Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

This regular session of Commissioner's Court of Comal County will be called into order at 8.30, Thursday, July 16. And let the record reflect that there is a quorum, and Commissioner Webb is absent. We will begin with action agenda item number one, which is approved claims.

Judge, I move to approve the claims as presented for July the 16th, 2026. EFT is $1,353,244.26. Regular claims of $1,041,108.49 for a total of $2,394,352.75. Second. We have a motion to approve the claims by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Leacock.

Any questions or discussion? All those in favor, please raise your right hand.

Motion carries.

OK. We'll move into our workshop agenda. We'll begin with citizens' comments. Is there anyone here that wishes to address the court? Seeing no one, we'll move into item number two, which is reports by county staff and elected officials on items of community interest. Good morning, Mr. Gordon.

Good morning, judges and commissioners. We do have some active flooding going on right now. And right now, we have about 15 roads are closed in Comac County. The maximum was about 38 last night. I want to go through a couple of resources we have on the county engineer's website that would be beneficial. We'll start with the road closures here. We have 13 closed right now, so we just closed a couple more. We also have a link on the upper left-hand corner there that is for the TxDOT road closures. So if you were to click on that, that will take you to the TxDOT link and show you what roads are closed on state highways within the county. This is updated all the time by our crews, and so if we see observations in the field or we get notifications through our automated low-water crossings, this site will be updated. So this is the best information for the public to see from a low-water crossing standpoint. One of the roads that's closed right now is Rebecca Creek, and so I think we have a current picture from this morning that – were you able to get that, Tom? No. Okay. And so there's a lot of debris that's on Rebecca Creek right now. It's obviously closed. We are expecting more water coming from the upper Guadalupe this evening. And so this will remain closed going forward until we're able to, the flooding subsides and we're able to remove the debris. Speaking of the gauges there, if we go back to our website, we also have under Current Weather and Information right there. We have several links there that are beneficial for the public. The one that I want to highlight is the real-time river flow and lake level. So if we pull that up, our GIS group was able to consolidate all of our locations all into one site for the different watersheds. So yesterday, we were really tracking the Cibola watershed, which is in the bottom section. Right now, what we're really looking at is the Guadalupe River at Comfort. You can see right now it's 197,000 CFS. We also have links to these prediction models. And this shows what the National Weather Service is seeing as far as moving forward, what the expectation can be. As these come downstream, we have the river at Comfort, 474. Spring Branch is at 311. And then Canyon Lake is currently going up. So here's the Spring Branch. This is what they're forecasting right now is to hit sometime tomorrow morning at peak at 72,000 CFS. And so there's a chance that 311 could be impacted there. We have crews on site. We also have our sirens that are at all these locations. And we did activate two sirens yesterday at Nichols Landing and at Rebecca Creek Road. And then finally, I want to look at Canyon Lake. And so this has come about four feet so far. We did talk with our partners at Corps of Engineers yesterday. And right now, up to the conservation level, they have about 110,000 acre feet of storage available. And that's just going to the 909 elevation. And so they've got plenty of storage beyond that. So the fact that we're in Kind of a drought condition right now is beneficial when it comes to times like this when we have lots of flooding coming our way. So we're continuing to monitor this. Our crews are on 12-hour shifts right now, both operations and administrative staff. And we have someone in the EOC at all times as well. So we are monitoring this and continuing the process. Any questions? I can answer those.

Big thank you to your team, both the road crews, the traffic, GIS team, everybody standing by at the EOC. We really appreciate it.

Yes, ma'am. I think we're the best in the state, so thank you.

I'd like to toe in on that. Also, just to remind everyone that our public information officer is continually to provide information to the community through a variety of social media outlets. So if you're on social media, Facebook, Nextdoor, we're connected on those, and to just to subscribe and pay attention to what's going on out there. And our information office is consistently providing information. And I know a few of us, myself included, are pushing out information as well, just to share it with the public and make sure everybody has an opportunity to be well-informed before they enter the roadways for the next few days.

So the EOC has been activated since 8 p.m. on Tuesday evening, and it still is in full effect. We are in partnership with the City of New Braunfels and their EOC as well. All of our partners, local and regional, are there. They're present. They've been active. So that will remain open as we are still under a flood warning.

Judge, one other thing I'd like to – and you mentioned some of these already. We've had a whole group of people out at the EOC, and I appreciate all their work because it is – very imperative that we get that done and also have a call out to all the first responders who are on the ground working and also all of our road department who are out there putting up barricades and they get the information from the EOC and they they get with it and get the problem solved so I really appreciate that that means a lot

No other reports. We'll move to item number three, which is a presentation of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Virtual Court Program Savings. Good morning, Judge. Good morning. Thank y'all.

Good morning. Jennifer Gonzalez, our staff attorney, she's handing out just hands out a little bit more information than that is in the PowerPoint. I know. That's what I said. We did not. Thank you very much for allowing me a few minutes to talk to you about the Texas Department of Criminal Justice virtual court program that our district court has been participating in since last September. Many of the defendants with criminal cases in our courts have already been convicted in other matters and are in prison in other jurisdictions across the state. So we've got them up in Midland, down in the Valley. In the past, what we have done is we would issue a bench warrant, send out our sheriff's department across the state to pick up the inmate and have them return to our jail so that we can handle their case. If you look at page two of your handout, and I'd like to say thank you to Lieutenant Bustos and Captain Hernandez at the Comal County Sheriff's Office who provided us with this information. What we did is we have, we have, okay, we have 10 recent inmates. And it should say at the top of that, the judicial district and the 466 in the top left-hand corner. Is that right? Now look at page three then of y'all's handout. And it should have a, no, no. It should have at the top, and I think I put mine in a different order than yours. It should have an inmate BA and a date of 3-26-2025. Do you see that? You see that? Okay. This is just a sampling of, say, 10 different inmates who were brought to our jail in 2025 under these bench warrants. And what you see is the county at the bottom right spent over $338,000 housing these inmates for us to handle their cases. So if you walk through, for example, inmate LF, who was brought to our county on August 12th of 2025, on August 13th of 2025, we did a sentencing in district court. If you look at the next column, the date they were picked up by TDCJ is empty because they haven't been picked up yet. So they've been sitting in our jail for 336 days. We also sent two officers to the Lopez State Jail, which was 491 miles away. We had a fuel cost of $77.69. It took nine hours round trip for our officers to do that at a cost of $630. And we've housed that inmate at an expense of over $36,000. And so that inmate alone is costing the county $37,000. And so the total cost of those 10 inmates is $338,000. Now, not all of those people qualify for this virtual court program, but many do. And so the virtual court program allows us to skip all of this. The defendant remains in the unit wherever he is in the state. We conduct the hearing via Zoom. And usually these hearings are very, very short. This is a new program that TDCJ implemented last year. It was not something that was available to anyone in the state before TDCJ was willing to initiate this program. So we jumped in feet first. So then if you look at the other detailed page that has the trial virtual court date of 9-11-2025. This was our first trial. foray into this program. And that page for you is a shortened version, is here in the PowerPoint. So it's the same information in the PowerPoint that's in this more detailed one that I've given to you. But if you look at that first entry, On 9-11, that was our first one, we did a plea. It took 10 minutes. That's how quick these hearings are. If you look at all of those, if you look down, we had one hearing that had to do with an appeal. It took six minutes. The longest one we had was 30 minutes. It's sort of a funny story. I had invited the commissioners to attend. Judge Krause was able to come, but he almost missed that first one because it was so fast. Seriously. He had another appointment the hour before. He'd finished up at 11, came over to our court. But in transit, he almost missed it because these hearings go by so quickly. We had a nice laugh about that after the hearing. What we didn't spend is we did not have to send officers out to the Smith unit that was 734 miles round trip. We did not have to spend $116.14 on fuel. We did not have to spend 12 man hours or $840 for man hours. And we saved the county on that one hearing over $17,000. What I've done is I've calculated an average of 148 days that those other inmates that I showed you from the prior page stayed in our jail. It's an average. It's a low number. These are conservative numbers. I think we're saving the county even more than this, but I was just conservative on the numbers. But 148 days. days per inmate, per inmate 108. So we're spending over $16,000 just on the cost of housing. So we've been able to do 11, well actually 10 total of those hearings. This is a very new program. So we're still working on educating attorneys and judges on how to identify cases that fit into this program. And so I very much expect this number to increase. We've also, on our own initiative, are trying to expand this program into other areas. If you look at the PowerPoint, the one that's listed for 5-5 of 26, that's not actually even part of the TDC program. It was an inmate who was housed in Guadalupe County. And I'm like, well, if we can do it with TDCJ, can we do it with one of our other local counties? So we just called over to Guadalupe County. They were kind enough to accommodate us, and we were able to do, again, a very short 10-minute hearing via Zoom and not have to incur, this is close to about $1,000 savings, but still. In addition, we are looking at seeing what we can do with federal court cases. If an inmate is housed in a federal... facility, they don't usually allow us to get the defendant to us. They won't honor our bench warrants. So the cases sort of languish, right? And we don't have a lot that we can do to sort of move those cases along. That, of course, affects our SEGIS numbers. So we actually are in communication with one of the federal unit facilities with one of our defense attorneys and our DA's office working on setting up one of these Zoom virtual court hearings so that we can get that case pled and get it off our dockets. So we expect to be able to do that in the next couple of months. So I do expect to see this expand even further. So we're very excited about what this means and how much Of course, how much savings we've done, and that's about $167,000 in savings to the county, which, again, I think is a pretty conservative number. But there's even more benefits that this program provides to the county. First off, we don't have to put our officers at risk by sending them out of sort of the contained situation in a jail out to the— other facilities, transporting inmates hours across the state. And so we save that risk to both our officers and to the general public so we don't have to do that process. In addition, we're not putting heads in beds in our jail. As the county looks at expanding the jail and sending inmates out to other facilities because we're getting so full, we have prevented 11 inmates from having to be in our jail at 148 days each. So that's a significant impact on available beds in our jail, which we hope to continue to contribute to that process. So, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to come talk to you and tell you about what we're doing over in District Court. You are welcome to come and view one of these hearings. Of course, make sure you're on time because you might miss it if you're not. But I know Commissioner Crownover has tried. We've just not been able to coordinate schedules. Everybody's so busy. So we appreciate your interest in. I know you've tried several times to come. But y'all are all interested. If you're at all interested, you are most welcome to come and take a look at what we're doing over in District Court. So if y'all have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Otherwise, thank y'all very much.

Any questions?

Thank y'all.

Thank you, Judge.

Thank you, Judge.

We'll move back into our action agenda. Item number two, discuss and consider approval of the amendment to Platt of Lake of the Hills Estates, block 30, combining lots 56, 57, and 58, establishing lot 56R, and authorize the county judge to sign it.

Good morning, judges and commissioners. This is a typical amendment to Platt, and we recommend approval.

Move to approve action agenda item number two.

Second.

There's a motion to approve action agenda item number two by Commissioner Crownover 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 the amendment to plat of Sattler Village, unit two, block two, combining lots eight and nine, establishing lot 8R, and authorize the county judge to sign.

Judge and commissioners, this is also a typical amendment to plat, and we 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 discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Item four, discuss and consider final plat approval of the vacate and replat of lots one and two, Sorrel Creek RV Resort, with the addition of the three-acre track, establishing lot one, FM 3424-306 plat, and authorize county judge to sign.

Judge and commissioners, this is a resident that wanted to take two lots and combine those with three acres adjacent to it. We could not do it with an amendment to plat process. We had to use a vacate and replat process. We've processed this through our office, and we recommend approval.

Move to approve action agenda item number four.

Second.

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

Great, thank you.

Thank you, Robert. Item number five, discuss and consider acceptance of the Tax Assessor Collector's Monthly Collection Report for Comal County for June 2026.

Good morning, Judge, Commissioners. I'm here this morning to present for your consideration and approval the property tax collections for Coma County for the month of June 2026 in the amount of $1,107,797. Move to approve action agenda item number five. Second.

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

Thank you.

Item 6, discuss and consider approval of an unexpended balance transfer by ACH payment to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accountants for the fiscal year 2024 Senate Bill 22 Rural Law Enforcement Salary Assistance Program grant in the amount of $20,533.82 to satisfy program requirements.

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. In counties with a population of less than 350,000, Senate Bill 22 offers a grant program to support positions or salary supplements for assistant district attorneys. Back in 2024, the criminal district attorney's office here applied for and was awarded the full amount of $275,000. So in fiscal year 2024, it was applied to various positions to support assistant district attorney positions. Of course, over the course of that year, there were comings and goings in the positions. And so the full amount was not able to be expended. And so now that it's been reconciled through the comptroller's office with the great assistance of our auditor's office, which we'd like to thank you there is $20,533.82 left that needs to return back to the comptroller's office, and we can do that through electronic transfer.

Move to approve action agenda item number six. Second.

There's a motion by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Leacock to approve action agenda item number six. Any discussion or questions? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. Item 7 is discuss and consider acceptance of a settlement payment to the Comal County Jail as a settlement class member in the Centus Corporation No. 2 class action lawsuit.

Judge and commissioners, we were provided with a settlement check in the amount of $251.54 in connection with some litigation titled City of Laurel, Mississippi et al. v. Centus Corporation No. 2. As a class member, we're entitled to this payment from a claim, and it stems from a nationwide class action lawsuit that was brought against Centus Corporation by local governments and nonprofit organizations for improper piggybacking in contracts. that they did. And so as part of that, as a class member, we have the ability to receive the $251.54. Move to approve action agenda item number seven.

Second.

Here's a motion by Commissioner Hogg with a second by Commissioner Leacock to approve action agenda item number seven. Any discussion or questions?

All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries.

Item 8, discuss and consider approval of line item transfer and administrative costs from contingency personnel to extension services, auto allowance to provide additional funds for auto allowance for the remainder of 2026.

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. This line item transfer increases an employee's automobile allowance. So during the fiscal year 2026 development, budget development process, the auto allowance was actually reduced from its historical amount from $3,750 to $2,400. This amendment restores that auto allowance to its intended level.

Move to approve. Action agenda item number eight.

Second. Second.

Okay, there's a motion to approve action agenda item number eight by Commissioner Crownover with a second by Commissioner Hogg. Any questions or discussion? All those in favor, please raise your right hand. Motion carries. So there is a need for executive session today under agenda item number nine, A and C. In accordance with Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code Subchapter D, Commissioner's Court may convene in a closed session to discuss any of the following items. Any final action or vote taken will be in public. A, 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 and contemplated litigation, settlement offers, and matters concerning privileged and unprivileged client information deemed confidential by Rule 1.0. 05 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct in accordance with Section 551.071 of the Texas Government Code. We will need our legal counsel, our county engineer, and our county administrator to join us. We will be going into executive session at 8.53.

We need an attorney.

We are returning from executive session at 9.50 a.m. with no action to be taken and with no further business on the agenda, we'll be in recess until the next regular session on July 23rd. We will be in recess at 9.51 a.m. Thank you.