebody with experience in that 6 area? 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Somebody -- and I'll let Rusty 8 expand on this, if you will, too, about the qualifications, 9 certification, and requirements that -- that constitute the 10 filling of that position. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, if you don't mind, I'd 12 like to expand a little bit more than just that. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Sure. 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Back in 1983, when emergency 15 management was created in Kerr County, okay, what the 16 courts -- both courts, the City of Kerrville, and at the 17 initial time, Kerr County -- Ingram was just getting 18 incorporated, you might say. What they did was the City of 19 Kerrville would provide, quote, the emergency management 20 coordinator. And what was actually in the court order, at 21 least that the County passed, was that it would be Raymond 22 Holloway. Some of them did not even specify Fire Chief; they 23 just specified Raymond Holloway, but he would be the 24 emergency management coordinator. What the County was going 25 to appoint in all those other court orders and our agreement 1-12-15 117 1 was the assistant emergency management coordinator. And I 2 think what -- what we're trying to do is get it back to where 3 it was. The County appointed an assistant emergency 4 management coordinator initially, and that was Billy Joe 5 Guthrie. 6 Many of y'all will remember Judge Guthrie, you 7 know, who was fire chief in Ingram, and he was a commissioner 8 here. He was the first emergency management -- assistant 9 emergency management coordinator appointed by the County. 10 So, after he left, what ended up happening is the County 11 never appointed another one. They left it, and it ended up 12 being that the fire chief was it, and then he kind of 13 delegated it down to his assistant, who was kind of a 14 coordinator and assistant, you might call it, both in that 15 one deal is what ended up occurring, and the County started 16 paying the City so much stipend to take care of the issue. 17 Well, what we've all kind of proposed -- we did say at first, 18 let's have two different -- two separate coordinators. Well, 19 that's not really feasible to have two separate ones, unless 20 you want to have two total separate plans, one for the county 21 and one for the city. 22 So, I think what we need to do is just get it back 23 to what it was originally intended in the original court 24 order, and get all these court orders and everything updated. 25 The City appoints the emergency management coordinator, and 1-12-15 118 1 both -- they're voted on also by the County, is the way it 2 was set up back then. And what they have now is a position 3 that is the battalion chief in the fire department is that 4 position that will also fill that -- that emergency 5 management coordinator position. It's that person, whoever 6 it is. So, it's not by name; it's by position, okay? It's 7 not the fire chief, it's the battalion chief, who currently 8 is Tony Lenard. And Tony Lenard is working his rear end off, 9 if you don't mind my saying it. He has contacted Chief 10 Barton, I mean, a lot of times. He was out during the tanker 11 deal out on 41. He's been out during the icy weather, and 12 potential icy weather, looking. I think Tony's going to 13 really give it his all and really try and update and get a 14 good management plan put together. 15 So, what we've kind of agreed is the County needs 16 to appoint the assistant emergency management coordinator. I 17 know the Court doesn't like putting people directly under the 18 Court, so if you want to appoint a part-time position that -- 19 create a part-time position at this time, we'll give that 20 person an office out at our annex facility. But what we're 21 hoping is that person -- and I'll hire that person, and I 22 don't know who it will be at this time. I think there is a 23 lot of, you know, background that needs to be done. There 24 are some very well qualified people in this county, but I 25 need to accept applications and see where we go. But that 1-12-15 119 1 person would be housed out there to work directly with Tony 2 Lenard, and update the plan -- you know, the court orders 3 that need to be updated, some of the plan issues that need to 4 be updated. Tony is -- is definite that if it's an incident 5 that occurs out in the county, then the County kind of needs 6 to take the lead on it, whoever that person is, and he'll 7 assist them. If it's an incident in the city, Tony will take 8 the lead on it, and our guy will assist him. But they both 9 work on it jointly together, but Tony Lenard is the emergency 10 management coordinator for Kerr County, City of Kerrville, 11 and the City of Ingram, as it is right now, and our 12 appointment would be of the assistant emergency management 13 coordinator for Kerr County, City of Kerrville, and City of 14 Ingram, and that's what I would recommend you doing. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But the plan needs to -- 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The budget -- 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: The plan needs to clearly 18 delineate that, -- 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. There's just a lot 20 of -- 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- that the assistant is the 22 lead should the emergency occur -- 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, some of the things, 24 Commissioner, that -- 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- in the county. 1-12-15 120 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think we need that these 2 people are going to answer to -- those two people are going 3 to answer to Judge Pollard, Mayor Pratt, and Mayor -- 4 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Salter. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- Salter up at Ingram. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Let me interrupt one more 7 time, too, Rusty. That was the other thing that was 8 discussed. You know, should we have separate emergency 9 management plans for the city and separate emergency 10 management plans for the county? And it was -- it was the 11 consensus that, no, let's strive to have a single emergency 12 management plan, but the details are -- are very important. 13 Rather than -- you know, to work out a single emergency 14 management plan where you can clearly use all the resources. 15 I mean, we've got a lot of resources in the county, a lot of 16 resources in the city. If you separate the two, then -- 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. Well, and there was -- 18 and the current way it was being done, I think the line of 19 succession, if the -- I think it had, like, if the emergency 20 management coordinator wasn't there, the City Manager ends up 21 being the next one in charge. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's it. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's one of the things we 24 kind of -- it needs to go, you know, in that office, 25 emergency management, assistant emergency management, and 1-12-15 121 1 then, you know, the mayors and all them. But what I'm -- 2 what I'm really getting at, I think we're on the threshold of 3 really being able to upgrade it. I think the City has an 4 emergency management coordinator that truly wants to -- truly 5 wants to work hard at getting it done, and I think we need to 6 go with that, but it is an assistant. And then -- and not 7 knocking anything that Mr. Moser has or anything, but I know 8 he -- he drew this up, and you can see that is a stark 9 difference in what the City has as the line of succession. 10 Well, these are the people -- and in this Attachment 4 and 5, 11 what part those people play is they are the people that are 12 going to primarily be in the emergency operations center, 13 okay? They're not your -- your incident commanders. They're 14 not the person in charge of that incident. 15 No matter who they are, the incident -- the 16 emergency management coordinator isn't in charge of that 17 incident. What he is in charge of is trying to help organize 18 resources that are needed, and coming to that incident 19 commander on the scene, and that's where you get into these 20 positions, okay? Like, you know, you have on here KPUB. 21 KPUB's now on the City's as secondary, or assisting on 22 communications, on recovery and damage assessment, but 23 they're primary on utilities. So, whoever it is that's -- 24 that's that person with KPUB, they're at the emergency 25 operations center during an emergency, and then if we have a 1-12-15 122 1 bunch of utility issues going on, whether it be in KPUB's 2 area or Hill Country Telephone Co-Op or, you know, Bandera 3 Electric or any of those, that person is a person that the 4 incident commander can go to to request more resources, and 5 he's got it organized to where he can call Bandera or any of 6 those. He's -- so that the incident commander is actually 7 commanding that incident, and you're getting all these 8 resources from these other places. That's how it's really 9 set up. And Tony grasped that; Tony understands it. 10 And I think what we would do is -- is create a 11 position, not necessarily in the Sheriff's Office, but I 12 guess under our umbrella right now, that would be the 13 assistant emergency management coordinator. It would be a 14 part-time position that I would give a -- give an office to 15 out there, but that person answers directly to the Judge. 16 That's it. That person doesn't necessarily answer to -- 17 directly to me. Yes, I may accept the application and hire, 18 and the qualifications, and there are a lot of those, but in 19 reality, that person answers directly to the Judge. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The -- 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And understanding, Jonathan, 22 where it comes from. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I appreciate all the work that 24 Tom's done -- that Mr. Moser's done on this, because this has 25 been a big concern of mine for years, because I think the way 1-12-15 123 1 it -- the old plan has many things that were done back in the 2 early '80's, when a lot of these original agreements came 3 together, whether it be the airport, the library. Evidently, 4 it all happened at one time, for whatever reason, and they 5 need to be relooked at. I mean, 'cause things certainly have 6 changed in the last 20, 30 years, so I totally support that. 7 And I'm going to leave it up to those that have looked at the 8 details of it as to how it should be structured. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Commissioner Moser made a 11 motion, but it got really kind of -- 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Well, I haven't made a motion 13 yet. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You did. You started making 15 it. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But I got lost in it. And I 18 think, you know, just where to go from now, I think we need 19 to start moving with a new plan like you suggested, but I 20 think when it comes to some of the responsibilities and that 21 detail as to this position, we need to just talk about that a 22 little bit more. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You know, I -- you know, 25 looking at this, I'm concerned about having a part-time 1-12-15 124 1 person as our assistant, you know. To me, it's something 2 that we really need to have -- and I think Tony Lenard 3 probably is great at it. That's fine. I have no problem 4 with leaving that emergency coordinator at the City, as long 5 as it's delegated out to the county where it needs to be. 6 But I think we need to look at that as to who that -- if it's 7 a part-time job or if we do something, if you look at your 8 structure a little bit and make it a job of one of your -- of 9 someone in, you know, the Sheriff's Department. Because I 10 don't -- it's a very important thing. If we do have a 11 disaster, we need to make sure it's all structured, organized 12 correctly. I go back to the last -- I guess the only really 13 big disaster that we've had since I've been a Commissioner, I 14 believe, is the -- the fire on Sheppard Rees, really, where 15 that all worked well, and appeared to me that the Sheriff 16 took the lead on that. I don't know how it all came 17 together. I know we had a trailer. It all kind of -- it 18 worked, which was great. But I do think it's important to 19 have a plan that's correct. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: We had -- we had a lot of 21 discussion about full-time/part-time, and I -- and the only 22 reason that I think we finally agreed, and twisting Rusty's 23 arms on the part-time, was to get it started to do exactly 24 what you're saying, to get somebody identified, for the 25 County to identify the deficiencies and what the corrected 1-12-15 125 1 action should be, because I don't know who that person would 2 be right now. 3 JUDGE POLLARD: Rusty doesn't want to be, and he 4 doesn't have anybody in his office that he thought fits an 5 interim spot to get it -- get the whole thing redone. I have 6 no problem with that. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. The issue we have, what 8 we're really looking at, Jonathan, Sheppard Rees -- I'll give 9 you a good example. Sheppard Rees, Ray Holloway and I were 10 both out there the entire time, okay? He was your Emergency 11 Management Coordinator, and then -- and at that point -- 12 after a certain point, Forestry Service came in and took over 13 everything, which is what we hoped, 'cause we ended up with 14 all kinds of fire departments there from all over the state. 15 But what you have to remember, what we're doing is -- what I 16 did more out at Sheppard Rees was an incident commander's 17 job, not emergency management coordinator, okay? That's -- 18 that's totally different. 19 And that's where we -- we get into this. You need 20 somebody that is all up on it to -- to bring in the resources 21 and organize that, not the incident commander. Number one, 22 it is, in reality, and should be a full-time position. It's 23 a very important position. When you have -- it's very 24 time-consuming, just on constant training, constantly 25 updating your Emergency Management Plan, which currently, no 1-12-15 126 1 joke, and nothing aside, is about this thick. Inside Kerr 2 County, okay, all those people and departments come together. 3 I do not have anybody in my department that can spend that 4 kind of time. Plus, if it were under the Chief or me, we're 5 going to be at the scene when this -- normally something like 6 this happens, not inside the E.O.C. trying to get more 7 personnel to it. We're going to be too involved in it if 8 it's out in the county. 9 So, what we're all recommending, and a position 10 that I think sooner or later this County will seriously need 11 to look at, and hopefully this is a start of it, is create a 12 part-time position, and y'all put it wherever you want it. 13 The person's got to have to answer to the County Judge; 14 that's their job. And create a part-time position for now, 15 but the goal is to probably at some point get this to be a 16 full-time position because of the amount of time and that 17 that it needs to be, and just training, public education, all 18 this kind of stuff goes into it. But create that full-time 19 position, and create a county fire marshal at the same time. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Bingo. That's my part of 21 the talk. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: To me, that's what I would 23 recommend. But right now, we need a -- this county, so that 24 it doesn't go back to the way it was -- we've got a fresh 25 start with the City, and now the County needs to take up what 1-12-15 127 1 it originally agreed to do; appoint the assistant so that we 2 can get the County back involved in it. Where the funding 3 comes from and what Tom was talking about, there is $9,600 4 that the County funds stipends to the City for it. I don't 5 know where that goes or how it would affect the City if the 6 County did not fund that. I did hear that Tony Lenard's 7 entire budget for emergency management for a year is $9,000, 8 so I don't know if that's where it comes from or how it 9 works, or if it's -- if they pay part of his salary. I don't 10 know, but that's what I've been told. But I do think that 11 that would at least help get it started. Jeannie can tell 12 you that normally -- and I -- and you'd have to set a -- we'd 13 have to look at it, see what the qualifications are, set the 14 -- if it's part-time, the hourly wage part of it and 15 everything with them. There is some extra funds normally in 16 my department from -- from employee openings throughout the 17 year. That leaves some budgeted salaries available that can 18 be used. But it's just trying to get it off the ground and 19 started now, and then let's work with the City and see if we 20 can make it all work out. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I want to highly recommend, 22 though, that we move toward a county fire marshal. I think 23 that there is key rates -- there's insurance rates involved 24 in that kind of thing. Just having somebody like that on 25 board affects -- affects our insurance costs. So -- and I 1-12-15 128 1 get bugged about that three or four times every year, it 2 rolls around, somebody wants to do it. 3 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I do too. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So I really would like to 5 get focused on that. 6 MS. HARGIS: I guess it's been about three years 7 ago -- I can't remember when the Bastrop fire was, but we had 8 our conference right after the fire happened, and the County 9 Auditor was there, and she was, like, on-site constantly, and 10 one of the big things that they ran into with that fire was 11 to be sure that all the volunteer personnel checked in with 12 them so that FEMA would cover those costs. Knowing how to 13 deal with FEMA is a huge thing in being able to get the 14 grants to help pay for the disaster. So, that's another 15 piece that you don't really think about at the time you have 16 the disaster, and then you got to deal with FEMA, and that is 17 not a good time to learn how to deal with FEMA. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We need to get Jeannie a 19 fire hat. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Well, that's the reason I had 21 her -- 22 MS. HARGIS: I'll retire. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- in the matrix. The Auditor 24 takes the lead on that on resources, if it's in the county. 25 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Right now, if I understand 1-12-15 129 1 it, Rusty, you are recommending not to vote on this, but to 2 vote to create a part-time assistant emergency management 3 manager -- coordinator? 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. 5 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Preferably within the funds 6 that we have in the budget. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Here's what I'm asking. What 8 I would like to see this Court do, and I think Tom's asked 9 the same thing, is that y'all -- we don't have a position. 10 Y'all create a position, okay? Part-time position at this 11 time, and you can vote on it, for an assistant emergency 12 management coordinator in the county. That would be what the 13 position is. Then we come back once we -- we get 14 qualifications, we get applications, we get anything for 15 that, and we come back and set the salary for that position. 16 The Court does, not me, and the other extra stuff that would 17 have to go along with that employee. But I think there needs 18 to be the creation of a -- I don't have a part-time position. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: Well, do you want a county fire 20 marshal? 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Not the fire marshal; that's 22 future. It would come in the future as a full-time position. 23 That's a year or two down the road right now. We're looking 24 just to kind of take one bite of this apple at a time, and 25 create a part-time position that is the assistant emergency 1-12-15 130 1 coordinator for Kerr County. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think this -- I'm fine with 3 doing it, but we need to have a job description, a pay rate. 4 We can't just create a position and be done with it. I mean, 5 there's no reason to take action today. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, but you can't -- and 7 that's -- this is where -- is it the egg before the chicken 8 or chicken before the egg? You can create a position, which 9 will allow H.R. and all of us to work on the job description 10 and that, and come back for it to be approved with the 11 salary. But until there's a position at all, we don't even 12 have anything to do. It's up to however y'all -- 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We need a direction, but I 14 don't think we need to vote. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Let me make a motion, okay? 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait just a second. 17 MS. LANTZ: I just have a question, constituting 18 part-time. With the new labor laws, changing of insurance 19 and so forth, we have to be very careful what we consider as 20 part-time, as regular part-time or seasonal part-time, 21 because we will, by law mandate, have to provide insurance to 22 that individual. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: If it's part-time? 24 MS. LANTZ: Yes, sir, if it goes over 29 hours a 25 week. 1-12-15 131 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I know. 2 MS. LANTZ: That can constitute that at any given 3 time. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But if it doesn't go over 29 5 hours a week -- 6 MS. LANTZ: What if you have an emergency? Then 7 that person is going to be working over 29 hours a week. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I see. 9 MS. LANTZ: And we'll be law-mandated to provide 10 that person with all benefits. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Good point. Okay. Well, I 12 would like to -- I think we've got some things here which we 13 can take some action on. Number one is, I'd like to -- I'll 14 make a motion that we create the position of emergency 15 management coordinator for the county, and that that 16 emergency management coordinator be the assistant to the 17 City's emergency management coordinator, and that the 18 emergency management plan, as it exists today, if we pass 19 that position, be rewritten and updated and brought back to 20 this Court for consideration and approval. Because what we 21 have right now is -- scares the hell out of me all the time. 22 We have never demonstrated that this county and these cities 23 know how to work together in an emergency. There's never 24 been any simulation. There's never been an end-to-end. The 25 volunteer fire departments have not been involved. But there 1-12-15 132 1 has not been -- they -- for instance, when they had the -- 2 the vaccination thing out at the Ag Barn the other day, that 3 was, quote, an exercise of the emergency management plan. I 4 didn't know about that. I don't believe anybody -- but that 5 was -- that was checked off as a -- 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: None of us knew that, but that 7 is what they considered -- the flu deal out there they 8 considered one of their tabletop exercises. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's totally unacceptable. 10 Because if something happens, this guy in the middle here is 11 going to be responsible. It's the County Judge that's 12 responsible. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Let me ask this. Why don't we 14 -- why don't this Court just consider, instead of a motion to 15 do that, consider just authorizing myself and the H.R. 16 Director to develop a job description with or without 17 benefits, however we can get it worked out. It's going to 18 probably have to have benefits and an hourly salary, okay. 19 To bring back to -- for an assistant emergency management 20 coordinator, to bring back to this Court at the next 21 Commissioners Court? 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I'd go along with that. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And I don't think that takes a 24 vote, more than just -- if y'all want to guide us, that's 25 what we can do. 1-12-15 133 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's good. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And there's "X" amount of 3 dollars already built in the budget that we've been paying? 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, there's been $9,600 a 5 year that goes to the City to stipend that emergency 6 management coordinator. 7 MS. HARGIS: But it's not broken out in the new 8 contract. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Uh-oh. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Not what? 11 MS. HARGIS: Not broken out in the new contract 12 that we have with them. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. Yeah, right. 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Not in it? 15 MS. HARGIS: No, it just -- 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's separate? 17 MS. HARGIS: No. In the new one, it just mentioned 18 it along with everything. Remember, we combined fire, EMS, 19 everything into one. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 21 MS. HARGIS: There's no cost broken out with any 22 particular item. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: First Responders. 24 MS. HARGIS: It's one million dollars. I mean, and 25 we pay it. There's no 9,600 in it any more. 1-12-15 134 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, so they need to -- it 3 doesn't change -- we need to -- 4 JUDGE POLLARD: We're going to try to do this 5 within the existing budget, too. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, that's what he's 8 trying to say. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 10 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. That completes, I 11 think, Item 1.13. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: It does. Thank you. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: We'll go to Item 1.14; consider, 14 discuss, and take appropriate action regarding Center Point 15 Lions Park improvements. Commissioner Moser. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. I put this on the 17 agenda because the -- the improvements that were authorized 18 by the Court have been implemented; picnic tables, the 19 grills, resurfacing the parking area, putting boulders 20 around. It looks fantastic. There is about three-quarters 21 of an acre that's to the west end of the park that is -- that 22 is just shrub and a lot of debris and stuff like that in 23 there that is the ideal place for some additional picnic 24 tables and a shade area. Every place else in the park is 25 non-shade except under the big tree. And what I'd like to do 1-12-15 135 1 is to make a motion that we add three picnic tables to the 2 park, the same type of picnic tables that we -- that Tim just 3 installed before, and then we add five barbecue grills, two 4 of which we need for the existing, and then three for these 5 additional three picnic tables, and to do that for funds that 6 would not exceed $4,000. And for Tim to be authorized to -- 7 to implement -- add to -- number one, cleaning up that area 8 so it can be utilized when the spring arrives, and the picnic 9 tables that he install. 10 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And where would the funds 11 come from? 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: They're in the C.O., the 13 $100,000. So, I think -- I don't remember exactly how much 14 we did last time, somewhere around $10,000 or something. 15 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And did it take all of that 16 last time? 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Huh? 18 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Did we spend all that 19 $10,000? 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I think so, yeah. Yeah. 21 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Do you not think so, Jeannie? 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: We didn't spend it all? Okay. 23 How much did we spend, Jeannie? 24 MS. HARGIS: I don't know right off the top of my 25 head. 1-12-15 136 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 2 MS. HARGIS: But I know it wasn't the full $10,000. 3 MR. HASTINGS: It was $5,000 last time, and I think 4 we spent about $3,500 on boulders. I don't know how much Tim 5 spent. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, okay. 7 MS. HARGIS: He just spent those out of his budget; 8 I didn't get them. 9 JUDGE POLLARD: So that's about $8,500? 10 MR. HASTINGS: We just got the bill the other day. 11 MS. HARGIS: Okay. So what I've seen is not, but 12 by the time we get the boulders, it'll be close, but I don't 13 think it's quite 10. 14 MR. BOLLIER: Somewhere around 5,000, 6,000. 15 MR. HASTINGS: It was five. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So that -- that includes, Tim, 17 the amount that you spent on existing -- on the tables, and 18 you just added -- 19 MR. BOLLIER: Might as well say $1,000 for tables, 20 and I put in -- I put in four tables. I put in $125 apiece 21 for those -- 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Grills. 23 MR. BOLLIER: -- grills; I put in five of those. 24 And for those trash can lids, we put in five of those, and 25 those were what, $300 apiece? 1-12-15 137 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Mm-hmm. 2 MR. BOLLIER: So add all that up. And then the 3 concrete, I have not gotten -- gotten that bill yet for 4 concrete. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So you're up around $7,000 6 right there, including boulders. So what we can do is -- 7 okay, so somewhere in the neighborhood of $7,000. And I 8 think we -- we authorized $10,000, I think, from the previous 9 court order? Then I'd make a motion that we add picnic 10 tables and grills to stay within that $10,000. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: My preference would be to have 12 a workshop to look at where we're looking to spend all the 13 money on the parks. I think that we need to have more of a 14 plan. I mean, I think that -- you know, the amount, I don't 15 have a problem with doing it down there, but I do think that, 16 you know, picnic tables and grills and all this other stuff, 17 I mean, the other parks would like to have too. Flat Rock's 18 the main one. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And River Star needs money as 21 well, because I know the fence around River Star has got to 22 be replaced. You know, so I think we need to figure out -- 23 you know, we need to have a plan. We do need to designate 24 where it goes, but my preference would be to have a workshop 25 to figure out where it's going to go so we don't do it 1-12-15 138 1 piecemeal. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We can do that at the next 4 meeting. I don't think it takes a great, you know -- 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Well, we've got the one on 6 Friday. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, no, no, I mean the regular 8 schedule. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, that's fair enough. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. You withdraw your 13 motion, then? 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. We'll delay that. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. But I would like Tim to 17 -- as time permits, to start cleaning up that area down 18 there, okay? 19 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Time and resources. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: 1.15; consider, discuss, and take 22 appropriate action regarding the liaison for law 23 enforcement/jail. Commissioner Moser. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. At the last 25 Commissioners Court, or maybe the previous one, we -- on the 1-12-15 139 1 liaisons, Commissioner Reeves was for law enforcement and 2 jail, and what I'd like to do is just in -- in looking at the 3 enormity of this jail and so forth, and the addition, for 4 continuing continuity, is to have myself and the -- and 5 Commissioner Reeves both as liaisons on jail and law 6 enforcement. So, I make a motion that we -- that we do that, 7 have two commissioners on it as liaison. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see it totally opposite 9 from you. And I'm not knocking you or your theories or 10 anything like that, but you -- you're talking about the 11 enormity of it. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Mm-hmm. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see that as a drawback, 14 actually. And if you -- if you have too many Indians running 15 up and down the road, then we lose part of the -- there's a 16 possibility of losing part of the plan, or the meaning of 17 whatever we're doing. And if you just have one central 18 person that comes between the Sheriff's Office and this 19 Court, then things stay in a clear way, in my -- that's just 20 my opinion. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Well -- 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If had two, and you got two 23 guys out there doing different work, and it just gets 24 confusing. 25 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I tend to agree. If we 1-12-15 140 1 need -- one, if you're worried about continuity because of 2 the enormity of this project, and you've been working on it, 3 I don't think we can take any action today, but I'd I make a 4 proposal that you go ahead and take the jail, and relinquish 5 the parks. At the Friday meeting, we'll put that on the 6 agenda, and I'll take over the parks. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, why don't we look at the 8 whole list where we've got two on a majority of everything? 9 What's the rationale? 10 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I -- 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: What's the rationale for 12 having you and Commissioner Letz do the Ag Barn? 13 COMMISSIONER REEVES: The rationale for me taking 14 parks, I'm trying to be nice. Because the first time I hear 15 about a change on liaison for law enforcement and jail is 16 when the agenda comes out, so how in the hell are we going to 17 work together, Tom? 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I have to be very careful in 19 who I talk to about this. I think I mentioned it to the 20 Judge, so therefore I can't mention it to you without 21 violating the law. 22 COMMISSIONER REEVES: If you want to make a motion 23 to change the liaison, make the motion. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I make a motion that we change 25 the liaison with jail and law enforcement to Commissioner 1-12-15 141 1 Reeves and myself. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'd be more in favor of looking 3 at them all. I don't -- 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Let's look at them all, then. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Makes no difference to me. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But -- as to how that works. 8 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I thought we just looked at 9 this. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But if they don't want to do it 11 together, that creates a little bit of a problem. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I guess Commissioner Reeves 13 doesn't want to work on it together. Okay. 14 JUDGE POLLARD: Is there a second to the motion? 15 (No response.) 16 JUDGE POLLARD: There being no second to the 17 motion, the motion fails. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Really good. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If you put it on, put it for 20 all the -- to look at all of them. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. 22 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Let's look at them all. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Let's look at them all, where 24 we have duplicates on all of these, as Commissioner Baldwin 25 suggested. 1-12-15 142 1 JUDGE POLLARD: 1.16; consider, discuss and take 2 appropriate action on marketing at Hill Country Youth Event 3 Center and Kerr County Public Relations. Commissioners Letz 4 and -- 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, I think we ought to pass 6 this till the next meeting. Have to bring back a little bit 7 more information. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Chicken. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: On this, since it's an agenda 10 item, let me just bring up something. In talking with 11 Charlie McIlvain at the Convention and Visitors Bureau the 12 other day, he's got some really good experience with some 13 stuff that he's done. I don't know if you've talked to him. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We've talked. I've talked to 15 him. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: He also has some people that he 18 recommends we talk to from a contract -- contract standpoint. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Good. That's all I wanted to 20 bring up. Good. He had some really good -- 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just trying -- yeah. I thought 22 we'd be further along. We just need to have a better plan 23 ready to present today. 24 JUDGE POLLARD: All right, we want to put this on 25 the next regular agenda too; however, -- 1-12-15 143 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: -- pass it for now. All right, and 3 put on it there. All right. 1.17; consider, discuss, and 4 take appropriate action to fill two vacant budgeted positions 5 in the Kerr County Clerk's office. Becky Bolin. 6 MS. BOLIN: Hi. I'm coming to you today to request 7 that I fill my position, which came open when I was sworn in 8 January 1st, and I have since promoted within the office, and 9 I'd like to fill that position that opened up. That still 10 leaves -- 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I couldn't hear your last -- 12 MS. BOLIN: I promoted within the office, so I'd 13 like to fill that position that came open at that time. 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, I see. 15 MS. BOLIN: That still leaves me with three open 16 budgeted positions. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I move approval. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: Any further discussion? 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: This is just for one of them, 21 correct? 22 JUDGE POLLARD: No, it's for two, isn't it? 23 MS. BOLIN: Two. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Two of them, okay. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: Two out of three. 1-12-15 144 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 2 MS. BOLIN: Two out of five. 3 JUDGE POLLARD: What'd she say? 4 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Two out of five. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: Yeah, okay. All right. Are you 6 going to be able to -- are you going to ask for more later? 7 MS. BOLIN: If I can do with not, I'm not. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay, that's good. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That is good. 10 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. Those in favor of the 11 motion, signify by raising your right hand. 12 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 13 JUDGE POLLARD: It's 4-0, unanimous. Thank you, 14 Becky. 1.18; consider, discuss, and take appropriate action 15 regarding Change Proposal Number 22, installation of gutters, 16 for the Event Hall at Hill Country Youth Event Center. 17 Commissioners Letz and Reeves. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: This is an item -- when we were 19 out there when it was raining one day, there was two spots, 20 and I'm thinking of on the front where the vestibule -- where 21 you walk in; there's no gutters there, and if it's raining, 22 you're going to get soaked trying to get in and out of the 23 building as you're coming in from the outside. Is this those 24 two, or is there another one? 25 MR. HASTINGS: The vestibule and east and west 1-12-15 145 1 porches, all the front facade of the face. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The porches. And it's just 3 something that I think, you know -- how much -- how much is 4 it, Charlie? 5 MR. HASTINGS: 2,508. $2,508. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: Who's going to do that? 7 MR. HASTINGS: Huser. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Huser? Okay. 9 MR. HASTINGS: Yes, sir. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I really think you need to 11 do it. There's no question in my mind, you need to do that. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: I do too. Is there a motion? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll move approval. 14 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Second. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: Any further discussion? There 16 being none, those in favor, signify by raising your right 17 hand. 18 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 19 JUDGE POLLARD: It's 4-0, unanimous. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I did it; it was quick. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. 1.19; consider, 22 discuss, and take appropriate action to retain the services 23 of outside counsel to represent Kerr County on various 24 water-related issues. Is there something? 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: There -- we were hoping to have 1-12-15 146 1 an engagement letter. It's coming, but we need to really 2 look at it a little bit more, so probably if we can put this 3 on Friday. There is a time sensitivity to this, and the 4 attorney has offered to work prior to getting this, as there 5 is a hearing in Austin on July -- I mean February 5th or 6th, 6 I think, relating to -- 7 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. We pass it now and put 8 it on Friday's agenda? 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 10 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. Is there anything for closed 11 session? 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, sir. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: Anybody have anything? 14 MR. BOLLIER: Judge? 15 JUDGE POLLARD: Yes? 16 MR. BOLLIER: I would like for you to bring back 17 the flooring. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh. 19 MR. BOLLIER: Number 11. 20 JUDGE POLLARD: Yeah, okay. What is it? 21 MR. BOLLIER: Since we only have this one, and it 22 is from Kustom Karpets, assuming that we have the money -- 23 (Ms. Hargis shook her head negatively.) 24 MR. BOLLIER: She says we do not have the money, so 25 my recommendation is -- 1-12-15 147 1 MS. HARGIS: We have 42,000 left in the 2 unappropriated now that we've put towards the floor. I don't 3 -- I don't know that there's going to be any money left from 4 the ag facility, because there's still the list there that we 5 haven't completed. The only other place that we might look 6 at some funds, and I looked quickly on break, was the 7 administrative -- court administrative budget, in what we 8 call Fund 81. That fund does have some excess funds in it. 9 If the judges agree, we could use some of that money to 10 offset the difference. But I would have to come -- 11 JUDGE POLLARD: How much are we short? 12 MS. HARGIS: 40,000. 13 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Can we add this back to the 14 agenda on Friday? After you find out -- I know we got 15 a short meeting, but you got -- 16 MS. HARGIS: Yeah, I can get with the judges. 17 COMMISSIONER REEVES: -- got to know where money 18 comes from. 19 MS. HARGIS: I can't right now tell you we have 20 over 40,000, unless you want to take it out of contingency. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So the total deal is 82,000? 22 MR. BOLLIER: $81,635.50. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Request that the Auditor just 25 look at if we have those funds available in the budget 1-12-15 148 1 somewhere, by Friday. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: Can we put it on Friday's agenda, 3 to find out by that time? 4 MS. GRINSTEAD: As a side note, Commissioner Moser 5 is not available on Friday. Correct? 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. 7 MS. GRINSTEAD: And I don't -- I believe you have 8 something out of the office also on Friday. So, just -- so, 9 you know, you'll have a quorum, but -- 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's even better. The 11 three of us will take care of everything. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: We have a Judge pro tem? 13 (Laughter.) Do we have a pro tem? 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Absolutely, we have a pro 15 tem. 16 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. There's nothing for closed? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, sir. 18 JUDGE POLLARD: Nothing for closed, all right. Do 19 we have anything on the action agenda? 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Pay the bills. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Move we pay the bills. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: All right, it's been moved and 24 seconded that we pay the bills. Any discussion? There being 25 none, those in favor, signify by raising your right hand. 1-12-15 149 1 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 2 JUDGE POLLARD: It's 4-0, unanimous. All right, 3 I've got budget amendments. 4 MS. HARGIS: Yes, we do. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I move that we -- 6 JUDGE POLLARD: Approve. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- approve the budget 8 amendments. 9 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Second. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Three of them. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Second. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: Been moved and seconded that the 13 budget -- proposed budget amendments be approved. Any 14 discussion? There being none, those in favor, signify by 15 raising your right hand. 16 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 17 JUDGE POLLARD: 4-0, unanimous. Late bills? 18 MS. HARGIS: We have our insurance bills. We were 19 waiting for some refunds, and -- and we got all that 20 coordinated, so we need to pay our liability insurance now. 21 This is our liability, not our property. We paid part of it, 22 but we had a lot of vehicles on there that they needed to 23 remove, and so we were waiting for all that to come together 24 before we paid the last half of it. So, this is the last 25 half. 1-12-15 150 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is this the 86,930? 2 MS. HARGIS: Yes, the total. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: Been moved and seconded that we pay 6 86,000 -- whatever that figure is. Any further discussion? 7 There being none, those in favor, signify by raising your 8 right hand. 9 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 10 JUDGE POLLARD: It's 4-0, unanimous. 11 MS. HARGIS: Judge Pollard, I also want to bring up 12 that the Treasurer and H.R. Director and I have been working 13 on -- and I always wanted to show the Court the medical 14 bills, but we used to get a late charge if we didn't get them 15 in on time. So, you're going to be seeing all the medical 16 bills from now on. So keep in mind that the ancillary 17 products will be in here as well, those that the employees 18 pay, but at least you will be able to see them, which is my 19 goal, that you see what those bills are. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that this report? 21 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Thank you. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. Approve and accept 24 monthly reports. Do you have them? 25 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Yes. Constable, Precinct 1, 1-12-15 151 1 December 2014; Constable, Precinct 2, December 2014; J.P., 2 Precinct 2, December 2014; J.P., Precinct 3, December 2014; 3 County Treasurer, payroll ending December 2014; Environmental 4 Health, Texas Nuisance Abatement Program case reports for 5 October through December 2014; Environmental Health, 6 December 2014; Animal Services, December 2014; Environmental 7 Health, Solid Waste yearly report for 2014. Move to accept. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 10 JUDGE POLLARD: Been moved and seconded. Is there 11 any further discussion? There being none, those in favor, 12 signify by raising your right hand. 13 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 14 JUDGE POLLARD: It's 4-0, unanimous. Reports from 15 Commissioners or liaison committees? 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: No? 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: The only thing on the -- the 19 airport, I think that Mooney was supposed to meet with the 20 consultants and the two top bidders -- two lower-priced 21 bidders on repairing the roof, and I haven't had a report on 22 that, but I think that that's going pretty well, so we'll see 23 where that goes probably within the next week or so. That's 24 all I have. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: Anybody else have anything? 1-12-15 152 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Nothing. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: Is there any need, do you think, 3 for somebody to -- maybe some kind of interior decorator or 4 something to talk about the inside of the -- the Exhibit 5 Hall? 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think we need to probably put 7 it on the agenda or a workshop as to what we're going to do 8 on the interior. 9 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think there's a -- it became 11 very evident to my wife, who looks a little closer than I do 12 sometimes, that we need to do -- we have lots of little 13 things we need inside the interior to dress it up a little 14 bit, make it look a little bit better. But with our budget 15 situation where it is, we don't have any money, so we need to 16 kind of look at that a little bit. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: When do you want to do that? 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: At our next meeting, we can. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: Next regular meeting? 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Next regular meeting. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. All right, we can do that. 22 All right. Any reports from any elected officials or 23 department heads? 24 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Didn't we hear enough from 25 you? 1-12-15 153 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I was hoping, but just a 2 couple things real quick, and I think you need to -- to be 3 aware of. Number one, we did dodge a bullet the last two 4 weeks with ice. I do appreciate the way TexDOT helped and 5 really worked with us, 'cause it was a bad issue. Some of 6 the other issues, just so you know, there will probably be 7 something in the media about it in the next day or so, is for 8 the last number of months, and probably closer to a year, our 9 department, Kerrville Police Department, Kendall County 10 Sheriff's Office, Boerne P.D., Fredericksburg, everybody has 11 been working on a joint investigation, feds included, over 12 methamphetamine and the issues that we have. There was a 13 number of search warrants run last Friday, and a number of 14 persons arrested on federal charges, more arrested on state 15 charges. We recovered right at a little over a pound of 16 methamphetamine. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Whew. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And a lot more going on. At 19 the same time, we've solved a number of burglaries that have 20 been hitting us lately, and recovered -- took into 21 possession; still trying to figure out whether they're all 22 stolen or legit or not, but with the meth users, we also took 23 in possession over 20 firearms. And people that don't think 24 methamphetamine is not an epidemic in the county, you're 25 sorely mistaken. It's a serious, serious issue. 1-12-15 154 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's a lot of stuff. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: One that's potentially very 3 vital to officers involved. But as I said to the media -- it 4 will be said in the press release -- all I got to say is it's 5 the first time the agencies have decided to -- we're joining 6 hands and we're going to work together. And either the meth 7 users and dealers better check themselves into rehab, or they 8 better start running, 'cause we're coming for it. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is Gillespie -- or do Gillespie 10 and Kendall have similar high rates of -- 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes, we all do. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 'Cause, I mean, you -- we see 13 it in our paper a lot, local papers. 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You don't see it in the Boerne 16 paper, I know. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Medias are different on how 18 they report things. I don't know, but it's -- it's not just 19 Kerr County. It's every county around us. You know, it's 20 gotten to the point -- I think you've probably seen some 21 things on the news media and everything else where, you know, 22 since a lot of states have legalized marijuana, that's not as 23 profitable to the cartels, and since our president has 24 decided to keep our borders wide-open and let anything come 25 across, the methamphetamine epidemic and the meth coming 1-12-15 155 1 across the border is unbelievable, along with everything 2 else, and it's -- it's hurting us. It's hurting us bad. 3 Other than that, I just want to thank all the officers that 4 put their lives on the line doing all -- 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Absolutely. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- all this investigation, the 7 joint cooperation. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And those on the border. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And I just really appreciate 10 it. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you, Sheriff. Reports from 12 boards, commissions, and committees? Anything? City/County 13 joint projects or operations reports? Any other kind of 14 reports? If not, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So moved. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: Moved and seconded. Those in 18 favor, signify by raising your right hand. 19 (The motion carried by unanimous vote, 4-0.) 20 JUDGE POLLARD: It's 4-0, unanimous. Thank you. 21 (Commissioners Court adjourned at 12:45 p.m.) 22 - - - - - - - - - - 23 24 25 1-12-15 156 1 STATE OF TEXAS | 2 COUNTY OF KERR | 3 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 4 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 5 official reporter for the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 6 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 7 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 16th day of January, 8 2015. 9 10 REBECCA BOLIN, Kerr County Clerk 11 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 12 Certified Shorthand Reporter 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1-12-15