1 1 2 3 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' COURT 4 Special Session 5 Thursday, January 31, 2019 6 9:00 a.m. 7 County Court at Law Courtroom 8 Kerr County Courthouse 9 Kerrville, Texas 78028 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 PRESENT: HARLEY BELEW, Commissioner Precinct 1 TOM MOSER, Commissioner Precinct 2 25 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Precinct 3 2 1 I-N-D-E-X 2 NO. PAGE 3 1.1 Pay Bills. 3 4 1.2 Budget Amendments. 3 5 2.1 Reports regarding Commissioners/Liaison 4 Committee Assignments as per attachment. 6 2.2 Reports regarding Elected Officials/ 5 7 Department Heads. 8 *** Adjournment. 13 9 *** Reporter's Certificate. 14 10 * * * * * * 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Call to order the 2 Commissioners' Court meeting of January 31st, it's a 3 little after the 9 o'clock. Going to the approval 4 agenda pay bills, and/or disbursements. 5 MRS. JOHNSON: For Kerr County we have 6 $3,780,654.88. For other funds for the Treasurer to 7 disburse Adult Probation $920.55. Airport $525.11. 8 Juvenile Probation $430.00. And fund 95 which is the 9 198th DA Forfeiture Account is $258.92. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And just for the record 11 the reason the amount is so much there are two 1.3 12 million plus bills to Pesado for the East Kerr Project. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Move we pay the bills. 14 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Second. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Motion from Commissioner 16 Moser and second by Commissioner Belew to pay the bills 17 and approve the Treasurer's disbursements. I assume 18 that's what you meant to say? 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Any discussion? All in 21 favor raise your right hand. Unanimous. 22 Budget amendments? 23 MRS. JOHNSON: We have one. Last week in 24 Court they approved a $25.00 donation for the Sheriff's 25 Department for the Equipment Fund, and that was put into 4 1 the expense account. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. Motion to approve 3 the budget amendment? 4 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I make the motion. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Second. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Motion to approve budget 7 amendment as presented. Commissioner Belew, and second 8 Commissioner Moser. All in favor raise your right hand. 9 Unanimous. 10 Late bills. 11 MRS. JOHNSON: There are none. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Payroll, there is none. 13 MRS. JOHNSON: There is none. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Court orders? I don't 15 believe we have any yet, do we? I don't believe so. I 16 didn't see any. 17 Information agenda. Any reports from 18 Commissioner or Liaison Assignments? 19 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I will say that I got a 20 lot of good feedback about our Resolution. This is on 21 protecting the streams and waterways and so on. It was 22 all positive; nothing negative. And also, on the 23 Resolution on the border wall, a lot of positive on 24 that. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Good. 5 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Ditto, ditto. Why do 2 we do court orders on Thursdays as opposed to just 3 regular? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think we put them -- 5 there's a time that we have to have them approved. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, okay. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think ten days or 8 something, two weeks? 9 MRS. GRINSTEAD: I don't know that there's a 10 timeline, but Jackie is trying to get them done in the 11 same day, if not the day after, so it's just to be more 12 efficient and get them -- 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, I was just 14 looking at Thursday growing in content. 15 COMMISSIONER BELEW: But we don't read them. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I know. I'm just 17 looking at the number of items. No need to be -- 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 2.2 reports from elected 19 officials, department heads? 20 MR. TROLINGER: I have two brief items. The 21 IT Department in January handled 21 new hires, moves or 22 rehires. It was huge. And we're behind like a couple 23 weeks, solid couple of weeks, on projects and other 24 things. So I've been doing my best to inform people 25 that we will get to them as soon as we can. But we did 6 1 have quite a lot to catch up on. And of course we've 2 got new projects underway all the time. 3 Also, the Kerrville ISD is starting an 4 aviation program and they hired a math teacher with 5 aviation background. They're going to be teaching 6 science technology and mathematics for aviation next 7 year. 8 COMMISSIONER BELEW: That's great. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Good deal. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mr. Reeves. 11 MR. REEVES: Good morning. I'm sure that 12 you've either read it in the paper, or heard about the 13 Secretary of State and the DPS identifying close to a 14 hundred thousand individuals statewide that may not be 15 citizens and therefore eligible to vote. 16 Frankly, it's kind of a debacle all the way 17 around the way they did it. Kerr County on Monday, we 18 received 68 notifications of possible noncitizens being 19 registered to vote. That's out of a total of 34,905, so 20 it's a very small percentage. Even though one would not 21 be acceptable. The next day Secretary of State called 22 and said don't send out the letters on a certain class 23 of them. We had already sent out the letters. There 24 was 14 that should not have been on the list, so 25 Secretary of State said send out a letter saying you 7 1 made a mistake and shouldn't have sent the letter. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: The letter said what, 3 Bob? 4 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Your mistake. 5 MR. REEVES: The letter is simply one that 6 goes out just like we would send one if we think 7 somebody's moved from the county; it's not purging them 8 from the voter roles, it's just asking for proof. This 9 was -- there's certain codes that the Elections Division 10 that the Secretary of State puts out. So we sent 68 of 11 them out Monday. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So let me ask you, it's 13 asking for proof that they're a U.S. citizen? 14 MR. REEVES: That it's not taking them off 15 the voter roles. It's just -- they have a certain time 16 to respond. Tuesday they said well send out a letter 17 saying you made a mistake. We sent out a letter saying 18 that the DPS and Secretary of State's Office made the 19 mistake -- 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Good. 21 MR. REEVES: -- to 14 of them. The rest of 22 them are -- some of them have come into provide the 23 documentation. As I said, it was probably a debacle; 24 however, LULAC has already filed suit against Secretary 25 of State, and I believe the Attorney General. We will 8 1 be meeting with Miss Stebbins at 11. We received a 2 letter from MALDEF on -- yesterday, was it Nadene? 3 MS. ALFORD: Yes, that is correct. 4 MR. REEVES: Stating not to send any letters 5 out or they would sue us. 6 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Who is that? 7 MR. REEVES: MALDEF. Mexican American 8 Legal -- 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Defense Fund. 10 MR. REEVES: -- Defense Fund. I imagine 11 they sent 254 letters out to be. But I just wanted to 12 address the Court. I know Monday, I was in the bank and 13 I was asked how many illegal citizens were registered to 14 vote in Kerr County, so I'm sure you may get some 15 questions. I just wanted to give you the numbers. You 16 know, if you take -- there was 68 notifications, 14 of 17 them shouldn't have been on the list, so if you take the 18 remaining 54 and divide that by the 35 thousand that we 19 have registered to vote in Kerr County, the percentage 20 is so far down the line you'd probably have a better 21 chance winning the lottery. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But that's 54 23 identified. 24 MR. REEVES: That's 54 that may be. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: No. But have been 9 1 identified? 2 MR. REEVES: Yeah. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: There may be a lot more 4 that have not been identified? 5 MR. REEVES: And that's possible -- 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, sure. 7 MR. REEVES: -- just from what was sent 8 out. And our numbers are currently lower than some of 9 the other state numbers that we saw. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Question. What is the 11 penalty for registering to vote if you're not a citizen? 12 MR. REEVES: Nadene? 13 MS. ALFORD: I don't -- it's a Federal -- 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, I know. But what 15 is it, do you know? 16 MS. ALFORD: I don't know what it is off the 17 top of my head. 18 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Two people in Tarrant 19 County went to jail for it this past year. 20 MR. REEVES: So anyway, those that were on 21 that -- 22 COMMISSIONER BELEW: So what you ended up 23 with is about 48 people 'cuz you said six came in -- 24 MS. ALFORD: Two came in. 25 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Two came in, okay, so 10 1 you're down to 52. 2 MR. REEVES: Yeah. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think the main answer 4 is we're on top of it, and we went through -- we've been 5 notifying them, going through them and verifying any of 6 them that may be -- 7 MR. REEVES: And the other part of it is 8 just like if one moved to Gillespie County there's a 9 certain letter that Secretary of State puts out, "Did 10 you in fact move from Kerr County?". 11 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Now, I read 98,000 12 originally, then it was 56, I think, and so what was the 13 difference in how they qualified? 14 MS. ALFORD: That, I do not know. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: 98,000? 16 COMMISSIONER BELEW: 98,000 was the first 17 number. Then it was this morning 56,000. And the Texas 18 Tribune trying to report that the entire incident was 19 fake news, but I don't think 56,000 people that 20 shouldn't be voting is fake news; it's just a wrong 21 number. It might get whittled down again. But there 22 are people in prison this morning because they did it. 23 MR. REEVES: And there are people out there 24 lying on the statement that they are citizens. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Message is the County 11 1 doesn't verify that they are citizens. 2 MR. REEVES: Unless we get some information 3 back. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: No. But we don't take 5 that action, somebody else does it, right. 6 MR. REEVES: Not an issue. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I have one other thing, 8 if I may. The thing that Harley brought up the other 9 day, the young lady, the ten-year old, forgot her first 10 name, that saved her parents from the house fire. I 11 think the fire chief and city's going to bring her into 12 Court for just recognition on our first meeting in 13 February. What do y'all think about a Resolution to 14 recognize her, or just do it publicly? I'd be happy to 15 draft a -- 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think we should do 17 more than a Resolution, formal -- I mean something we 18 hand to them. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. So I'll draft a 20 Resolution. 21 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Something that looks 22 nice and she can -- 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Something the PR person 24 can do in the future. 25 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Yes. Well, the main 12 1 thing is she took something she'd learned, and used it. 2 She learned how to -- 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: It was a great article. 4 I don't know if you read it in the Community Journal 5 yesterday. 6 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I did not. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's in the Times 8 today, an article on the front page. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Good. Anyway -- good 10 for her. 11 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I never learned 12 anything in school that did me any good, so my hat's off 13 to her. 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You had to pay 15 attention, Harley. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Any other reports from 17 elected officials? 18 Reports on boards, commissions, committees? 19 I don't know why we even have that agenda item because 20 we don't have any boards. I think we should just delete 21 that one. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Well, we have library 23 board. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I know -- but you can 25 talk about that -- 13 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: On the other item, 2 right. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All the boards we have 4 we have commissioners on, that I'm aware of. 5 Update on East Kerr County/Center Point 6 Wastewater Project. 7 Not really an update other than there's a 8 workshop on it Monday that will be at least, I'd say, an 9 hour long. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Minimum, I bet. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We don't want to make it 12 too long, but it's going to be a lot of information 13 presented, and different people will be here to make 14 presentations. 15 And with that said, we're adjourned. 16 * * * * * * 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 14 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, do hereby certify that 6 the above and foregoing pages contain and comprise a 7 true and correct transcription of the proceedings had in 8 the above-entitled Commissioners' Court. 9 Dated this the 26th day of February, A.D. 10 2019. 11 12 /s/DEBRA ELLEN GIFFORD Certified Shorthand Reporter 13 No. 953 Expiration Date 04/31/2020 14 * * * * * * 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25