1 1 2 3 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' COURT 4 Special Session 5 Friday, January 1, 2021 6 10 a.m. 7 Hill County Youth Event Center 8 Kerrville, Texas 78028 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: ROB KELLY, 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 1.1 Approval of bonds of all Elected Officials 3 and/or Appointed Officials whose bonds 4 have not previously been approved by Commissioners' Court. 5 1.2 Acknowledge existence and continuation of 4 6 all other Bonds. 7 1.3 Administer oaths to all Elected Officials 4 and/or Appointed Officials whose terms of 8 office continue or commence on January 1, 2021. 9 1.4 Approve application(s) to appoint Deputies 8 10 or Assistants of all other Elected Officials whose terms of office continue or commence 11 on January 1, 2021. 12 *** Adjournment. 8 13 *** Reporter's Certificate. 9 14 * * * * * * 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 JUDGE KELLY: (Gavel Bang.) Court will come 2 to order. It is Friday, January the 1st, 2021 at ten 3 o'clock in the morning. And this is a Special Meeting 4 of the Kerr County Commissioners' Court. I'll ask for 5 Visitor's Input. 6 (Audio difficulty.) 7 JUDGE KELLY: Does that work? Can you hear 8 me? Does it work? 9 AUDIENCE: Yes. 10 JUDGE KELLY: Good. As always, we begin the 11 Commissioners' Court meeting with -- entitled "Input 12 From the Public". We want to be open and transparent. 13 If there's anyone who would like to address the Court 14 this is your opportunity to do that. Is there anyone 15 who would like to address the Court? 16 Okay. With that, then we'll go on to our 17 full agenda. I'm going to start -- forgive me when I 18 have to go over to this computer. 19 First item on the agenda is 1.1 approval of 20 bonds of all Elected Officials and/or Appointed 21 Officials whose bonds have not previously been approved 22 by Commissioners' Court. We have a motion? 23 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I'll make a motion. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Second. 25 JUDGE KELLY: Motion's been made by 4 1 Commissioner Belew, second by Commissioner Moser to 2 approve all the bonds of Elected or Appointed Officials. 3 Any discussion? Those in favor raise your hand. 4 Unanimous, five zero. 5 Item 1.2 acknowledge existence and 6 continuation of all other Bonds. 7 All that is acknowledging all the bonds, all 8 existing bonds. 9 Item 1.3 administer oaths to all Elected 10 Officials and/or Appointed Officials whose terms of 11 office continue, or commence on January 1, 2021. 12 And the way we're going to do that today is 13 that this department is going to start the swearing in. 14 We're going to swear in the Sheriff first, and then the 15 Sheriff will swear in his deputies. And we are very 16 proud to have them here. If you haven't seen this, it's 17 pretty impressive from this standpoint. 18 The way we're going to do it is will 19 swearing in will take place right here in front of me. 20 And I think Judge Emerson's going to be doing most of 21 the swearing in today. He will be standing to my right, 22 and the person that's taking the oath will stand to my 23 left, and that's so when they raise their right hand it 24 doesn't bother their face and get a better oath. 25 So with that, I think it's time for us to 5 1 have the Sheriff come forward, Larry Leitha. 2 (Sheriff-elect, Larry Leitha, was sworn in 3 by The Honorable Rex Emerson.) 4 (All Sheriff Deputies present were sworn in 5 by Sheriff Leitha.) 6 SHERIFF LEITHA: We're done. We're just 7 going to sign our paperwork. 8 JUDGE KELLY: Okay. All very good. 9 SHERIFF LEITHA: Might take a while. 10 JUDGE KELLY: It looks like it'll take you a 11 while to sign that paperwork. 12 And what we've got here is our County Clerk, 13 Jackie Dowdy, County Attorney, Heather Stebbins, and our 14 County Court at Law Judge, Susan Harris. And they are 15 going to be sworn in remotely today, so anybody that 16 wants to hear more or see more, you can come closer. 17 But with that, I'm going to turn this over 18 to Judge Harris to handle the swearing in. 19 She's muted. 20 JUDGE HARRIS: Okay, unmute. 21 JUDGE KELLY: She's unmuted, good. Okay. 22 JUDGE HARRIS: Happy New Year to everybody. 23 (Jackie "JD" Dowdy, Kerr County Clerk, was 24 sworn in by Judge Susan Harris.) 25 JUDGE HARRIS: Congratulations. 6 1 MRS. DOWDY: Thanks, Judge. 2 JUDGE HARRIS: Next, Heather. There are 3 very few people that are able to excel in so many 4 aspects in life as the way that you have. Would you 5 please raise your hand and repeat after me. 6 (Heather Stebbins, Kerr County Attorney, was 7 sworn in by The Honorable Susan Harris.) 8 JUDGE HARRIS: Congratulations. 9 MRS. STEBBINS: Thank you so much. 10 JUDGE KELLY: I think that worked pretty 11 good. 12 Is Bob Reeves here? 13 (Pause.) 14 JUDGE KELLY: Having to learn this still. 15 Okay, we got Bob. Okay, who's swearing in 16 Bob? 17 JUDGE HARRIS: I am. 18 (Bob Reeves, Kerr County Tax 19 Assessor-Collector, was sworn in by the Honorable Susan 20 Harris.) 21 JUDGE HARRIS: Congratulations, Bob. 22 Judge Kelly, thank you. 23 JUDGE KELLY: Thank you. And we'll try to 24 set this up so you can see the next swearing in, which 25 is going to be Commissioner Belew by Judge Ragsdale. 7 1 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I'd like to get my 2 family up here. Any of them that are in the building. 3 (Harley Belew, Kerr County Commissioner 4 Precinct 1, was sworn in by The Honorable Bill 5 Ragsdale.) 6 JUDGE KELLY: Then the next one will be 7 Commissioner Letz. 8 (Jonathan Letz, Kerr County Commissioner 9 Precinct 2, was sworn in by The Honorable Rob Kelly.) 10 JUDGE KELLY: Congratulations. 11 Okay, next we have Constable Precinct 1, 12 Tommy Rodriguez. 13 (Tommy Rodriguez, Constable Precinct 1, was 14 sworn in by The Honorable Rob Kelly.) 15 JUDGE KELLY: Congratulations. 16 Next is Constable Precinct 2, Kyle 17 Schneider. 18 (Kyle Schneider, Constable Precinct 2, was 19 sworn in by The Honorable J. R. Hoyne.) 20 JUDGE KELLY: Next is Constable Precinct 4, 21 Brad Rider. 22 (Brad Rider was sworn in as Constable 23 Precinct 4 by The Honorable Rex Emerson.) 24 JUDGE KELLY: That concludes the swearing 25 in. We have everybody sworn in. 8 1 JUDGE EMERSON: Got one more to go. 2 (Benjamin Edward Rosenbach was sworn in by 3 The Honorable Rex Emerson.) 4 JUDGE KELLY: We have one other office to 5 get to today, John Bull, wanted to introduce him, the 6 Chief Public Defender. We wanted to do that. 7 (No response.) 8 JUDGE KELLY: We have one more item, item 9 1.4, which is to -- 10 (Quieting crowd.) 11 JUDGE KELLY: One last vote. Approve 12 application(s) to appoint Deputies or Assistants of all 13 other Elected Officials whose terms of office continue 14 or commence on January 1, 2021. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So move. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 17 JUDGE KELLY: Motion's been made by 18 Commissioner Moser, second by Commissioner Letz to 19 approve those applications. Those in favor raise their 20 hand. Unanimous, five zero. 21 Is there any other business before the Court 22 today? With that, we are adjourned. (Gavel bang.) 23 * * * * * * 24 25 9 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 Court Reporter in and for Kerr County, do hereby certify 6 that the above and foregoing pages contain and comprise 7 a true and correct transcription of the proceedings had 8 in the above-entitled Special Commissioners' Court. 9 Dated this the 7th day of January, A.D. 10 2021. 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