Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

Thank you so much for being here. I love a courtroom.

Community engagement is key to our success. I'd like to call this meeting to order. This morning's invocation will be led by our very own Pastor Darius Todd. If you will please all rise.

Let's bow.

Heavenly Father, thank you for another day that you have made. You've given us grace to see a new season, a season of graduations, a season of celebrations. We thank you that in this moment we have the opportunity to stop and pause and ask you, Lord, to watch over us and protect us, to give us wisdom, and to thank you for choosing us with this opportunity to be able to share in the management and the stewardship of the works of this county. We ask now that you would help us as we plan and meet the diverse needs of a diverse people. Thank you for helping us in all that we do and say. We give you thanks for it now. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty

once saved under God, one and indivisible.

And just so the public gets an understanding of the way court will run in the first part, it is customary for me to move agenda items based on who's here and what's going on and the goals and attendance. We don't move presentations and proclamations around, so we will keep that F section in place. But immediately after that, we will go to, say, the tree. We will go to, I was asked to move, I think it's item J1. I will move it to the front so that those that are in attendance for that item can see it first. And then I will ask the commissioners based on who's here, who else needs to go next. But I will go beeline to J1 right after proclamations. So if you will please call the roll.

Commissioner Inglesby? Here. Commissioner Cohen? Here. Commissioner Hammer? Here. Commissioner Smith?

Here.

Judge Becerra?

Here. And now we'll do public comments and then proclamations. And so, Roxanne, if you'll please read those that have signed up.

For public comments, Speaker Ana Flores Peña.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Ana Peña. I'm a resident of Pace County and live in the ETJ of Dripping Springs. We built our home about 40 years ago, and throughout the years we've seen many changes, especially increased traffic and schools for our children. In April of this year, we noticed that vast areas of green space and wildlife habitat had been bulldozed by a development company. Heritage trees, shrubs, brush that provide sources of food, shelter, and safety for wildlife had been destroyed. And the destruction wasn't done to provide homes for people, or schools for children, but to build a big box shopping center and parking lots. And that type of development will increase our CO2 emissions, allow polluted runoff to soak into the ground and percolate into our wells and aquifers. The destruction of green space and wildlife habitat will have a negative impact not only on our quality of life, but our environment and biodiversity. And it's concerning, especially because it's springtime and that's when all the wildlife is having babies and trying to feed them and protect them and keep them safe. And they just lost a big chunk of habitat. We've been told that due to SB 2038, there's nothing that we can do about this, that the landowners have a right to petition to be released from the ETJ and therefore they don't have to follow any rules about protecting the heritage trees or any plants on their acreage. I think that we still required the people who develop in the ETJ to help save all the heritage trees or replace them when they can't save them. That would be very helpful. The other thing I wanted to say is I've read that other communities and cities are suing the state to declare SB 2038 unconstitutional on several grounds. It's the unconstitutional delegation of legislative powers to private property owners. It's unconstitutionally vague. It lacks notice and hearing provisions. And it conflicts with other state law that requires city consent to a reduction of its ETJ. And I'm just asking the commissioner to please consider having rules that are equal among the cities within the county. And that we try to save as much of the habitat as possible. And I've got some quotes.

I don't know how much time I have, but I've got...

Okay. E.O. Wilson, who's a biologist and naturalist, he's no longer with us, but he said, to save life on Earth, we must save half of the planet for nature. Is that the beep? I had more, but...

But thank you for capturing one. We are so grateful, and we have your ideas here in writing as well.

Yes, sir. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, and thank you for your message. And we have one more speaker signed up. Two more. Roxanne?

Next speaker, Manuel M. Pena.

Good morning. I'm going to be speaking on basically the same subject, but... For anybody who doesn't know, there's this construction site by Dripping Springs, right close, about a mile west of the Hayes County line off of 290. There's a 26-acre piece of property there, and it had tremendous trees on there, I mean huge, huge trees on there. And in the last three weeks, basically every tree on that 26 acres was bulldozed into a giant pile, or three giant piles. I'm familiar with the property because my granddaughter used to go to the elementary school right behind that piece of property. And even the people at the school were shocked at what happened on there. I mean, nothing was basically saved. Yeah, I guess in my own mind, I'm wondering, like, how can this happen? You know, I mean, I realize there's a tremendous amount of development in Hays County. You see it everywhere. I'm 35 driving over here everywhere. But you wonder why all this can happen where somebody can take a nice piece of property like that with all the trees and basically leave nothing. And what I've done in the last three weeks since I saw that, you know, it's one day it looks nice and the next day all the trees are gone. And you kind of wonder, how can this really happen? So I've reached out to people in the Dripping Springs City Council, the Planning Department in Dripping Springs. And I found out that basically that piece of property, which used to be in the Dripping Springs ETJ, has been excluded. And I guess it's in a zone basically where there's very little regulation by the county itself. I have learned that there's tree ordinances in Buda. There's tree ordinances in San Marcos. There's tree ordinances in Dripping Springs and Wimberley that protect the heritage trees in those zones. But if you get outside the cities or if you get in an area that's no longer an ETJ, basically it's a no man's land and somebody can come along and knock down everything, you know. I think what's happening, at least in my amateur observations, is people are moving outside of these cities to get in zones where they basically can build whatever they want to build. I guess what I'm asking here today is sometime in the near future, if the Hayes County commissioners would consider some type of commercial tree ordinance. I mean, it would be one thing to deal with residential tree ordinance, but I think there needs to be something that applies to commercial properties. where at least the county has some type of regulation on that. Also, too, what I would like to see in the future is maybe some type of liaison officer or official, so like an average citizen like me, when they see something going on, they can get answers. Because I tell you, if you reach out and try to find answers amongst all these city departments and agencies, it's really hard to get an answer. Number one, it's hard to get somebody to answer the phone. And number two, it's hard to get an answer. And sometimes you get conflicting information. But with the amount of development here in the county, I think it's important for the Hays County to have somebody who's who can speak, you know, and get, if they don't have the answers, they can get you the answers, you know. Thank you, sir. Okay. Thank you very much. Your time is up. Okay, thank you.

Next one, then.

Final public comment is Daphne Tenorio, Hayes County Treasurer.

Thank you. Good morning commissioners, Daphne Tenorio, Hays County Treasurer for the record, and I have come with a request from my office. Very easy peasy. What we are requesting is that you please move the authorization for us to release checks to our vendors to the very top of your agenda. This allows vendors to pick up their checks in our office ASAP. Currently we wait until you approve those checks and we hold those checks until you actually approve them. and that can cause additional delays in payment to our vendors. So my ask is very simple. If you could please just put those distributions of those checks to the top and approve them so we can release them as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you. And you will please open F1.

F1, Adopt Proclamation Recognizing Outstanding Awardees by the Hayes County Child Protective Board. So moved. Second.

If you'll read it, please.

Proclamation recognizing outstanding awardees by the Hays County Child Protective Board. Whereas the Hays County Child Protective Board is charged to facilitate work of Child Protective Services supervisors, caseworkers, and staff serving the needs of children and families who are clients of Hays County Child Protective Services, CPS. And whereas the board is also charged with informing community members about child abuse and neglect and services of CPS. in the public's role in helping to alleviate child abuse and neglect, and whereas the demanding challenges and essential work of child protective services, professionals, volunteers, community resources are often unrecognized or misunderstood by community members, and whereas the suffering, resilience, and accomplishments of children and youth in CPS conservation ships or those whose families are under investigation for possible abuse or neglect are unrecognized and, whereas the board has acknowledged the work of CPS professionals, volunteers, supportive community resources, and the experiences, resilience, and accomplishments of CPS children and youth. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Hayes County Commissioner's Court does hereby proclaim Catherine Garbutt, Outstanding CPS Leader, Karen Houseright, Outstanding Volunteer, Hayes County Commissioner's Court, Outstanding Community Resource, Tran Family Outstanding Foster Parents, Savannah Female Outstanding Youth, and Gunner Male Outstanding Youth of the Year 2026. Adopted this day, the 12th day of May, 2026. Beautiful.

Well done. And please call the roll. Did we already vote? No. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen?

Yes. Judge Becerra? Yes. Thank you, Commissioner. It will be all yours.

Thank you, Judge, and I believe we have some members of the Hays County Child Protective Board. Karen Brown?

May I make a comment?

Yes, please.

If you'll please approach the podium and state your name and title for the viewing public.

My name is Karen Brown, and I'm a member of the Hays County Child Protective Board, which is an arm of the County Commissioner's Court. And I would hope you could recognize this morning, we have several caseworkers here, a supervisor, we have several members of the board, and our outstanding volunteer is here. And I just hope all of them will be recognized. And I want to say that this year, the Hays County Child Protective Board decided that we wanted to give you the commissioner's court, our award for community resource. And I want to say to the public, the reason we did that, um, because last year you read this proclamation and you agreed to do it again this year, and we hope it can become an annual event. The case workers in this county are outs. All of them are outstanding. The supervisors are all outstanding. The children are resilient. They're children who have been abused and neglected, but live up to their potential and their promise because of these caseworkers. And without your support, you've been, the County Commissioner's Court has been a support since the mid-1970s, steadfastly our support. You have always approved our request for funding, and you have provided a place for us to distribute clothes, food, lice kits, everything under the sun, the caseworkers to give those things to families in need whose children have been abused or neglected and whose caseworkers need your help. And so we want to thank you, especially this year, for supporting all of these wonderful professionals and volunteers who do really difficult, difficult work, but who bring out the potential of these young people and children and babies who would not have a chance in life without them. So I just wanted to take some privilege to say that. Thank you so very much.

Well, Karen, thank you so much for those kind words. But we want to thank you all and recognize everyone, the board, the workers, CPS workers, your volunteers. You all do a tremendous job for our community. And so many children wouldn't have the resources that they need without you all. So thank you so much for the work that you do.

Just thank you to the board, to the volunteers. It's not easy work. It does take a special group of people, a special individual to come and step forward for this kind of work. And I just want to appreciate everything that y'all do for the county and the kids of our county. It's very much appreciated. Thank you.

echoing the thoughts and sentiments of my colleagues, but thank you so much. And thank you for recognizing the people within the jurisdiction that can help and to provide support for y'all. But thank you especially for taking care of our kiddos and protecting them and neglected and abused children. That's not an easy topic and it's not an easy thing to do. So thank you very much.

It's always great to see good people put themselves in uncomfortable situations for others. And I know serving on that board, And doing the work that y'all do is not comfortable. You don't get compensated for it. You do a great job for our community. And just the work and outreach that y'all do is unheralded at times. So I just want you to know that I know we're appreciative, but the whole community is.

And doing the things that most people won't or can't is what makes us great. All those that want to be a part of this picture that were mentioned in this proclamation, please come on up for a picture.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. One, two, three. One, two, three. Thank you.

All right, let's open F2.

F2, adopt a proclamation recognizing May 10th through 16th, 2026 as Police Week and May 13th, 2026 as Peace Officer Memorial Day. So moved.

Second.

Proclamation recognizing Police Week and Peace Officer Memorial Day, whereas the Congress and the President of the United States have designated May 15th as Peace Officer Memorial Day and the week in which it falls as Police Week, and whereas the members of law enforcement agencies of Hays County play an essential role in safeguarding the rights and freedoms of its citizens, and whereas it is important that all citizens know and understand the problems, duties, and responsibilities of their law enforcement agencies, and that members of the agencies recognize their duties to serve the people by safeguarding life and property, protecting them against violence or disorder, and shielding the innocent against deception and the weak against oppression or intimidation. And whereas since the first known line of duty death in 1791, Deputy Isaac Smith, 26,950 law enforcement officers have made the ultimate sacrifice and have been killed in line of duty. And whereas seven law enforcement officers have given their lives in the line of duty serving Hays County, Texas. And whereas we will never forget the sacrifices of Deputy Sheriff Henry C. Banks, Hays County Sheriff's Office. Knight Watchman Henry H. Jocelyn, Kyle Police Department. Deputy Sheriff John S. Davis Jr., Hays County Sheriff's Office. Trooper Randall W. Vetter, Texas Department of Public Safety. Officer Kenneth M. Copeland, San Marcos Police Department. Officer Justin Putnam, San Marcos Police Department. Deputy Constable Manuel Felipe de la Rosa, Hays County Constable Office, Precinct 2, Deputy Sheriff Dustin Speckles, Hays County Sheriff's Office, Correctional Officer James Henry, Hays County Sheriff's Office, and their families, and whereas the law enforcement agencies of Hays County unseasonally provides a vital public service, now therefore be it resolved that the Commissioner's Court of Hays County calls upon all citizens of Hays County and all patriotic civil and educational organizations to observe the week of May 10th through May 16th, 2026 as Police Week with appropriate ceremonies to commemorate police officers past and present who by their faithful and loyal devotion to duty have rendered dedicated service to their communities and preserve the rights and security of all citizens. We further call upon all citizens of Hays County to observe May 13th, 2026 as Peace Officer Memorial Day to honor those peace officers who through their courageous deeds, have lost their lives or became disabled in the performance of duty. Adopted this the 12th day of May, 2026.

Beautifully done. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith? Yes. Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes. And do we have someone here to speak? There you are, Captain. Thank you, ma'am.

Judge, commissioners, I just wanted to start by saying on behalf of our agency, thank you for recognizing Police Week and Peace Officer Memorial Day. This profession is not easy. The men and women who wear the badge carry burdens most people never see. Long hours, missed holidays, difficult calls, the weight of making critical decisions at a moment's notice. Yet every day they continue to show up and serve. It is both a responsibility and privilege to protect the community we call home. Our deputies and officers do this work because they care deeply about the people in this county and the safety of our families. I also want to recognize our professional staff. While they may not wear the badge, their work is essential to the success of every deputy and every mission we carry out. They are steady hands behind the scenes, supporting operations, serving the public, solving problems, and help keeping the agency moving forward every single day. Law enforcement cannot succeed without them. And while we recognize those who serve, we must also recognize the spouses and families who stand beside them. They carry the stress, the sacrifice, and the uncertainty that comes with the profession. Often without recognition, their support makes this service possible. To all of our law enforcement personnel, professional staff, and families, Thank you for your sacrifices, commitment, and service to the community. That's it. Thank you. Beautifully done.

Thank you, Captain. I'll give the commissioners a chance to say something, and then we'll come up for a pick. Commissioner Inglesby?

Thank you, Judge. Well, Captain, thank you so much for being here and all our officers that are in attendance today. And I want to... Thank you and honor the courage, sacrifice, and commitment that the men and women, how the men and women serve our communities every day. I mean, I am truly and deeply grateful for your service. So thank you so much. And I too want to remember those who have given it all. I mean, that have sacrificed in the line of duty that have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. So thank you.

Yes, so Captain, thank you for your wonderful words. It is sometimes a thankless job, but y'all put yourselves out there for the community every day, and your family do too. And so I don't think I could thank everyone enough for what y'all do, but just know that. Y'all are always in my heart, and I'm always thinking about the work that y'all are doing, y'all's safety as well. So thank you all so much for all the work that y'all do every day.

I don't think there's a whole lot of words that you can put into the gratitude that we have for what y'all do, and seeing your fellow colleagues and comrades potentially every single day, it might be their last day, I can't even imagine that type of weight to carry, and to continue on without some of your fellow officers. So I just wanna say thank you so much. Thank you to your families. Thank you to the families that have lost somebody and made that ultimate sacrifice as well. As a wife and a mother, I can't imagine my husband being in that line of duty, but I appreciate every little thing that y'all do. So thank you so much.

I warned my colleague that this is when I get,

I get very emotional about back in 2020 when we did the when there was so much rhetoric out there and anti-police rhetoric. There was a group of folks who came together here in the county and started to back the blue network. And I couldn't be more thankful for them. And at the time, we had a number of folks coming in and just brutalizing all of our law enforcement every week. And I went to the first event they had was in Cal, Texas. And I showed up just to go. And former Commissioner Jones was there. We didn't know that we were going to speak. We had shown up just as citizens. And at the end of it, the organizers asked me to stand up and speak. And they said, well, how can we try to change this perception out there that we know is wrong? That our families are members of this community. Our officers are T-ball coaches. They pick up their kids from school every day, just like us. We see them at HEB. And I said, show up. I said, show up and tell people your story. And the next week we had 46 family members for law enforcement sitting in our courtroom, and every one of them gave a three-minute comment. And one of those ladies gave one of the best comments I've ever heard. And she said, the best sound on earth is Velcro at 5 a.m. Velcro at 5 a.m. lets me know that my husband got home, and he's taking off his flag vest and he's gonna crawl into bed and I get to have him another day. I don't have that guarantee every day. And I don't think most people in our community understand the sacrifice, not only of you and doing your jobs or being appreciative of it, but the sacrifice of your family. And I take this very personally, March 28th, 1989, My first cousin, Bill Gravel, he worked for the Dallas Police Department. He worked for Boulder County, Colorado, and he retired to Arizona after 25 years of service. The local department there wanted a detective, so he went ahead and applied. That was the day his duty ended. 25 years later, the guy who shot him, there's still an active warrant out for a cold case, for a murder, for someone he killed before he killed my cousin. And from that point on until two years ago, I'd never missed a police memorial week in D.C. I was fortunate enough to live there for 16 years, and I always made it a point to go down. And every one of my kids has a rubbing of his name. framed and I just want you know it it's very personal with me and I sincerely appreciate what y'all do I Wish there was just a better general understanding of the sacrifices again, not only that you make But they're your family makes and thank you Commissioner, I remember hearing that velcro story.

It was exactly as you described it moving Moving to say the least. I've been the county judge now for almost a decade, believe it or not. And every time something is going on through the lens of emergency management, which is one of the hats I wear, someone's always there and it's our local law enforcement folks. And so whether it's a helicopter down in Dripping Springs, far flung corner of the county, Wherever you want to go and see a fire, see anything going on, anywhere in the county, always, always, I come across our very friendly law enforcement there representing, specifically in my case, through my lens, our Sheriff's Department. And so I'm always grateful for that. And you're right. I told this to Tammy eight years ago. I said, if we don't tell people our story, if we don't tell them what we're doing, They're never going to think we're doing anything. And so we have to be storytellers. And that's where this comes in to humanizing the coming home at 5 in the morning, to humanizing the hard work and dedication that it takes in any of the things we're doing. especially in this very difficult time, in this very difficult job. Humanizing it, humanizing it. Because at the end of the day, we are all someone's loved ones, and so when we see it through that lens, it helps us to not feel the acidity that's going on at a national level, and we can say, no, these are our neighbors. And I keep beating that drum, these local folks are our neighbors. And I'm not going to stop, because that is the way it should stay. These local folks are in the Little League, like you said, Commissioner. They are in all those spaces. We do come across them at HEB, Hay City Store, and wherever else you want to go. And so I thank you all for being not only the front line of our community defense and protection through the lens of public safety, but being embedded in our community in the way that you are, because that shows a lens It shows a capacity of accountability, which I think is the pinnacle of our public safety, that accountability. So thank you for doing what you do. Those that are here for this picture, come on up.

Judge, could I say one other thing about our sheriff's department and our constables as well? Is that several years ago, the hardest thing in any position, but especially the position that our law enforcement is in, is... One of the hardest things is addressing your own mortality. And I say that, I was approached along with at least one other commissioner several years ago about ensuring that we could have some of our folks go to National Police Week. And when we send those individuals to National Police Week, they're not going to get a vacation to D.C. They're not going for a good time. They're going there to support the families of those who have fallen in that year. And we've been fortunate enough to do that for several years. And during ARPA, we found money through the American Recovery Plan that we could support that. And at various times, since that time, we've always sent our ceremonial team from the Sheriff's Department. We've sent a group of constables to act as escorts for families of loss, those who have lost their loved ones that year. And I'm proud to say that the court stood with me last year and together we put into our base budget continuous funding to ensure that our teams can go up there every year. to help support those families. And not only does that help those families who have had the loss that year, but it shows a true dedication on behalf of those officers to the officers here, that if and when something were to happen to them, that we show up for our own. And I'm proud of our department for sending those individuals every year, because it's not an easy task to put together, and logistics and those kind of things, but it It's very important for the morale of our department and for all the morale of our law enforcement, and I appreciate the fact that they're there this week to help those families.

Thank you. Come on up. Come on up, Captain. Everyone on this picture.

Let's do it.

Thank you very much.

One, two, three. Thank you. Please open F3. Or is that 310?

No, 310. We're at 310.

F3, adopt a proclamation recognizing May 16th through 22nd as Search and Rescue Week in Hayes County. So moved.

Second. All right, if you'll please read it.

Proclamation recognizing the week of May 16th through the 22nd as Search and Rescue Week in Hayes County. Whereas in 2025, there were over 40,309 missing person reports in Texas with 12,080 missing of them being adults and 28,229 of those children. And whereas communities across Hays County and the state of Texas are impacted by missing persons, lost loved ones and deceased family members due to criminal activity, mental health problems, medical issues or natural causes. And whereas search and rescue resources bring closure and aid in the reunification of families and whereas search and rescue professionals perform flood and swift water rescues and evacuations, technical rescues, locate missing children and endangered adults, and otherwise meet their community's emergent needs. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Hays County Commissioner's Court proclaims the week of May 16th through the 22nd as Search and Rescue Week and offers thanks to all the first responder agencies and search and rescue professionals who support and work tirelessly on finding those who are lost and bringing closure to the families of the missing. Adopted this the 12th day of May, 2026. Well read.

Please call the roll.

Commissioner Smith.

Here.

Commissioner Cohen.

Yes.

Commissioner Hammer. Yes. Commissioner Inglesby. Yes. Judge Becerra.

Yes.

Mike. Mike Jones, Director of Emergency Services, Hays County. We have members here at Texhart I'd like to bring up with your permission, they can speak much more eloquently about what they do, but I think you all need to know something about Texhart. They stand up ready every time we have an impending weather event coming into this county. And you don't see them because they haven't had to deploy. But you need to know something, these people there, they're like the iceberg. You see a little bit on the top in the disasters, but there's a lot of them on the back side getting ready for any disaster that might be following our county. So, with your permission.

Yes, if you guys will all please, let's surround the podium. We can be in the video, please.

Thank you guys for having us. My name is Shannon Smith. I'm Director of Communications for TEXAR, Texas Search and Rescue. We appreciate you having us here every year in honor of Search and Rescue Week. And thank you for everything that you said about our law enforcement. We can't do what we do without them, and we always work alongside them. And so thank you guys for all y'all do. We feel honored to be here and represent search and rescue workers all over. There's search and rescue teams within departments and agencies. throughout the county, state, country, world, and so many are volunteers. And they do a lot of crazy stuff, and they do leave their loved ones at inopportune moments to help others, and we just appreciate all that they do and the opportunity to honor them.

If I seem familiar, it's because I'm also an employee of Hays County. I work under Mike Jones in the Office of Emergency Services, and I'm the fourth, I think, employee of Hays County to have volunteered with Texar. It is an honor and a privilege, and I'm very well supported by Mike Jones, sometimes taking comp time or leave of absence to put my Texar shirt on. And it's a great organization. They do so much for Hays County and for the state, and thank you for supporting us. Beautiful.

Jonathan McComb here, and I've been here before, but I don't know if you all recall, 11 years ago, the Wimberley Flood, Memorial Weekend, and I was one of the survivors that night of one of mine in the house. And so I didn't know anything about these guys, Texas Army, search and rescue. And so as I was laying in the hospital, I can remember saying to my mother, when I get out, I'm going to join this group to give back to those that are hurting. And since then, I've been able to be married again. And I have a little six-year-old, and I can tell you, July 4th, I hugged her and left to go to Kerrville to help those folks out there. And she just, she cried and said, I love you and be safe. And so I know what it means to help those that can't help themselves at the time. And these folks behind me and law enforcement know what it means to put yourself in harm's way for others. So thank you all for recognizing search and rescue. And thank you to all law enforcement for what you all do day in and day out. Thank you all. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Commissioner Inglesby.

Oh, boy. Yeah, I mean, we've recognized so many wonderful, you know, individuals today. And here's another group that does so much, you know, when it comes to those trying times and emergencies. And I just appreciate everything that y'all do. I know that it takes a group effort. And I just want to say thank you for all that you do. Thank you for sharing your story. You know, it's tragic. And, you know, yeah, thank you so much for being here.

Just thank you for all the work you do. I can't imagine the hope that a loved one may have in someone like you that is doing that work. I can only imagine that. But yes, it does take partnerships to be able to do this. And I so appreciate everything that y'all do for everyone, not just in Hays County, but across everywhere, that y'all step up whenever that need is there. So thank y'all so much for that. Commissioner Hammer.

Thank you for all that you did within the Memorial Day flooding. And as a representative of Wimberley, I can't, I mean, we rely heavily on organizations like y'all to be able to do the good work. And your testimony is so powerful. And every time I hear it, I get joked up, so I don't try to think about it. But thank you so much for, I mean, you stepping into something like what you do and devoting so much time and effort in your life to it. It's so powerful. So thank you for sharing that every time.

Commissioner Smith?

I would venture to guess that y'all operate in our two precincts more than anywhere else in Hayes County. And it's always great to see y'all coming. I hate to call you, but we know that you show up when we do. And I will tell you that after the Memorial Day flood, we say the Memorial Day flood of Wimberley, I was down there for a number of weeks volunteering. And the continuous work, people think that an incident happens and then it's over with. And that's not the case. These guys are out there sometimes for weeks helping, trying to help those families and bring closure to them. I say the Memorial Day flood because whenever we were first, I was first elected and started serving in 2019, we had our own Memorial Day flood in Dripping Springs with loss of life. And These guys were able to find one of my residents who had a senior in high school who was going to graduate in two weeks, whose truck washed off of a low water crossing. He'd driven across the entire 54 years of his life and found that truck. I want to say it was like 2 and 1 half miles away and was able to recover that body. And that's not something that happens in a day. They stayed there to give closure to that family. And I really appreciate that. The stories, at least since I've been in office with the flooding in my area with slash floods, of y'all helping coordinate swift water rescues and helicopter rescues out of trees and things like that. I think that when we see the big, large events like Wimberley or large events like Kerrville, that really brings a focus to what y'all do. But I don't think anybody really understands the day-to-day operations and how you all work with those smaller events that happen all throughout Texas. And so I just want to say thank you. There's one disappointment today. You need to go back and tell Justin I'm disappointed that he didn't show up, ask him where the heck he is. But I think it's a testament to Hayes County and the individual employees that we have in our in our emergency services division, that we've got folks like Carly Smith at a state level running a division related to emergency management, and Justin McGinnis, who is one of our employees, who's now the president and CEO of the organization. I think that's huge, and we're glad that we are a training ground. We just wish you'd quit taking all of our really good employees.

Justin is usually here. And your stories, I relate to them all. The tree rescue, that was my friend, Cliff Adair. I mean, this is my hometown. This is my kids, correct me, not kindergarten through Texas State, but catechism. So my family has been here for all of their existence, pretty much. So yeah, Cliff Adair being pulled out of the trees. And that was a Toyota truck in Dripping Springs that you were referencing. I still remember the truck. I'm a car guy. These are real moments. There are no more frustrating and nerve-wracking moments than you don't know where your loved ones are for five minutes, for five hours, for whatever it may be. I have easy point of reference to me. I have a county judge calling me from another county saying, hey, can you help us? Our daughter's missing. She was on Lake Travis. These are all the things that people never even know we do. And so it's just so rewarding to be able to praise you this way because you help shorten that fuse. My brother was calling me just a little over a year ago. I can't find my son. DPS calls him just shortly after. Fatality on our county road. On his way to Abilene to pick up his daughter, two-year-old daughter, never got to see her dad again. When you don't know when those moments matter, whether it's an hour, whether it's a week, you guys are there in the most critical of times. And I just, from the bottom of my heart, you're part of the kaleidoscope. You're part of the kaleidoscope of help for our communities. And ultimately for our state, you've got the right logo, the state. So thank you all so much. Mike, be part of this picture. Come on up.

One, two, three. One, two, three. One again please. One, two, three. Thank you.

Judge, I'm trying to confirm if we're pulling it totally from the agenda or pulling it to comment.

Please open F4.

F4, adopt a proclamation recognizing May 13, 2026 as World Facilities Management Day.

So moved. Second.

All right, if you'll read it. I don't think this will be as emotional. Thank the Lord.

Proclamation recognizing May 16th, 2026 as World Facility Management Day. Whereas World Facilities Management Day is celebrated globally to honor the essential contributions of facility management professionals who ensure the public building and community spaces operate safely, efficiently, and sustainably. And whereas the Hayes County Facility Management Team plays a vital role in supporting county operations by maintaining critical infrastructure, ensuring safe and functional work environments, and providing reliable space where residents receive services every day. And whereas the dedicated professionals oversee building operations, maintenance, safety, emergency management, emergency response, and long-term planning responsibilities that are fundamental to the community of government services and the well-being of our community. And whereas The commitment, expertise, the professionalism of Hays County facility management staff reflect the highest standards of public service, contributing to the comfort, safety, and productivity of employees and visitors alike. And whereas it is fitting that Hays County recognizes and celebrates the individuals who work tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that our facilities remain safe, functional, and welcoming for all who use them. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Hays County Commissioner's Court do hereby proclaim May 13th, 2026 as World Facility Management Day. In Hays County, Texas, and encourages all residents and employees to join in recognizing and appreciating the vital contributions of facility management professionals to our community. Adopted this 12th day of May, 2026. Perfect.

Please call the roll.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Judge Becerra?

Yes. Ms. Crumley?

Good morning. Tammy Crumley, Director of Facilities and Resource Management. Good morning, judges, commissioners. I appreciate the opportunity to recognize our facilities maintenance staff in honor of World Facilities Management Day. What makes this team special to me is not just the work they do, but the pride and commitment they bring to it each and every day. Many times our efforts go unnoticed because when everything is working properly, people simply expect it to. But I see the long hours, the problem solving, the quick responses, and the dedication they show even under pressure. I'm incredibly proud of the staff. They care deeply about the buildings they maintain and the people they serve. They constantly step up when challenges arise, and they do so with professionalism, teamwork, and heart. I want to sincerely thank each member of our team for their hard work, dedication, and service to this county. Thank you.

Oh, we sure will. Let us get through the commissioners in case I want to say some words. Absolutely.

I just want to compliment our staff on, number one, their professionalism, and number two, their responsiveness. I think everybody on this dais has Chris's cell phone. Whether you want us to lose it or not, we're not going to. But every day, seeing the people that work in our facilities and watching the... It's a pleasure to walk into our facilities. And I say that it's I've been to counties where that's not the case, and y'all do a phenomenal job. But again, I can't compliment you enough on the responsiveness. Y'all do a great job.

Thank you guys so much. I see a blue out here, so I don't know if all of our staff wore blue for it, but definitely representing y'all well. But Henry and Chris and everyone else on the team, thank y'all so much. You guys are so kind. Every time you step into the courthouse, y'all are always there with a smiling face, and I know when you put the 7,000 reefs around the courthouse building, y'all are here for a little while. So I got to know at least a little bit of y'all. But thank you for everything that you guys do. I appreciate it. And you do it with a smile on your face, and you're very kind. So thank you.

Commissioner Cullen? Yeah, y'all are the behind-the-scenes heroes of this county. So thank y'all so much for everything that y'all do every day. It does not go unnoticed, and it is so appreciated, I think, by everyone in the county every day. So thank you. Thank you, Tammy, for your leadership as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Judge. Here again is another wonderful group of individuals, Judge, that we're recognizing today. I'm just so thankful and appreciative of each one of you. As Tammy mentioned, y'all are behind the scenes. Y'all work when nobody notices. I think y'all do a great job, and I really am so happy that y'all are here so that we can honor you in this way.

Hey, Judge, as we're talking about first responders today, I can promise you as somebody whose office is flooded twice, these guys do a great job at first responding.

We appreciate it. That's right. That reminds me, everything we say here, it's been a while now. I guess I'm feeling a little reflective. Yeah, during COVID, people were reclassifying themselves and others were being classified. First responders, you can't work remote. There are certain people that can't work remote, whether they want to or not. And so you're critical, you're important, absolutely. And when I was hearing first response in the proclamation, I just remembered these guys are going to get, guys and gals of course, are going to get the blame no matter what happens under a roof or on a roof because we had just opened our public safety building, literally had just opened a multi-million dollar public safety building. And I remember walking out of that building because there was an alarm going off And our backup generator didn't go off. And San Marcos Fire Department was coming in while I was coming out. And it's... It's literally, you're gonna think facilities had something to do with it, but no, that was a brand new generator. They didn't do what it was supposed to do, but still the blue shirts, as you called it, the blue shirts get the blame. And so you guys catch a lot of heat for things that had nothing to do with you or your performance. And I know that. And so I'm just grateful that you guys keep doing the work, keep representing and keep our operations operating. Thank you all so much. Would you like to come up for a picture?

Thank you so much. We're perfect, right?

All right, is everybody ready to play here?

One, two.

Please open F5.

F5, adopt a proclamation recognizing May 6th through 12th, 2026 as National Nurses Week in Hays County. Second.

All right, if you'll please read it.

Proclamation recognizing May 6th through 12th as Nurses Week. Whereas nurses in the United States constitute our nation's largest healthcare profession. And whereas the depth and breadth of the nursing profession meets the different and emerging healthcare needs of the American population in a wide range of settings, including the frontline of the pandemic. And whereas the American nurse association celebrates its 130th anniversary as a voice for nurses in this country. is working to chart a new course for a healthy nation that relies on increasing access to primary and preventative health care and better utilization of our nation's nursing resources. And whereas professionals nursing is an indispensable component of safety and quality of care of hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients, and whereas the demand for nursing services will be greater than ever because of the aging of American population, emerging health challenges, and continuing expansion of life-sustaining technologies, and the explosive growth of home health care services, and whereas more qualified nurses are needed in the future to meet the increasingly complex needs of the health care consumers in this community, and whereas the cost-effective, safe, and high-quality health care services provided by nurses will be an increasingly important component of the United States health care delivery system in the future, and Whereas, along the American Nurse Association, the Hays County Health Department recognizes May 6th through 12th as Nurses Week with the theme, The Power of Nurses, with appreciation for nurses' unparalleled impact and their contributions to healthcare and extend an open invitation to celebrate hashtag the power of nurses who enrich our lives and the world we live in. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Hays County Commissioner's Court does hereby proclaim May 6th through 12th as Nurses Week and encourage the residents of Hays County celebrate nurses' accomplishments and efforts to improve our healthcare system and show our appreciation for the nation's nurses, not just during this week, but at every opportunity throughout the year. Adopted this the 12th day of May, 2026. Well done.

Please call the roll.

Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes. Mr. Gonzalez?

Good morning, Judge Posada and commissioners. My name is Matthew Gonzalez. I'm the Hays County Health Department director. I would like to thank you all for recognizing this proclamation and celebrating our nurses across our county. I think every single one of us here today can probably think of a loved one, a family member or a friend who is a nurse. And just how thankful we are for them and the work that they do. Thankful for the times that we can text them asking a question. Hey, I have this going on. What do you think about it? And they send you to the doctor instead. So I really think that our community is so lucky to have a program like Texas State University and their nursing students at Round Rock, but also when they come here. the ACC program that's training our nurses, the amount of hospitals here, whether that's Christus, whether that's Ascension or Baylor Scott and White, the staff that they have and the care that they deliver, we're very fortunate and lucky to have that. In addition to that, we're very fortunate to have a staff here at the health department of four nurses. That's reflective of the investments that y'all have put into the health department. Just during COVID, I could think back, we had one nurse. And now we have a team of four being able to provide TB care, immunizations care, and STI care. On top of that, we now have a nurse practitioner. And so I really just want to give a thanks to you all, recognizing that that profession is one of the most fundamental public health professions that we could invest in and that could carry out the level of work our community needs, but the work that they do. It's not just delivery of care to the people who come to the Hays County Health Department. It's also the technical assistance that they provide to the jail and the nurses that work in the jail setting, the nurses that work in our school districts. There's a lot of work that they provide. In fiscal year 25, they did over 1,000 appointments for the residents here in Hays County. Just this year alone, we're at 560 appointments for a variety of services. And again, that doesn't detail the case management that goes into different individuals with different diseases or the technical assistance offered to our partners. So I will ask our staff to stand real quick for the nurses, just so y'all can be recognized. This is our team of nurses. One of them is not here today, but Angela Asin is our nurse practitioner. Then Christine Rivera is our TB nurse. And then Julie Pacheco is our immunizations rock star. But I really also want to make sure that I communicate so wholeheartedly that the nurses at our jail and our school system is, you know, I want to thank them so much for their dedication and hard work that they put into the residents here in Hays County. So thank you all for this opportunity to thank all the nurses in our community, but specifically those who work with our children, those who work with the inmates, and those who work with our population.

Thank you. And after the Court speaks, then we'll come up for a pick. Commissioner?

There's one area, and I don't think I heard you mention it, but the county has also made a very direct investment in Capital Idea that trains a number of professions. But the vast majority, if you're not familiar with Capital Idea, it's a program for individuals who may not be, they may be traditional students, but many of them are not traditional students, and it gives them the opportunity to help pay for certifications and then stay in their local area. There are individuals that have families that are trying to work, get a new career start, and I'm proud that we here on the Commissioner's Court, and thank you, Commissioner Inglesby, for co-sponsoring it with me in the past, but we believe in that program, and we've had the vast majority of the graduates of Capital Idea that have stayed here in Hays County that we've been able to support through our funding have been nurses or those in the healthcare field. So we appreciate everything y'all do. It's great to have three nurses on staff. I remember the struggle during COVID. But I do think that we would not be where we are with the healthcare in Hays County. if we didn't have those. And it's also still a growing field. And so if anybody out there is interested, I know that we have a number of facilities here in Hays County currently hiring. So that's right.

Thank you to all the nurses in every type of field or fashion. And I think nurses are the heart behind our health care system. They have the most passion. They get to know you better. I mean, you see your doctor. They're kind of in and out most of the time. But Your nurses are the ones that stay with you, and I will say that I'm a big fan of my nurse practitioner being my primary care doctor, but I do love our nurses, and so I just want to say thank you for all that you do, and I hope you get the recognition that you deserve this week. Thank you.

Commissioner? So thanks to all our nurses, and they are not only the heart, like Commissioner Hammer said, but they're also the front line of any emergency, and You know, just thinking through the pandemic, you know, so many nurses were impacted, medical staff were impacted, but the nurses are at the front line of that. Right. And unfortunately, that also caused an exodus of nurses from the field. And so I'm glad to hear that the court has continued to support the workforce because we do need to fill that hole of nurses again. And so I love seeing the. the excitement around the passion around that work and people being more, young people being more interested in pursuing nursing. And I know my own child is invested in the medical field. And so I just, I can't thank the nurses enough for what y'all do every day. Y'all are the front line of all patient care and it just, it does not go unnoticed and I appreciate y'all very much. Commissioner?

Thank you, Judge. Yes, I also want to just thank the nurses that are here present and the one that couldn't make it. And Matthew, thank you for your leadership also in this area. But I've seen y'all firsthand on events that we have hosted around the counties and y'all do an amazing job. And yeah, we need to recognize y'all more. I know that there is still a shortage of nurses and we just need to continue to support you. provide you the tools and the resources that you'll need to succeed. And so thank you so much.

You guys brought up COVID again. So yes, absolutely. Commissioner Inglesby, I remember telling you, the health department needs to be its own department. I was telling you that during COVID so desperately. I remember our epidemiologist at the time, I won't mention his name, but he was just at his wits end. And every time we saw him, you just saw him like in the cartoons, his hair was like fried up in the air. I mean, it was just so stressful for everyone in that space. I hear laughing, you guys know who I'm talking about. But it was just such a small department trying to do so much. And the world was not ready. And there's another virus now coming off of a ship. We don't know where we're going. And so we are more prepared than we have ever been. And for that, I thank you. Let's come on up for a picture.

I was telling people that no one comes from this side. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

F6, Adopt a Proclamation Recognizing May as Older Americans Month.

So moved. Second.

Proclamation recognizing May 2026 as Older Americans Month, whereas the 10-country Capital Area Council of Governments CAPCOG region includes a growing number of older Americans who contribute their strength, wisdom, and experience to our community in unique ways, and whereas the communities in the CAPCOG region, including Hayes County, benefit when people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds are welcomed included and supported, and whereas CAPCOG recognizes the need to create community that provides services and supports older Americans, CAPCOG Aging Services ensures this support through direct services including nutrition, benefit counseling, in-home services, health and wellness education. I've done some advocacy for nursing home residents and caregiver respite. and whereas CAPCOG fosters a community in which older Americans can age in their way by planning programs that encourage older independence, ensuring activities in response to individual needs and preferences, and increasing access to services that support aging in place. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Hayes County Commissioner's Court does hereby recognize May 2026 as Older Americans Month, in the Cap Cog region to recognize older adults and the people who support them as being key to building resilience and connection across the Cap Cog region. Adopted this the 12th day of May, 2026.

Beautifully done. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Judge Becerra?

Yes. Commissioner Inglesby, would you like to start?

I guess there's someone here to speak. Simone.

Good morning, Court. My name is Simone Corporeau, and I am the special programs coordinator for the county, but I also serve as the chair for the Aging Advisory Council for the CAPCOG region, which is the Capital Area Council of Governments. I serve as the chair, and then Matthew Gonzalez, our health department director, also serves on the council. I just wanted to highlight some of the services that the AAC offers, which were read out in the proclamation, and those include the Ombudsman Program, which is advocacy for individuals living in senior living or nursing homes. It also includes benefit navigation services and then congregate and home-delivered meals. So if there are any seniors or caregivers listening and you need some resources, you can reach out to the CAPCOG Aging and Disability Resource Center at 512-916-6062. And we also have representation from the Kyle Area Senior Zone here, so I want to go ahead and introduce them as well.

Perfect. Let's do it.

Before we move on, I'm a yes on this, by the way.

She wasn't here for the roll call vote.

Oh, okay. Got it.

Hi, I'm Betty Conley, president of the Kyle Area Senior Zone. And I want to thank you, Judge and Commissioners, for always backing us up and helping us. Tuesdays are our lunch days, and I'm feeding 90 people. Without your help, we would not be able to feed the people of Cal, the seniors. Seniors are... living longer, but there's the problem of depression and isolation. And we, as CAS, we want to minister to those seniors and disabled adults for their social health and general welfare. We provide support, encourage with meetings, events, education, recreation, nutritional, CAS's goal is to inform, educate, and assist members and the community on matters that affect their ability and quality of life and general welfare. CAS networks with government agencies, elective officials, social civil organizations, businesses, and other entities to improve, promote, and advocate the age-listed topics. CAS is a hub for our seniors. For their senior welfare, we are a focal point. It involves enrichment and empower for the seniors and the community. CAS is a resource for the community to tap in on age-related topics to provide resources, services, and activities that enhance seniors and their quality of life. They continue to thrive. CAS has connected individuals to much needed medical equipment and helped connect adult children to resources so they can take care of their parents. CAS's oldest member and active member is 92. CAS has gone beyond the walls and has empowered their members to be active in the community. Seniors are volunteering with the city desks, park and recs, library, Seton Hospital, train depot, Meals on Wheels, neighborhood communities, and schools. CAS has generated programs that bridge generation to generation and were mending gaps in the diverse community. Thank you. This is Ellen.

We're both residents of Kyle and Hays County. We're appreciative for the support that we get. We're also grateful that they're throwing a larger net for other nonprofits. There are many new profits. I would beg you to put more money in the pot. We'll have a lot more people coming to the table as we should, but the pot has not grown in many, many years. So if you could move it up on your budget agenda, it would be a great asset for our community. We do many community involvement activities, fitness programs, musics and crafts, health and wellness programs, and social wellness. We've left a newsletter and a list of achievements for each of you, and I will leave many of the newsletters here for other citizens. Thank you. We appreciate your support.

I wanted you to look at your May calendar. That is only halfway full. We are moving to a new building, and we anticipated to move June 4th, and now it's delayed to July. So the calendar, if you look at it halfway and add more, you'll see how active we are in the community. Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you.

A final note. The new facility is four times the size of our current facility, so we will be expanding, and we are depending on your continued support. Thank you. Great point.

Commissioner Smith?

Aye. I've been to the center, and I love it. I also want to compliment our health department for the outreach that they've done to a number of our senior centers in the county and the work that they're doing with our older residents. I think it was an area that I won't say was lacking, but could have used some improvement in the past. And they've been very active in everything from using our mobile vaccine unit to the unused flu vaccination shots that we have for our employees, being able to take those and distribute those at some of the senior centers. So thank you all for y'all's work, and thank you for the work y'all do every day.

Thank you so much for taking care of our elders and to make sure that they're getting some involvement and interaction and they're part of the conversation and part of all of the activities every single day, so I appreciate all that. And I will continue to most likely support you moving forward. But I also wanted to thank our health department. Thank you so much, Matthew, and your team for everything that you all do. You all are definitely very involved in the community, and you continue to increase that involvement, so I appreciate that.

Commissioner?

Well, first, thank you, Matthew, as well, for your work with our aging community and CASD. I know y'all are boots on the ground doing the work every day. I've been to many of y'all events, and they're just wonderful. I love being part of them. Even if you're a young person, I would go to the events because there's a lot of wisdom there for sure. But thank y'all for the resources that you provide. That space of social interaction for people is wonderful, and I just appreciate the work y'all do every day.

Thank you.

Commissioner?

Thank you, Judge. Yes, Matthew, Simone, I want to thank you so much for your willingness to serve on CAPCOG and the Aging Advisory Council and the work that y'all do to advance the well-being of our seniors. And so I appreciate the work there. And Ellen and Betty, thank you so much for just coming and meeting with us so often, you know, just to keep us involved and remind us of the great work that y'all do. You have a wonderful organization that also advances the activities and social communication and just what seniors need. Because I know many times they get lonely, they need that interaction and y'all provide so much of that. And so thank you for the work that you do.

Thank you. I can't wait to see your proposal with your new building because I want to keep supporting you guys in every way possible.

We can't wait either.

Come on up for a picture. Anyone that wants to be here.

Thank you. Alright, let's plug ourselves in. F7.

F7, update from the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment and the Watershed Association regarding the Blanco-Cypress Watershed Protection Plan.

Perfect. There you are.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners.

Carl Flocky, Director of Parks and Natural Resources. And I'm pleased to be joined today by Jenna Walker from the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University. The Meadows Center is one of five partners, along with the Watershed Association, the cities of Wimberley and Wood Creek on the Blanco Cypress Watershed Protection Plan. The BCWPP works to achieve water quality attainment standards within the Blanco River and Cypress Creek but of course has positive impacts on people and the environment well beyond those two watersheds. It is a true partnership leveraging the resources and expertise of our five organizations. And a great example of this partnership and our achievements that we found out about just last week is the award of a $50,000 grant from Texas A&M Forest Service to utilize tree-based solutions towards water quality. And I want to give a big shout out, while I've got the microphone, to Genevieve for her work on that grant. And we hope to be bringing that for approval to the court very soon. Jenna will have other updates on what we've accomplished recently.

Good morning, Court. Thank you so much for this opportunity to provide you all an update. And I do have a presentation.

And just for the viewing public, tell us your name and title.

Yes. So I'm Jenna Walker. I'm Director of Watershed Studies at the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. David Baker with the Watershed Association couldn't make it today. Actually, I think it's the other presentation on there. Was that, yeah, that's I think from our previous update, but there should be one more on that thumb drive. But I'll go ahead and keep speaking. So David Baker with the Watershed Association wanted to be here today, but he is at a doctor's appointment. He's sending his best, and I'm speaking on behalf of both of us. So the Blanco-Cypress Watershed Protection Plan, I think most are familiar with this ongoing project. It's, like Carl said, a collaboration between the county, the cities of Wood Creek, and Wimberley, and the Meadow Center, and the Watershed Association. And it's a coordinated, locally-led framework for long-term protection of Cypress Creek, the Blanco River, and Jacob's Well, the natural resources that anchor water quality, recreation, tourism, property values, and community identity across western Hays County. This plan covers some of Hays County's crown jewels, including Cypress Creek and Jacob's Well, which are also sentinels for the health of our larger watersheds, and they support the identity of our county and attract people from all over the world. They're also under increasing pressure from growth, stormwater runoff, wastewater, land development, and as we all know, drought. Next slide. So I'll just briefly highlight that the Texas Water Development Board releases a state water plan every five years. And so this, you can see in the red, the projections from the 2022 plan, and they just released a draft of their 2027 plan, which is the numbers in purple that are the projected population growth for the next 50, 55 years. And as you can see, those numbers have doubled just within this new plan. So we're expecting even more growth over the next 50 years than we originally expected. And so we have to plan accordingly and smartly. And next slide. With that, keeping in mind what our current water demands are and then what the projections are for the future. You can see the bottom red line is the previous plan. We were expecting a pretty significant raise in our water usage over the next 50 years. And then the blue dot line is the new plan and what we're expecting now with these updated growth projections. So pretty much doubling what we had just recently expected. And so it's going to take a lot of collaboration and sustained support from the county and the state and all of our partners. Next slide. This also highlights the 2022 plan, what we were expecting those sources to be for our water. And as you can see, groundwater was at the top, providing up to 37% of the plan, mostly from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer, partly from the Trinity, and then a slight portion from the Edwards Aquifer. And then, next slide, for the 2027 plan, you can see the groundwater source has moved down the list, and water conservation is now number one. along with other things moving up the list like aquifer storage and recovery, possibly new reservoirs that are off-channel from our local creeks and rivers, and then more drought management and rainwater capture. Next slide, please. So these are some thoughts from the executive director of the Meadows Center, Dr. Robert Mace. seeing that we're going to have to practice much more conservation sources from getting creative with our sources and then incorporating reuse rainwater harvesting and some outside the box thinking. Next slide. So as you can see, people have been coming here for generations to to experience our incredible magical waters here. Next slide. And This is Jacob's Well on a good day when, you know, the creek is flowing and people are enjoying these crystal clear spring-fed waters. Next slide. And you can see the left picture is normal flow and then the right picture is a picture that David Baker took yesterday. So very low flow. It's barely flowing at all even with the recent rains. You know, these are the types of creeks that are sustaining our community health, our tourism, our property values, and we have to work together to protect them. Next slide. So this Watershed Protection Plan has been in place for 18 years now. It was originally funded by the Environmental Protection Agency. Those funds were funneled to the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality. and coordinated by the Meadows Center. And it's a remarkable snapshot of all that have come together over the years, including foundations, academic institutions, state, federal, local government, and so much more. So we really want to continue that momentum. And as the TCEQ likes to say with these types of plans, originally that that federal funding is originally it's designed as seed money and then designed for the local community to really pick up the torch once those funds run out and then carry it forward and that's exactly what the county has done with the interlocal agreement next slide and so once those funds ran out in 2023 the hayes hayes county ROSE TO THE OCCASION AS A LEADER ACROSS THE STATE SETTING THE STAGE FOR HOW WATERSHED PROTECTION PLAN CAN BE DONE ON A LOCAL LEVEL BEYOND FEDERAL FUNDING. SO THE INTERLOCAL AGREEMENT WAS ORIGINALLY DESIGNED FOR A THREE-YEAR PILOT BASE TO SEE HOW IT WAS GOING. EXECUTED IN MAY OF 2024 AND IT'S JUST BEEN A REALLY REMARKABLE past couple of years. Next slide. And I want to highlight some of the accomplishments, including this continued partner coordination. Hays County hired a full-time watershed coordinator specifically for this watershed plan, but then also to be supporting other watershed issues and you know consulting with others around the county we have a new coordinator starting on may 27th she's signed sealed and about to deliver and we're so excited for her to to join our team and represent the county as a leader for watershed protection we've also really progressed the the formalization of implementation, the roles and responsibilities of that, so what is the county's responsibility, what's the Meadows Center gonna be doing, Watershed Association, and really just continuing that momentum for education, engagement, and water quality monitoring and protection. We have also continued that water quality monitoring performed by the Meadows Center and funded fully by Hays County and really grateful for that support. Next slide. So as we move forward, we are now proposing for that interlocal agreement to be adopted as a permanent agreement, as the coordinator to be a permanent position in the funding for the water quality to be permanent and really see this as a way for the group, all of the partners to stay ahead of watershed problems. Seeing the age old phrase of an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We see this as a way to improve our funding competitiveness, just as Carl Carl mentioned with this recent grant, we plan to apply for many more funding opportunities to incorporate the best management practices where they're needed to either address water quality issues or protect them in the future. And see this as improved structure for communication among our partners and stakeholders. And next slide. And so I'm really happy to provide this update on behalf of the executive committee. We see that it should be viewed as a long-term operating framework for watershed protection in the Blanco Cypress watershed and see it as a model for other watersheds as well within the county. It stays guided by annual work plans, partner priorities, and performance tracking. and provides continuity, accountability, and a shared platform that makes implementation possible. So with that, just want to commend Hays County for your leadership and your care for not only your community members, as you've spoken so eloquently today, but also for our rivers and creeks and springs and all of the life that depends on that.

Beautifully done. Thank you so much. What a wonderful presentation. Commissioner Inglesby?

Yeah, Jenna, thank you so much for being here and for sharing this update with us. And I really want to thank the, oh gosh, I'm sorry. The Watershed, I guess, Association and others, the Meadows Center, that does so much work to advance the conservation and preservation of our water resources. It's going to be vital that we continue our great partnership and work together to ensure that we have the water that we need now and for the future. And so, yeah, I think this court has been extremely supportive of those efforts. And, you know, I want to continue to be, and I'm sure the court feels the same way. So thank you.

Well, thank you, Jenna, for your presentation. Very informative. But, you know, we do have a lot of work to do here in Hays County. I'm glad to see the partnerships because that's what it's going to take right at the state level, at the local level and within our own communities, all doing our part to try and conserve and come up with the big ideas. Right. The big strategy, long term regional support, all those things. Right. And so we have a lot of work to do, but I'm confident that we can move in the right direction. by the decisions that we make at the local level and advocating at the state, right? So thank you very much for your presentation. Appreciate it. Commissioner Hammer.

Thank you for, I know I came, I asked you to come and give us an update. We will be talking about the ILA really soon, and I do think it's important for the court to understand what work has been done, what work will continue to be done, and where we see this going. So I appreciate that. One of my favorite things that Dr. Mace says is, he calls us Hayes County residents, Haitians, I saw it in your presentation and it always cracks me up. But the Meadows Center and having the Meadows Center here, what an amazing asset to have in an area which is probably in the most critical water situation in the state of Texas. So it is a blessing to have you all here. These issues are extremely important. Seeing Jacob's Well before and after is just heartbreaking. We need to continue moving the needle in the right direction and continue to get funding from various grants and things of that nature to really bolster up our watershed efforts. So I do appreciate you and everything that you do. So thanks so much.

Again, I reiterate my colleagues' comments about saying thank you for everything the Meadows Center does. And I don't think that... We, as residents of Hays County, sometimes understand the far-reaching impact that the Meadows Center has on water, not only throughout the state, but throughout the nation in different avenues that they choose to pursue. One thing I would say is If you want to learn more about water in Hays County and its importance, the Driftwood Historic Conservation Society, their regularly scheduled meeting is tonight, and Dr. Mace is actually their keynote speaker tonight. So even though he wasn't able to come today, I know he's going to be there tonight, and it's going to be just kind of an open forum on what's going on in Driftwood and with water issues and kind of an overview of the issues. I'd be remiss if I didn't give a plug to the county. And I know many of my colleagues have already had their individual precinct meetings related to our The study that we are currently conducting on both water usage and wastewater, the one in Dripping Springs or for Precinct 4 is going to be tomorrow night from 5 to 7 at the Ranch Park. So I would encourage any of our residents who are interested in that, please come out, learn what we're trying to learn. This is an educational process for us as a county to try to figure out what those needs are, where that source water is coming from, how it's being protected, and then what happens to it once it's been used. And how does that impact our future water supply and future water usage? So I would encourage you to do that. I'd also be remiss to say that if I didn't say that y'all are true warriors, and I mean that in the kindest possible sense, there are those in this county who would love to see organizations like the like David Baker's organization and the watershed folks go away because it would be much easier for them to take advantage of the resources that we have here at the absolute expense of our residents. And y'all don't get kudos for that, but you should. And again, I really appreciate what y'all do and standing up in the face of some of that adversity. And I know that you've heard from my colleagues, I'm more than willing to stand with y'all and fight on what I believe is the right side of these issues specifically for our residents in the face of those who would think otherwise.

Well, thank you so much. And it's funny that you use those pictures of Jacob's Well water flow because I actually made a social media post yesterday and used that body of water as an example of the dire need we have for the awareness. And the governor can have his idea that we want to be data center state capital of the world. And that's OK. That's the governor's prerogative. But it's a tough thing whenever we don't have the resources here in Hays County for it. And so this is an opportunity for me to reiterate what I think is being highlighted here and the fragility and low capacity of our water in Hays County. And you can want to build whatever you want to build, but if we don't have the resources for it, it's going to do us no good. And how many people depend on our drinking water from the groundwater supply? Two and a half million plus? So that's what we're defending, that's what we're fighting for, and that's what you're a part of. So thank you for what you've done, thank you for the presentation, and we need all hands on deck. Thank you. Thank you very much. Please open F8.

F8, update from staff regarding the FY27 budget and strategic plan. Strategic plan.

Second. Good morning, Judge and Commissioners, Candace Boutte, County Administrator. As you all are aware, our FY27 budget process is well underway, and we wanted to take this time to begin our public updates on the budget and strategic plan process. Scott Woodland, our budget officer, will start by sharing some updates on our department budget meetings and highlighting some of the priorities and themes he and his team are hearing. Tucker and myself, we will then walk through our strategic plan efforts and outline next steps. Scott?

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. I want to take a quick minute to just give you an update on where we're at in the FY27 budget process. The departments have submitted their budgets, and I have, as of Friday, met with all the departments other than yourselves and the county administrator. I wanted to make sure I discussed the priorities and the needs of the departments so that I can have that discussion with you. And I will be reaching out to you all in the next week or so to schedule some time and go over... GO OVER YOUR INDIVIDUAL DEPARTMENTAL BUDGETS AS WELL AS A DISCUSSION OVER THE OVERALL COUNTY BUDGETS AND SOME OF THE TRENDS THAT WE'RE SEEING. I DO WANT TO SAY THAT WITH ALL THE DEPARTMENTS, I HAVE CONTINUED THE MESSAGE OF CONSERVATIVE BUDGETS THAT WE DON'T EXPECT A BIG BUMP IN REVENUE THIS YEAR. SO TO BUDGET IN A CONSERVATIVE MANNER SIMILAR TO PRIOR YEARS SO AS TO NOT CREATE A BIG LARGE ADDITIONAL FISCAL IMPACT. The message is really to optimize what we have, both from an equipment and a personnel standpoint, and to limit expansions for this year based off of what the revenue projections have looked like. In most cases, most of the departments complied with that based off their budgets, and really took the message to heart and did a good conservative budget. I WOULD LIKE TO OUTLINE SOME OF THE PRIORITIES. ONE THING I DID WITH EACH DEPARTMENT WAS TO ASK WHAT THEIR TOP THREE PRIORITIES ARE AND I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE SOME OF THOSE PATTERNS THAT I DISCOVERED THROUGH THOSE QUESTIONINGS THROUGHOUT THE DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS. ACROSS THE BOARD, INCREASED SALARIES FOR THEIR STAFF WAS A MAJOR POINT OF EMPHASIS. IF IT WASN'T THE NUMBER ONE priority for just about every department. It was definitely one or two. Another source of needs and requests were equipment needs, especially for our law enforcement, as well as road and bridge and some of our other departments that are more heavily work-oriented. And that's really to help them just do a better, more efficient job. There were two other items that came up continuously. One was new positions and it has been communicated that we are trying to keep any new positions to a minimum, but we are listening to the request with an emphasis being put on anything that is going to save the county money. That is from the perspective of a grant funded position, a position that may allow us to bring in more revenue, or a position that may save expenditures, such as hiring somebody to do something for less cost than what we are paying a contractor to do it for. So those are really the positions that we're looking at and evaluating, and those are gonna be those priority positions there. And then along with that, any requests being made with an emphasis on new requests are being evaluated against the following criteria. We're looking at whether the data SUPPORTS AND JUSTIFIES THE REQUEST, WHAT THE SHORT-TERM OPERATIONAL AS WELL AS FISCAL IMPACT IS, AND ALSO THE LONG-TERM THERE, AND THEN HOW THOSE REQUESTS ALIGN WITH THE COUNTY STRATEGIC PILLARS AND PRIORITIES. NOW, ONE OF THOSE BIG PRIORITIES IS INCREASING SALARIES FOR OUR STAFF. I WOULD LIKE TO LET EVERYONE ERIC, HIS TEAM IN HUMAN RESOURCES, THEY HAVE DONE A SALARY STUDY AND DONE A TERRIFIC JOB OF BRINGING TOGETHER DIFFERENT MARKET SOURCES THAT ARE COMPETITORS TO US IN OUR LOCAL MARKET TO GIVE US A GOOD IDEA OF WHERE WE STAND FROM A SALARY POINT OF VIEW. THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR, HR AND THE BUDGET OFFICE HAVE ALL WORKED TO disseminate that data, ensure that it is accurate, that we're comparing apples to apples, that the job titles are matching, and then determine the fiscal impact from that. And that's still ongoing as far as the fiscal impact goes. And the goal is to try to get our employees as close to market as possible. while still being fiscally responsible. So it would be great if we could get everybody up to market and where the market has them. With that being said, with our resources, we may not be able to get all the way there. So we want to do the best we can while still being fiscally responsible and not neglecting any other parts of the budget. I want to touch upon the capital improvement fund, the CIF fund. We are working to determine what to fund that with, as well as we're balancing the budget, determining what funds we have to put in there. Based off the prior year's audits, we ended up with roughly five months of reserves, which is about where we want to be. We don't know if we want to take much off the top of that. But we do want to do an analysis, see what we can put in there, and then based off the money that we can fund that CIF with, we want to determine if maybe there's some expenditures we want to flow through that fund this year, or depending on what we can fund it with, maybe we just fund it and let it grow and look to budget expenditures in future years. And then lastly, I just wanted to discuss As far as the requests go, we've got them all in. We're getting them all bounced out, making sure we get them into New World Financial System. And then we're looking to have those posted here in the next two weeks with our next steps being reviewing, balancing, and communicating with the departments to get to our requested and really bounce out the budget. And with that being said, before I turn it over to Tucker, I'll take any questions.

I would like to start with this idea. Thank you for the framing. I wrote it down because it's perfect. Thank you for the framing of budget in a conservative manner and optimized, limiting expenses based on revenue projections. We are in a time where folks are having to tighten their belts. Thank you. I don't care about what you think politically is right or wrong, Iran or anyone else. It doesn't matter. It's what we're dealing with. And so it's important that you approach it with that good fiscal conservative lens and that you've taken that as the centerpiece of your opening is really good for me because that's where my heart lies. So thank you for that. And just like Matthew did with the proclamation on nurses, he said we had 1,000, blah, blah, number exact of patients that were seen because of our staff. And I've talked to Candace before about this many months already building up to it and continue to remind at this moment, when I don't care the department, fill in the blank, when someone is asking for more staff justify it as Matthew has. You have this many X, what are you doing with them? And tell us why you need more and what's the industry standard. Let's help them make their argument. Let's fully support our elected officials and department heads to the best of our abilities, but at the same time defend it intelligently. And this seems to me as you are taking that approach and I am just publicly thanking you for that effort. Commissioner Smith.

I would just say I want to thank Candace and Tucker and Scott for reaching out to the members of the court to discuss our overall budget priorities and the conversations that we've had with the individual departments out there. All of the things we talked about yesterday, you hit those points, and I appreciate that. I will say when it comes to, and this is just me framing where I'm going to be for the next four to five months as we work through the budget process, There are several departments that, because of state statute and changes in mandates over the last two legislative sessions, we've seen that more and more of that work that would be held or done by other agencies are being dumped into our lap as a county. However, even though I feel that we are going to have to have those additional personnel, especially knowing what the legislature is looking at in January of FY27, there are positions there that can give us efficiencies of scale that will actually help generate some revenue for the county at the same time as assisting us in meeting those mandates. And what I mean by that is if we look at our fire marshal's office, if we look at our development services department, if we look at our transportation department, We have very strict and stringent mandates by the state that we must approve these permits, we must approve these plats, we must approve any applications they have to us within 30 days. That is a very hard thing to do. What I will say, though, is with each one of those individual items that I just mentioned, there is revenue generated by the county for those positions whenever they complete that work. And therefore, they're pay-for positions. If we hire additional staff in those areas, what we've seen over the last at least five physical years is those staff pay for themselves very quickly. And so I will tell you, The only exception outside that that I have a true passion for is we as a court made a very strong commitment last year when we stood up the Parks and Rec Department for the first time or Parks and Open Space Department that we would have a graduated process as to how we staff that department. We made some considerations last year in the first year of that department. As we move into year two, we know that Sentinel Peak is coming online. And we know that there will be other demands on that department. And so I think that we have made a commitment to move forward with positions in that department as those facilities come online. As we had discussed in our conversation yesterday, and I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to speak with Director Flocky about this, but one thing i want to look at as we move forward is the real delivery date for sentinel peak like what what month are we going to get those the those facilities in line and how do we build out that staff maybe you don't need all that staff october 1. but as that as those facilities come online we are going to need those staff and and so if it's april 1 then we we we save half a year or we target when we hire those positions in order to have some cost savings there. The other thing that will be a major priority for me is we have taken so much, we have taken so many roadways into the county over the last several years within our budget process that We got to a point, and I applaud my colleagues on the court, for the last two fiscal years, we've actually increased road and bridge substantially on the maintenance side because we realize that we don't, it's almost like we're ordering dessert when we have to take those roadways, and we're not being able to finish the meal that we have on our plate or take care of the meal that's on our plate. And so that's a huge priority for me, and I'll probably be advocating for additional funding there I think the salary survey is long overdue. I appreciate Eric and his folks in HR for completing that. And I think that we also have to live with the realization that CBA or the collective bargaining agreement for our law enforcement is this year and understanding that we are going to have to budget for that in this budget. And so all of those are major expenses, but some of them are truly, I believe, in very short order pay-fors because history has proven that those positions have been able to more than pay for themselves. And with that, that's, again, just kind of my framework as we move into the budget process of what my prioritization and where I'm looking at.

Thank you, Commissioner. And, yes, as regards to Sentinel Peak, we've been having those discussions, and I'm happy to loop you into those, but we kind of know where we're headed in that direction. So we can totally loop you into those conversations. But as it comes to... where we're at from a salary study perspective to new positions to all of the different things. I think what you said is important to take into consideration, but I also think it's extremely important to understand that we had a 1.4% in fiscal growth last year, not expected to have any more this year. So where does that put us, and what do we need to either A, cut back on, or what do we really need to start penny-pinching to be able to get the priorities that we need as a as a court and as a county done. So I do think that that's important and it's going to be hard conversations, but it's necessary conversations to be able to have financial sustainability for years and years to come. So I do think it's important that every department, when it comes to what positions that they are requesting, we have data, we have justification, we have solid concrete numbers to show if it is going to pay for itself, When does it start paying for itself? How long does that take? What is the number of permits that have to be done to be able to make that position pay for itself? So I think that all these numbers are important and that they don't go in blind to a situation where I want them to be prepared and set up for success. So those are my thoughts.

Thank you, Commissioner. I hear an echo. There it is. Commissioner Cohen.

First, thank you, Candice and Scott and Tucker and everyone that's on the team, the strategic plan team, for all the work that y'all are doing. I'm truly excited for this budget cycle this year. I feel with the strategic plan being introduced, that being developed, us receiving the community input, having that foundational base to help guide our decisions and finally having some clear priorities and where we need to go fiscally as a county, it gives me just like, okay, I feel a lot better going into this budget cycle. And in regards to the salary, I mean, I think in 23, that's when we learned that the county was paying, we were 11% below the minimum, right? So we have a long way to catch up. And we knew that that was gonna continue over the next few years, right? And I'm glad, Eric, that you're on that mission to help bring people, our employees to that level and where they should be paid because they are the backbone of this county. And so we do need to take care of them, but I do appreciate the conservative underlying of our budget. We knew it was going to be, but we've been sharing that messaging internally with our own departments. You know, this is the way it's going to probably be, you know, start thinking outside the box, start thinking efficiencies and and what we could do. Right. And so but to Commissioner Smith's point, I mean, there are some statutory things that we have to do. We have to do right. But I'm very confident in this team and this court to do the right, make the right decisions for us in the future. And I'm truly looking forward to to the whole budget process. DID THIS HOLISTICALLY. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THAT WORK.

I'M GOING TO ECHO SOME OF THE SAME COMMENTS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN MADE. FIRST OF ALL LET ME JUST THANK THE TEAM AND I MAY NOT HAVE EVERYBODY BUT SCOTT, ERIC, CANDICE, TUCKER AND EVERYONE ELSE THAT HAS BEEN INVOLVED. I REALLY APPRECIATE THE CONSERVATIVE APPROACH, THE DATA DRIVEN APPROACH. YOU REALLY HAVE TO TAKE THE TIME to evaluate those needs, as my colleagues have said. I do appreciate us, Eric, and the work that you've done to go out and do this market study. We've gotten close many times. We've made strides, I think, but I think we do need to try our best to bring everybody up to market, or as close as possible. be possible to do everything in one year. But whatever commitment we make, we have to move forward with it and see it through. And so and also I would say, you know, I really appreciate Aaron Jones and his leadership. And, you know, no matter what is being said out in the public, we are getting significant improvements to our roads AND OUR TRANSPORTATION NEEDS. AARON, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE WORK THAT YOU DO. I KNOW THAT YOU ALL NEED MORE EQUIPMENT AS OTHERS DEPARTMENTS DO TO ADVANCE THOSE STRATEGIES AND IMPROVEMENTS. AND SO THAT'S GOING TO BE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO ME. BUT, YEAH, I LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING MORE INFORMATION AND RECEIVING THOSE BUDGET REQUESTS AND SEEING HOW WE CAN WORK TOGETHER TO DO WHAT WE CAN FOR OUR EMPLOYEES.

What else, Candace?

So really quickly, we just want to give an update on our strategic plan efforts. Court, as you're aware, staff that reports up through the county administrator's office, as well as our transportation team, we've been working with you all to look at the strategic pillars and those priorities as we see them through our lens. I will go over them very quickly, but with the big caveat that we know that this is just the first step in this approach as we continue to work with our other stakeholders. But our current four strategic pillars that we are building the budget around is partnership and collaboration. Again, the idea that we're continuing to foster positive relationships with our sister cities and community partners, making sure that the county is investing in mutually beneficial contracts and partnerships. Community well-being, ensuring that all of our residents, no matter where they live in the county, have a high quality of life. INFRASTRUCTURE AND SUSTAINABLE GROWTH. AS WE CONTINUE TO EXPERIENCE UNPRECEDENTED GROWTH, WE ARE ENSURING THAT THE INFRASTRUCTURE THAT WE'RE SETTING IN PLACE, I.E., OUR ROADS, OUR FACILITIES, OUR PARKS AND NATURAL PRESERVES ARE BEING BUILT THOUGHTFULLY AND THAT WE ARE ALSO BEING GOOD STEWARDS OF OUR FINANCES AS WE THINK THROUGH THOSE PROCESSES AND CONTINUE THROUGH THOSE PROJECTS. AND LASTLY, OUR GOVERNANCE AND WORKFORCE AND ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY. This all evolves around investing in our greatest assets, our county employees, and ensuring that we're building and implementing structures that support them and allow our employees to have the resources they need to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. So the next step as we continue through this process is to make sure that, again, our plan is comprehensive and that we are meeting with all stakeholders AND THAT WILL BE DONE THROUGH A MULTIPLE STEP APPROACH. FIRST OBVIOUSLY WITH OUR BUDGET PROCESS WE WANTED TO DO THIS IN TANDEM TO ENSURE THAT WE ARE IDENTIFYING THOSE UNDERLYING THEMES AND WE'RE LOOKING FOR WAYS WHERE THE THEMES WE SEE We are making sure those are priorities and funding that through the budget. Obviously, as Scott mentioned, him and his team have been meeting with the departments. They've had lengthy conversations, and we will continue to review and analyze the data with the departments. to make sure that the recommended budget reflects that. Secondly, you all will see in June the award of a public engagement pool, RFP, which we will utilize one of the selected firms to help us do that outreach, not only to our internal stakeholders, but also to the public. Our plan is to hold forums in each of the precincts to make sure that the public is in line and that they are given the opportunity to provide feedback to us so that we can incorporate that into the plan. And then lastly, with the addition of Tucker Furlow to our office, he has been meeting with our criminal justice partners to better understand their needs. and see how we can continue as an office to serve as a resource to them and to help them carry out their office's vision and ensure that it aligns with the court's plan. So, Tucker, do you want to talk a little bit more about those efforts? Yes.

Thank you. Thank you, Candace. Tucker Furlow, Deputy County Administrator. Good morning, court and baby Henry. I want to say some thanks also to start with to a couple people, Candace, Simone, Genevieve, Matthew, Scott, Eric, and to our people that you don't really see at the front line all the time, our department heads and our directors and their teams that are going to make these strategic initiatives a success. Today, on behalf of me, I want to just touch base on a couple of things, one minor and one major. The minor is not that it will be minor in the future, but for right now's purposes, is in addition to helping Candace and her team with all of the things that she is busy with, I started off focusing on two main things. One, helping to be a legislative liaison over the next year on behalf of you, the court, and our county. And I know and I'm thankful to have met with all of you and to spend time on what that looks like, but having those conversations up with the state so that we can help magnify the things that we need here locally in Hayes County. Secondly, I want to touch on what Candace mentioned, which is our criminal justice system. I've been blessed and thankful over the last couple months to have met with many of our key stakeholders in the criminal justice field to let them know that on behalf of the Office of County Administrator that we are going to be a voice for them. We are going to listen to them and make it to where we are all on the same train, going in the same direction over the next year and five years whenever we institute these strategic initiatives. What I foresee for our county is building a criminal justice system that is coordinated, modern, accountable, and sustainable for both today and the years that are to come. As the court is aware, the Office of the County Administrator has been working to establish and to strengthen five core strategic pillars across our county's operations. The criminal justice system initiatives represents the fifth of those strategic pillars, recognizing both the complexity and the importance of criminal justice operations within our county government structure. Over the past several months, I've had the opportunity to meet, as I've let you know, with the vast majority of our stakeholders involved in our criminal justice system. That includes representatives from law enforcement, the judiciary, prosecution, defense, pretrial services, probation, behavioral health, juvenile, emergency communications, IT, finance, and related operational areas. Those conversations have been extremely valuable. and I intend to continue meeting with additional stakeholders moving forward as this initiative continues to develop. The goal here is not simply to build a new system, but the goal is to build a connected system, a system where information will flow appropriately and efficiently, a system where technology will support decision-making on behalf of many, emphasizing our law enforcement, a system where jail population pressures case processing delays, staffing demands, mental health needs, and the public safety concerns are addressed collaboratively rather than reactively. And importantly, a system that respects both accountability and our constitutional protections. The Office of County Administrators uniquely positioned in order to help coordinate this effort because these challenges do not belong to any one of our offices alone. They affect county finances, personnel, facilities, technology, operations, and long-term strategic planning. Addressing those issues requires coordination, transparency, and sustained partnership among our stakeholders, not isolated decision-making or unintended silo effects on behalf of our departments. You, the Commissioner's Court, plays a critical role in that success, and so my office is going to listen to you all diligently over the next year to find out what those principles and priorities you have in tandem with our criminal justice system and our stakeholders. It's not only gonna be through budgetary support, but it's gonna be through long range planning, prioritization of capital and technology investments, support for staffing and operational efficiencies, and ensuring that the county is planning not just for our current demands, but for future growth and future criminal justice needs as well. This initiative will allow the court to evaluate our criminal justice system holistically. A couple of thoughts. One, where our operational gaps may exist, as I'm discussing with our stakeholders, I like to call those opportunities, not weaknesses. Where resources are under strain, where technology may improve efficiency, and where proactive planning today can prevent significantly greater costs tomorrow. Importantly, today is not just intended to present finalized recommendations or conclusions to you all. Rather, this is a continued development of coordinated strategic framework. As additional stakeholder meetings will occur and further analysis is completed, I will bring forth more specific recommendations, initiatives, operational considerations, and potential future planning items to you for the Commissioner's Court to discuss and consider. Because when the criminal justice system functions efficiently, many things will happen. Victims will receive justice more quickly, defendants will move through our system more fairly, law enforcement resources will be used more effectively, taxpayers will save money, and public confidence will increase. This fifth strategic initiative is about creating a framework where stakeholders and commissioners court will work together to responsibly plan, budget, and build a criminal justice system that is effective, transparent, and fiscally responsive, and that we prepare for our county's future. That said, thank you. And if you have any questions, I'm happy to help answer those.

I am so grateful that you talked about those points. And although it was your fifth pillar, it was well covered because folks need to realize that we had none of these systems in place and we have put them online. And so now it's time now that we have enough. to create that synergy that you're describing. And so long range planning on that front is absolutely magnificent. What I am grateful for is that we have the big brothers and sisters of neighboring counties throughout our state and our nation that have the higher populations that have had the heartaches and the issues and the solutions tried and solutions failed. We can learn from them. And we see best practices. And so we don't have to reinvent the wheel. And so I'm very grateful that we have moved the needle as aggressively as we have. Many people may say it's not done. We know. It's not ready. We know. But the place is moving in a magnificent manner. I really like what you said about constitutional protections. Can you expand on what you meant by that in your presentation?

YES, I WILL, WHENEVER I MEET WITH YOU ALL, BUT I ALSO WANT TO HAVE THOSE COMMUNICATIONS WITH OUR LEGAL TEAM BEFORE I PROVIDE SPECIFICS WHEN I MENTION CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION.

PERFECT. THANK YOU. YOU'RE WELCOME. I GET IT. In so much judicial dialogue and our law enforcement first responders and all the space you described, I do want to make sure that people know that our union that is very well supported and very strong here for our law enforcement is something that we always support and we always move through the conversation on. But what is the estimated cost for that pay increase do we know so far? Is it about...

We will bring those numbers back to the court. Just as an FYI, Eric did submit to the association the numbers for the markets we compare with based on THE AGREEMENTS MADE IN THE CBA. WE ARE ALLOWING EACH GROUP TO REVIEW THE INFORMATION AND PROVIDE ANY FEEDBACK. AND WE WILL MEET IN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS TO FURTHER THE CONVERSATION. OKAY.

PERFECT.

Well, Tucker, thank you so much. It was a great presentation, discussion, and I'm really looking forward to the legislative liaison that you are going to provide us. I think it's going to be extremely important, as you have heard us talk about our needs here locally, especially when it comes to water and data centers and other big items that we're going to be facing here. So I really appreciate all the visits that you've made. I mean, it's tremendous. You've done a lot in that short amount of time, and I really appreciate all that you're doing and looking forward to learning more and working with you closely and trying to accomplish the things that are extremely important to Hays County. So thank you.

Well, Tucker, thank you for the presentation. Yes, as Commissioner Inglesby said, it's going to be great to have Um, true representation for the county at the state legislative level, really staying in tune with what's going on. What do we as a court need to go down to the state to advocate for those kinds of conversations that, that I welcome definitely, um, here for the county, but as far as the criminal justice pillar side, I am really excited about that. Uh, thank you for having those conversations with people and putting any. you know, hesitation or what, you know, what we're trying to do here as a core, we're really just trying to, to bring everything in alignment. And so we have a better understanding of what every area is doing and how can we address the gaps in, in those conversations, right? How can we help each other through, through that, through that work? Um, and also just a really important piece of it is community, you know, as we're having, these conversations internally with all these departments. We also not don't want to forget the community as well, because there are many advocate groups within the county that fight for, you know, fair justice and those things. So we definitely want to include them into that conversation as well. But I am really excited. I know these are baby steps. You know, we are planting the seeds. We are having the conversations and it begins that way. And so I really look forward to the future of this. So thank you so much for your work. Commissioner Habert.

Thank you, Tucker. And to the Office of the County Administrator's Office, I very much appreciate you all taking time and focusing on this and really diving deep into it. So, I mean, over 60% of our budget goes to our criminal justice system. So for us, in my opinion, I feel like we don't always have the best understanding of what is going on, what their priorities are. And they do feel a little siloed sometimes. So bringing them into the conversation, creating a holistic approach, especially when looking at our budget, I think is of extreme importance. When you say legislative liaison, are we then going to be replacing Tucker within the role of the legislative liaison for our current? That would save us some money in the budget. I'm just trying to save money.

So I believe we will continue to engage the court, obviously, since this will be Tucker's first year We want to continue to have the consultant there, but he will be working in tandem to make sure that information is not only disseminated to the court, but also our other elected officials and staff. So if this goes well, then we will have a conversation with the court if you'd like for us to continue on that contract, or maybe have a hybrid approach of the two.

Yeah, no, and I think that that's, I mean, as long as we're reaching that sustainability from a financial perspective, I think it's important. I think there wouldn't be a better person in the county to represent us in the legislature than Tucker, so I appreciate that.

To that point, I anticipate that prior to, as we move through the budget process and prior to the legislative session, we've had the conversation that what we have to realize is if we want an internal employee to do that full-time, then we lose them for six months every other year. And so I don't know that I would like to lose that employee for six months or for 180 days every other year. But there are also other benefits that I would like to do an active or an open RFQ for that prior to 2027. Whether that happens before the budget process or not, I'm not sure. But I do think that we need to really look at making changes there because As the member of this court that I can say unequivocally has been up there more days than anybody else for the last three sessions, I don't know that we're being as well represented as we could be, and I think there's an opportunity there for us to have some vastly improved representation. A couple of points I just want to make, and I've said this over a number of budget cycles, and people probably get tired of it, but we as a court have made massive, massive investment in the criminal justice side since I've been here and you've been here, Judge. And while we do those things, one of the things that we have had a larger investment in than anything is our pretrial services. our public defender's office, several of those areas that truly focus on the defendants within our criminal justice system. And I think that's very important. But I do want to make two statements about that. Number one, I've been a huge advocate that we need to also be cognizant in putting dollars into those victim services side as well. Because if we We're charged, we aren't, our judicial branch here in the county and at the district level is charged with maintaining that scale of justice. And as we put more and more dollars into one side, I just want to ensure that the victims and their families in these situations get equal representation. And if we can, and we provide those services, I just want to make sure they're adequate. Conversely, as we put dollars into the, those citizens are a huge, Huge population of our defendants are not citizens of Hayes County. We're a corridor county, and so a lot of our defendants here are not from Hayes County. But nevertheless, they deserve good representation. And I know we've talked about it in court before, but I have heard complaints that the representation they're getting, not from the wheel, but specifically from our PDO office, is inadequate or hasn't been adequate. And I want to ensure that they get the best representation possible. So creating a dynamic or a metrics to measure that I know is a very difficult task because you can't base it off wins and losses in a courtroom. And I'm not sure how you create that dynamic or matrix, but somehow evaluating what we're getting and the value of that as opposed to how good they're doing for those citizens in those situations, I think is something that we really have to focus on. The last thing I would say is as we start to move forward and we look at what that tax rate is going to look like and what these individual items that we are mentioning will cost, Judge, I know you just asked about the CBO. I want to say the last time we did a CBO, like a midway CBO, it was like $2.4 or $2.5 million was what the cost was. I have no idea what it will be now, but I just want that people thinking when we say we're looking at the CBA, it's not like $200,000. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money, and it's very expensive. It's worth it, but it's very expensive, and I appreciate Commissioner Hammer and Commissioner Inglesby sitting on that CBA. The one thing I would say as we look at that tax rate is right now – There are over 76%, it's actually 76.4% of the counties in the state of Texas have a higher tax rate than Hays County. If you look at all 254 counties as a whole, we're ranked at 23.4%. The average tax rate for a county in the state is 45.6 cents. We're at 39.99 cents. And so I think that for all the services and all of the things that our county does, we provide those services that are at a greater value than the vast majority of the state. And I think most of our citizens would say that when we look at things like law enforcement and judiciary and our roadway department, and others that they see on a daily basis, those interactions with our employees, I think they feel like they get a good value for it. And I think that we're delivering a really good product at a really low rate. And given the economy that we have now, everything that we're doing is costing us more money, just like the average household and the average business is facing on a daily basis. And so as we go into our rate discussions, We are going to have to figure out what our bills are, and we're going to have to balance that budget. Under state law, we have to have a 100% balanced budget. That's why you see us accepting donations of $25 to the Sheriff's Department if somebody gives it to us, because under state law, we have to accept that and take action to do so. I just anticipate that we're going to have to look at a different tax rate, and I just want our citizens to be prepared for that.

And... Anything else? Nothing else. Stay with me, folks. I'm going to try to do this. J1, 5, 4, and 14, and then a recess. Open J1.

J1, discussion and possible action to authorize the execution of a resolution related to the historical declaration of the 1871 Bering Tree. So moved.

Second. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. Got you first. Commissioner?

Yeah, so I know we've got the Johnsons. We've got Kate and Lucy Johnson here. I know Kate wanted to speak a little bit on it, but what I will say is that basically I was approached regarding this tree, and there's a tree in Kyle, Texas. It's called the 1871 Bering Tree. This was one of the trees during the Texas settlement that was used as a landmarker to help with surveyors, and it's extremely rare. There is currently proposed design to potentially take the tree out within the city of Kyle, and approached by several people to look at it and to kind of give a little bit more of an understanding on it, and if this tree is recognized by the state as a historical landmark or maybe We have a shot of protecting and saving the tree and rerouting a design or whatever that looks like for the city of Kyle, but having the county support in those efforts might be a helpful tool. But I do want Kate to also speak.

I was just about to ask, Ms. Johnson, would you like to add anything to that conversation? If you'll state your name and title for the viewing public.

I have like three titles.

Whichever one that's relevant to this agenda item.

Well, I am the president of Preservation Associates, Inc. I did have a speech, but, you know, this is a very important tree. 1871, 155 years ago. What makes this tree so remarkable is that it's part of our legal and historical record. This very tree is specifically referenced in the deed of the Franke family, marking a historic corner that helped establish and define some of the original land-grant boundaries here in Hays County. Thanks to the professional research of surveyor Kent McMillan, we now know this remarkable tree has likely been growing since 1776, the same year our nation was born. As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, it is truly humbling to stand before something living that has witnessed nearly every chapter of that history. Today, by recognizing this 1871 Bering tree, you are doing more than preserving a tree. You are helping preserve a living connection to the people the land and the history that built Hays County. Now Preservation Associates, we are going to be doing a historical marker, applying for historical marker for the tree. And several other people through Preservation Texas will be doing a state antiquities landmark for the tree where the state comes into play. But your support will really start The ball rolling.

Wonderfully said. Commissioners, anything to add or contribute?

There you go.

Ms. Johnson, Kate, thank you so much for being here and providing that information. I think, you know, as a county, we've done, have given letters of support, proclamations, you know, to such important projects such as this. And so I'm certainly willing to do whatever we can, Commissioner, with your leadership to help preserve this wonderful tree. So thank you. Wonderful.

Commissioner Cohen, anything else? Thank you, Ms. Johnson, for being here and Commissioner Hammer for bringing this Agenda item and you know, we do want to protect Very important pieces of our Hays County, right? I mean we've heard it all morning about trying to preserve and protect our natural resources And and this is just one of them so I'm happy to help support Commissioner Smith, just a couple of questions It it is in your precinct, right?

And what is the project that's proposed to remove the tree by the city of Kyle? Did you say that there's a project that the city of Kyle is proposing?

Yes, they want to cut down the tree to widen the north old Stagecoach Road.

North Old Stagecoach. Right. I just want to make sure that there's a commitment from the commissioner to work with them on whatever the reroute is or whatever that they need to do. And I'm 100% supportive of the ask, but I know that we run into situations where we have municipalities on our projects pass resolutions or try to have an impact on what we're doing, and at times they choose not to work with us. uh they are very good at pointing out a problem and not not willing to work with us to try to find a solution so with your commitment that you're going to work with the city of cal i'm happy to support absolutely i always believe in mobility and safety and um bettering our roads but i also believe that it can work hand in hand with preserving and protecting our natural resources so agreed well done well in that case please is there something to read or is it just uh

If we want to read it.

There is a resolution. If you'll read the resolution, please. Do you have it in the back up there?

I have it right here.

I'm pulling it up now.

I have it.

Oh, it's fine print.

A resolution of Hayes County Commissioner's Court recognizing the historical, cultural, and surviving significance of the 1871 Bering tree located along North Old Stagecoach Road in the city of Kyle Hayes County, declaring said tree a historical landmark worthy of preservation and calling for its protection for future generations. Whereas a certain live oak tree located in the property of Alton and Deanna Frankie at 1501 North Old Stagecoach Road in Kyle, Texas has been professionally identified by registered professionals, land surveyor Kent Neal McMillan, as an original 19th century bearing tree or witness tree. And whereas bearing trees are intentionally marked by early Texas surveyors to permanently identify, reference, and preserve original land boundaries during the settlement of Texas and serve publicity, visible locations are exceptionally rare. And whereas surveyor Kent Neal McMillan, Texas registered professional land surveyor, Number 4341 in Surveyor Report Number 21-1124, dated May 1st, 2026, concluded that this live oak is the identical tree referenced in an 1871 deed prepared under the authority of Hays County Surveyor, Benjamin Columbus Hardin, describing a live oak marked X. And whereas physical evidence in the original surveyors is Surveyor's X marking remains faintly visible in the bark of said tree, providing rare and tangible evidence of early surveying practices in Hays County, and whereas Kent McGillen's measurements document that the 1871 Bering tree measures 23 inches in diameter in 2002 and 25.5 inches in diameter in 2026, confirming a consistent growth of rate of approximately one inch every 10 years, and whereas based upon its documented rate of growth in the original 1871 survey describing the tree as 10 inches in diameter in 1871, Bering Tree began growing at approximately the time of the founding of the United States of America, making this living survey moment nearly as old as the nation itself, and whereas the United States commemorates its 250th anniversary, the removal, destruction, or impact to the 1871 Bering Tree, a rare surviving witness tree marking the early boundaries of Hays County would represent an irreplaceable loss of American, Texas, and local heritage. And whereas this tree has stood as a silent witness to the settlement surviving transportation and agriculture development of Hays County for approximately 155 years, as marked bearing tree and is believed to be among the last surviving public visible bearing trees in Hays County and whereas the preservation of historical significantly cultural landscapes, survey moments and natural landmarks contribute to the protection of the heritage, identity and educational legacy of the citizens of Hays County. Now therefore be it resolved that one Hays County Commissioner's Court hereby formally recognize the 1871 Bering Tree as historically significant landmark and the irreplaceable monument to the early settlement and surviving history of Hays County. Two, the Hays County Commissioner Court declares that every reasonable effort shall be made to preserve, protect, and avoid damage to the 1871 Bering Tree, its root zone, canopy, surrounding landscape, and associated historic context. Three, the Hays County Commissioner's Court ENCOURAGES CONSULTATION WITH THE TEXAS HISTORICAL COMMISSION QUALIFIED CULTURAL RESOURCE PROFESSIONALS, HISTORIAN, ARBITRISTS AND SURVEY EXPERTS TO EVALUATE APPROPRIATE HISTORIC DESIGNATION, LANDMARK PROTECTION AND PERMANENT PRESERVATION MEASURED FOR THE 1871 BEARING TREE. FOR A COPY OF THIS RESOLUTION SHALL BE TRANSMITTED TO THE CITY OF KYLE, HAYES COUNTY DEPARTMENTS, THE TEXAS HISTORICAL COMMISSION AND ALL AGENCIES OR involved in planning or infrastructure decisions affecting North Old Stagecoach Road. Adopted this the 12th day of May, 2026. Well done.

Thank you very much. Please call the roll. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.

Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes. J5 and then open J4 and 14 together. And then the recess.

J5, discussion and possible action to execute an updated service provider agreement between certified payments in Hays County to allow the use of certified payments as new payment processor for the Justice of the Peace Precinct 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 3, 4, and 5 offices in the Treasurer's Office to ratify execution of the Bureau Setup Forms The District Clerk, County Clerk, Development Services, and Transportation Department currently utilize the certified payments as their payment processor and will continue under this new agreement and authorize the discretionary exemption pursuant to Texas Local Government Code Chapter 262.024A4. Second.

We have a motion and a second. Would you like to approach the podium and give us a bit of background? In as tidy a way as you can do it.

Good morning, Daphne Tenorio, Hays County Treasurer. We spoke about the issues we had been having with our credit card processing company, GovPay. This has been a collaboration to get us onto a new processing center, and we are ready to roll. Just needed a positive vote. Thank you.

Perfect. Anything else to add on your end? No? Okay. Commissioners, any questions or comments? How quickly is implementation?

June 1st.

Okay. Anything else? We're good. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes. J4 and 14 together, please.

J4, discussion and possible action to authorize the Sheriff's Office to provide qualified retired law enforcement officers an opportunity to demonstrate weapon proficiency and issue certified of proficiency pursuant to Section 1701.357 of the Texas Occupations Code. J-14, discussion and possible action to award RFP 2026-P11 Promotional Testing Services Sheriff's Office to Industrial slash Organizational Solutions, Inc., and authorize staff in the Criminal District Attorney's Civil Division to negotiate a contract. So moved.

Second. That motion was to open both. They're both open. Feel free. Yes, sir. State your name and title.

Good morning, Judge, Commissioner. Jimmy Schrader, Inspector with the Office of Professional Responsibility for the Sheriff's Office. I'm speaking on J4. The Occupations Code provides that law enforcement agencies may provide a process for issuing a certificate of weapons proficiency for certain required or certain qualified retired law enforcement officers. This is part of a process to issue them a retired credentials, which is they shall be provided by the last appointing law enforcement agency according to the government code. We would prefer to provide the certification process, obviously, to ensure that the retirees meet our standards, so we're requesting a court approval.

Wonderful. Thank you. Commissioners, any questions or comments on that one? Anything to add to the other agenda item? Chief?

We're just seeking approval for the contract, so we can go ahead and get tested and roll it on our timeline.

Very good. Any questions on that one, commissioners? No? Okay. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith? Yes. Judge Becerra? Yes.

Judge, is there any way that we can open G17 and G14? We have some folks needing to go back to their businesses. Absolutely.

I'm following your lead. You bet. G17 and 14, you say?

Yes.

And G12 as well. G12 will be third. That will be 14, 17, and then 12. I thought we were pulling G14.

Well, I guess we're pulling it up.

We're pulling it up. Is that what it was? Yes. All you got to do is text me, folks. We follow you. Okay, please open G14.

G14. Authorize the Veterans Services Office to accept a $2,000 donation from San Marcos Lions Club for Hope for Hayes and amend the budget accordingly. Second. Second.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Good morning, Judge, Commissioners, Jude Prater, Hays County Veterans Service Officer. Before you today is a donation from the Lions Club for $2,000 for our Hope for Hays program, which helps keep veterans and widows' lights on, gas in their cars. And none of this would be possible without the help from our finance department, our grants department, our treasury department. They're so helpful in making sure this grant is a success. I've got some people I want to introduce. Lydia Stratton, she is our case manager and the program manager for Hope for Hays. And Carla Sisk, her father is a pillar in our community and the Lions Club.

Judge commissioners, I'm Lydia Stanton, program case manager, and I work with Hays County Veterans Service Office with G. I work with the TBC Veterans Commission's financial assistance grants for our veterans here in Hays County. Hope for Hays is the name of this grant. Today, I would like to... the Veterans Service Office would like to formally thank the Lions Club for their generous donation to this grant for veterans in this county. Right now, the veterans are Dealing with increases of their utilities bills being higher, costs of gas and groceries, this donation would help assist in that amplified need. And this donation goes 100% to their veteran needs. And again, I'd like to thank you for supporting the Hays County veterans and their families. Thank you, Lions Club.

Well done. You're right. I paid $5 a gallon for diesel just two days ago. It's exactly right. Carla, would you like to add anything with that wonderful vest you're wearing?

Well, howdy, judge and commissioners. And I want to say today, instead of the old lion, you've got the younger lioness. Daddy wanted to say he's sorry he couldn't be here. He's doing soil and water. But speaking of water, y'all, we've heard a lot about water today. And so I want to tell y'all that the Lions Club Tube Rental next year will be our 50th anniversary. And I want to encourage y'all to get your families, grab your friends, go rent a yellow tube and float down our beautiful river today. because every time you do, you're helping us support our community. And this almost 50-year-old business, over the last three years, we've averaged giving close to $400,000, or over $400,000 actually, back to the community every year. That's to people like our veterans, like Hope for Hays. That's to people like at CASA, the food bank, School Fuel, San Marcos River Foundation. And, you know, our lions that work down at the juvenile, about two hours a day, our staff is out there cleaning up around the river. And so we try to be the best guardian of the river, but we use that business to take care of our community and our citizens and give as much to Hays County back as we can. So we thank you for what y'all do and for when y'all support us. And I just want to say it's a sunny day. Y'all go, you know, when you have a chance, go enjoy that river. Go rent a yellow tube and go buy a river taxi and y'all float down and enjoy it and support the Lions Club. And we appreciate the support and we love giving back to the community. And Ms. Linda Coker needs no introduction, but would you like to say something, Linda, for Lions?

Well, there's other Lions in the room. Mike's Alliance. I'm secretary of the Lion Board, and we are so proud to be able to support the community and support our veterans. It's huge for us, and we are very happy to always be here to help.

It is such a perfectly stated, of course you're in marketing, it's a perfectly stated loop of what the Lions Club does, is, and is for. So, so well articulated. Thank you all so much.

And I think this year, the Lions Club, too, we're going to put

Okay, so just very quickly, and I beg y'all's patience, but we are, this year, so we have two brand new TVs that we have put up, and we are not only selling advertising to sort of close the gap from lack of funds from last year with Fourth of July and how it rained, and so we came up with that idea to raise a little more money, but we also wanted to let people know how we support the community. So we have a lot of people like the Houston County Food Bank and some of those that I just named, CASA and School Fuel and the Women's Shelter and all those, and we're showing on that who we're supporting so y'all can see where some of those funds go. Because it's amazing, a lot of people. Thursday night y'all come to Summer in the Park too because we're down there. It's amazing that people don't connect the yellow vest with the yellow tube. And so we're trying to get people to understand that. And with next year being the 50th year, we might be unveiling a new logo at our 85th. I'll also break news if y'all didn't know that this is our 85th year of the Lions Club in San Marcos. And so in November, Friday, November 13th, mark your calendars right now. We're going to have an awesome gala out at the CAF. And so more to come. Y'all hit me up if you want to know about that.

And one more thing. This is the week that we award all our high school students scholarships. I don't know, have the exact amount, but it's close to $50,000 to high school seniors.

60, the high school seniors. Magnificent. Okay. Well, thank you so much. We're going to say some things here.

Yeah, I just want to say this is a perfect example of the Lions in our community. And I really appreciate y'all. If you didn't know, two weeks ago, or pardon me, I guess three weeks ago was the largest weekend of the year for two of our Lions clubs in the county. Founders Day in Dripping Springs was founded by the Lions club. It's their biggest week of the year. The Wiener Dog races in Buda. is run and founded by the Lions Club there. And in Wimberley, the market day has kicked off and we've got some great workers here. One of them sitting at the table down here who cooks for it every time, Aaron. And so we've got some real active Lions in our community. I'm proud to be a Lion since 2012 in Dripping. And thank y'all for the work y'all do. But countywide, our Lions do amazing things for our community.

I love it when you just take the thunder out of my Wimberley market days. But Aaron Jones, always. He's always there. He's always loud and proud lying over there. Pretty much runs Wimberley, I would say. But I will just say thank you so much. You support so many great organizations from, like you were saying, Hayes County Food Bank. You support Mission Able, which we very much appreciate, too. But, no, I'm so excited for your support for our veterans in the county and in our community. And you guys just continue to do the good work. Hopefully that $400,000 turns into $500,000 and you just keep going up and up.

Wonderful. Commissioner? I'm just happy to support the donation. Thank you so much for all the work that y'all have done, all the Lions of the world, for everything that y'all do to support the community. Appreciate it. Commissioner, go ahead.

Well, Lydia, thank you for being here. And Carla, thank you for being here and representing the Lions Club and for all the great work that y'all do and your generosity in supporting our community. So really appreciate you.

My pleasure. Wonderful. Truly an example of what we should be and do. Thank you so much. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith? Yes. Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes. I can't help it, Constable. I haven't gotten a text from you, but are you ready for an agenda item? Yes. Tell me the number. G17. Please open 17. And then yours, Wes?

G17. Approve and confirm the appointment of Leticia Solis and Martin A. Espinosa, a regular full-time deputies in the Hayes County Constable Precinct 1 office, effective date, May 12, 2026. So moved.

Second.

All right.

Constable, thank you for your patience. We're going. Judge, commissioners, thank you. First of all, Judge, commissioners, thank you very much for the previous support of law enforcement. throughout the county in all the departments that we work with, budget, HR, and any others. As you well know, we're always in the need. It's not a want, it's a need. And today I've got two great individuals that law enforcement is not something new to them. Alyssa Salas and Marty Espinosa. These two individuals have been in law enforcement for a very long time. Alyssa, right here. Ladies are always first. Just a little bit about her. and she has her friend with her today that worked with her. APD, retired, has two children that really has never loved law enforcement. She is a Kyle resident, Hays County, and so is Marty Espinosa. Just a little bit about Leticia. She is originally from San Antonio, Texas, She and her husband, who is also in law enforcement, and they are very proud to have two very proud children, the ages of 10 and 13. Family and public service are central to Leticia and her life and career. Leticia earned a Bachelor's of Arts in Physiology from the University of, in Cortana? in Cornell Ward and later obtained a master education from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She began her law enforcement career with Bexar County as a probation officer serving for eight years. In August of 2005, Leticia joined the Austin Police Department where she was dedicated for 20 years of community service. Before retiring in November of 2025, throughout her distinguished career, Letitia has completed over 7,000 hours of law enforcement. That's a lot of law enforcement. And she retired as a sergeant with Austin Police Department. Through the Texas Commission of Law Enforcement, and has earned the following certifications and license, a peace officer, advanced peace officer license, master's peace officer license. I really want to, you know, when we have ladies, females join law enforcement, it is really the top of the line for law enforcement within our United States. And carrying that badge is so important when they come upon and work in a division of law enforcement. They have so much to share and give. We want to welcome Leticia Salas to Hays County Precinct 1 Constable's Office and our community. And with the blessing of the judge and the commissioners to swear her in would be an honor.

Well, thank you. And let's hear about the other ones. We can make a motion at the same time. We can do that.

Marty Espinosa, a lifelong resident Kyle Texas, he and his wife, parents of three sons and a daughter, and are blessed with one granddaughter. Very family values that plays a very important part in Marty's life. Remains close to his parents who are here today, Mr. and Mrs. Espinosa from Kyle, Texas. Marty began his law enforcement career in 1990 as a Kyle Correction Facility Officer. 1991, he continued his service as a correction officer with a Caldwell County Jail. In December of 92, Marty joined the Hays County Jail where he was later given the opportunity to attend the Hays County Sheriff's Office Police Academy. In 1996, Marty became a full-time deputy with the Hays County Sheriff's Office, serving the community in a various assembly of a lot of ways. His role included patrol sergeant, motorcycle officer, transportation division deputy. Marty retired from the Sheriff's Office in March of 21. After many years of dedication service, Marty has completed more than 2,000 training hours through Texas Commission of Law Enforcement. Master's Peace Officer, Court Security, Advanced Peace Officer, Mental Health, and as I said, motorcycle certifications also.

magnificent commissioners comments or vote first we can vote first okay please call the roll on these magnificent contributions Constable thank you for looping them in Commissioner Inglesby yes Commissioner Smith yes Commissioner Cohen yes Commissioner Hammer yes Judge Becerra yes now it's official Commissioner yeah I think they do they need to be they need to be

Okay.

Just one question. I assume that you're going to be asking for another motor unit.

I'm sorry.

No answer? Constable, come on. Let's do it up here with the backdrop.

And how about the parents come up too? Okay.

Congratulations. What's caught you? Oh, you're wired. Thank you. For the county of Hayes.

State of Texas and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States and of this state.

I'm going to resume the moment. Ouch, why is that me?

Good job.

Don't walk away, let's pose for a picture.

All right, now let's pose for a picture.

Commissioner, would you like to turn this way for a pic? CONSENT AND THEN MOVE THROUGH THE OTHER ONE IS CHERRY PICKING. OKAY. WE ARE BACK FROM A TEN-MINUTE RECESS. I MOVE THAT WE OPEN THE SLATE OF G CONSENT ITEMS.

SECOND.

I HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND. ARE THERE ANY ITEMS THAT YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT OR DISCUSS? ANYONE?

15 AND 19. 15 AND 19. OKAY. WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAY ABOUT THOSE? So both of those are individual, what we consider community program expenses, and I'm 100% fine with those. But we have a policy where we bring those to the court prior to us approving those. If we look at our budget ever since the last eight years that we've included them that I've been here, We always bring those to the court, and I'm 100% fine with these charges, and we have a budget for them, specifically in our offices, but the purchasing policy wasn't followed. Can we just make sure that we do that and bring, before we do these in the future, let's just make sure that we bring them to court first and approve them and then do them?

I think there was a misunderstanding with what Joelle said and did with our new perspective, but for sure our new budget office has agreed to harmonize the process to make sure it's not just a $500 amount and clarification taking place.

No, and the amount I'm not worried about. I mean, most of the ones that we do, I think the average one I do is $1,000, but they're always approved prior to the court because that's been our budget policy. So just if we can get them to the court first and then approve it, then great.

Anything else? Please call the roll.

Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen?

Yes.

Commissioner Hammer?

Yes.

Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes, that swipes the entire consent slate. And now, commissioners, we can cherry pick into a section of choice. Would you like to go robes or miscellaneous or?

J15, Judge.

J, there it is. Is that correct? J15. We'll move through miscellaneous then. Let's go to J15.

J15, discussion and possible action to award RFP2026-P03 Eastside Campus DASH construction manager at risk to Joris General Contractors LLC and authorized staff in the criminal district attorney civil division and negotiate a contract.

So moved. Second.

So we have a motion and a second. What would you like to say about this, Commissioner?

Do you want to just start off with the process and then we'll go through it?

Stephanie Hunt, purchasing agent. So this is for the construction manager at risk for the Eastside campus. We did a formal procurement for this. I believe we had, hang on. We had 10 proposals that came in that were reviewed and there were no conflicts or any related party disclosures identified. We did go through the initial scoring criteria and then we selected the top three firms and did interviews and then ranked them in drawers. I feel like I'm saying that wrong, General Contractors, was the ranked number one firm. And so the committee is asking for us to move forward with recommendation of award and enter into contract negotiations for that.

Okay, good deal. Commissioner?

So, Judge, the only comments I have is the construction manager at risk is the same delivery method that we used on the government center. The construction manager works with the county during the design phase and then takes responsibility for delivering the project within the guaranteed maximum price. And so the at-risk portion means that the construction manager assumes financial responsibility for completing the project within the agreed maximum price unless the project scope changes. And so we thought that that was a great delivery method for the government center. We think it'll do well here with the Eastside campus and we're recommending that we move forward with yours.

It also allows the construction manager to work with the design team through the design process to help make those design choices that are most economically.

Commissioner Cohen?

Just what Commissioner Inglesby said, and I think George will do a great job for us. We are still excited about the project. I'm still working with the City of Kyle, of course, but I think George will do a great job for us, and we look forward to moving forward.

And working with the city of Kyle, that's where, you don't have to stand there for this. Sorry about that. And working with the city of Kyle, I'm looking here because this is where the project sits. I've received concerns that the Kyle council member that's over that footprint wasn't looped in. I don't know how long or how many times you've met with representation from Kyle, but council member not looped in. And then I had the mayor reach out to me and told me that there's a dispute, an internal dispute with the city of Kyle with its actual zoning use of, and let me take a short pause, because I don't want to forget this. I think the idea, Commissioner Inglesby, is sound, it's perfect with the construction manager at risk, because we also did that with the jail expansion. It's a great process, it's a great flow, and the company that has been chosen is a great company. Nothing that I'm saying is counter to that. I want to make sure I put that out there, most importantly. So the council member of the footprint represented doesn't feel he was included in any of these conversations that have evolved into this. There have been back and forth conversation with council members talking about was this zoned accordingly originally it was supposed to be planned as a place for I think they said like a library and kids to learn more things. Park space combination. There's a dispute whether it was actually designed for what the intended use is. And as far as I understand, there's no official agreement with the city of Kyle for use of this land. Let me make sure I don't leave anything out. Yeah. The mayor and council member Goza have an item to research the legality on their agenda item to research the legality of the rezoning from the city's 2025 chapter 26 resolution. Am I, am I misrepresenting anything?

Can you help me with a new council? There's going to be, there's some pushback I think on this project altogether. So I think that the new council and the new mayor are trying to understand what has happened in the past, you know, and that's all happening internally has nothing to do with us. You know, we are hoping to have that partnership with the city. We did partner with the animal shelter. in that whole project, so we did partner with that, and this is just another part of that piece. But if that does not work out, I mean, that doesn't mean that our project's gonna stop. You know, we voted on a CIP for this. We want the Eastside Campus to happen. If it doesn't happen there, it's gonna happen somewhere. But we're really hoping to develop this partnership with this new council, and they can see the benefit of this in this area, and what resource it brings to historically underserved area And that's what we're trying to convey to the council is that this is a good project. It is a partnership that was created before they got there and whatever questions that they need to answer, they need to answer that internally, you know, but as far as us as a court, I mean, this is the building that we committed to and we're going to continue to move forward. If it's not with the city of Kyle, then it's still going to move somewhere.

And judge, I will say that, uh, you know, we made a presentation, to the city, I guess about a week ago or so, and they had some good questions. We are and they are researching all of that. We want to continue our partnership with them. I think that it was mentioned by I don't know if it was Brian or Rosie, and I'm sorry, I don't have their, or maybe the attorney. But anyway, action had been taken regarding the parkland dedication, where they changed that. But I'm glad that they're researching it. We're happy to loop in the council member. AND WE ARE PLANNING ON HAVING A PUBLIC MEETING, INVITING THE PUBLIC TO COME IN AND UNDERSTAND THE PROJECT, ASK ANY QUESTIONS THAT THEY HAVE. BUT, YOU KNOW, AS FAR AS THE NEED FOR THIS, WE THINK IT'S EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. OUR MINI DEPARTMENTS ALREADY ARE MOVING INTO WHAT'S THE NAME OF THE FACILITY THAT WE'RE Okay, the Dutton property. So they're moving out. They're not going to have a home if we don't move forward with this building. This court has voted unanimously numerous times on every phase of this project. And so we will work out those... terms with the city of Kyle we want to continue to you know engage them not leave them out and so but you know we do have staff looking at other property in the event this does not work out I mean we hope it will I think that COMPLEX WOULD BE A GREAT COMPLEMENT OR THE FACILITY WOULD BE A GREAT COMPLEMENT TO THE ANIMAL FACILITY THAT IS ALREADY BEING BUILT THERE. THE PARK ASPECT, I MEAN, WE'RE GIVING THE CITY OF KYLE, WHAT, $3.7 MILLION TO MAKE IMPROVEMENTS TO THE PARK AREAS AND TO THE PARK THAT IS GOING TO BE DEVELOPED ON THE PROPERTY. AND SO, YOU KNOW, I WOULD JUST I guess encourage the city council and the mayor to help us help them understand the project and answer any questions that they may have. Because we want to work together and be a good partner with them.

So you and I appreciate that you said you want to work together with them But am I mistaken to say that the council member who represents that footprint hasn't been reached out to? Hasn't been involved in your meetings. Is that is that true?

I don't know if that's true I mean if he felt that he was not included in those meetings that is not on us That is on his staff for not including him in You know, and so, I mean, I've heard that from him, you know, and, you know, that, I mean, I told him the same thing. I said, maybe you should talk to your staff on why you're not in those meetings.

I'm glad you said you heard that from him because I want you both commissioners to know that I am not just making this stuff up. I am voicing concerns shared with me in this moment at this time. And so then you said something really good just now, Commissioner Inglesby. Planning on having public meetings. I think our biggest demise is a court. The cities that do this best have the best results. I think we have done it best on the public open space, the POSAC. For the almost decade I've been here, the best public outreach was through the POSAC. I believe we failed on the transportation, $439 million road bond with the public outreach. I believe we failed. And I believe some of these questions here are coming up specifically because we're barely, I mean, we've asked Candace for weeks now to give us an itemized or some general breakdown of what this county has paid for that building, and we've yet to get an answer. And so I'm still waiting for that answer, Candace, on what the dollar amount is that Hays County has spent. And so my concern is we have, elected representation from not only that footprint, but from that city and more than those two. Showing public and reaching out to the county judge with, hey, we're not comfortable with this. We're not happy with the way this is unfolding. We're pouring Candace, at a ballpark number, a million dollars, how much have we poured into this so far? If you have some loose number in your head.

Sir, I don't have a loose number, but we can work with budget to get you that number.

Okay. It's been weeks now. We've been waiting for that number. So please accelerate that because I wanted it for this conversation. Here's what I'd like to say. We are just having a presentation from Tucker about the budget and how we need to tighten our belts and we need to make sure that we have these justifications. And yet the proposed, and you know, commissioners, I support the building. I fully do. And I'm like, hey, let's do this. Let's consolidate. I support the building. But it has come to light that the process is leaving much to be desired. And so I'm trying to find the most peaceful way to say, I want to let those reaching out to me, those elected officials reaching out to me, feel heard. because they don't feel heard. They don't feel seen. They don't feel looped in. And Commissioner Cohen, I get it. It's their problem. It's their fault. It's their staff's fault. But at the end of the day, this is our project. This is our building. These are people we're allocating dollars to do the work. And they're going to do magnificent work. It's nothing on you guys. I reiterate that. Nothing on the contractors. But when the partnership of the city and the county have chasms that need to be addressed on such a big deal project, they're asking me to ask us to pause on this because we continue to pour more taxpayer dollars into this and we don't even have a secured land agreement. Believe me, I don't appreciate the pace at which government moves. I always want things to move at a faster pace, all the time. But this one specifically, I know that it's east side. Yes, it is technically. It's stuck on 35. But yes, it's technically east side. But still deserves the attention that it deserves. But it just seems as though we're racing into this without even having a land agreement with the city. And that sounds bad.

Well, and Judge, you know, previously with our conversations with the city manager and others, you know, cities work a little bit differently than a commissioner's court. The city manager, you know, receives a lot of that information and then disseminates it to their council. And there was, as far as I know, full support of the council previously. The change happened. And we will bring in those individuals. I had not received a phone call. I mean, you know, I wish I would have. I'm glad Commissioner Cohen did.

I don't feel like a silo.

That's good. So, again, as I said, you know, we're happy to bring in whoever wants to discuss it, if it's the representative from that area. I'm happy to have even a one-on-one conversation or, you know, invite them. But it's not. AS IF WE HADN'T BEEN COMMUNICATING WITH THE CITY OF KYLE. I MEAN, WE'VE HAD NUMEROUS MEETINGS WITH THEM VIRTUALLY AND IN PERSON. BUT, YEAH, WE'LL DO BETTER AND INVITE THEM TO COME IN AND, YOU KNOW, TRY TO ANSWER ALL THEIR QUESTIONS THAT THEY HAVE.

OKAY. I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE I COVERED MY NOTES.

Judge, I did want to say in regards to the numbers, we will be bringing to the court an update on our capital projects in June. Obviously, we'll provide those numbers to you before, but just for the public, we'll give an update then. Thank you.

Too little, too late. I needed it. Asking weeks ago, I needed it for today, and I don't have it, and thank you. It's an unfortunate shortcoming. And how much is the proposed price of the building? Do you know that?

Yes, sir. The court approved in the $100 million that it's about $62 million dedicated to the building. You all approved that back in December.

Thank you. $62 million building that we don't have a land agreement on, and that's the heartburn. That's the heartburn. We've got the bricks and mortar for $62 million, and so I just wanted you to know publicly me stating what's been shared with me, and I've said it for the most part. Commissioner Hammer.

I have a quick question. If we, this negotiating a contract, we still have to come back and accept the contract? That's correct. Okay.

I just wanted to, that was my question. Commissioner Smith.

I have a couple of comments here on process. You know, we, you mentioned the CIP and the $62 million that are dedicated to this building. In our budget process this previous year, after receiving what we, knowing the CIP was coming in January, we actually chose in our tax rate to do $100 million for vertical construction. We all voted for that unanimously. We came back in January, we got a CIP that outlined what the overall expenses for these buildings would be. We voted for that unanimously. every member of this court. When we talk about the public engagement and outreach and the process moving forward, we've all voted for that. We, as a court, chose to select the two members of the court that represented that area to represent us as a court. We voted for that unanimously. At the end of the day, yes, there's one representative from, and I can't speak to the city of Kyle, but they're There's actually four members of that, well, four just straight-up council members who represent that area of Kyle. It's not one member. They've got three at-large members as well. And I don't know internally who in the city of Kyle has been working on this project. I don't know how they chose their committee. But I will tell you that If I have a problem with this building or if I have an issue with it, I'm going to refer those to the members of this commissioner's court who we put in charge of that. Because at the end of the day, that was our decision. And I will expect an answer in open court. But a straight-up attack on staff and other members who have worked very hard on this, I feel that that – Number one, professionally, I would never do that. If you have questions, we have staff that you can go directly to and ask those questions and ensure that those are addressed within those conversations. I have a real problem with that. And when you say you've asked for these things from our staff, you haven't done it publicly here. Maybe you have internally. And I completely understand if that's the case. But to say that we have been asking for that for weeks... It has never been asked for in this court. I have notes on every single time that we've addressed any of these vertical projects because I've had my own questions on them. And that question has never been asked to this point publicly. Again, you may have done it privately. I understand that you have concerns. Referring those to the members of the court that we, as a body, have chosen to put in charge of that, I think should have been the first step. And I'm just sad to see that this is how this was presented today instead of a real inquiry into how can we make this project move forward for the benefit of not only all of Hays County, but specifically those residents on the east side where we have no facilities except for one JP office that's temporary because we're going to move it into this future building. We, as a court, can sit here as long as we want and endure but again, maybe it's because I'm not running again, but let's just treat each other a little bit more professionally. And that's all I have to say. I'm fully in support of this and I'm going to vote for it today because I know the due diligence that y'all have done. And I have taken the time to have some conversations with city staff over there outside of y'all because I knew I couldn't talk to y'all about it and they've addressed my concerns. And so I appreciate the city of Kyle moving forward. And I'll just use the example. There was pushback on the, on the, it was mentioned that the pet resource center that, you know, we discussed in court, well, they have issues with the pet resource center. I went to the Cal City Council and I spoke to them and I stood there and I answered questions for them for the better part of an hour at midnight or 1230 in the morning and it passed on a six to one vote. I just don't want a good project for our county to be hamstrung by the personal of their council when they have to work that out internally. And if we can't work with the City of Kyle again, as Commissioner Cohen said, I assume that Commissioner Cohen and Commissioner Inglesby will move forward with a different project. Just like I'm moving forward with a different project for Precinct 4 that we approved or that we chose not to move forward with. It's my responsibility. to go out and try to find something that works for our county and for our citizens. And I appreciate the work they put in, and I respect the work they put in. And I haven't been in those meetings. I haven't had to sit through all of them, but I guarantee there's been a lot of them because individuals within the City of Kyle, both council members and their staff, have told me that they've happened. And I appreciate Candace and her team for trying to move forward on this in a very deliberate and diligent way. That's the only way that these things move forward. But saying that we could get an at-risk contract and cap it when we know the worst thing that we deal with on these projects is escalation costs? If we don't do this now, then in two years, we're not looking at 66 million. We're looking at 85 million or some other ungodly number that I don't want to, whoever follows me, I don't want to put them in a situation that a project has already been started, but we drug our feet for a year. And so now, therefore, they're going to have to raise the tax rate to pay for it. Those are my only comments.

Thank you, Commissioner. The commissioners that we have appointed to represent this project, are the two and going in and me leaning in in other spaces and other settings is not only inappropriate but illegal. And so this is the time and this is the place for me to have these conversations publicly so that we can all have the conversation and all share in those perspectives. But my question is for our budget office then, can you tell me how many project named organizations are working on this building? Can you pull up this project? I'll give you a second. I'm not trying to quiz you in a negative way.

Scott Woodland, budget officer. Can you please clarify? Sure.

What I want to do is I want to say, who is working on this project for the East Campus? And how much is the earmarked amount?

So right now, there are two vendors in there. KITCHUM WHO IS WORKING ON PROJECT MANAGEMENT. AND THEN THERE'S HDR ARCHITECTURE WHO HAS STARTED THE DESIGN RECENTLY.

AND WHAT'S THE CONTRACT FOR KITCHUM AND HDR?

I'D HAVE TO LOOK UP THOSE CONTRACTS. IF YOU GIVE ME A SECOND I CAN GET BACK TO YOU.

Sure, I will. And so I just want to, I'll give you a second, no problem. I want to make sure that you understand Commissioner Ingalls being Commissioner Cohen, this is not an attack on the project. I think the building along 35 is going to be great wherever it ends up being built. My only thing is the process. The process seems to, and I have confidence that meetings have been had, and it is important to me that when elected officials reach out for Clarification for direction. I've done this before. I don't even remember on what it was. Probably a pet resource center now that I can think about it. Anytime anyone reaches out to me, I always voice their concerns. And so I just wanted you to know that it's not a snub on anything except for making sure that as we move through and continue the road mapping that we, like you said, You're going to be planning on doing better with your public meetings? Sure. Great. As long as I empty my pockets of the communication that was shared with me, I feel confident this is all being recorded. I feel confident that you guys will address it. Scott, has that been enough time for you?

Yes, sir, Judge. It looks like the HDR contract is $4.125 million, and then the Kitchell contract is approximately $1.34 million.

1.34 kitchen. Okay, and this is no snub on kitchen or HDR But so we've got a 62 million. I know you said 66 Commissioner Smith a minute ago But I know you meant 62 million. We have a 62 million dollar building 4.1 to 5 million to HDR 1.34 million to Kitchler Yeah, I couldn't read my own writing And now we're looking for another one of we don't even know that dollar amount. And so I'm just... I mean, that's $70 million on a project that we don't even have dirt on. So what's the roadmap if it doesn't pan out, Commissioner, either one, Cohen or Inglesby? What's the roadmap if the city says, we change our mind, we don't want to do this, we have a whole new council? What do we do there? What's the plan? $70 million ballpark here. What are we doing with that money?

Well, as I've mentioned, staff is identifying other locations, Judge. IN THE EVENT THAT THIS PARTNERSHIP DOES NOT MOVE FORWARD. SO WE'LL BRING THAT TO COURT IF NEEDED. I'M HOPING THAT WE CAN WORK THINGS OUT WITH THE CITY OF KYLE. I'M HOPEFUL. AND SO, YOU KNOW, AT THIS POINT WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE EXCEPT FOR WE ARE IDENTIFYING SOME LOCATIONS IN THAT EVENT.

AND WHO'S HELPING WITH THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE LOCATIONS?

Candace, would you like to answer that?

Sure. Tammy and her team are looking at possible options for the east side. So once the commissioners, I don't know if we have a list, but we are in the process of identifying some properties. And once the commissioners have looked at that and given direction, then we'll bring that back to the court.

You guys are good with that?

Well, I mean, we have to look at options in the event.

As long as there's a plan B and you guys are on board with it and checked off with it as our representatives of this project, as long as you're good with it, because questions are coming up and I just want to address them. You're good with that roadmap?

Well, I mean, it's, you know, ultimately it's the decision of the court. If it unfolds that way, though. But no, I mean, I think our preference would be to continue our partnership with the City of Kyle.

Of course, that's the preference. Okay, so I've been asked to create a pause, so I will be voting accordingly. But if you guys are ready to add anything else, we'll call the roll. Ready to call the roll? Yes. All right, call the roll.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Judge Becerra?

No, and that's nothing to do with you guys. I say it again. All right, so next agenda item, folks, which one would you like?

You just want to finish J's?

We could. Let's finish the J section.

Let's keep moving through, starting at the top of J. J2, discussion and possible action to authorize reimbursement for lodging, mileage, overtime, and mail per demis in the amount of $21,002.95 for emergency communication officer Andrew Dunn, who deployed... under the Texas Division of Emergency Management Incident Support Task Force related to the fire season disaster 2026 TX-TFMS-26001 and amend the budget accordingly. So moved.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any questions, commissioners? Please call the roll.

Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes. J3?

J3, discussion and possible action to adopt the order authorizing the sale of fireworks beginning on Wednesday before the last Monday in May, May 20th, and ending at midnight on the last Monday in May, May 25th, 2026. Determine whether drought conditions exist and whether to adopt an order under Section 352.051 under the Texas Local Government Code prohibiting the sale of used or restricted fireworks defined as skyrockets with sticks, and missiles with fins in the uncorporated area of Hays County, providing for the expiration of said order in the Texas A&M Forest Service. It reminds that drought conditions no longer exist prior to end of sales period or the Memorial Day fireworks season. So moved.

Second. This is customary for us to have this process along. I just want to make sure no one has any additional comments. Commissioner Smith?

Yeah, I just want to say I'm glad we got this well before. Instead of the day before 4th of July going, hey, should we... So my question is this. Is there a specific timetable that we have to adopt these prior to?

There is. It's Mike Johnson. He's the services director. There is, sir. Yes, sir. It's now. We learned our lesson back in November. Pardon? We learned our lesson back in November.

Right. I guess my question is, is there a minimum number of days prior to a holiday where we can adopt this? Or at the beginning of the year, given that the state already authorizes the dates for firework sales, can we not adopt this same order for the year and then amend it should conditions change? Does that make sense? Instead of bringing one of these for fireworks before every single holiday, can we just not adopt a calendar? I'm going to defer to the guy that went to law school here.

Good enough. That's OK. We're good. That makes sense. Unless you have something else to add. But let's create a calendar to be adopted for the year. That's a smart move.

Well, I think we're trying to legally see.

So Chase Young, Assistant Criminal District Attorney, Civil Division. I'll have to look into that to make sure if we can do something with the calendar. Efficiency-wise, it makes sense, but I'd like to just adopt my taste and cross my eyes. You bet. If I may, we'll comment on here. There's two motions associated with this within backup. One is the authorization of sticks and authorized fireworks. The other one is potentially to institute drought conditions, which that only applies if we've hit a certain KBD index value, which we haven't hit at this point. So it's only going to be the first part of the motion that we'd be authorized or you'd be authorized to the court to enact. Does it make sense?

It does.

It makes sense. Thank you, sir.

It seems like quite a pack in one agenda item. It is, but the ground condition for that would be 575. However, if conditions warrant and we're still on the 400 to 600, then we can go ahead and implement that for public safety.

Okay. Are we good, guys? Please call the roll. Thank you, Mike.

Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes. J6, please.

J6, discussion and possible action authorizing the execution of agreement between Hayes County and the Bug Master for pest control services for the Hayes County Administrative Building located at 1901 Dutt and Drive Suite E in San Marcos in the amount of $150 monthly and authorize a waiver to the purchasing policy. Second.

Second.

Well-written agenda item. We don't know anything else on it. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes.

Judge Seven? J7, discussion and possible action to authorize the application submission for the Judicial Commission on Mental Health Court Liaison Pilot Program in the amount of $165,000. Second. Second.

Really cool, good job. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Judge Becerra?

Yes. Did we already do eight? I don't think so, right? No. J8.

J8, discussion and possible action to authorize the Director of Development Services or designate the established protocols, requirements, and related forms for the purpose of mass permitting issuing one permit for multiple lots or tracts of land.

So, and I may have... Let's start with a motion. So moved.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

Now, what were you going to say? Sure, so, and I think Michael with Development Services is here who may be able to help me explain this better.

There's also three email comments.

Oh, yeah, let's do comments. Sorry. please. And thank you.

You're just feeling a little antsy. You're feeling a little antsy. That's okay. I get that ways in some items as well. So let's read the public comments agenda items that have been, I guess, written in. Am I right?

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you, Roxanne.

First email public comment is from Alana Beatty. Good morning, honorable judge and commissioners. My name is Alana Beatty, and I am a 22-year-old resident of Hays County. I would like to express grave concerns regarding the agenda item J8. The agenda item summary states that it will make the development process more transparent, but I question the motives behind an agenda item that reduces the documentation requirements for developers. At a time when we are hearing more and more calls for transparency, this seems to go in the opposite direction. At a time when the rate and type of development and growth we are seeing in the county is placing our water and land resources in jeopardy, I fail to understand why we would favor expediency over thorough review, especially where water is concerned. From one parcel or lot to the next, geology can dramatically vary, especially when we are reviewing areas with environmentally sensitive karst features. In reviewing the changes, the concern surrounds the documentation requirements, or rather loosening of those for the developer. First, what is the purpose of dropping the requirement of a zero dollar balanced tax statement? Would this mean that going forward, a developer could owe taxes and still be able to develop that land? This does not seem fiscally responsible. Second, the site plan, documentation is modified to be grading slash site plan. So does that mean the developer only has to submit one or the other and doesn't necessarily have to submit a site plan to receive a land use permit? Third, the requirement of a flood, or I'm sorry, the requirement of a floor plan, pool plan is completely removed. Isn't the floor plan part of the land use? To me, this implies that a developer would only have to submit a grading plan for the land in order to receive a permit to fully develop a lot. And finally, regarding the fees, it seems that we would enforce more stringent requirements regarding floodplains. The modified version requires the fee for each floodplain crossing. Does that mean that if the property goes into the floodplain but does not fully cross it, the fee is not required? Development outside the floodplain requires a fee per tract, parcel, or lot. Why would the floodplain be any different? The vague language of the proposed permitting process seems to reduce the clarity of what is required of developers and this translates to less rigor in holding developers accountable for what they do to the land. I ask the court to require more concrete descriptions and not to reduce the transparency of how land will be modified and used by developers, especially in larger developments. Please do not approve these changes to the land use permitting process as they currently are written in agenda item J8. Thank you for your time and service to our community. Kind regards, Alana Beatty of Manchaca, Texas. Manchaca, Texas, excuse me. Next public comment is from Brandon Gaston. Honorable Judge and Commissioners, my name is Brandon Gaston and I have been a Hays County resident since 2018. I urge you all to consider the proposed changes in the grading and land use permitting process and not to approve the changes as they are currently written in Agenda Item J8. The reduction of documentation requirements would reduce the county's ability to fully evaluate the scope and impact of development. Despite the stated purpose of increasing transparency, the removal of documentation requirements would limit transparency for both county staff and the public. As written, some of the language is vague and introduces ambiguity that could lead to loose interpretations that cause irreparable damage to the environment. For example, what qualifies as a floodplain crossing? What happens if development impacts a floodplain but does not technically cross it? Development on the floodplain can increase flooding and erosion risks. Floodplains are also more likely to contain more sensitive environmental features such as a recharge zone and karst features. This could lead to possible groundwater contamination and pollution of drinking water for surrounding residents on wells. Floodplain activities should receive more in-depth oversight, not vague language. Larger developments will have greater cumulative impacts on things like stormwater runoff, traffic, erosion. Consolidating applications for larger developments may also effectively obscure negative environmental impacts. For this reason, even if applicants are consolidated, parcel-level environmental review should remain in place. Please do not approve the proposed changes. Please consider preserving the stronger documentation requirements in environmentally sensitive areas, replace ambiguous language with clear definitions of terms, and hold developers to higher standards so that as our county continues to grow, We ensure that the growth is sustainable and does not negatively impact our resources. Thank you for your time and consideration. Regards, Brandon Gaston. And the third and final email public comment It's from Darlene Star, also of Manchaca, Texas. Honorable judge and commissioners, I am writing today in opposition to item J8 and asking you to vote no. As voices across the county are raised asking for development to slow down and be more mindfully reviewed in terms of impact to the environment and our communities, you have before you and ask from Commissioner Smith to approve large developments with less thorough review and lowered requirements. Just last meeting, Mr. Smith sponsored an item that would have pushed through a development agreement and variances for a controversial large development in his district without a proper public process. That item was tabled after substantial public opposition with constituents told it would come back into a public process soon. that this item seeking to expedite approval for large developments while reducing requirements of the developers and mass permitting lots and tracks appears between these two events doesn't feel like coincidence. It feels like calculation. It feels servient to developers but not to the constituents who are very clearly asking the county for more review of these very types of developments. A large development needs more oversight, not less, as they have the greater impacts and risks, especially those within floodplains and aquifer recharge zones. This court is here to serve the residents of Hays County not moneyed interests. Please protect our interests and vote no on item J8. With respect for your service, Darlene Starr.

All right, Commissioner.

All right. I think they're, number one, what we have before us today is a request for development services to look at what we're doing on our specific site planning permits for a very specific reason. And I don't think that our commenters today understand what I'm talking about. THIS ACTUALLY GREW FROM SEVERAL UTILITIES THAT I'VE SPOKEN WITH, BECAUSE IN OUR CURRENT PROCESS, SAY THEY RUN A WATER LINE IN A NEW DEVELOPMENT, AND THAT DEVELOPMENT HAS ALREADY PLATTED ALL OF ITS LOTS. SO THEY'RE GOING TO RUN A LINE EVEN THOUGH IT'S A DEDICATED, THE UTILITY REQUIRES A DEDICATED EASEMENT FOR THAT LINE, CORRECT? SO IT'S GOING TO RUN ACROSS 40 FRONT YARDS. Under our current process right now, that utility has to apply with 40 permits. Our staff has to review 40 separate permits. And in each of those cases, they do pay an individual permit fee for this. What I've talked to development services about is maintaining that individual permit fee and maintaining the exact same oversight and review for that permit, but instead of that applicant having to file 40 permits, doing one unified permit. So instead of getting a snapshot of what happens in that 40 foot lot, we get a snapshot of what happens on that entire project. There's no change in the review of the project, except we get an actual view of what the project itself looks like, instead of piecemeal as it comes along, as whoever is submitting those projects do 10 at a time, 15 at a time, 20 at a time. We actually get all of them at once. If you look at the proposed changes in here that are in backup, and I would encourage you to, it actually maintains all of the individual permitting costs and permitting review, but it unifies it into one permit. I've talked to certain utilities who they're looking at for one water line instead of one permit where we would be looking to do our 30-day shot clock, etc., for one water line that is three quarters or not even a mile long, they're looking at six to eight months for permitting because they can only do 10 permit tranches at a time. If they could unify those, it would expedite the process, but it would also expedite the ability for our staff to review those. And I probably missed some of the high points there. Michael, is there anything that I missed in that? I'm sure there is.

But not yet. Sorry, buddy. I'll call you when we're ready. Sorry. Commissioner, what utility, water company did you talk to?

I've spoken to the West Travis PUA. I've spoken to PEC. And I have calls in to two on the east side that I haven't heard back yet to see quite literally is this an issue that you're experiencing. And I've also heard from individual developers who are in the processes of none. The development that was mentioned earlier was not one of them. I have not heard from them. but two developments that are ongoing in Dripping Springs. And the issues that they have are these are major trunk water lines for the entire community, not just for a development, but for multiple developments and for sustainability in that sector, in that entire portion of the county. And whenever I say water lines, I'm not talking about a six-inch water line or an eight-inch water line. It's like main service lines that we see coming into these communities. And so having those individual permits, again, each individual point and process in our review process will continue to be done as it is now, but looking at it as a holistic basis as opposed to this individual lot versus that individual lot. Each one of the definitions that were mentioned in the comments I would say every one of those is either statutorily written or they're clarified in our development rules and regs. And so each one of those, the definitions remain the same. And those individual reviews remain the same. Judge, you've always been an advocate of efficiency in government. This is a true efficiency in government move. And I will tell you that given what we've talked about on our budget and where we're looking at, one of the highest priorities that I have going into the upcoming budget is how we can establish that we don't want to ratify permits after they're done here because of that shot clock. We want the ability to approve them before that shot clock. And this will help our development services folks. This is something that the previous development director, Marcus Pacheco, brought to me about probably a year ago the first time and said this is a real problem for us. And so whenever I had a utility, specifically West Travis County PUA, talk to me about this earlier last month, I reached out to development services and said, is this still a concern? And they said, yes, this makes sense to us. And so that's the reason that we're talking about it today. We're not establishing, there's nothing in the backup that says this is what we are going to do. What I'm asking for is to give direction to development services to put together a package to make this work with our current development regs and come back to us and tell us what they think is the best path forward.

So you're right on the part that I'm always looking for efficiencies. I do believe in that 100%. So in the spirit of what you're presenting, I'm 100% on board. But I have to reach in, in light of current events, with a skeptical eye, that's the unfortunate part of the job I'm faced with right now, which is I believe in the spirit of what you've said. Trust but verify. So in the PEC, Pet and Alice Electric Corporation, who did you speak with in that space?

I've spoken with one of their board of directors. Name? It's okay if you don't want to use it. We can have a conversation about the private conversations I've had with either the PEC board or these others. I'm happy to do that, but my question is this. At the end of the day, do you believe that what I'm asking for in the process is correct?

Here's my answer to that. Like I said a minute ago, in spirit, your agenda item is good. But the trust but verify approach is where I'm forced to be in. And that's why I'm asking. I know you serve on the West Travis County PUA board. So I just want to make sure you're not speaking in a silo and saying so many people have this issue and want this fixed when it's not true. And so that's what I'm trying to do is ferret out the details.

Absolutely. And that's the reason I asked development services, is this an issue?

Sure.

And that's the reason that the previous director actually brought it to me as an issue.

Right. And so that line that's coming down 150, I'm getting a bunch of complaints of how they're plowing through 30 feet of trees and erasing them forever. I understand the development. I understand the way it's all happening in the western part of the county. I see the need. I see the concern. I see all the things you've brought up. That's my hang up.

I see it. And the specific line that you're talking about is actually it's a line being built by another governmental entity. and that other governmental entity, they actually condemned all the property that they're on. They may be actually, I don't think they condemned, but a handful of those properties, but they purchased those properties outright. And so I've had a number of conversations with those individuals and who, impacted property owners, and even before they sold those properties, I said, here are the things that you need to have in that contract, and here's what you need to discuss with that governmental entity, which we have, that governmental entity which we have no control over, to say if and when they do build this water line, You need to ensure that it's at this location in that easement or that your old growth trees are not impacted. And unfortunately, a lot of those residents didn't do that.

Correct. And I'm seeing as I'm driving through there two, three times a week. I'm seeing the results of people not getting the support or the attention they deserve while that water line is being plowed in. I know that everyone's doing the best they can, and so I just feel it my duty to listen to the residents in the area and do my part. What's my dog in the hunt? Making sure the residents feel heard and are supported. And that goes with any of the things I'm doing over there. It's just about... Are you heard? Do you feel heard? You don't feel heard? Same over here in the East Campus building. It's about making them feel heard.

I agree with you, and I 100% support you doing that. I think that is a very needed and purposeful part of your job. What I would encourage you more to do is issues like this, a simple phone call to our development services department to say, is this something that you've had an issue with in the past, or have you heard this? OUTREACH TO OUR TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT AND THE TEAM THAT'S BEEN WORKING ON THAT PROJECT FOR OVER A DECADE NOW. THOSE MIGHT CLARIFY SOME OF THE CONCERN TO THE QUESTIONS AND A LITTLE BIT OF DUE DILIGENCE BEFORE WE HAVE THESE AGENDA ITEMS COME UP. That might clarify some of your questions before we get here. And I will be the first to admit, I don't have all the answers. That's the reason I'm asking our Development Services Department to look at it and develop something that works for them. I would just encourage you, we have great staff.

Yes, I know. Let's use them. I know we do have great staff, and we do use them, and I reach out whenever something comes up and... Most of the time I get good, timely responses. But I will say it's important that we have these conversations here in the open where everyone can see and understand. Because if I just don't address this publicly, well, then I still am peppered with comments and questions and there's nothing been addressed. Commissioner, do you have any other questions or comments before I ask Michael to the podium?

I just want to say briefly that... Well, I just want to make sure, and Michael can address these, and Commissioner, you did too, but somebody talked about less thorough review or reducing requirements. Maybe you can address that when you come up and speak, and I guess just for clarification, is this just for the utility providers only? Okay, that's where the conversation went, and so I just wanted clarification. Sure.

Yeah, and the reason for that is that in general, just like we require, we get to circumvent the process. And I say that because if we require a development and a site plan and we say, okay, here's where the roads have to go, then they plow it around what we need. And then once we tell them as a county, here's what our requirements are for roadway, for example. They have to be 24 foot wide. It's gonna have a cul-de-sac this large or whatever. Then they have to plan all the utilization around that. And so we're forcing them into the utilities in general. And I'm using this water line example as the example that we're building off of. But now they have to build water lines across 40 lots And because of the way that we plotted, now they have to go through 40 permitting processes when if we had to do that for a roadway, we wouldn't do that, you know? And maybe that doesn't clarify, but that's really the impetus behind it.

Commissioner Cohen?

I think when I saw the mass approval, my concern was immediately Oh, what is what are we losing? And so it so it sounds like we're not losing that oversight. We're just trying to create an efficiency within the department. Is that right? And so that was just my first initial concern is that I hope we're not losing the oversight that we're doing, because if anything, we're trying to strengthen our oversight. Right. So, you know, I would love to hear Michael more, you know, YOUR VISION AROUND THIS PROCESS.

THANK YOU. COMMISSIONER HAMMER.

I THINK THAT MICHAEL IS GOING TO BE ABLE TO ANSWER ALL OF MY QUESTIONS.

OKAY. PERFECT. I ALWAYS LIKE TO GIVE THE COMMISSIONER HIS FIRST PASS SO HE CAN CONSOLIDATE IDEAS. ALL YOURS, SIR. STATE YOUR NAME AND TITLE FOR THE VIEWING PUBLIC.

MICHAEL VERLAD, INTERIM DIRECTOR FOR DEVELOPMENT SERVICES. So in conversations with Commissioner Smith, essentially what we are looking at doing is our current process requires one permit for basically everything that you're doing within that particular tract of land, that property, that parcel. A good example of that would be Kinder Morgan. If you think of Kinder Morgan, we required over 90 different applications, 90 different permits for that review. This would take that same review, the same process, the same basically everything, consolidate it into a single application where we could then issue out a single permit for that particular development and look at the entirety of the development as a whole rather than looking at it from a single lens on one particular track and looking at how it affects the overall track or the overall parcel, the overall boundary that we're actually looking at focusing in on.

Kender Morgan actually applied for a permit, huh? Take that in. 90 of them. Can you tell me something less meaningful than that? Any concerns about the expediting of the process? Because I would have loved to given Kinder Morgan a million permits to apply for. So that was not a good angle. Mr. Pacheco had mentioned that he thought this was a good idea a year ago. What do you say about that?

We do think it is still a good idea. It consolidates staff time and allows us to look at the overall project rather than through one particular lens that we're having to look at one particular parcel, permit that one, then come back, get another application, look at another parcel. When we can look at the overall actual project that's going on.

So one application, everything else stays the same, and the oversight remains, just to be clear. That's what you're... going to consider the direction from the court to bring back to court for approval on. Correct. And maybe you can bring us a red line variation and not wait for someone to reach out, but bring it where everyone in the public can see the before and the after so that we can all come along together with the evolution of thought. What do you think?

Yeah, we can definitely do that. Okay.

I have a couple of questions. Do you think that it would actually be easier for the public to be able to see rather than, you know, because they'll go up and they'll look on the... on our website, not website, what is it? That software that we have that they can see the permits. You think it would be easier for them to pull up one permit and see everything within that whole holistic view within that scope of work rather than having to go back and click on multiple permits?

I do, yeah. Because if you think about it, you're viewing from one project in its entirety. You have all the information in one place. Otherwise, you have to know that, say, Kinder Morgan or the Alliance Waterline, any of these other companies have 90 permits that you're going to have to go through, all 90 just to see what the actual thing is. And so this kind of streamlines all of that process, both internally but also externally.

Yeah, I was going to say, I think that from a public perception, that's even more transparent than anything because they're seeing everything in one spot because I know from trying to review records or anything like that, or even look at court cases, whatever that might be. If you have to do it multiple and go back and you don't know the whole timeline, it might be a little bit easier for the public.

Exactly. That's why I started with, in spirit, I believe in it. I believe in it in spirit, but doggone it, I've got to kick tires.

The other thing that I would say, and it's to the point that Commissioner Hammer made, whenever you have these large-scale developments that may take 20 years to build out, right? You may have to start looking at permitting from, I'll use Belterra as an example. When Belterra in the Dripping Springs area was done, I think their total build out schedule was scheduled for 10 years and it took like 22 or something like that. And so if you wanna go back and look at how those things were permitted, or if you wanna review how they were done, You've got 20 years of permits you've got to figure out this forces the developer at the onset to outline exactly or the water company or the the whatever whatever utilization it forces them to show what their overall project is active at the very first at the very start of the project. And by doing that, what I think it will help us avoid is five years into the project, them changing their mind and changing directions on us or doing something because it completely would force them into another permitting process and another review where this we get at day one, we know what we're going to be looking at.

Again, Michael, you're charged with a good idea. articulated in your presentation when you bring it back. So consider, if you don't mind, maybe even a slideshow where you talk us through it. Here's the red line. Here's what I propose so that we can bring everybody on board with. I tell you, we do great things, but we've got to tell people the story. And so that's what I'm asking. As you move through this idea, that's a great idea in the spirit, bring us with it. for the viewing public. Anything else?

I think the other thing that would be beneficial, again, I don't think we need court action on this, just court direction. But the other thing that would be helpful is having a few examples, like platted examples of where we've run into this and how it would be different than the current system. Because I think The visualization of it makes a lot of sense. When you see it on a map, you understand what I'm attempting to address. And it just makes a lot of sense to look at it.

All right. So you have direction. That's good enough for now. Anything else, Commissioner?

I was just going to say exactly what you said, Commissioner. The examples would be really helpful. THE RED LINE I TOTALLY AGREE WITH ALSO. IT'S JUST SO DIFFICULT WHEN WE SEE IT ON PAPER AND IT'S ALL BLACK. WE DON'T KNOW WHERE THOSE CHANGES ARE MADE AND SO TO SEE THAT I THINK IS GOING TO BE EXTREMELY HELPFUL.

THE PUBLIC DOESN'T HAVE ACCESS TO BACKUP.

I WILL TELL YOU THAT IT'S LIKE WHENEVER I SAW THE FIRST ONE OF The closest example that I can say is when you look at a flag lot, you look at a flag lot and you say, that's a flag lot. When you look at the projects or the items that we're looking at, they're like five foot across the front of a property and there's 40 properties. I mean, it glows on a map that this does not make sense. Right on.

Okay. Thank you, Michael. Please open J9.

J9, discussion and possible action to authorize the Transportation Department to upgrade their OpenGov Enterprise Asset Management System through SHI government solutions totaling $26,904 and amend the budget accordingly.

So moved.

Second. Mr. Jones, what will this do for you?

Aaron Jones, Transportation Director. This is actually an upgrade from our current system. What we're looking at is as we're working with Candace and her group as far as on our pillars, and part of ours is an asset management program as we're looking at our roadway assessments. We've found that our current system has some ability to help us with that. These upgrades will actually get us started in that direction. We've also, with our budget for next year, put in for this cost into the budget for next year. So this is a prorated fee just to upgrade it to a more current system.

And just to be clear, Commissioner Smith has spoken about this positively in the past, and I liked the idea of someone, like I know Commissioner Inglesby drives her precinct and makes notes regularly, and I love that. So communicating with the public about where we are with projects, what's proposed, what's the status, this will help you with that?

So in the... Long term. In the short term, we're building that program. Long term, yes. This gets us started. I'd say it's one of the first steps. We'll probably in June be bringing another item to court for actually getting our roads evaluated. It's a firm coming in and actually driving every road and doing an evaluation. I was going to meet with each of the commissioners. You've been rating them? Yes. Actually, the program does similar to what we do now, where our system now is more of a visual, where this is going to be more of a technical evaluation of roadways. It's going to give us an idea. This program actually gives us the ability to... look into the future of where our roads are now. And then as, as we can set our budgets, look at that. So this, this is that first step in that. And I know this has been through the years, something that we've looked at and we're just, we're happy to at least get this started and moving forward.

Modernizing the way we deal with our County roads, bringing technology in.

Yes, and this also, we looked, for the past few months, we've been meeting with different firms, different consultants. This program actually puts us in the driver's seat for it. It actually has our staff, with what we've been growing internally in the past six months with staff, has us the ability to actually control it. It's our information, our staff putting it together. It saves that money where we're not as Candace said, not going out to outside firms where we can actually control what's going on and see and have those changes.

Beautiful. Great contribution. Thank you, sir, for the explanation. Anything else? Anyone else?

Yes. This is something that, as Aaron said, I think we started working on this, Aaron, myself, and Wynton, Porterfield, and Jerry, at least three years ago, on trying to evaluate what the best possible... Every... Consulting firm out there has their own secret sauce on what they want and they're better at doing roadway evaluation But not asset identification and whenever we say asset identification a lot of people don't know that what that is and That's where do we have road signs? Where do we have culverts? Where do we have low water crossings? Where do we have those things that we have to maintain on a regular basis? What I'm excited about is our team has really looked at how they could do that internally using the software and the personnel that we have. I think this is the first step and kind of something that is the best of both worlds because a lot of that information that some consulting firms or groups would bring in, it's number one, unusable to us or it's not what we're actually looking for. So having our guys and gals who are on the ground using the information on a daily basis, helping develop what our needs are, and then building a system directly related to those needs I think is the best way to move forward, and I'm excited to move forward with it.

Okay, good. Anything else, commissioners? We trust you. Erin, please call the roll.

Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen?

Yes.

Commissioner Hammer?

Yes.

Judge Becerra?

Yes. J10, please.

J10, discussion and possible action to authorize execution of two quiet claim deeds with the City of Kyle for dedication of right-of-way and sidewalk right-of-way at Veterans Drive and Silverado Drive and Precinct 2.

So moved. Second.

Commissioner.

Thank you, Judge. We were just requesting the execution of two quick claim deeds that will settle title discrepancies to ownership of right-of-way for the sidewalk project by vesting any purported ownership by Hays County and the City of Kyle.

So this will be to build sidewalks?

Thank you, Commissioner. Yes, this is we've been working with the city of Kyle. There's right on veterans and Silverado on that corner. There's a gap in their sidewalks. It's textile right away, city right away. We own the property on the corner. This gives them the ability with their open drainage that's there to push the sidewalk back. It'll actually be across the front of where our property is, but working with Commissioner Cohen and the city to get this going to where it just ties in their project, their sidewalk.

Good. Please call the roll. Yes.

Commissioner Cohen.

Yes.

Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes.

Judge Becerra? Yes. J11, please.

J11. Discussion and possible action to authorize the Hayes County Mental Health Court to purchase consumables, decor, and graduation tassels and stoles in the amount of $369.54 in the Mental Health Court Participants commencement ceremony to be held in the summer of 2026. So moved.

Second.

Commissioner Smith, here's your peanut M&Ms.

There's none included. I went through the budget. I always go back to that reference.

Yeah, here's the issue that I have. At the end of the day, I appreciate the celebration of the completion of this program for each one of the participants. The greatest graduation gift that we can give them is a new start. And as part of that new start, every one of the graduates of this program, if they complete it, they are not charged in those cases. I think that there is an admission of guilt at the front end and a resolution. I personally am the more intricate and the more the larger that these productions become, the more I look at, I sure hope whatever, whoever or whomever the victim of that crime is, I hope that they don't get a graduation invitation. I hope that no person who has been impacted by someone who's gone through this program Like I, as an elected official, I feel guilty that we're celebrating them, that hopefully they're getting a new start. Their new start, we've given them a lot in this program. How do I explain a graduation to a victim of one of their crimes? And so for the first time, I'm not gonna vote for this today. I've thought about it a lot. And I voted for every single thing. I worked diligently to try to start this court and this program. But this is the one item I probably won't support. And I know we'll probably have a graduation in the fall. And I probably won't support additional funding for those things in the fall.

Who's agenda item is it? Commissioner Cohen? Commissioner, would there be anything else to add to that comment?

I don't know. I understand commissioner, you know what you're saying and uh, and I think these are, you know, lower level crimes. I'm not dismissing anything that you've said cause I, I understand that we have to have you know, some sympathy also for those that were harmed, that could have been harmed. A lot of this, I think, also is self-inflicted, you know. But, yeah, I mean, I think also those that have succeeded through that process deserve some kind of recognition, and so, but I totally understand where you're coming from.

Yeah, and maybe having a more in-depth conversation with Judge Brown, just to fully kind of understand their vision behind this. I know that I've been to a few of these graduations, and they're getting bigger and bigger. You know, more community involvement, kind of an uplifting event, but maybe just having that conversation with Judge Brown maybe might help.

And I would say it is a mixed bag. You're right in that space because, for example, our Veterans Court, honorably discharged. If you weren't honorably discharged, you don't have access to this and that and the other. Someone brought up a really good point to me, and they said it is those that have had the dishonorable discharge that need the help most, and because they will be contributing contributions in our society, unless they are incarcerated forevermore, we have to... NUDGE THEM INTO SOME FORM OF REHABILITATION AND SOME CELEBRATORY ENERGY IN MOVING IN A MORE MEANINGFUL, MORE HOLISTIC APPROACH TOWARDS BEING FUNCTIONING MEMBERS OF SOCIETY IS ONE OF THOSE MECHANISMS. COMMISSIONER HAMMER, ANYTHING ENDING ON THAT?

I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND WHERE YOU'RE COMING FROM AND MY THOUGHTS ARE VERY MUCH BORDERLINE AS WELL. IT'S LIKE THIS IS, THIS WAS A, US INVESTING IN THIS IS GIVING. is giving so much as well. I do understand, though, too, how do you have that grace and show that grace through a new beginning, a new start. So I see both sides very much so. So, yeah.

I wanted to give you, he said something powerful, and I wanted to give you guys a chance to respond to it. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

No.

Judge Becerra?

Yes. J-12.

J-12. Discussion and possible action to authorize the purchase of Behavioral Health 360 program from Credible Mine, Inc. for the Hayes County Health Department in the amount of $25,000 to be paid upon signing and accept the related license agreement. So moved.

Second. Would you like to expand on that, please, Mr. Gonzalez? Yes.

Good afternoon, Judge and Commissioners. My name is Matthew Gonzalez. I'm the Hays County Health Department Director. This item is requesting $25,000 to pay for the Behavioral Health 360 software from Credible Minds. Behavioral Health 360 software is a licensed product from Credible Minds that's a web software. And so what it does is it provides a resource content directory of nothing but mental health and behavioral resources. So think about if you're having anxiety, they have literature that you can read about it, they have videos that you can watch, or they have other things that you can listen to. So formats for reading, hearing, and or just watching to help you out. Maybe anxiety, loneliness, worrisome, things that go across the range of mental health. And it's a resource that would be available to all our constituents for free. For them, right? It's $25,000 for us, but free for our residents. This is one of the most easily and efficient ways to get care out to our residents. But at the same time, it allows our behavioral health division, the behavioral health coordinator, Dr. Isabella Avije to see what our community is experiencing most. Are they experiencing anxiety? Are they experiencing depression? Are they experiencing some type of other mental health thing? And that allows us to kind of approach it from a Lean Six Sigma standpoint pool method, right? We can pool that data and start tailoring the content needed for outreach and programming efforts to our residents. And so $3,000 of it is the initial establishment fee. And then 20, sorry, I'm making sure I get my numbers right. 20,000 of it is for the actual software. And then 2,000 of it is to make sure that it's Spanish accessible whenever that website is launched.

And Matthew, I guess, is this considered a pilot program to see how that works and to, I guess, make that determination next year to see if we move forward with it? I mean, and maybe it's a two-year pilot because we have to give it time, but I just want to make sure that it is being utilized. I think it is a great product, you know, but I'm just hoping that it is utilized, you know, TO, I GUESS, TO ITS FULLEST IF WE'RE GOING TO BE PAYING FOR THAT.

YES, I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND THAT. STEPHANIE, CAN YOU, IS THE CONTRACT FOR ONE OR TWO YEARS?

STEPHANIE HUNT, PURCHASING AGENT. THE AGREEMENT THAT I BELIEVE IS IN BACKUP IS FOR LONGER THAN one year but it's we have to renew it each year and they are not on a purchasing co-op or any kind of contract and so I did discuss with Matthew options after year three like we would not be able to renew past year three under the current contract we would either have to do a formal procurement for it or hope that they get a contract through a co-op at some point or otherwise SHI's governmental solutions contract where we're allowed to contract through other vendors through their contract.

To answer the question very briefly, it is intended to kind of be that pilot project. Right now, the funding is going to come out. Part of it is going to come from the tobacco settlement funds. So, again, at the end of this contract, if we decide not to go forward due to a lack of acceptance or adoption rate from our residents, that's completely something that would be reasonable to do and manageable to do. Um, something I did not highlight and I'm sorry, judge, I'm actually thinking of your rationale, big sister counties or big brother counties. Um, other counties have implemented this. So Dayton county is actually an adopter of this and they use it for theirs. Just neighboring us is Bastrop County. They've also adopted it. So it's expanding into Texas, but right now it's also implemented in other counties across the United States by other health departments as well.

I want it to be successful. I'm just wanting us to ensure that we're following it and making sure that it is. Absolutely.

Thank you, Commissioner. You said at the end of the contract. So in my mind, there is a variation potential, one year, three year. Which contract ending are you referring to when you just said what you said?

Yes, sir. So at the end of this, I would say one year, we can reevaluate the contract.

Okay. And so glad that Denton County and others are using it. What are their deliverables that they can point to that they say, hooray, we did this and here's what's come out of it?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so recently received a presentation in a work group from Alex Reed. She is their community outreach program manager. And the get out of it is the data for their constituents that they received. So they can see, again, the population, who's using it, and then, again, those subjects. I'm experiencing anxiety. We can then work with the LMHA Hill Country to put on activities related to anxiety within those zip codes that are experiencing it. In terms of overall reception, it's been utilized frequently by their residents. Okay.

And this is important because mental health is a killer as well. People don't always make those connections. Commissioner Hemmerer.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely think it's needed and I think that I appreciate you all looking into other programs and ways that we can identify maybe being proactive instead of being reactive. Is there any way, what did it look like, why did you choose Behavioral Health 360?