1 1 2 3 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' COURT 4 Special Session 5 Thursday, February 7, 2019 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: ROB KELLY, Kerr County Judge TOM MOSER, Commissioner Precinct 2 24 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Precinct 3 DON HARRIS, Commissioner Precinct 4 25 2 1 I-N-D-E-X 2 NO. PAGE 3 1.1 Pay Bills. 3 4 1.2 Budget Amendments. 4 5 1.3 Late Bills. 5 6 1.4 Approve payroll. 5 7 1.5 Court Orders. 6 8 2.1 Reports regarding Commissioners/Liaison 7 Committee Assignments as per attachment. 9 *** Adjournment. 19 10 *** Reporter's Certificate. 20 11 * * * * * * 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 JUDGE KELLY: Okay, we'll come to order. It 2 is Thursday, February the 7th, 2019 at approximately 9 3 o'clock, and the -- 9 o'clock exactly, correct the 4 record. And the Commissioners' Court of Kerr County is 5 now in session. 6 The first item on the agenda is bill pay. 7 MRS. JOHNSON: Good morning. 8 JUDGE KELLY: Good morning. 9 MRS. JOHNSON: We have Kerr County at 10 $51,418.89. And other funds for the Treasurer to 11 disburse is Adult Probation one thousand eight fifty-two 12 thirty eight. Airport, one thousand seven O one thirty 13 six. Juvenile probation one thousand nine eighty-eight 14 fifty-eight. And fund 78 for the County Clerk fees 15 would be $195.00. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Move that we pay the 17 bills. 18 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Second. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Third. 20 JUDGE KELLY: Okay, Commissioner Moser has 21 made a motion, and seconded by both Commissioners Letz 22 and Harris to pay the bills. Is there any discussion 23 about that? Those in favor raise your hand. Unanimous, 24 4-0. 25 Let the record reflect that Commissioner 4 1 Belew is not here this morning. 2 Item 2 on the agenda is budget amendments. 3 MRS. JOHNSON: We have four of them. We 4 have for the District Attorney for jury fees, the County 5 jail and county-sponsored activities. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I move we approve the 7 budget amendments. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Second. 9 JUDGE KELLY: Commissioner Letz has moved 10 and Commissioner Moser has seconded to approve the 11 budget amendments. Is there any other discussion? 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll make a comment on 13 the last one, and I visited with James a little bit this 14 morning, that somehow the 24,500 was left out of the 15 budget even though the minutes of the budget hearing 16 show that we did approve that. It was just a clerical 17 error, a mistake. That's the reason for that budget 18 amendment. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Coming out of 20 contingency. 21 JUDGE KELLY: But we do have the money. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. Coming out of 23 contingency. Don't like to use it for that purpose, but 24 that's why we have contingency. 25 JUDGE KELLY: Okay. If there's no other 5 1 discussion those in favor raise your hand. Opposed? 2 Unanimous, 4-0. 3 Item 3 on the agenda is late bills. 4 MRS. JOHNSON: Yes, we have one for 5 $12,750.00. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Move we approve the late 7 bills. 8 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Second. 9 JUDGE KELLY: Okay. Commissioner Letz has 10 moved, Commissioner Harris has seconded to approve the 11 late bills. Is there any comment or discussion about 12 that? Those in favor raise your hand. Opposed? Passes 13 unanimous, 4-0. 14 1.4 on the agenda, approve payroll. 15 MRS. JOHNSON: The total is $779,215.06. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: It's normally about 17 500,000. 18 MRS. SOLDAN: Because we're paying TCDRS 19 retirement. We pay that once a month. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Move that we disburse 21 the payroll as presented. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 23 JUDGE KELLY: Commissioner Moser moved, and 24 Commissioner Letz has seconded that we approve the 25 payroll. Is there any discussion or comment about that? 6 1 Those in favor raise your hand. Opposed? Unanimous, 2 four zero. 3 1.5 court orders. Saw this just a minute 4 ago. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes, we have court 6 orders from, I think, the January 28th and January 31st 7 meeting. There were two corrections I got with Jackie 8 on for the January 28th meeting. Court order 1.10 -- 9 excuse me, item 1.10 of the agenda, court order 37273. 10 There was a -- I'll read it the way it should be. It's 11 approve to authorize and accept a cash donation in the 12 amount of $75.00 to the Kerr County Animal Services 13 Department, and to authorize and accept -- as it reads. 14 That should be two donations from Texas American Pets 15 Alive Organization, which will allow two Kerr County 16 Animal Control officers to attend the conference held by 17 that organization. 18 And the other one is court order 37272, 19 which is item 1.13, and this was relating to the 20 discharge and surface waters in the Nueces Basin, and 21 that was just a confusing one. And I got it so it reads 22 I think correct. It's to approve and adopt a Resolution 23 by the this Honorable Court to support legislation 24 prohibiting the Texas Commission on Environmental 25 Quality from authorizing discharge of treated wastewater 7 1 into the surface waters of a contributing zone of the 2 Edwards Aquifer Authority. This is in the Nueces River 3 Basin and in Kerr County. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, good. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So I'll make a motion to 6 approve court orders from January 31st, and January 28th 7 with the two amendments I just read into the record. 8 JUDGE KELLY: As revised. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: As revised. 10 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Second. 11 JUDGE KELLY: Commissioner Letz has moved, 12 and Commissioner Harris has seconded that we approve the 13 court orders as revised. Any discussion? Those in 14 favor raise your hand. Unanimous, four zero. 15 Information agenda. Start off, are there 16 any reports from our liaison commissioners? 17 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: I have none. 18 JUDGE KELLY: That's good news. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have one. And to kind 20 of give a little bit of direction, on Monday's agenda 21 they'll be an item related to some contracts at Hill 22 Country Youth Event Center, it's a very specific item. 23 I also -- we've talked about workshops in general. One 24 of them is the Hill Country Youth Event Center and 25 Spectra, and I took the liberty of coordinating with 8 1 Spectra and Jody to set up a workshop on March 4th, and 2 with Peter Zingoni who we negotiated our contract with, 3 is coming down from Philadelphia to meet for that 4 workshop to go over where we are. 5 The two things, one I think the Court needs 6 some background on financials, employees, things of that 7 nature, and historical records for that facility, 8 because Commissioner Moser and I probably are the only 9 two that have any knowledge of -- you know, direct 10 knowledge of a lot of that. And so I think the Court 11 needs to understand, you know, kind of a timeline, where 12 we were and where we are now, and dollars where we were 13 and where we are now on that facility and operations, 14 and that would include economic impact of that facility 15 during that probably a ten-year period. There's that 16 part of it, which I think regardless the Court needs 17 that information, and we want to do a separate workshop 18 for that, or do it as an agenda item? I don't think 19 it's enough for a whole workshop personally. 20 The other part of it is, and this goes back 21 to Mr. Zingoni coming down, our current contract ends 22 not this fiscal year but next fiscal year. It seems to 23 me that we need to make a decision as a court whether 24 we're going to renew the contract with Spectra or not 25 almost pretty soon. I mean we can't wait until next 9 1 budget year, so I think we need to look at it now and 2 figure out where we're going because otherwise it just 3 seems to me that we're putting ourselves a little bit of 4 jeopardy if we wait until the last minute to try to do a 5 contract, how it's all going to work. So I think it's 6 the time to probably look at doing that now, and if we 7 start in March it'll probably be about a year in 8 advance, but I think that makes sense from our planning 9 standpoint, and their planning standpoint. 10 JUDGE KELLY: Is that their, Spectra's, 11 expectation to come down and talk to us about contract 12 renewals? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. I mean we can say 14 no. I mean I set it up through Jake, and I told him 15 that I thought Peter needed to be here. 16 JUDGE KELLY: Well, sending somebody from 17 Pennsylvania they obviously want to talk to us. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. And it's a -- 19 they have done this they have sent -- not this 20 individual, I'd say every six months somebody comes from 21 Philadelphia down here. Doesn't meet with the whole 22 Court a lot of times. It's been Bob and I. Usually 23 been a vice president or senior vice president comes 24 down, how's it going, what do we need to do. They had 25 two or three come down when we did a contract -- we 10 1 extended, there's a two year option, we extended that 2 option about a year early. And so, you know, they come 3 down and that's their job, to me. I mean they're 4 supposed to come down and meet with us when we want them 5 to, within reason of course, I mean. 6 JUDGE KELLY: All right. If it's something 7 serious they're coming down and talk to us, though. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. And I told -- 9 and I hadn't talk to Peter; I told Jake, he relayed it 10 to Peter Zingoni that the Court doesn't know Spectra. 11 They need to come down here, in my mind, and basically 12 explain who they are, because the majority of y'all 13 don't know them. I mean Commissioner Moser and I do, 14 but the three members of the Court don't, and I don't 15 see how we could even talk about contracts if we don't 16 know who we're dealing with. So to me it makes sense. 17 And they're certainly willing to do it. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. When we gave 19 them a contract we interviewed what about four -- four 20 people. And they were -- 21 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: That was my question 22 what what was process. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, it was an 24 extensive selection process. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It was long. And they 11 1 probably came down four or five times during that. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: They did. And sent 3 their -- 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Sent their staff. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- a lot of their high 6 paying, or executives down to do that, yeah. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So anyway, so there's 8 two things. One, there's one item on the agenda that we 9 need to deal with, and Jake will be here for that, it's 10 an executive item. 11 But on the other two, do you want to put it 12 on an agenda, it won't be this agenda, but our next 13 agenda just to kind of go over the financial side of it, 14 and I'll need probably James's or Joy's or Brenda's help 15 a little bit on that. And then proceed with the 16 workshop on the 4th. Those are the two things I'm kind 17 of -- 18 JUDGE KELLY: I know we've talked about 19 having a number of workshops. I don't have any problem 20 with the workshop on the 4th, but it seems like we 21 probably oughta go ahead and start calendaring out these 22 things, because we got a bunch of these we need to talk 23 about. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Jody has sent, I think, 25 everybody an e-mail, and that's because we're bringing 12 1 somebody in and fits with their schedule. 2 On the other one, if we have -- I'll have to 3 look at -- I mean we can do the the financial side of 4 the Hill County Youth Event Center and Spectra if we 5 have a workshop between now and then, or we can do it as 6 an agenda item. I just think that y'all need that 7 information before we meet with Spectra, in my opinion. 8 JUDGE KELLY: Well, we're going to have a 9 Spectra workshop, why don't we just roll everything up 10 about Spectra at one time and sit down and talk about 11 it. Any action items we can put on the agenda. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But is it -- it just 13 seems to me that it would be better for at least y'all 14 to have the information on the financial side -- 15 JUDGE KELLY: That's fine. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- before. I'll put it 17 on the agenda, I'll put it on a regular agenda. It 18 won't be long. It'll be a ten minute item, and they'll 19 be some backup and y'all can take it with you. 20 JUDGE KELLY: And that will be an 21 information item only? 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. It'll be an action 23 item, but it'll just be a discussion item on the agenda; 24 no action. 25 Okay, and the other thing on Animal 13 1 Services, I think they're going well. Heather and I 2 were visiting on that a few minutes ago with an 3 individual, but ended all fine. But just gets tiresome 4 sometimes. 5 JUDGE KELLY: What's the issue? 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just a general issue on 7 how we handle cruelty cases. And there are some 8 frustration that we don't -- we don't release much 9 information on that because it becomes -- once it goes 10 into that arena it's a law enforcement investigation, 11 and we just don't release that information, so trying to 12 explain that. 13 MRS. STEBBINS: The Public Information Act 14 does not require us to release that information as it 15 would interfere with a pending investigation and 16 prosecution. And even after they're closed if there is 17 no case filed, or it's unfounded, we then don't release 18 it and the Public Information Act doesn't require it, 19 because it doesn't end in a conviction or a deferral, so 20 that whoever was being investigated is then protected 21 from being found guilty by the public anyway, even if 22 it's unfounded. 23 JUDGE KELLY: Who are y'all meeting with? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Karen Guerrero. It's 25 fine. It's just one of those processes. And we 14 1 explained that these are very hard cases to prove. You 2 gotta be able to prove it in Court, which means we may 3 think we know who did it, but if we can't prove that, we 4 can't proceed. And we're not going to release that 5 information because we don't want that person receiving 6 phone calls from the public saying "you did this". 7 MRS. STEBBINS: Pitch forks and things. 8 JUDGE KELLY: Vigilante. 9 MRS. STEBBINS: And we did discuss also 10 information and how it sometimes gets out there without 11 the facts being -- 12 JUDGE KELLY: Accurate. 13 MRS. STEBBINS: Right. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So anyway it was a good 15 meeting. And Karen's, you know, she's been a big ally 16 recently, I think, from the standpoint of getting 17 information out that's positive. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: She is. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So it's just going 20 through and explaining. I think there's some specific 21 cases that she was aware of. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: She seems to be very 23 dedicated to it. 24 JUDGE KELLY: But this is just that one 25 taxpayer; not part of the advisory group or whatever? 15 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: She is part of the 2 advisory committee. 3 JUDGE KELLY: I know that. That's why I'm 4 asking. Was it official or was it an unofficial visit? 5 MRS. STEBBINS: It was unofficial. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Unofficial. And if we 7 can ever get a vet that will -- hopefully I'm going to 8 meet with one this afternoon, and hopefully we'll make 9 our appointment and finalize that committee. But 10 everything's going very well. Nicole, the Adoption 11 Coordinator, and her efforts, and a lot of it's because 12 of time of the year, but regardless it's very good news 13 so far. In 2019, we euthanized two dogs, which is 14 probably the lowest we've ever had for a six week 15 period. In recent years anyway. And a lot of that is 16 everyone's working -- seems to be working together, the 17 public and that facility, and so -- and looks like -- I 18 won't say it's smooth sailing, but it's certainly not as 19 rough as it was. 20 JUDGE KELLY: That's good. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Don Buckingham 22 introduced a bill yesterday for unfunded mandates. 23 JUDGE KELLY: And there's HJR 30 in the 24 House. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So maybe it'll get 16 1 through, and maybe it won't, so we'll see. At least 2 it'll be up for possibility. 3 THE REPORTER: Excuse me just a second. My 4 battery's going low, may I go get my charger? 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Sure. 6 (Off the record.) 7 JUDGE KELLY: And had a good talk with 8 Representative Murr, and he had his Ways and Means 9 Committee taken away from him because he didn't go along 10 with the revenue cap in that session. So there is a 11 spirit of vindictiveness in Austin, trust me. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But Murr, he did become 13 vice chairman of Jurisprudence, criminal reform. 14 Anyway, Murr, his two main committees are Juvenile 15 Justice, and Criminal Justice, I think, and which is -- 16 JUDGE KELLY: And for those that don't know, 17 he now is employed by TAC as a legislative consultant 18 when legislature's not in session, so he is our official 19 TAC point person. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Good deal. 21 JUDGE KELLY: Anything else to report on our 22 liaison relationships here? 23 Economic development, Commissioner Moser 24 hosted a lunch with the Economic Development Board, or 25 what is the official title? 17 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, the KEDC Board. 2 JUDGE KELLY: We took our Federal 3 counterparts, Richard Castanon and -- 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Census. 5 JUDGE KELLY: Yeah, on the census. And I 6 think we got him his committee now. And he wants a 7 complete count committee, which is important because it 8 does affect grants. The new census will affect grants, 9 and it's a big item. I found it interesting when he was 10 explaining that if a family of four does not report that 11 could have the effect over a ten year period that the 12 census applies of as much as 60 thousand dollars of 13 grant money for the County, which is pretty staggering 14 when you think about it. 15 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Sure. 16 JUDGE KELLY: Anyway, I think we've got them 17 placed. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And they appreciate it. 19 JUDGE KELLY: And in terms of our county 20 participation in the census, we agreed that our new 21 Veterans Coordinator Marty Mistretta would be our 22 contact person if need be. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I haven't talked to 24 her. Did you talk to her? 25 JUDGE KELLY: Yeah, I talk to her. And she 18 1 was excited. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Good deal. 3 JUDGE KELLY: And of course she's younger, 4 she has a very good skill set to be able to support what 5 they're trying to do. And mainly what they're looking 6 at are certain targeted areas around the county that 7 historically under report as much as -- and they say 8 Kerr County as much as 20 percent under report, which 9 for us could be as many as ten thousand people, which is 10 a lot, so they want to have the -- 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And ten thousand people 12 times 15 thousand dollars each is a lot of money. 13 JUDGE KELLY: And so they're trying to get 14 -- and another thing that I learned, I probably should 15 have caught it the first time around but I didn't, we're 16 not going to be mailed our census forms to send in; we 17 go online to do it. And so that's even more reason for 18 beating the bushes to get people, especially people that 19 are not as computer efficient to get online, or to make 20 the telephone call to have this information sent to them 21 so that they can get an accurate count. We did do that. 22 We got Airport Board rescheduled for -- 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: February. That's the 24 strategic planning workshop. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That was interesting. 19 1 There was a virus that went through with that, because 2 there's -- 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. About four 4 different things on when it was going to be, one was 5 scheduled for Sunday. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, one of them went 7 out that I scheduled also. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Well, I thought it was 9 a response from you? 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. It was one, if you 11 looked at it, it said that I scheduled the meeting. I 12 didn't schedule anything for the airport. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Anyway, that is all 14 corrected. 15 JUDGE KELLY: Looking down the list, 16 anything else to report? 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Not anything. 18 JUDGE KELLY: Unless anybody else has 19 something else to share then, we will be adjourned. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Very good. 21 * * * * * * 22 23 24 25 20 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 28th 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