Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

We'll call this meeting's regular session of Comel County Commissioner's Court to order at 8.32 AM. Please let the record reflect that there is a quorum. All members of the court are present. And we'll begin with action agenda item number one.

Judge, I move to approve the claims as presented for July the 2nd, 2026, EFTs $516,863.87, regular claims of $1,001,685.83 for a total of $1,518,549.70. Second.

There's a motion to approve claims by Commissioner Hogg, with a second by Commissioner Leacock. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Our workshop agenda will begin now. We'll begin with citizens' comments. Item number one, public comments are limited to three minutes. Is there anyone here to address the court today? Seeing no one, we'll move into workshop agenda item number two, reports by county staff and elected officials on items of community interest.

Okay, we've got a lot of cool festivities happening this weekend to celebrate our amazing country. One of them is the very first Liberty on the Lake fireworks show, which is going to be fireworks launched from the middle of the lake, a professional show we've been working on for several months now. There's great viewing locations. Of course, getting on the lake this weekend is going to be exciting. It's going to be a challenge between parades and crowds and everything else. But the fireworks are going to be amazing. There's several different viewing locations. There's some that are better suited for people with noise sensitivities and stuff like that. And there's some for people who want to be in the middle of the action. So Word is taking the lead on the moment-to-moment updates on what's open, what's closed, what's full, what's not. And we'll just ask everybody that at the conclusion of the fireworks to have some patience because everybody will be leaving the lake at the same time. So tune into the Word Facebook page for up-to-the-moment updates. And hopefully we'll see you at this. Then we also have on Friday night, if you really love fireworks and you want two nights of fun and partying, at Jumbo Evans Sports Park is going to be the annual Hill Country Fun Fest. They have booths, they have vendors, they'll have live music, and then they, of course, have another professional fireworks show, and that's up at Jumbo Evans, and it's a... safe and great time for the family. There is an entrance fee for that, but it's definitely well worth it. So those are two of the things we have going on, and I know Doug has some other highlights.

I do. It's going to be a great weekend celebrating America's 250th birthday. The VFW Post 8800 in Startsville is hosting their annual 4th of July parade. It's the 35th year they've been doing this. So big thing is the parade starts at 10 a.m. 2673 will close at approximately 950, 950 in the morning. So startsville will essentially be closed off and and so you all need to plan ahead to either pass through startsville or pack a chair and some sunscreen and enjoy the fantastic parade lots of fun and lots of great people celebrating the fourth of july so the parade will the parade will last roughly an hour and a half so it's it's it's quite a parade last i heard there was about 45 participants in the parade so A lot of fun. And come out and enjoy a wonderful day celebrating America's birthday.

Thank you both. Any other reports by county staff or elected officials? OK. We will move into our action agenda once again. And if there is no opposition, we would like to begin with item number eight. Discuss and consider approval of a line item transfer in county court at law, court number two, from public defenders and attorney's fees to visiting judges to provide additional funds for the remainder of 2026. Good morning, Judge Stevenson.

Good morning, Judge Counselor. Commissioners, excuse me. We're just running a little low on the visiting judge. So this is enough to cover what we don't have. And then I don't anticipate that. using all of it, but just in case it comes up.

Move to approve action agenda item number eight. Second.

There's a motion to approve action agenda item number eight by Commissioner Leacock with a second by Commissioner Hogg. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries.

Thank you.

Move to item number two, discuss and consider approval of a street name, Cypress Valley Drive, for a private road located southeast of the intersection of Miller Lane and Chantel Road in Comal County.

Good morning, Judge Commissioners. We did have an address request brought about the necessity for naming a road because there's multiple addresses and per our addressing order requires them to name the road. Avery did process this through Bear Metro. We did have an approval on Cypress Valley Drive. While I'm here, I want to just mention that you can see there has been some subdivision activity. These are not platted lots. We did meet with the families. This is a family exemption that they're working toward. We haven't had a formal request for this. We'll have further compliance reviews when they ask for septic permit. But I just wanted to clarify that at this item. So we're just addressing the addressing. And I'd recommend approval of this name.

Move to approve action agenda item number two. Second.

There's a motion to approve action agenda item number two by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Leacock. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Item three, discuss and consider approval of an order to temporarily close a portion of Sattler Road on Saturday, July 4th, 2026 from 9 a.m. to midnight for the Sattler VFW Post 8573 Auxiliaries 4th of July celebration and direct the county engineer to establish procedures for the temporary diversion of traffic.

The VFW is also having some fun over there for the fourth. We did have a request to close a small portion of the county road that is allowed through the transportation code. We do this regularly here. And Mark and his team in traffic have pre-staged everything out there, and they're ready to go as soon as the time comes that they can get all the stuff done. So I'd recommend approval.

Move to approve action agenda item number three.

Second.

There's a motion to approve action agenda item number three by Commissioner Crownover with a second by Commissioner Leacock. Any questions or discussion?

Just another wonderful celebration this weekend.

All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, David. Item four is discuss and determine the composition of the salary grievance committee pursuant to local government code section 152.014 and approve the appointment procedure for public members. If there's no objection, we are going to hold off on taking action on this item until after executive session. We'll move on to item number five, discuss and consider approval of an order granting a discretionary exemption pursuant to local government code section 262.014. 024 for Professional Architectural Engineering Services Contract with Triton Design and Construction LLC. Good morning.

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. This order will be granted an exemption from the procurement process to Triton Design and Construction for the design work at JP3. It is a budgeted item, so I respectfully request approval of this agenda item.

Who would approve Action Agenda Item Number 5?

Second. So motion to approve action agenda item number five by Commissioner Webb with a second by Commissioner Crownover. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Item six, discuss and consider approval of the Architectural Engineering Services Agreement by and between Comal County, Texas and Triton Design and Construction LLC and authorize a county judge to sign.

Judge and commissioners, this is the actual contract. Because of the cost of being over $100,000, it does require a commissioner's court approval and a judge's signature. Again, we did have a comparable on this just for some background with another provider, and it was quite a bit more, 30% or 40% more. So it did make more sense with Triton. And we've used Triton in the past, and they're a very good company to work with. So we feel confident that they'll be able to execute that design work within budget. So I respectfully request approval of this agenda item.

Who to approve action agenda item number six?

Second. There's a motion to approve action agenda item number six by Commissioner Webb with a second by Commissioner Crownover. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Item seven is discuss and consider approval of invoice number 241939 from Texas Wilson for filing cabinets for the Comal County Public Health Emergency Operations Center project in the total amount of $3,515.14. Funding will be provided through the American Rescue Plan Act interest earned funds.

Judge and commissioners, back in 2024, December of 2024, that was our deadline to get all the POs in the system to encumber all the funding from ARPA in order to be compliant with the rules on that. In the initial, we got the, and again, this is Ramona and I'm from the Ramona's name out there, not to explain, but it's sad to get the backstory. We got all the quotes from Texas Wilson as we were processing the orders through Texas Smart Bike, which is the co-op we were going to use for all the, which we did use for a lot of the furniture. They kicked this one back saying, hey, Global Industries, who is the manufacturer of this particular filing cabinet, is not covered currently under the Tex-Mas contract as an Ion Kimisotro Texas Wilson. So we ended up canceling the original PO, issued a PO at the last minute, which you see under that 242587. to global but then and then since that time december 2024 to when it was delivered in december of 2025 uh that item was able to put back on the texas smart buy contract so then wilson took that order over and they sent us an invoice and say here you go and we're like but that doesn't match our po so i have to talk with michelle valadez in the auditor's office because she's the one that reports on this stuff say the best thing to do would be to go ahead and create a new PO, take it out of earned interest because we can backdate the PO to the 24 to be compliant, plus that would raise a red flag if we ever got audited on that. So we determined this was the best way to handle this, so I respectfully request approval of this agenda item.

Move to approve action agenda item number seven. Second.

There's a motion to approve action agenda item number seven by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Leacock. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries.

Thank you.

Thank you. Item 9, discuss and consider approval of a line item transfer and justice of the piece number 3 from interpreter to continuing ed travel to provide funds for required training for appointed judge not originally included in the 2026 adopted budget.

Judge, commissioners, Judge Long couldn't be here this morning, but he asked me if I would explain this, and it's exactly what it says. You know, he was appointed, and he had to go get training in order to do the job. And so he's asking that we move this money over to pay for that training. So I'm going to move to approve action agenda item number nine.

Second. There's a motion to approve action agenda item number nine by Commissioner Webb with a second by Commissioner Crownover. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries.

Thank you.

Okay, so we will be going into executive session today under agenda item number 10A and C. A is deliberate and consider the purchase, exchange, lease, or value of real property in accordance with section 551.072 of the Texas Government Code. and C, deliberate pending contemplated litigation, settlement offers, and matters concerning privileged and unprivileged client information deemed confidential by Rule 1.05 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct in accordance with Section 551.071 of the Texas Government Code. We will invite our legal counsel, our county administrator, and our county engineer to join us, and we will go into executive session at 8.45 a.m.

It looks wonderful. Tim is liking this a little bit.

Listen, for the first time in my life. We are returning from executive session at 9.49 a.m.

We will go back to action agenda item number four to begin.

You going to read the item now?

OK. Item number four is discuss and determine the composition of the salary grievance committee pursuant to local government code section 152.014 and approve the appointment procedure for public members.

On that item, I move to establish the salary grievance committee pursuant to local government code section 152.014A1 and direct the county clerk to place the names of people who served as a grand juror in 2025 on slips of paper to be chosen at random at the next regular meeting of the commissioner's court. Second.

Okay, we have a motion. by Commissioner Webb to establish the salary grievance committee pursuant to local government code section 152.014 direct the county clerk to place the names of people who served as a grand juror in 2025 on slips of paper to be chosen at random at the next regular meeting of the commissioner's court. And we have a second by Commissioner Crown River. Is there any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. We will also We'll go to 10A from our executive session.

Regarding 10A, agenda item 10A, I move to authorize Commissioner Crownover to negotiate on behalf of Como County to come to an agreement. Second.

Okay, we have a motion by Commissioner Leacock with a second by Commissioner Webb to authorize Commissioner Crownover to negotiate on behalf of Comal County under agenda item number 10A. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Okay, so we have no further business on the agenda this morning. Happy Fourth of July. I hope everyone has a safe and happy weekend. We are adjourning at 9.52 a.m.