1 1 2 3 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' COURT 4 Special Session 5 Monday, December 2, 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 HARLEY BELEW, Commissioner Precinct 1 24 TOM MOSER, Commissioner Precinct 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Precinct 3 25 DON HARRIS, Commissioner Precinct 4 2 1 I-N-D-E-X 2 NO. PAGE 3 *** Commissioner's Comments. 3 4 1.1 Pay Bills. 6 5 1.4 Court Orders. 7 6 3.2 Status reports from Elected Officials. 11 7 3.3 Status reports from Liaison Commissioners. 20 8 *** Adjournment. 21 9 *** Reporter's Certificate. 22 10 * * * * * * 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 JUDGE KELLY: It is Monday, December the 2 first -- December the first? 3 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Second. 4 JUDGE KELLY: Okay, gotta change my watch. 5 December the second, 2019, it's 9 o'clock in the morning 6 and the Kerr County Commissioners' Court is now in 7 session. I want to remind everyone to turn off your 8 cell phones. If they go off we have a policy that the 9 Sheriff will take them up. He keeps trying to renege on 10 that policy, but that is the policy of the Court. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I've never seen it. 12 JUDGE KELLY: And first item of business is 13 public input, and this is something that we emphasize. 14 Is there anybody here that would like to address the 15 Court on a matter that is not on the agenda? This is 16 the opportunity to come forward and address the Court 17 for three minutes. Anyone? 18 Okay, moving passed that. Commissioner's 19 comments, Precinct 1. We'll get to you. You know the 20 drill. 21 COMMISSIONER BELEW: She's antsy. Let's 22 see, went to the Comfort Parade over the weekend, and 23 the lighted parade. It was really good. It still 24 baffles me why you have to be there at 4:30 when the 25 thing doesn't start until 7. 4 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: To buy things. 2 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Not when you're in line 3 in the parade. You're just sitting there waiting and 4 waiting and waiting and waiting, and then it starts 5 late, so but it was really good. Well attended. Most 6 I've seen there. I mean people lined up all the way 7 around the turn. Heather was way down there, saw her. 8 And my little granddaughter in the back saying happy -- 9 Merry Christmas to everybody. Nobody saw me, I was 10 right beside her, I was invisible. 11 JUDGE KELLY: That's good. 12 COMMISSIONER BELEW: But it was a great 13 time. And so that was the weekend. 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: The only thing I had is 15 just noticing that Flat Rock Park, the number of people, 16 families that are using the playground equipment that we 17 put in. And that Shane and Mike and the crew did such a 18 fantastic job, so they are really enjoying that. But 19 what they're enjoying most is the sand. I mean there's 20 a huge area, if you haven't been down there and looked 21 at it. 22 We were either going to put chips or 23 shredded tires or whatever in there to keep it according 24 to the regulations, but we put sand in it, which is 25 acceptable. Boy, those kids are loving -- loving it. 5 1 It's a huge sandbox. So every now and then they swing 2 also, so that was it. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Harley talked about the 4 Comfort parade so I don't need to talk about that. And 5 I will say one thing since we don't have a real big 6 crowd I will bring this up, is to let the Court know 7 that Little League will be playing all their games at 8 the County fields this year, so we keep that quiet. We 9 don't need controversy. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Keep that quiet. Did 11 you get that, Lisa? 12 (Laughter.) 13 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Well, I'd just like to 14 remind everybody that this Saturday, ten o'clock, is the 15 Ingram Parade, and then later on that evening, I believe 16 at six o'clock, they're having the Christmas tree 17 lighting, so that's it. 18 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I'll be in that one, 19 too, and I'll bring a grandkid. 20 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: All right. Very good. 21 JUDGE KELLY: And I will like to make an 22 announcement that Robert(sic) Neuman passed away this 23 weekend, and his wife is actually a ward of the County 24 at this point. We've got her all taken care of. It's a 25 really really nice family. It's Jerrielee Rust's 6 1 father. Just remember him. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And Ed Nemec. 3 JUDGE KELLY: Oh, Ed Nemec, that's right, I 4 heard about that, too. Ed Nemec passed away, and he 5 wasn't even that old. 6 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Well, either was Robert 7 Neuman. How old was he? 8 JUDGE KELLY: Well, he had a lot of medical 9 problems. If you had seen him in the last six months or 10 so, he was confined to a wheelchair and on oxygen, and 11 was on blood thinners. 12 MRS. STEBBINS: His son's name is also 13 Robert Neuman, and he works for Central Appraisal 14 District. 15 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Okay, that's who I 16 thought you were talking about. You're talking about 17 senior. 18 MRS. STEBBINS: Yes. 19 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Scared me. 20 JUDGE KELLY: Okay, then let's move on to 21 the agenda item 1.1. Now, Miss Tanya Shelton, pay 22 bills. 23 MRS. SHELTON: For Kerr County, these are 24 all for the current budget year. Kerr County 25 $682,026.59. Adult Probation $16,957.33. The Airport 7 1 $4,359.48. And the 198th DA forfeiture fund was 2 $405.00. 3 JUDGE KELLY: Are we about done with FY 4 18-19? 5 MRS. SHELTON: Yes. 6 JUDGE KELLY: Okay, good. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Move we pay the bills 8 as submitted by the Auditor. 9 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Second. 10 JUDGE KELLY: Motion's been made by 11 Commissioner Moser, seconded by Commissioner Belew to 12 approve the bills as presented. Any further discussion? 13 Those in favor raise your hand. Unanimous, five zero. 14 1.2 budget amendments. 15 MRS. SHELTON: There are not any. 16 JUDGE KELLY: 1.3 late bills? 17 MRS. SHELTON: There are not any. 18 JUDGE KELLY: Thank you. 1.4 court orders. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We have court orders 20 from our November 25th regular session meeting, court 21 orders 37826 through 37851. There are several changes 22 suggested. On 1.2 -- or court order 37827, it was to 23 approve to close River Star Park to the southeast 24 corner. It should say approve to close Riverside Drive 25 from Riverside Park, that part of the road. 8 1 And also 37829 related to the setting the 2 goal, and Commissioner Moser has some suggested change 3 on them. The order should read approve to set a goal 4 that in one year the County be out of animal adoption 5 services business. And that's, you know, a lot shorter 6 than what was in the court order. And there's also some 7 changes in the other part above it, but I'm -- that's -- 8 it should be however it was posted. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. It was just the 10 Court Order the way it was written down says and 11 maintain communication with local and non-profits 12 regarding coordination of adopting animals. That was 13 not the Court Order; that was a discussion, but 14 purposely didn't want to tie it to that or any other 15 thing. There probably may be multiple solutions to get 16 out of the animal adoption service, so that was not part 17 of the motion. It was just -- the motion was to be out 18 of the animal adoption service within one year, period. 19 And so there's the -- 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The motion is that 21 the -- the question I have, and I don't have that agenda 22 before me. Usually that first part is how -- what the 23 agenda item, how it was written. And you just need to 24 clarify that that first paragraph should be what the 25 actual item was, whatever that said. 9 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, okay. 2 JUDGE KELLY: But the agenda item didn't 3 even discuss adoptions really. It was -- 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. It was a goal. 5 JUDGE KELLY: We discussed goal, but the 6 agenda item had to do with a report on the workshop. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Correct. 8 JUDGE KELLY: And then out of that became -- 9 and did provide for action and you made the motion to go 10 ahead and get us out of the adoption business within a 11 year. And for the record, since everybody else here I 12 think was here, we're not an adoption business. I keep 13 reading in the paper that we're out of the adoption 14 business. Got it wrong. We're in the adoption 15 business. We have to be in the adoption business until 16 72 hours expires, that's our statutory mandate. 17 And we want to coordinate with others. 18 We're in the short-term adoption business, and we're 19 look for a partner for the long-term adoption business 20 and hopefully have that partnership into place within a 21 year. I think that was your intent. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That was it, exactly. 23 You got it. Good. 24 JUDGE KELLY: But we'll revise it the way 25 you read it. 10 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. And that was -- 2 I think that was accurate. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, good. Correct. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And then on item 1.19, 5 which is court order 37840. This is about setting a 6 public hearing for a plat. It says approve and set a 7 public hearing; it;s actually just set a public hearing 8 instead approve it. 9 And then the next one is court order 37841. 10 And it says approve and waive platting oversight on that 11 one. It should be approve to waive. It says approve 12 and waive, we're not approving anything. We're just 13 waiving our authority on that one. 14 And then on court order 37844, 15 recommendation that we add the list to the bottom of 16 that court order of the -- 17 JUDGE KELLY: That's the reimbursables for 18 the VFD's? 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, for the VFD's. 20 There's five items. 21 JUDGE KELLY: We had those here. What did 22 we do with them? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Jackie has them, the 24 lower part of that list. And then the last one was 25 court order 37845, and said approve and cancel special 11 1 meeting set for December 30th. It should say approve to 2 cancel. 3 And with those modifications, and I know 4 pickier than usual it seems like, but anyway I make a 5 motion that we approve them as modified. 6 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Second. 7 JUDGE KELLY: Motion's been made by 8 Commissioner Letz, seconded by Commissioner Harris to 9 approve court orders as modified here and in the 10 presentation of the Court. Is there any other 11 discussion about that? Those in favor raise your hand. 12 Unanimous, five zero. 13 Moving on to item 3.1 status reports from 14 department heads. Do we have any? Okay. 15 Item 3.2 status reports from elected 16 officials. I know we got the 198th here. We certainly 17 welcome you. And is anybody here for the 216th today? 18 So you'll speak for both? 19 MR. MONROE: If I'm allowed. 20 JUDGE KELLY: Please. 21 MR. MONROE: I'm not sure exactly what you 22 guys want to know. If you have any questions. As you 23 know, this is my last term. I will be retiring at the 24 end of next year. And the filing period for my 25 successor has opened, opened in November and will close 12 1 a week from today. And my knowledge so far is that Mr. 2 Harpold is the only person who has applied. Now that 3 can obviously change in the next week. So we're waiting 4 really to see whether or not he has an opponent. And 5 then once that determination is made, then there's some 6 things that if he doesn't have an opponent, or there is 7 no democrat challenger, then we can maybe begin to do 8 some rearranging next year. 9 Mr. Dean will also retire, except he retires 10 on the fiscal year of the County, so he'll be leaving in 11 the end of September technically, I believe is your 12 official last day. So we will be making some changes 13 internally at least at that time. If not, it can be 14 arranged maybe to do it a little bit earlier. I want 15 the successor to be able to determine whether or not 16 they bring in a clerical person, whether they bring in 17 another investigator, whether they bring in another 18 attorney. I would like that to be the decision of my 19 successor. So again, we're waiting to see how that 20 turns out. 21 Other than that, I think everything is 22 running smoothly. I think Bandera County is for the 23 most part satisfied with what we're doing there. It's 24 going to be a little unique, you know. When I took 25 over, or when I was elected, I had not been a part of 13 1 Mr. Barton's office at all. He was very gracious after 2 the primary and he offered me that spot, but under the 3 circumstances it wasn't something I was in a position to 4 do at that time to go and, you know, work there for the 5 last three or four months. I don't know that that would 6 have helped me a lot anyway. 7 Mr. Harpold on the other hand, if he is the 8 heir apparent, you know, he's been there for six and a 9 half years, so he may make lots of changes. And that's 10 going to be his call as to how he does it. But he does 11 have at least have the advantage of having been there 12 for awhile, and seen how it works, and who does what and 13 when and where, so he may -- he may make a lot of 14 changes to make the office run differently, if not more 15 efficiently. The only thing I told him to do is he 16 can't give me more to do than I am now. 17 Other than that, I think everything is 18 running smoothly. I think we spent a good bit of the 19 budget on -- what was that on, Kyle, with the -- 20 MR. DEAN: New Adobe Acrobat licenses for 21 seven computers. The Adobe Acrobat that IT had 22 installed in our office computers, it appears the 23 licenses were elapsed on them. And when they were 24 upgrading some of the computers to Windows 10, they 25 found that we had to do that so we had an expenditure of 14 1 around 3200 dollars for those licenses. 2 MR. MONROE: That's normally an item in our 3 budget that we don't spend the amount that you budget 4 for us, but this year we might. 5 So other than that, everything is pretty 6 much business as usual. Happy to answer any questions 7 if anybody has any. Yes, Sir. 8 JUDGE KELLY: Really the only reason we have 9 these status reports is that we don't like surprises, 10 and if there's something that's going on in your shop, 11 we like to hear about it before we read it in the front 12 page? 13 MR. MONROE: Well, I hear ya there. I 14 generally like to know that as well, and sometimes I 15 find out about them the same time you do. 16 I do want to thank you for the playground 17 equipment in the park for creating that knew drug-free 18 zone here in Kerr County that didn't exist before, and 19 now that we know within a thousand feet of that -- 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, is that right? I 21 wasn't aware of that. 22 MR. MONROE: That's right. When you add 23 those playground equipment over there, as long as you 24 have three pieces, then it's a drug-free zone. And so 25 within a thousand feet of that bumps everything up a 15 1 notch, and if you get sent to the penitentiary up to 2 your first five years is day for day because of the 3 drug-free zone. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Do you need to have a 5 sign there saying drug-free zone? 6 MR. MONROE: No. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. Good. 8 COMMISSIONER BELEW: That's State law, 9 Scott? 10 MR. MONROE: Yes. 11 COMMISSIONER BELEW: So it's automatic. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So all of Lions Park. 13 MR. MONROE: So it adds some teeth. Because 14 as you might imagine the time you serve in the 15 penitentiary for a straight sentence is probably one 16 tenth, one fifteenth. Maybe one twentieth. 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So within a thousand 18 feet, is that what you said? 19 MR. MONROE: It's a thousand feet of the 20 boundary of the park. 21 JUDGE KELLY: Let me ask a question. 22 COMMISSIONER BELEW: We need playground 23 equipment in all our parks. 24 MR. MONROE: Certain eliminates the mistery 25 as to whether or not it's a drug-free zone. 16 1 COMMISSIONER BELEW: That's a great point, 2 because that shows what a good investment it was, return 3 on investment for prosecuting crimes and stuff like 4 that. I would have never thought of rolling that into 5 the -- 6 JUDGE KELLY: The prosecutors, they think 7 about it. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, good deal. 9 JUDGE KELLY: No. My questions just have to 10 do is thinking for the future, because you've been 11 there, what eight years now? 12 MR. MONROE: Seven. 13 JUDGE KELLY: Seven, going on eight. I 14 recently was able to engage Judge Stroeher in 15 conversation, which as you know is not an easy thing to 16 do. 17 MR. MONROE: I don't know that, but I'll 18 take your word for it. 19 JUDGE KELLY: Trust me, it is. But he's 20 been very open, we're talking about public defenders 21 offices. I know we talked about this issue with the 22 D.A.'s before. Talking with the 216th about the 23 allocation of their dockets between Kerr County and 24 Gillespie County, and just asking you about the 198th 25 docket. We know that we're operating in agreement with 17 1 them and on the basis of the census from almost ten 2 years ago. Do you have any insight to us as to how 3 that's changed, what we might be looking at going 4 forward? 5 MR. MONROE: As far as the docket in 6 Bandera? 7 JUDGE KELLY: Yes. Bandera County. 8 MR. MONROE: I don't have any census as to 9 how much has changed. I have a general feel that I 10 don't think it's changed unexpectedly. What I'm saying 11 is, you know, it is growing as Bandera County is 12 growing. I don't think we have a spike in anything in 13 Bandera County that we don't have here. The issue with 14 the public defenders office is one of those that I just 15 don't know as a practical matter what we do. 16 Again, it's the same people, you know, that 17 are here are the ones that are in Bandera. So I 18 don't -- I mean the defense lawyers, the ones that are 19 doing the appointments, they're just about all of them 20 are Kerr County lawyers. We do get a lot of influx of 21 Bexar County lawyers into Bandera much more than here, 22 but again they're not court appointed, they are 23 retained. You know, and I don't know how Bandera County 24 would respond to that. 25 JUDGE KELLY: Well, I talked to Judge Evans. 18 1 And so what I'm looking at is the numbers that we see 2 from the 216th is over 50 percent of the criminal docket 3 is now handled in Gillespie County. 4 MR. MONROE: We don't have that. 5 JUDGE KELLY: I know. But in talking with 6 Judge Evans in Bandera, I think we're about what, 25 7 percent is what they're contributing right now? 8 MR. MONROE: I say 25 contributing. 9 JUDGE KELLY: But I think it's probably up 10 into the mid 30's at this point? 11 MR. MONROE: Yeah. And that's probably the 12 percentage of case load that they occupy as well, 13 wouldn't you say, Kyle? Do you think it's bigger than 14 that? 15 MR. DEAN: I think they actually contribute 16 around 30 percent, somewhere close to that. 17 MR. MONROE: But as far as their case load 18 in our office, is that -- 19 MR. DEAN: We were talking about that the 20 other day. I think there were -- I'm shooting from the 21 hip here, but if I recall, around 500 and something Kerr 22 County active felony cases in the 198th, and I think 300 23 in the Bandera County. 24 MR. MONROE: So three eighths. 25 JUDGE KELLY: Any insight you would have for 19 1 us before you leave office as to -- Medina County is 2 talking to us also. This is a very popular topic these 3 days. And of course Medina County is about the same 4 size as we are. 5 MR. MONROE: Right. 6 JUDGE KELLY: With even a tougher criminal 7 docket than ours. But any insight on public defenders 8 office that you could share with the Court? 9 MR. MONROE: Well, I mean I think it's one 10 of those things that looks great on paper, hopefully in 11 reality it will work out that well. It's just one of 12 those things it would be such a big change it would be 13 hard to predict, you know, how well the machine would 14 run once it got started. 15 You do -- are put in a situation of having 16 to worry about conflicts of interest between the public 17 defenders office on multi-county cases. So you would 18 still to some extent have court-appointed attorneys, you 19 can't avoid that. It would be a question of what 20 percentage of them you would have, you know. 21 You know I'm always receptive to trying to 22 do things a little differently than they've been done if 23 that can work. Always kind of know that you don't 24 necessarily lock the door behind you. Now a public 25 defenders office may in fact be doing that. But I think 20 1 as far as on paper, I think it looks like a good idea. 2 Just don't know as a practical matter with the sizes 3 that we have here, with the fact that you got two 4 multi-county districts that are either directly or 5 indirectly going to be affected by public defenders 6 office, how it would work, how we would fix all of that 7 stuff. I think there would be some growing pains, but I 8 think they are certainly manageable. 9 I mean one of the more reasons that I'm glad 10 that Mr. Harpold will be the person, you know, he's got 11 a sharper mind than I do. You know his warranty hasn't 12 expired yet. 13 JUDGE KELLY: Well, thank you. Is there 14 anything else? Appreciate you coming down. 15 MR. MONROE: We're having criminal pretrials 16 upstairs, if you want to come up and see how that works, 17 you're welcome to do that. We'll even let you sit in 18 the jury box and let you get a little closer to those 19 people. 20 Thank you, guys. Merry Christmas. 21 JUDGE KELLY: Okay. Any other elected 22 official reports? Then we'll move on to 3.3 Liaison 23 Commissioner reports. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I have one. Just read 25 an e-mail while I was sitting here from KEDC, but it's 21 1 from the airport really, is that Mooney's got its doors 2 open today, 44 cars in the parking lot, and 3 apparently -- or it's alleged that, or rumored that, 4 whatever the right term is, is that Mooney has new 5 investors. More details to come. So that's good news. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Very good. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Very good news. That's 8 all I have. 9 JUDGE KELLY: Any other Liaison Commissioner 10 reports? 11 Okay then, I don't believe we have anything 12 for executive session. So with that, Court is 13 adjourned. 14 * * * * * * 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 22 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 Special Commissioners' Court Meeting. 9 Dated this the 10th day of December, A.D., 10 2019. 11 12 /s/DEBRA ELLEN GIFFORD Certified Shorthand Reporter 13 No. 953 Expiration Date 04/31/2021 14 * * * * * * 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25