1 1 2 3 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' COURT 4 Special Session 5 Thursday, November 30, 2017 6 9:00 a.m. 7 Commissioners' Courtroom 8 Kerr County Courthouse 9 Kerrville, Texas 78028 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: TOM POLLARD, Kerr County Judge HARLEY BELEW, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3. BOB REEVES, Commissioner Pct. 4 25 2 1 (Bill Pay Session, then recess.) 2 JUDGE POLLARD: Item 1.5 consider, discuss 3 and take appropriate action to authorize Hanukkah 4 display on the courthouse lawn. Commissioner Belew. 5 COMMISSIONER BELEW: The Jewish community of 6 the Hill Country had asked for a display time. It 7 doesn't -- it lasts duration of Hanukkah, short of a 8 couple days, right? Alan, you want to get up and tell 9 them what we've got? Alan Bishof is the designer of 10 this if you guys want to see what it'll look like here, 11 the menorah. 12 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Can you repeat your 13 name and spell it for the record please, Sir. 14 MR. BISHOF: My name's Alan Bishof. 15 A-L-A-N, first name. B-I-S-H-O-F. 16 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Thank you. 17 MR. BISHOF: I have some more copies of our 18 proposal if I can give those to you. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Sure. 20 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 21 MR. BISHOF: The drawing is on the last 22 page. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: Do you have one? 24 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I have one, uh-huh. 25 MR. BISHOF: The holiday runs from sunset on 3 1 December 12th through sunset on December 20th. It's 2 based on the lunar calendar, so it varies from year to 3 year, but those are the times for this year. We would 4 like to place that menorah in an area that has some 5 sunlight because the lights are solar. There seems to 6 be an open place between the reindeer and the main 7 entrance that would work. We'd like to do a formal 8 dedication on the sunset and -- sunset on the 15th, 9 which is a Friday. They'll be some members of the 10 Jewish community and also open to the public, those 11 people that would like to be there. 12 The information sheet gives some background 13 on the menorah and other places that have had the 14 menorah in the public area, such as there is a national 15 menorah located in President's Park. All of the part of 16 the park that is open to like the Christmas tree and 17 menorah it's called the Ellipse Park. And I believe you 18 have a picture of that national menorah, be the third 19 page. Woodstock, New York claims to have the first 20 solar powered menorah, that was in 2011. So we're 21 there; we don't get to be first, but -- 22 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Will we be second? 23 MR. BISHOF: We'll be maybe in the top five. 24 COMMISSIONER BELEW: All right. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: I mean I think it looks 4 1 fine. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's tasteful. It's 3 a -- fits in with our current theme in my mind. 4 MR. BISHOF: It's a seven branch -- I mean 5 not -- it's a nine-branch menorah as opposed to the 6 seven-branch menorah, which was the one in the temple, 7 so it's unique to this time of year. 8 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Well, I move for 9 approval. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll make -- well, okay. 11 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I make a motion. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll second. But I will 13 make a note that we do have a license agreement with 14 the -- 15 COMMISSIONER BELEW: We've talked to them. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And with that, and I 17 think it needs to be subject to their consent, and I 18 believe -- 19 COMMISSIONER BELEW: They've given it, yeah. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: In writing. 21 COMMISSIONER BELEW: In writing. 22 MRS. STEBBINS: They would like an 23 opportunity probably to review the packet that y'all 24 have received, and their attorney's meeting with them in 25 the morning anyway, and if you approve it today, you 5 1 could approve it subject to a letter of consent from the 2 foundation who has the license agreement, and that 3 county packet can be delivered to the attorney today, or 4 to the foundation. 5 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And this is simply 6 because of the contractual obligation that we have, is 7 that correct, Mrs. Stebbins? 8 MRS. STEBBINS: Yes, we have a license 9 agreement with the Cailloux Foundation who decorates the 10 lawn, and it's an exclusive agreement, so that they 11 would just need a letter of consent that y'all would 12 have to consider. 13 COMMISSIONER REEVES: From a contractual 14 standpoint? 15 MRS. STEBBINS: Yes, Sir. 16 MR. BISHOF: And is this something you could 17 pass to them? 18 MRS. STEBBINS: Yes. 19 MR. BISHOF: Okay, great. 20 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I see a lot of people 21 in the audience at a special called meeting, and I was 22 wondering if they have anything they would like to 23 comment on their own. Before we take a vote, I'd 24 certainly like to hear anything that anyone wants to 25 say. 6 1 JUDGE POLLARD: Anyone wishing to speak 2 approach the podium, please, state your name, and try to 3 limit your comments to three minutes. Thank you. 4 MS. KAYNE: Judge Pollard, Commissioners, 5 good morning. My name is Jaclyn Kayne, K-A-Y-N-E. I've 6 lived at 3564 Fredericksburg Road in Kerr County for the 7 past 19 years. I am here this morning to advocate for 8 the placement of a Hanukkah menorah on the courthouse 9 grounds during this holiday season. I believe it would 10 be fair and inclusive to place this symbolic seasonal 11 display as an addition to the existing religious symbol 12 on the grounds of this building. 13 Yesterday I placed calls to the Judge and 14 each Commissioner, leaving messages for those I was 15 unable to talk with requesting their support of this 16 measure. I spoke with Commissioner Reeves who was very 17 cordial and open minded, and indicated he was inclined 18 to look favorably at this request. I also reached 19 Commissioner Moser who said he had a conflict and was 20 unable to attend this meeting; however, he gave me 21 permission to use his name and say that he was in favor 22 of the motion. 23 Speaking only for myself it is important 24 that Jews and the Jewish community should feel we are an 25 accepted member of the greater Kerr community -- Kerr 7 1 County community. Kerr County is a great place to live. 2 Please help us feel more of a part of it. 3 Thank you for the opportunity to speak. 4 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you, Ma'am. Anyone 5 else? 6 MS. RICKARD: I am the Reverend Ja Rickard, 7 minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the 8 Hill Country. 9 MS. SMITH: And I'm Linda Smith, the 10 President of the Board of that UU Church. 11 MS. RICKARD: We speak today in the support 12 of the Jewish community's request to have a display on 13 the courthouse lawn that speaks to their religion and 14 faith. 15 MS. SMITH: The UU Church of the Hill 16 Country has proudly shared our facility with the Jewish 17 community for approximately 20 years. Our sanctuary 18 held us their coveted Torah, and we view it as an honor 19 to provide the meeting place. Their religious beliefs 20 may be different than the predominantly Christian 21 community in Kerrville; however, there's is a religion 22 that we, through the Christian web and embraces the same 23 good deeds expected of Christians. We have benefitted 24 from our shared experience with them, and believe our 25 County would as well. As we like to say you do not have 8 1 to think alike to love alike. 2 MS. RICKARD: The request does not take away 3 from the Christian displays on the lawn; rather the 4 request honors the separate Holy holiday. We encourage 5 the Court to honor their request and honor the Jewish 6 community among us in Kerr County. 7 MS. SMITH: Thank you. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you. Anyone else? All 9 right, if there's no one else then, is there a motion? 10 We got a motion, he made the motion. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And I made the second. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: You made the second. Any 13 further discussion or comment? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The motion does include 15 the consent, correct? 16 COMMISSIONER BELEW: (Nodding in affirmative 17 manner.) 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: There's a nod by 19 Commissioner Belew. 20 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Yes. Commissioner 21 Belew is nodding for the Court Reporter. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. All in favor of 23 the motion signify by raising their right hands. It's 24 three zero, unanimous. One abstention, myself. 25 All right. Let's go to the next item on the 9 1 agenda. It's approved, folks, thank you, to the extent 2 we can. Okay? 3 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Thank you Alan. 4 JUDGE POLLARD: Item 1.6 consider, discuss 5 and take appropriate action to approve Change Order No. 6 006 for the Kerr County Jail Expansion as submitted, and 7 authorize County Judge to sign same. Sheriff 8 Hierholzer. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: First off, I hope this 10 this is our last one, okay? We're finally getting 11 towards the end of this project. Yesterday we passed 12 our Health Inspection, we passed our Fire Marshal 13 Inspection, and we passed the City Building Inspection, 14 so we should have our CO from the City of Kerrville 15 hopefully by this afternoon. So that leaves us 16 technically two more inspections. One is a state agency 17 that will be here Friday morning that inspects our new 18 boiler, the new great big hot water heater that has to 19 be inspected. They know that's a brand new one, it just 20 has to have their inspection tag on it. 21 And the next inspection will be all day 22 Tuesday, starting early Tuesday morning, and that will 23 be the Texas Commission on Jail Standards will be here 24 to do their final inspection. They've given us the 25 privilege you really should say of doing a walk-through 10 1 about a week ago and pointed out some things. Huser 2 Construction has done a remarkable job of getting a lot 3 of that caught up. We're doing a lot of the training 4 right now, and kitchen stuff, and fire alarm systems and 5 all that, and so also as part of this and in this CO, I 6 would like to state that Wednesday morning about 11, 7 11:30, I would invite as a social event, the entire 8 Commissioners' Court, and Judges, or people around here 9 at the courthouse, mainly Commissioners' Court, to take 10 a full tour of your new facility, it's the communities, 11 the Kerr County jail it's up and ready. Wednesday 12 afternoon from 1 to 5 we will be having an open house so 13 that the rest of the community can see what their bond 14 paid for. 15 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Next Wednesday? 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Next Wednesday, after 17 the Jail Commission. We will use the rest of the week 18 next week as a training and trying to get a lot of our 19 equipment reestablished in it, food restocked and 20 everything, and our plan is to start moving inmates by 21 the morning of the 11th back into Kerr County. This 22 puts this facility under budget, and under-scheduled, we 23 made it within both. I think Huser Construction and DRG 24 Architects have done this County a remarkable job to get 25 this done. They have stated they all want shirts that 11 1 say "I survived Rusty", but -- 2 MRS. STEBBINS: We all want shirts like 3 that. 4 JUDGE POLLARD: You can have them, but 5 you're going to have to pay for them. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But this change order, 7 we had some things come up at the last minute. At first 8 I wanted to throw a rock at the Fire Marshal and scream 9 and cuss that, you know, they changed things at the last 10 minute, but in reality they had not. But the real thing 11 with this project has been mirroring or trying to mirror 12 23 year old technology to current technology, and one of 13 the things none of us actually really realized is in the 14 new part of the jail, the new addition, all the 15 audio-visual for the fire alarm, which means your 16 flashing light and your siren, okay, sound a little bit 17 different than the ones in the old part and in the 18 administrative part because they're 23 years old, and we 19 were informed during the fire marshal that no, all the 20 old ones had to be changed and it all had to be synced 21 to match. And I wanted to find a nice cell for the fire 22 marshal, but they actually showed us in the fire code 23 statewide, it is a required part of the code, it dates 24 back to, I think, some lawsuit that was filed in Hermann 25 Sons Hospital in Houston where when during evacuation or 12 1 moving a person that was subject to seizures, from one 2 section to the other, and with it being different it 3 could cause people to go into seizures. I don't know 4 that and never heard of that, but that is why the State 5 changed that. 6 And then there were some old things that 7 were not part of the Code back when we built the current 8 jail, such as guards overall, the lights that were down 9 the 30 some odd pipe chases, and now they were required 10 to have guard shields over them. Well, you can't get 11 guard shields for lights that were, you know, 23 years 12 old, so all those light fixtures had to be replaced. 13 But some of that stuff did eat up the last change order 14 that we were hoping would cover everything. And now, we 15 are here asking for one more final change order of a 16 hundred thousand dollars. It is within budget, we do 17 have the funds, we will still be way under budget on 18 this thing, and this covers some of these things that 19 had to come in, they had to put in a mixing valve, that 20 was 15 thousand dollars, the fire stuff was well over 21 20, 30 thousand dollars. The lights were 15 -- there 22 was just a lot of that last minute stuff that the Codes 23 required that we had to get added to it. 24 There's even some -- in our current jail 25 some of the separation cells have a little window in 13 1 them where the jailers look in. That window doesn't 2 have a cover, wasn't required to back then; it is now, 3 so all those 18 cells have to have covers over the 4 windows put in. 5 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And I will point out 6 that this $100,000.00 is coming out of the contingency 7 that was originally budgeted. I believe there is -- and 8 the Auditor's office maybe can help me, roughly 104,000 9 in the contingency? 10 MRS. DOSS: I do not have that amount. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The 104,000 something 12 in that contingency. 13 COMMISSIONER REEVES: So I mean we're not 14 having to take it from one thing and running it short; 15 it was within the contingency part of the budget, and as 16 the Sheriff said it was something that was unexpected, 17 but that's why you have contingency funds. So I move to 18 approve Change Order No. 6 in the amount of $100,000.00, 19 and authorize the County Judge to sign the appropriate 20 documents. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: Been moved by Commissioner 23 Reeves, and seconded by Commissioner Letz to approve a 24 Change Order No. 6, and which authorizes the change of 25 $100,000.00. Is there any further comment or 14 1 discussion? 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just a question to the 3 Sheriff. Rusty, what was the original, I guess, the 4 total amount? You say we're under budget, what has the 5 original amount of that bond? 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The bond was 15 7 million. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 15 million, and so we're 9 about three million -- two million -- 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, but you still got 11 the architectural, and I'm not sure of all those fees. 12 I think this is all just Huser's part. You still have 13 the FF&E, the furnishings and all that. The way it's 14 looking now it should be close to -- depending on a 15 couple of the other final things that may get done, but 16 close to a half a million dollars under budget. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Half a million. 18 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And in addition the 19 Investment Committee here at the County with using CD's, 20 what of the money that wasn't being immediately expended 21 was able to also -- it was over a hundred thousand 22 dollars in there during that time. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And I say that, I mean 24 it's -- we put -- and this wasn't in the bond, it's been 25 coming out of just regular Sheriff's Office budget, on 15 1 the transport that we already hauled -- already driven 2 over 30 thousand miles hauling inmates back and forth, 3 and this week alone hit two different deer. So it's 4 been a trial on my employees. 5 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Well, we look forward 6 to seeing it on Wednesday. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I hope y'all do. I 8 think you'll be proud of the facility and the job that 9 Huser and DRG Architects have done for this county, and 10 I really appreciate their alertness in keeping us under 11 schedule time-wise, and under budget. I couldn't ask 12 for more than that. 13 COMMISSIONER BELEW: What kind of notice 14 have we given to the public? 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I just got finished 16 giving the three local newspapers, okay, West Kerr 17 Current, Kerrville Daily Times, and Community Journal a 18 tour, previous -- you know, pre-tour, so that they could 19 do an article with some photographs and also announce to 20 the public that there will be an open house Wednesday, 21 in their article. And Zeke McCormick with the Express 22 News had asked separately to come in yesterday, and so 23 he has that information. His article was because, I 24 think, Comal County is breaking ground, and Kendall 25 County has broke ground, and it's just on the need for 16 1 more jails, so he come through and did a tour yesterday, 2 also. So if your station could do something, I -- 3 COMMISSIONER BELEW: We will. 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- think it would be 5 good for our local stations and to let the public know 6 this is what they paid for, will be paying for for the 7 next 20 years. But everybody has done a -- you know, 8 for Huser especially not having ever constructed a jail 9 before, to get into one that's this trying of old and 10 new, but he took the initiative to hire a consultant 11 that has been involved in constructing about 15 hundred 12 jails and federal prisons, and he's been a tremendous 13 asset to Huser and to us in getting this done correctly. 14 So thank you, gentlemen. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. Is there any 16 further discussion? If not, those in favor of the 17 motion signify by raising your right hands. It's three 18 zero, unanimous. One abstention, myself. All right, 19 it's done. Thank you. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Thank you. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: Any further business for the 22 Commissioners' Court? If not, we're adjourned. 23 * * * * * * * 24 25 17 1 STATE OF TEXAS * 2 COUNTY OF KERR * 3 I, DEBRA ELLEN GIFFORD, Certified Shorthand 4 Reporter in and for the State of Texas, and Official 5 Reporter in and for Kerr County Commissioners' Court, do 6 hereby certify that the above and foregoing pages 7 contain and comprise a true and correct transcription of 8 the proceedings had in the above-entitled Commissioners' 9 Court. 10 Dated this the 9th day of January, A.D. 11 2018. 12 13 /s/DEBRA ELLEN GIFFORD Certified Shorthand Reporter 14 No. 953 Expiration Date 12/31/2018 15 * * * * * * 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25