Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

A very good morning to you all. I would 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 us bow. Most gracious and heavenly Father, we thank you Another day that you've made for this is a day that is beautiful and we rejoice in it. Thank you for allowing us to come together today to celebrate, to acknowledge, to hear and to serve all who reside and call this county home. I thank you, Lord God, that when we call upon you, you help us to see. what we need to see and know, what we need to know so that we may even see the least of these and meet the needs of all. Father, let righteousness, peace, and grace be our guide as we serve. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Thank you, sir.

both liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag.

I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state, under God, one and indivisible. Roxanne, will you please call the roll?

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

Here. All right. Public comments, you have?

Yes, we have one in public comment in person.

Okay.

Just one.

One in person? All right. If we can call them up.

Sarah Mason.

You will have three minutes to speak on any subject matter in this window of the agenda. And when the timer goes off, just conclude.

All right, thank you so much. Good morning, thank you for having me. My name is Sarah Mason and the reason I'm visiting is because I'm part of a new initiative to connect researchers like me with local policy makers in counties across the United States. The project covers any child and family policy challenge that you're facing in our county. Here's a bit about how it works. First, I'm visiting just to introduce myself today. After the meeting, I'll send follow-up emails describing the initiative and include a way to sign up to meet with me. I'll also ask you to forward it to others who do work related to children and family issues in our county. For those who respond, I'll have a short meeting to learn about the child and family policy challenges that you're focused on and where you think research would be helpful. Then based on that, I'll create a tailored research brief with the relevant research. I'll share it with you and then offer to talk through it with you and how you might apply it in your work. All of this is free to you. Our work is funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, which shares our commitment to strengthening connections between research and policy. Thank you so much for your time, and I'm happy to take any questions about how it works, what kind of topics we might cover, and so on and so forth, either now or after the meeting. I already have a meeting set up with one of you, but I would very much look forward to meeting with any and all of you. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you very much. And that's all for nothing written in this portion of comments. Okay, so let's go with presentations and proclamations. Please open F1.

F1, presentation of July 2026 service awards.

Good morning, commissioners. My name is David Riggs. I'm an employment compensation specialist with Hayes County Human Resources. It's my pleasure today to announce our service awards for July. Starting with our county administrator's office, I'd like to present to Candace Bote, World One Year Service Award. Our next year one-year service award is from the Fire Marshal's Office, David Aldred. From the District Attorney's Office, Alexandra Surton. One-year service award from the District Attorney's Office, Jennifer Hernandez. One-year service award, Marcela De Leon, Juvenile Detention Center. From the Sheriff's Office, Corey Clark. Benito Del Calo. Athena Goff-Swartz, Jan Johnson, James Jones, Adam Lucero, all from the Sheriff's Office. From the Transportation Department, Kimberly McKenzie. From the County Administrator's Office, Abby Mendez-Valegas. From the County Court of Law II, Jose Vila. Those are all our one-year service award winners. Next is our five-year service award winners. From our camp administrator's office, we have Abby Mendez Villegas. five-year Service Award winner from County Law Court, Jose Vila, and from the Sheriff's Office, five-year Service Award for Joshua Evans. Our 10-year Service Award winners, Kate Blankenship from the Extension Office, Robert Rodriguez from the Juvenile Retention Center, and Stefan Hartman from the Sheriff's Office. Our next category is our 20-year service award winners, excuse me, awardees. Our first one would be Jennifer Stamen-Zachary from the Sheriff's Office and Debra Flores from the Tax Office, 20 years of service. We have two 25-year award service recognition from the Justice of the Peace Office Precinct 2-1, Aaron Ramirez, and from the Transportation Office, Antonio Barone. We'd also like to recognize our July retirees. From Constable Precinct 1, Roland Vasquez. From District Court, Sherry Rogers. From Information Technology, Jeff McGill and Mark Chambers. From the Sheriff's Office, Margaret Viegler, Roland Cunningham, Steve Cunningham. And from Transportation, David Montana.

And that concludes our presentations. Thank you. Judge? Point of personal privilege. I know that there's a couple, none of our retirees are in court today, but there's a couple of them that I'd be remiss if we didn't have an opportunity to talk about. I'll start off with the Cunninghams from the Sheriff's Department. It's been a privilege working with them. as closely as I've had over the last eight years. They've truly been a gift to our county, and I appreciate everything they've done. I haven't had the opportunity to work as closely with some of the other members of the SO's office, but they're great guys, and we're going to miss them. Earlier, before court started, I spoke to each of our directors, and I said, you know, we've never had a director... ditch us like this. I'm giving Jeff a hard time. I know he's watching on TV back in his office, but he kind of gave us the slip because he thought we wouldn't talk about him and say all the things about why we love him if he wasn't here. But we're going to, whether he wants us to or not. I don't know, honestly, from my first day as a commissioner almost eight years ago, I honestly didn't know how the county would function without Jeff McGill at the head of IT. And there are a lot of nodding heads in this room when I say that because he has saved more than one of us more than once. Whether it was in our elections division, whether it was completely new upgrades for clerk's offices, district and county clerk, whether it was the SO converting to new systems, our criminal justice program would be a completely different place without Jeff McGill. He's got big shoes to fill. I'm sure Chris is going to do a phenomenal job. But I would be remiss if I didn't say what an amazing employee over 30 years with Hayes County. And more than just an amazing employee, what an amazing person Jeff McGill is.

Well said. Commissioner Hammer, anything you'd like to add?

I do think it's important to congratulate all of the retirees again, echoing my colleague. But I will say when it comes to ITU with Jeff and Mark leaving, it's going to be good luck to whoever is filling those shoes because that's going to be a little rough for a while. But Jeff has been such a humble leader. And when I say he's humble, if he even knew that he was being spoke about and he was in a public eye, he'd be like, please stop talking. Um, so I just, I don't know what it's going to be like after he leaves, but I do know that he's always a one call away, even though he hasn't even left yet. Um, we'll still be calling him for every step of the way.

Wonderful commissioner Cohen.

Well, just congratulations to all the retirees. And, and, um, I told Jeff this at his retirement party on Friday, just that he will be deeply missed. He's been such an asset to the County. I've, I've never met someone more dedicated. to serving the county and the people and his fellow colleagues. He's definitely someone that I definitely admire his leadership over the county. And I mean, I may spend a little bit of time around Jeff, but he's just been wonderful and I wish him all the best.

his retirement with his family he definitely deserves it thank you judge yeah I just want to also thank all these retirees for all their hard work in the service that they've provided Hays County for so many years and of course Jeff is such a wonderful dedicated honest amazing person and we are going to miss him I'm sure I mean I'm glad that he will continue to do elections for us and help Jennifer out I know it's a It's very much needed, but I wish him the very best and his family also. I just thank them for allowing Jeff to work for so many years and serving the people of Hays County. Thank you.

WELCOME AND TRULY ALL THE RETIREES AND ALL THOSE HONORED FROM DAY ONE, YEAR ONE, 5, 10, 20. THEY'RE ALL USEFUL, IMPORTANT MILESTONES BECAUSE YOU'RE SERVING COMMUNITY IN WAYS THAT ARE MEANINGFUL AND WITH HONOR AND WITH INTEGRITY AND FOR THAT I THANK YOU ALL. OF COURSE JEFF IS GETTING THE BANDS WITH BECAUSE HE'S A DIRECTOR OF A VERY IMPORTANT SPACE. I SERVE AS THE CHAIR OF THE COMBINED EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION CENTER AND I WILL TELL YOU There is high, high regard for his skill set and what he does countywide with all the different municipalities, etc. ESDs, everyone. So it is a very important position. We won't miss a beat though. We have a great team and everyone is already all hands on deck and we are ready and we're grateful because It is because of Jeff McGill and everyone else retiring that has planned for this that we will continue to stay on the bleeding edge of the latest and greatest for our county and our residents. So thank you all. Please open F2.

F2, adopt a proclamation recognizing July 20th through 24th, 2026 as pre-trial probation and parole supervision week. So moved. Second.

All right, if you'll please read it.

Proclamation recognizing July 20th through 24th, 2026 as pre-trial probation and parole supervision week. Whereas pre-trial probation and parole services play an essential role in the criminal justice system contributing significantly to public safety, community well-being, and the fair administration of justice. And whereas professionals working in pre-trial probation and parole services diligently uphold the principles of justice, ensuring individuals receive fair treatment, support, and the necessary supervision to reintegrate into society successfully. And whereas these dedicated professionals often work under challenging conditions, displaying exceptional commitment, integrity, and resilience while managing caseloads, providing guidance, and fostering positive change in the lives of individuals under their supervision. And whereas the effective functioning of pretrial, probation, and parole services relies on the collaboration of law enforcement, community organizations, the judiciary, and other stakeholders to create a holistic approach to justice and rehabilitation. And whereas recognizing the critical role these services play in reducing recidivism, supporting rehabilitation and enhancing community safety is vital to fostering a more just, an equitable society and whereas pre-trial probation and parole week is an opportunity to honor and express our gratitude for these professionals invaluable contributions and raise awareness about the importance of these services in our communities now therefore be it resolved that the Hays County Commissioner's Court does hereby proclaim July 20th through 24th, 2026, as Pre-Child Probation and Parole Supervision Week and encourages all citizens to honor these community corrections professionals and recognize their crucial roles in the criminal justice system and their achievements toward safer communities. Adopted this the 28th day of July, 2026. Beautiful.

Please call the roll.

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

Yes. Albert, anyone would like to take the podium and say a few words before I hand it to the commissioners? Absolutely. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning, Judge Becerra.

Albert Sierra with the Judicial Service Department. I'm the assistant director. With me today are... Three of my distinguished colleagues, I have John Rosales, who's our high-risk GPS officer. Monica Ortiz is our alcohol monitoring officer. And also Julie Caciaca, who is our administrative assistant. As you know, we've been in existence now for approximately three years. And we have evolved so much and are doing so much for the community and helping to protect Everyone that's involved in the community by way of supervising defendants who are released on bond, helping defendants appear in court as directed so our failure to appear rates are significantly reduced since before we were in existence. We do so much every day, day in and day out, and we're continuously evolving, which is a beautiful thing here in Hays County. But we have to give credit where credit's due, and that's the team that we have in our department. They work tirelessly, endlessly, every day to help protect this community and do services that provide wonderful outcomes for our defendants that we service. So thank you guys very much.

So perfectly stated. Thank you all for what you do on a regular basis. Round of applause, folks. Commissioner Illsby?

Yeah. ALBERT, THANK YOU. YOU DID SAY IT WELL. BUT, YOU KNOW, Y'ALL HAVE EVOLVED. I REMEMBER WHEN WE FIRST STARTED AND THEN ALL THE PROGRAMS THAT WE FELT THAT WE NEEDED TO IMPLEMENT TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL DEPARTMENT AND Y'ALL HAVE DONE THAT. I REALLY APPRECIATE ALL THE WORK EVEN THOUGH JASON COULDN'T BE HERE. I WANT TO RECOGNIZE HIM ALSO. BUT YOU'RE RIGHT, THANK Y'ALL SO MUCH FOR THE WORK THAT YOU DO. IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT AND Y'ALL HAVE DONE A FANTASTIC JOB.

THANK YOU.

COMMISSIONER COHEN? Well, thank you all for all the work, and I want to thank all the individuals that work in these spaces. Your work often goes unseen, but it plays a vital role in keeping our community safe while giving individuals an opportunity to rebuild their lives. And so it's just the work that you all do. I greatly appreciate it every day, what you all do. So thank you very much. Commissioner Hammer.

So within this proclamation, the fair administration of justice, I think that is one of the number one things that your office does, and you continue to uphold that. That's why we live in America. You're innocent until proven guilty. So I'm blessed that you guys represent those principles, and you work every single day to make sure that those things are a necessity for us in our county. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Hammer. Great point. Commissioner Smith?

I just want to say it. To your point earlier, evolve is a minor word. I mean, from where we started in this process to where we are now, and especially I would say Commissioner Inglesby and I get to see a lot of y'all's work from serving on the bat and some of the changes and more effective means that y'all have implemented in the pretrial services world. I'm sure 90% of our population out there really have no idea what your office does. But y'all are a key to ensuring that our justice system works here. And I really don't know at this point how we functioned or if we functioned in near a well enough way prior to the establishment of y'all's office. And I can tell you that, and I think my colleagues would agree, that we went through a lot of permeations before we came up with the final version of what, and still not the final version, but But the version of a pretrial services office that we have, I think that while I'm mentioning pretrial services today, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about our probation and parole folks and all of our employees that are in that area trying to make people successful who have gone through the system. once they've exited the system as well, not just pre-trial services, but those post-sentencing and post-services. But I think y'all do a great job. I think it goes unheralded. I'm glad to get those updates in the BAT meeting whenever y'all do everything from going for changing our in-home monitoring and things like that to better processes, not only for the taxpayer here in the county, but for those individuals who are awaiting trial. So I appreciate everything you all do, and thank you.

Mr. Scietta, you and Jason came a while back and gave us a financial summary of The benefits of your office, do you, and I won't quote you verbatim, but do you have a moment to go to the podium and just say some of those stats that were on that report as loose or close as you can get to them? Because that's just going to be a part of my point. Yes, thank you. Please have a seat.

I don't have the actual documents in front of me, Judge, but as you know, since our existence, we've helped significantly to reduce the jail population, and that has been a significant savings to the county. We've done things by way of monitoring defendants that would have been incarcerated, but because of our available resources, such as electronic monitoring, GPS monitoring, We've saved a lot of money in that area as well. There's a significant amount of things that I could say, monetarily speaking, about what we've done to help save money for the county, all while protecting the county by effectively supervising defendants that have been released on bond in accordance with evidence-based practices. So there's quite a bit that I can go on and on about, Your Honor, as you know. Yes, sir.

But that's exactly where I started the conversation because I want to tell people this. Commissioner Hammer's point is exactly right. This is nonpartisan because Republican-controlled governor's office, Republican-controlled Senate and House, and I had the support of Texas Indigent Defense Commission to bring to Hays County. They funded the creation for a really... magnificent program which you are the ripples of and so the indigent defense commission through all lenses republican controlled and led helped this commissioner's court i was a 4-1 vote twice to create the public defender's office, which was the tip of the spear to move all these things and bringing in all these programs. And so I will simply say that it is not a partisan thing. And the piece when Jason brought that report of how many thousands upon thousands of dollars were saved, that's actually the tool I used to help convince people that it was the right thing to do because The social component and how we are hurting people's lives in meaningful ways for holding someone in jail. Innocent until proven guilty, Commissioner Hammond, you're exactly right. But yet it doesn't always flow that efficiently. And so with these systems in place, we've done so much more. And so, so much further ahead in all spaces judicial in the county. And so for that, I just simply want to remind folks that my focus was the financial selling of it, because it is truly a financial savings for us all as taxpayers. But in my heart, it was the social aspect of helping people's day-to-day lives, like Commissioner Smith pointed out. We're helping people, people that will never know who you are. You're helping hundreds of people seven days a week that call Hays County home. And so for that, I will be eternally grateful. Thank you all so much for what you do. And now it's customary for us to take a picture up here. Come on up. Thank you guys. I usually stand in the middle, but I've been bookending it, so that's fine. This will be fine. Who just won't be on the other end of that?

We'll... If you're right here. One, two, three. One, two, three.

Thank you so much. So worthy. So much work. And even in the monitoring edit that you guys did, there was more money on that. That was so, I mean, every turn you and Jason have made, nothing but beneficial. I can't even say enough good about it.

Thank you, sir.

Please open F3.

F3, a doctor proclamation recognizing the month of August 2026 as National Immunization Awareness Month.

So moved. Second. If you'll please read it.

Proclamation recognizing August 2026 as National Immunization Awareness Month in Hayes County. Whereas National Immunization Awareness Month is observed every August to highlight the importance of vaccination for people of all ages and to promote the protection of public and animal health through immunization. And whereas vaccines are a safe, cost-effective, and proven tool for preventing the spread of contagious and potentially deadly diseases, saving billions of dollars in healthcare costs each year. And whereas vaccines help protect every member of our community, especially our most vulnerable, including infants, children, older adults, individuals with chronic health conditions, and those who are immunocompromised, and whereas timely vaccination helps prevent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis, hepatitis A and B, diphtheria, tetanus, influenza, and COVID-19. And whereas adherence to the recommended immunization schedule over the course of a lifetime has prevented countless cases of illness, hospitalizations, long-term disability, and death. And whereas vaccines are rigorously tested, licensed, and continually monitored for safety and efficacy by national and international health authorities. And whereas veterinary immunizations have also contributed significantly to the health and safety of our community's animals, preventing the spread of diseases such as rabies, distemper, and parvovirus in pets like dogs and cats. And whereas the Hays County recognizes the vital role of local health care providers, schools, pharmacies, veterinarians, and public health agencies in ensuring access to immunizations and promoting vaccine education. And whereas from October 1st, 2025, through the present, the Hayes County Local Health Department has administered over 1,214 vaccines to community members and staff, contributing to the health and safety and resilience of our county. And whereas, as we prepare for a new school year and continue to safeguard our community against preventable diseases, it is critical for residents to ensure they and their loved ones are up to date on recommended immunizations. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Hays County Commissioner's Court hereby proclaims the month of August 2026 as National Immunization Awareness Month. in Hays County and encourages all residents to contact their healthcare provider or veterinarian to ensure their immunizations and those of their family members and pets are current and complete. Adopted this the 28th day of July, 2026. Beautifully done.

Please call the roll.

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

Yes. And Matthew, would you like to approach the podium and say a few extra words? I did not.

Good morning, Judge Becerra and commissioners. My name is Matthew Gonzalez. I'm the Hays County Health Department director. I want to first thank y'all for adopting this proclamation for Immunizations Awareness Month. It's a huge month for public health and as well as the community because this is such a vital service delivered to our residents to keep them healthy and to ensure that we have a safe community throughout all our years. And in 2023, the Commissioner's Court bought 101 Thermon, the current building that we're at, and started the procurement of the mobile health unit. This is very important because really this is the start of the health department adopting and implementing its immunizations program. And I'd be really remiss to not thank Tammy Crumley, the previous health department director, for leading the charge and getting that building and also that mobile health unit. And I say that because in 2024, we received the mobile health unit and two FTEs for immunization. Since then, in 2024, our delivery of immunizations has increased. The numbers here on the paper that I gave you reflect a year-over-year increase in adoption of immunizations provided by the health department. Excluding the outlier of the month of June, that's an average uptake of 134% of vaccines year-over-year that are given through the health department. For mobile clinics, we have done 44 events in fiscal year 25, and currently in fiscal year 26, we're at 33 mobile health unit events. And so this is really just a huge accomplishment by the team to accomplish. This reflects going to the schools, going to the communities, meeting them where they're at, whether that's school age children or the elderly. We're trying to get our community vaccinated for the upcoming seasons of whether that's flu, that's COVID or just your annual vaccine preventable diseases. So I really would like to thank the team on their work in doing this. Oftentimes these are after-hour events or weekend events that they're taking away time from their family to make sure that the residents of our community are healthy. Immunizations is one component, though, of what we do at the health department for immunizations programs. What I would also like to thank is our teams of Perinatal Hep B. And so Perinatal Hep B is A case management program where mothers who are infected with hepatitis B have the risk of transmitting it to their baby during pregnancy. And so during this time, we help coordinate mothers find a doctor to get treatment for hepatitis B. And if the baby is born, then we also get treatment for the infant during that time. This is a very crucial thing as, you know, helping mothers during that time of pregnancy is such a crucial moment to making sure that that baby has the healthiest and most equitable outcomes in its future. I'd also like to thank our immunizations record team. That's the MTRAC team. Right now, that's one individual, Josie Gonzalez, and really she helps coordinate all the school districts, ensuring that all our children below the age of 18 are in the MTRAC system, because when they go off and become an adult, we want them to be able to have their record. And so what she does is she works for them by the time they turn 18 to get a consent form, so that way they can sign up permanently for the program. So anytime throughout their life, they can go to a health department like ours and get their immunization record from the state of Texas. This is invaluable for people who are going into the medical and healthcare workspace, as well as universities. Lastly, I would like to end that by saying on August 1st from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Goodnight Middle School, the health department is hosting our annual back-to-school health fair. And so this health fair is providing a ton of resources for individuals, whether that's haircuts, that's immunizations, that's car seats, everything that's designed to help families have a successful school year is going to be there. And so we're super excited to invite all the vendors and community members there wherever they're at. to join us. Again, that's August 1st, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Goodnight Middle School. And thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Smith.

I'm just constantly amazed at how y'all have been able to expand the program over the last four to five years. I can't say thank you enough for the outreach to both the elderly community as well as our school age community as well. The resourcefulness where y'all have actually looked at where we have vaccines, where they could be used, and they've being able to pair those needs with those resources and then actively take them directly where that need is present with the mobile unit is amazing to me. And it's a long way from where we were five, six years ago when we would do something for our employees here and not really much outreach other than the individual programs like the TB program and things like that. It's expanding greatly, and I know that our community is very thankful for it. I know that I'm thankful for it because I get calls from constituents who have been able to participate, and they just didn't have that resource in the past. So thank you for all you all do. Thank you.

Commissioner Hammer.

First of all, to do 2.4 times what you did last year up to July is incredible, and you're continuing on that path. I don't know your department to take feedback and not to pivot and to integrate that feedback and do well with that. So I just want to say thank you so much for working with everybody. Thank you for listening to the constituents and making sure that you implement those plans. You bring them to Commissioner's Court. You are very thorough. You and your department do a great job, and thank you so much for everything you do.

Well, thank you, Matthew, for the update. It's amazing to see those numbers. The immunization vaccine is something that's very close to my heart. And, you know, I'm thankful that we were able to provide the mobile vaccine. And I was just thinking when you were talking about it, that it was Commissioner Smith and Commissioner Schell that allocated ARPA funding to my office to be able to, you know, try and do some work, you know, as a new commissioner and then having Commissioner Inglesby joined me in that effort to get that mobile van. And, you know, when I think back to COVID, you know, if we had something like that back then, that could have made a huge difference, you know, but it is what it is. We're here now and y'all just done amazing work. The staff, I could not be more proud of the work that y'all have done. And, you know, your leadership and Tammy's leadership too, you know, for the public health department has just been amazing. And I tell y'all this over and over how proud I am. of the work that y'all have done and continue to do. And to see this back to school, you know, resource grow, you know, from three years ago is amazing. If anyone hasn't been out there to see that, it's the number of people that come is just growing, growing. And I, you know, it makes my heart full to know that we are providing a, not just vaccine resources, but other resources, you know, back to school supplies that people struggle with, right? And so just thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything that y'all do.

Vaccines continue to be a bad word around here in the state. Measles are at an all-time high among many other things. And so the awareness, the education is critical because as the commissioner brought up COVID, I remember during COVID, This court had a hard time supporting anything COVID response, and it was just, generally speaking, a tough battle because a lot of people didn't want to support it. And so education is key. Now, not FDA approved was the standard. Now we know that hindsight bias, but something not being FDA approved then at the time, no one knew better. That was enough to say, oh, I can't support things to help our community. And so knowledge is power. Knowledge is power. And keep educating. Keep doing the outreach. Good job to your whole team. And it is customary for us all to come up and take a pic.

Can I say a few comments?

Commissioner, I'm so sorry. I was thinking of Matthew. Sorry, Commissioner. I never have done that.

No, no, no. It's fine. But Matthew, I also want to thank you and your entire team And thank you for the detailed report and the successes that, you know, we have seen over the years. It's wonderful. But you all do provide such important and vital services to our communities and our residents. And it's just, you know, pretty amazing. I know we talked about the, you know, the immunization ban. And, you know, I really want to see that up and going again. I know that there's been issues with it, but hopefully we can get that started again. I do believe, as Commissioner Cohen has said, immunizations to me is one of the most important services that y'all provide. Y'all are fixing to get extremely busy here soon, but there has been controversy over them. But hopefully people can come to understand and realize that they are important to help save their children. And I want to thank you for mentioning Tammy because up here sometimes we forget to mention people that have been in those roles and Tammy played a vital part and served for many years. And so thank you for that. Good job.

Good job, Commissioner. Tammy was exactly a key part. Come on up, guys. Let's take a picture.

Are we in the way? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you can AI. You can remove us.

We've already got you there.

I'm going to go back to my old place. What do you think? Go back. Let me go back to my old place.

That way I'm not fish out of water.

Okay, hold that other one. And let's go there. All right, moving right over here. One, two, three.

One, two, three.

Can we do this for a second? Can you guys do that pose one more time? I want to take a picture of what we see. Can you guys just pretend one more time? I think it's just a good pose. Well, I got you anyway. Thank you, guys. Thank you. All right, please open F4.

F4.

update from the budget officer on the FY27 budget process with possible action regarding a change to the budget calendar.

All right. All yours, if you will please approach the podium. State your name and title. Have a wonderful day, folks.

Scott Woodland, budget officer. I'd like to give the court a quick update on where we're at. We received the certifies last week, and we're working with the tax office on the no new revenue calculation, as well as the auditor's office on generating that revenue and looking at what the new certifies are going to produce. I will say that our appraised values in new construction went up a little bit with a small increase that we're predicting for funding, just to let the court know. And then in addition to that, I'm looking into other revenues having to do with property tax as well, just to make sure that we're getting that rate right and that we're able to receive all the revenue in our M&O that's possible. In addition to that, We're still working on the law enforcement salary increases. We had a meeting yesterday, and I think we got some numbers to start calculating some fiscal impacts off. So that will help us, as well as ongoing discussions on the civilian salary increases. And lastly, we're hoping to get the health insurance premiums this week, which Currently, we went as conservative as possible, taking the highest of the range that they would give us. The hope is that it comes in a little bit lower and that we're able to utilize some of that savings. In addition, I would like to motion to move the recommended budget to next week, which would be August 4th, 2026, and to update the budget calendar.

I move for the adoption of a new budget calendar, amending it with the budget being presented on August 4th.

Second. Please call the roll.

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

Yes. What else? That's good enough?

Yes, sir.

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Please open G21. G21. G21.

authorized payment of a one-year software subscription with Motorola Solutions for $2,975.03 for two mobile license plate readers mounted on one Sheriff's Office highway interdiction vehicle. So moved.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Commissioners, any comments on Ingalls Reed?

We do have one emailed.

We have it emailed? Okay, let's go with the email first.

From Nathan Pino, dear commissioners, I am urging you to vote against agenda item 21, which would allow Motorola software to be installed in a sheriff vehicle. With the use of AI, the software allows the capture of not only four partial license plates, but also vehicle make, model, year, color, accessories, damage, and writing or bumper stickers. These and other... will create many warrantless searches leading to many false matches and making life less safe or innocent people caught up in the software's net. The data are shared with everyone else that has the same software whether we have an agreement with them or not including ICE and the software is integrated with other safety platforms. This is an anti-democratic mass surveillance nightmare one would expect to find in China, not the United States. Hays County and other law enforcement entities will at most certainly abuse their power with these technologies, as others have across the country. And I do not trust Hays County to provide the adequate oversight. This will not make Hays County safer, but it will erode our civil liberties, lead to more false arrests, disturb innocent lives, and increase mass surveillance and authorization control over our neighbors. Studies that find crime reductions with the use of these cameras have questionable methods and are often funded by the companies making these technologies and therefore cannot be trusted. Stories are find criminals or lost children attempt to cover up the horrible outcomes of these technologies Knowledge of these problems are why ALPR cameras are related technologies are resided all over the county, all over the country by people across the political spectrum. If you do not vote no on this agenda item and allow the purchase, it is tactic declaration that you are against the genuine safety and civil liberties of your constituents and would love to subject us to authorization control and mass surveillance. Please end all ALPR contracts in Hays County if you want to live in free society. Sincerely, Nathan.

Commissioner Inglesby.

Well, Judge, I mean, I'd like the Sheriff's Office to come up and maybe explain this item. And I don't know if it's a new install or if you can just kind of give us some information.

Chief, if you'll state your name and title for the viewing public.

Brett Bailey, Chief Deputy with the Hays County Sheriff's Office. Judge and commissioners, thank you. So this actually is a system that was installed for training and evaluation purposes more than a year ago. It's used specifically by our interdiction unit and we have been going through the process through grant funding that has not been released by the federal government yet to install these for additional use and that hasn't happened yet. Motorola has graciously allowed us to use this technology, which I don't have the numbers, but has led to a number of successes. I think most recently what comes to mind is a seizure of 20, 30 kilos of narcotics. Those types of things have been going on. This is not a fixed position ALPR. It's on a vehicle specifically that is monitored and operated by one of our deputies at the sheriff's office. And this is simply a request in good faith with Motorola to say we are committed to trying to get your cameras and And this is for a license for law enforcement purposes only. Motorola has a very robust commercial version of this that we are not asking for. This is just for law enforcement purposes. I'll be happy to answer any other questions.

And Chief, when you say law enforcement purposes, are you talking about just Hays County or

No, the cameras, the data, it's not, just to be completely frank, it's not dissimilar to the Flock technology. It does share with other agencies that we share with and so forth. I started yesterday trying to get some very specific answers to some of the anticipated questions I might face today, and I wasn't able to get that. I just wasn't able to get a hold of the representative. But I do know that the data is stored not on Amazon. I know that was a big deal for Amazon. for the flock stuff, but they do have a secure server. It is CGIS compliant. We control the data. We control who it is shared with. There is no, to my knowledge, there is no agreement with ICE or any other federal agency This is simply something that one deputy in our sheriff's office uses to track suspicious vehicles that are picked up by those cameras.

In court, if I may, just to add on to that, what I did just put in front of you, it's not a document that's required to be signed with this contract, but I thought it might be helpful. It kind of Elaborates what chief Bailey just said about a few things specifically about the sheriff's office owning its own data and That it's up to the sheriff's office on who to share data with and it's up to each agency Other agency on who they shared their own data with so I just thought that might be helpful for y'all have in front of you It doesn't require a signature But I thought it might be helpful to add on to what chief Bailey was explaining so you could see it on paperback

What else, Commissioner Inglesby? I know it's hard for us to read something the minute we're handed it. I've heard that enough times where I appreciate the information, but before court would have been better. But I appreciate the information. But is there anything else you want to ask the chief while he's at the podium?

Yeah, I mean, I just, you know, I agree that, you know, I wish we would have had a little bit more time to review this. And maybe we can take that time, Chief. I'm not sure if, you know, if vote today is necessary. You know, can we have some time to read through the document? And, I mean, I guess I'd also like to just ask, like, Jordan just said, you know, it's up to the department to determine who they're going to share information with. I don't know if you have that information here today to provide who you might be sharing information with.

No, I don't have that information but just as if the same that we said with when we were going through the flock discussions We were more than willing to do and to limit that sharing with whatever y'all are comfortable with. So you know if it's if it's Nationwide that's great. If it's within Texas, that's fine. If it's within Central Texas, that's fine And if it's within Hayes County, then we will live with that. I can't stress enough that And this is just a personal feeling that many of the allegations and assertions that have been used during these discussions for ALPRs are just not true. They're baseless. Are there people that have misused the system? Yes. But I think if you've been paying attention to social media over the past year, other agencies that don't want to lose those services post regularly their success stories using ALPRs. I understand the concerns and all I can tell you is that as the person appointed by Sheriff Hippolito to ensure that our policies and so forth are followed, I can just commit to you that I will do everything within my power to prevent misuse. And I'd That's all I can share with you. Yeah, I will say one add one thing and that is we've been trying to get this on for some time. We've had to pull it off at least once, maybe twice. I would really urge or ask that the court consider taking a vote today. If you as a court decide that you don't want the sheriff's office to utilize technology to help us put people that are doing bad things away, then we will accept that. But this is a technology and a tool that we need to do our jobs. I would ask you to just make a decision. And if the court decides you don't want ALPRs in Hays County and you don't want us to reap the benefits of having that tool, I'll accept it. I really don't want to go through another months and months of trying to figure this out, and I don't think Motorola will be patient for that.

Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Cohen.

So we don't have an ALPR policy right now. That's correct. Okay. So I'm thinking, you know, if we had an ALPR policy and we had within that policy there was some oversight mechanisms, there was a section where, you know, we agree that Motorola is a preferred vendor versus Flock. I mean, the issues with Flock is that we didn't trust that technology and the behaviors of the company. If we had an ALPR policy where it had some real teeth on oversight and approved vendors, I think these kinds of situations would be easier for us to decide, right? And so I'm, that's kind of where my head is, Chief, is that I would really, and I know we tried last year to try and do something to create oversight and oversight something that we could turn to as a system. Because I understand that that's, you know, we don't want to take a tool away from law enforcement. So we're trying to find a happy medium where everyone feels comfortable. But it's not lost on me. Recently, a lot of ICE activity along the corridor, specifically in my precinct, right? And I have to be, I am concerned about that. But I also feel that if we were to truly build an ALPR policy, Well, we can look at here is our oversight, here are our preferred, because we've vetted them and there's some controls, then it might be easier to make these kinds of decisions is kind of what I'm thinking on this. Commissioner Hammer.

How long has this technology been on the vehicle?

I believe about 18 months.

18 months. Does it help you do your job every single day?

Yes, ma'am.

Is it on a vehicle in terms of, so it's not stationary, so it moves with the officer, similar to what a body cam would do, but just from a license plate perspective? That's correct. It scans license plates and not faces, correct? That's correct. I trust you, and I trust your judgment. Thank you.

Commissioner Smith. I think Chief Bailey made a great point. This is a tool, and Every time we remove a tool from the toolbox that our law enforcement has to do their job, I think it's problematic. I know I've said this in court before, but I go back to, I lived in Washington, D.C. from 1998 until 2012. And in 1998, within the first two months of living there, I learned that I couldn't park on the street for more than two hours because every single police vehicle had license plate readers and I was going to get a ticket. This is not new technology. It's not something that came out of nowhere a year ago and now it's a problem. It's something that's been implemented for literally decades. And again, there are people out there, there are officers that, in bad faith, use their nightstick wrong. Or perhaps they didn't receive the correct training, firearms training. Or they don't know how to execute a pit maneuver in their car. But all those are things that they're trained to do, and those are all tools that they have in their toolbox to do their job. If we told them every time we saw something that, because one or two individuals nationwide may have used something incorrectly, our officers would be out there every day walking around without a gun, without handcuffs, and with no tools to use. And this is just another one of those tools that I think is beneficial for them doing their job. We've seen, and I know flock may be a bad word, but we've seen flock cameras catch murderers in our county. We've seen them, I mean, horrendous crimes have been solved from the use of these technologies in our county. And whether it's a missing child or, you know, the murder that occurred in Buda in my precinct, which was solved by flock cameras. I don't see the benefit in taking away these tools from law enforcement when we know they work and we know that in Hayes County they have not been abused. And so I'm supportive of this, and I don't know if we will have a vote today, but if so, I'd be supportive of it.

Thank you, Commissioner. And Sheriff, I see you standing. Did you want to say something? OK, thank you, sir. So thank you, Chief, for saying that it was I'm just going to recap. It's nothing. It's all rhetorical. You don't have to reply to anything. But thank you for saying it's like flock. Of course, I was the court member that pushed. to end the flock originally, but first voted for it in January. Absolutely right. Because like Commissioner Hammer and Commissioner Smith, I totally agree with supporting you guys with all the tools you need to do the right job. But as the amendment of the contract came out and more awareness became available, The reason I voted for the system in January was because I trust you, and I trust the sheriff, and I trust our local law enforcement. I trust you 100% with what we're doing. If we didn't, we have remedies for that. And so I told the sheriff this, and I'll repeat it here just for encapsulation. i i trust you guys i trust our local folks all day long it's even regionally i trust all of the regionally all day long but it's when international because this all goes to the cloud whether amazon owns it or not i mean it all goes to the cloud and so i i know that you mean well with what you've said and i don't take it as misframing and mischaracterizing deliberately but i will say that It's up to the sheriff's office, one of the things you said, on who gets the information. So are you saying that if there is a federal warrant for the information, you can say, no, you're not going to have it? Or will you say, my hands are tied, this is out of my control? For information that's on the reader's cloud.

Well, I believe if we were served a federal warrant to produce records that we had in our possession, we would absolutely produce it. Exactly.

And so what I'm referring to is, of course, we want to follow the law on all fronts. And if you get a federal warrant for information, you should. That's exactly the right answer. But the concern is breach of information. International organizations, I didn't know this. I didn't know this. And it was in that letter that down to the stickers on people's cars and the dents that are on cars and the damage, all those silly things get recorded. And then, again, I didn't know this. You learn in these roles that we occupy, these seats that we hold. There are insurance companies that failing to cover legitimate claims because they say well on this date we have proof that you didn't have that dent but they don't they don't always have it right like we all all know about everything and everywhere and body cams it's all about angles on so many issues and so it's it's really important to Let me rattle off a few things that I have written down. It goes back to the argument of you said all the good pro things because it does solve crime. It does do a lot of good in a lot of spaces in its moment in time. But there's the libertarian lens that I look at, right? Mass surveillance. You're keeping records of millions of people moving, law-abiding drivers, not just suspects. Privacy concerns can reveal where people live, work, worship, seek medical care, or attend political events. Government tracking creates long-term database of citizens' traveling history. Fourth Amendment issues, critics argue prolonged tracking without a warrant raises constitutional concerns. Chilling effect, people may avoid a protest, a religious service, or a public meeting if they feel they're being tracked. Potential for abuse, again, This is not a Hays County lens. It's just a universal, it's in the cloud. So potential for abuse is not me knocking on our sheriff's department. It's just general speaking terms, broad statement. Data could be misused by government employees or accessed, it's unauthorized. Data sharing, information may be shared with numerous local, state, federal agencies that weren't supposed to have it or weren't legally going through the right channels to get it outside of a warrant. Long data retention, false positives, cybersecurity risks, mission creep. unequal impact. So this car gets parked in a neighborhood that's already over patrolled. We hear those complaints, right? Oh, this area has way more deputies patrolling the area. And, you know, there's a whole argument, nature, nurture and we're here because of crime, or there's all the different arguments that we can elaborate on but don't need to. And so in summary, I got pages of this stuff, but in summary, public safety depends on public trust. I'm not teaching you anything. I'm not trying to. But I just want the public to know that I see and hear the things they've shared with me. And so I will happily take the vote right now because I agree, you shouldn't be strung along. And when the commissioners in the flock conversation had the meeting with the sheriff and had the public engagement and all that dialogue, I agree. We should, yes or no, rip the bandaid off, make the decision and be done with it because You said it at the very beginning. It's just like flock. It's just like flock. So if there's no opposition, I'm ready to call the vote.

Yeah. And judge, I just want to say, um, and I guess I'm going to look to Candace's office, uh, you know, because even though, okay, I'm fine taking a vote today, maybe a couple of things. It's not the first time, and Jordan, please don't take this wrong because it's not always your office or whatever, but when we have information that is needed in the backup, it's really helpful to have it prior to us coming to court and just being handed. I mean, and others do it, and so I'm just asking that we please provide that. But Candace, what I was going to say is that I agree with what commissioner Cohen said. I mean, we need a policy. We started those discussions, you know, for whatever reason we didn't follow through with them, but there was a lot of good things that came up in that meeting and what, you know, we wanted to implement the sheriff's office was happy and willing to do some of those things. I think we do need a policy and I think we need to get it done as soon as possible so that I guess we're better equipped to make decisions because as everybody has stated, You know, we understand that it's an important tool and we need to allow our law enforcement to use, you know, equipment and tools that they need to do their jobs. And I agree and I understand that. But, you know, until we have that I think, you know, We're going to struggle like this every time.

We need local control, Sheriff. That's what I said originally. Any last comment before I call the roll?

Yes. It's very obvious that our sheriff's office is frustrated. Our DA's office believes that this is a tool for them as well. We put them in charge of our public safety. We put them in charge of making sure that we are safe every single day, day in and day out. I think this is a no-brainer. They're asking for it. They're frustrated with us because we continue to have these conversations. And I do believe that transparency and accountability are extremely important. But I move to authorize payment of a one-year software subscription with Motorola Services for $2,975.03 for two mobile license plate readers mounted on one sheriff's office highway interdiction vehicle and direct staff to create an LPR policy and bring back to court. Second.

We have a motion and a second. And unfortunately, you put the policy piece in there, so it might fail as a unit, but we'll create another motion if it fails. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? No. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen?

No.

Judge Becerra?

No. And in this vein, I move that we create a policy for license plate readers and any other technology that is for use of service to our law enforcement so that we can bring it back and have this discussion so that we can have a unified, cohesive front where our law enforcement feels the support, but our community doesn't feel the potential. Fill in the blank.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Is there something pertinent to this motion?

Yes, I just wanted to clarify two things. One, I will take full blame for that night being in backup. That's not on Candace. I'll take blame for that. When the vendor gave us documents which needed to be executed, this was not one that needed to be executed. And as I heard questions, I thought, you know what, it might be helpful for them to have that information. So I'll take the blame on that one. Secondly, if there's any policy regarding ALPR cameras, that is going to be up to that elected. for the policy because it's their tool they're going to be the ones that are using the tool and implementing the policy so i just wanted to be clear i think i don't want to speak for everyone else in the room that they heard loud and clear that the court's desire is a policy but i and candace please feel free to jump in i think that policy would have to be made by that elected not by the court, because the elective would be the one creating and following the policy in regards to their law enforcement functions. So I just wanted to...

Thank you for that. I still move that we ask Candace to lead the charge and bring something back to court so that we can have an official, a formal discussion to, even if it's a resolution.

However, it looks so that we can have a unified stance as a court and other elected officials offices can have Roadmapping so we can avoid these bookends of issues anything else commissioner I was just gonna say and as I mentioned earlier I mean we had some of those discussions with the sheriff's office and so we have information that we can provide and I Agree, I mean Jordan and support what you everything that you said, you know, it has to come from them But I think that we can provide input

Thank you. Please call the roll. Judge, hold on. To the point that our office, pardon me, not our office of general counsel, our civil division of the district attorney's office, I don't think we need to be directing our county administrator to be developing that policy. We should be asking the office of the district attorney and the office of the sheriff, as those elected officials, They should be, if we have the anticipation of a policy such as that, they're going to be the ones who have to implement it. They're going to be the ones who have to do it. And I'm fine. We just said she would. And I think that we should request them doing it, but we should not, because she can bring us the best things that slice bread. We can adopt it. It will make no difference if those individuals who are independent elected officials. Well, of course.

I mean, I think, I hope Candace understood.

Right. Commissioner hammer and then we're gonna call the roll.

I just want to say it's a little frustrating because These things have been in place for 18 months already and I feel like Because it finally hits our desk. We're like we can say something about it and we can stop it. I understand Where we sit as a court, but these are things that they need. These are things that they are asking us to help them with and all we're doing is stopping them and roadblocking them when they've had these in place for 18 months and It's crazy to me. Yeah, go ahead.

I would like to, if I could, respond exactly to what she's saying, and it actually addresses a point that you raised.

Please state your name and title.

Greg Cox, First Assistant District Attorney's Office. Judge, you talked about local control. The thing I want to say about this is we work closely with all of our local law enforcement on these issues, and when you all got rid of FLOC, you took a very important tool away from local law enforcement. This is an important tool as well. When you take these things away from our local law enforcement, you force us to have to rely on our state partners and our federal partners to gain this information. That's beyond your reach. That's beyond your control. Now I'm having to go to other agencies that you have no say-so over to be able to get the information that you're depriving us of. And that's important to keep in mind.

Thank you, sir. Roxanne, please call the roll.

Commissioner Hammer.

Just as a reminder, this is to help guide Candace to shepherd some information and a road mapping for us to have something to talk about here in court.

I just have a question. I mean, before we vote on this, am I wrong to say that this is outside the purview of the agenda item? I mean, we're not posted to. for this. I'm fine with us moving forward with it. I just want to make sure if we take action today that we're not outside of it.

Are you concerned with the way the agenda is written as the evolution took place?

To be clear, we're talking about in regards to the policy. Commissioner Smith? Yeah, I think if it's a tool and a software that's a tool and it's something related to that tool, I think we're okay.

I just want to make sure.

No, it's a fair question. I think we're okay as long as that is directly related to that tool that we're discussing.

Thank you. Roxanne, please call the roll.

Commissioner Hammer?

Yes.

Commissioner Inglesby?

Yes.

Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes. G11, please.

G11, approve the reappointment of Scott Roberts to the Board of Directors of the West Travis County Public Utility Agency, the WTCPUA, position four, term ending September 2030.

So moved. Second.

We have a motion and a second, and we have in person first and then emailed. So let's start with in person.

Rick Berwin.

Good morning. My name is Rick Brown. I'm the general manager of the Driven Springs Water Spy Corporation. I was here about a month ago. Same topic, same concern. I think the people of Driven Springs, for lack of a better word, are thirsty. And they've been in drought stage for about four years now. hoping to get some new representation on the PUA board, West Travis County PUA board. The people want to irrigate. The people want to fill their pools. The people want to live their lives without such a restriction that we've been facing. We've been doing an excellent job keeping under the limitations that have been placed upon us But we need, the people need help. And when I spoke last time, this court talked about possible limitations of terms. I thought, well, that was an excellent point. Thank you. So keep that in mind. I know that there's a lot of people who have submitted comments that are probably similar to mine. Happy to listen to those with you. But if you have any questions of me, I'm here. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. And let's go on to the written.

Britt Pascarella, commenting on item 11 on the July 28th agenda. I am against the reappointment of Scott Roberts to the UTP UA board. The fact that Walt Smith wants him on the board as his allies should tell you all you need to know. Also, Scott Roberts for years has had a massive conflict of interest with being able to control water to properties that he owned and sold. It is for these reasons that he should not be reappointed and banned from ever serving on it again. Thank you. Mark Keith. Judge Becerra and members of the court, I would respectfully ask that the consent item 11 be removed from consent and discussed as an individual agenda item. I ask you to not reappoint Scott Roberts to the UTCPUA board. Mr. Roberts sold hundreds of acres to the Driftwood Golf Course. Driftwood Golf then got a contract for one million gallons per day from the West Travis County Public Utility Agency, WTCPUA, via the City of Dripping Springs. while Scott Roberts was a board member. While Dripping Springs Water Supply Corp, DSWSC, has spent the majority of the last four years in stage four drought cutback, the golf course has put hundreds of millions of gallons of portable water on grass. Mr. Roberts, per HayesCAD, still owns properties that show market value of $12,836,535 in 2026, Of note, the same property showed a market value of $14,195,931 in 2024. So apparently property at the golf course is going down in value. This fact alone should disqualify him from remaining on the WTCPUA board. Also, you can't get past the fact that as a board member, neither Scott Roberts nor or Walt Smith have done a very good job. It was known as far back as 2016 that the WTCPUA needed to expand their treatment plant, but Smith and Roberts failed to act and have now thrown the entire region into a possible water shortage. But don't worry, the fairways will be green. I would recommend getting two better qualified people on the board at the first of the year as Commissioner Smith will no longer hold an elected position in Hays County. There is way too much opportunity of malfeasance with a sitting commissioner who sits in Hays County executive sessions, also sitting in WTCPUA executive sessions. This person would, in fact, be the most powerful person in Hays County as they would control the roads and the water. It could really leave the county into a bad spot. Plus, the commissioners need to be able to ask honest questions of the UTCPUA representatives. My experience in the last 20 years at commissioner courts is that one commissioner is unlikely to call out another commissioner for fear of hurting their precinct. I respectfully offer up myself to discuss these issues at any time. I think an advisory board made up of DSWSC, City of Dripping Springs, and several of the local MUDs that buy wholesale WTCPUA should pick the candidates and present them to commissioner's court for your approval. In conclusion, I would say honest government matters and should not be for sale. Respectfully, Mark Key. Nick Mathis. I am writing to express my strong opposition to the appointment of Scott Roberts of the West Travis County Public Utility Agency, WTCPUA, appointing a major commercial property developer TO OVERSEE WATER INFRASTRUCTURE PRESENTS A CLEAR CONFLICT OF INTEREST. THIS DECISION RISK PRIORITIZING PRIVATE BUSINESSES INTEREST OVER PUBLIC GOOD. I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO VOTE AGAINST THIS REAPPOINTMENT. SINCERELY, NIGHT. CHARLES BUSBY, TO THE COMMISSIONER'S, TO HAYS COMMISSIONER'S COURT. I oppose the reappointment of Scott Roberts to the West Travis County Public Utility Administration. Mr. Roberts has occupied the position for far too long and has shown hostility towards Dripping Springs Water Supply Company at one point stating to one of our board members that DSWSC should just sell our wells to the WTCPUA while ensuring more than adequate water be made available to his development in Driftwood. using both WTCPUA water through the city of Dripping Springs and possibly illegal abuse of groundwater, he has shown little, if any, concern for neighboring water users. I encourage you not to reappoint Mr. Roberts to the WCTPUA board. From Bobby Levinsky. Judge Bassetta and commissioners, please pull the proposed appointments to the WTCPUA board from the agenda and open a public application process. Regardless of what you feel about Mr. Roberts' performance, there should be no automatic reappointments. The residents of Hays County deserve a choice and a completion of ideas. Since these are appointed positions, there is already very little opportunity for public accountability for such an important entity. The PUA controls water services and pipeline decisions that influence where and how growth occurs in Northwest Hays County. A public application process with multiple candidates would encourage discussion about how the WTC PUA should serve our communities, protect our water resources, and plan the future. It's healthy in public decision making, yet the PUA has operated for years with very few split votes. At the same time, it has been approving massive infrastructure expansions, walking away from environmental commitments, and carving pipelines through nature preserves. It is time for a change. Thank you. This is from Susan Cook. Dear Judge and Commissioners, my name is Susan Cook, and I live in Driftwood. Scott Roberts has served on the West Travis County PUA Board since its interception in 2012 and currently is the president. He appears to be seeking to stay on the board until at least 2030, or that is what Agent Commissioner Walt Smith has put on the agenda. I have heard nothing from Mr. Roberts. Mr. Roberts has never reported back to Hayes County on what he is doing in that capacity, nor have the majority of the commissioners ever even met him. Seems to me that since he was appointed by the commissioner's court and serves at their pleasure and is seeking reappointment, he should come before the court and tell us what he has been doing and why he should be allowed to continue to do those things and answer questions from both court and the public. The WTCPUA controls the water supply for tens of thousands of Hays County residents, and it is the major decision maker for where water pipelines are built, therefore deciding who gets to build and where. The WTCPUA puts its customer under frequent water restrictions due to their infrastructure being insufficient and not well maintained. Their customers are currently restricted to indoor water use only. Their water leakage is a serious concern, as are who they choose to supply water to, like the Driftwood Golf Course by way of the City of Diaz, for whom they are the sole provider. Residential customers do without while that golf course remains green There appears to be zero accountability to the citizens of Hays County for the actions decisions and activities of the WTC Pua and their ability to choose winners and losers Where growth happens is very important in a powerful development tool of utmost importance is the fact that mr Roberts is a major land holder and business associate in several enterprises in the area of served by the WTCPUA, including his barbecue joint, the Salt Lake, the nearby luxury housing development, vineyards, and the golf course. I am not privy to Mr. Roberts' exact involvement in any of these businesses, but he either outright owns, has developed, or is an associate in them all. And he owns additional lands, which, once developed, will also benefit from the WTCPUA water. This is the very definition of a clear conflict of interest. He makes decisions which benefit him personally along with his friends and business associates. I have only recently become acutely aware of how powerful this board over which Ms. Robert presides really is and how they are not responding to growth but driving it and directing where it goes and who gets to develop the Driftwood slash Chipping Springs area along with Bee Cave, Texas. Since groundwater suppliers are both limited dwindling in the areas, access to water lines from Lake Austin and elsewhere like Syriza Wilcox Aquifer to our east, and essential ingredients to major building projects. From Lynn Bridge. To judge and the commissioners, please do not appoint Mr. Scott Roberts to the WTCPUA again. I do not know him personally, and I have nothing against him personally. However, to the owner of businesses which use lots of water, I feel that he is a dog in this hunt, a really big dog. This position on the WTCPUA should be reserved for a resident of Hayes County, not someone who makes money off high water usage businesses in Hayes County. From Laurel Trevino Murphy. Honorable Judge Brissetta and commissioners of the court, I am opposed to the appointment of Scott Roberts to the West Travis County Public Utility Agency, WTCPUA. I think that the appointing of a commercial property developer to oversee public utility infrastructure, especially that pertaining to water infrastructure, presents an inherent conflict of interest. Appointing a property developer to oversee the public utility agency that potentially could import water from Travis County to serve various commercial enterprises in Hays County could favor his private business interest over the public good. I urge you to vote against the appointment of Scott Roberts to the West Travis County PUC, sincerely. From Jan Wesson. Honorable Judge Becetta and Hays County Commissioners, I believe that the reappointment of Scott Roberts is the Epitome of conflict of on interest he owns or is in partnership with many of the large commercial ventures of that the WTCP UA supply Residential customers are severely limited while the golf course stays green. I noticed today the vineyard vineyard owned by mr Roberts also looked quite healthy It is time to find some a representative from the community. That is not a self-serving individual I also believe that Walt Smith's place on the committee needs to end with his term. Hopefully I This will be a change for the better as we move forward and seriously look for ways to be good stewards of the Texas Hill Country. From Bob Bridge, I strongly oppose the reappointment of Scott Roberts to the WTCPUA board. The Hayes County representative to the WTCPUA must represent the interest of the majority of its water users, not just select a few. Mr. Roberts is a major land and business owner, and the area served by the WTCPUA and owns additional land, which once developed, will benefit from WTCPUA. WATER. THIS POINTS TO A CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN THAT HE MAKES DECISIONS WHICH FINANCIALLY BENEFITS HIM PERSONALLY. FURTHERMORE, MR. ROBERTS DOES NOT ROUTINELY REPORT TO HAYES COUNTY COMMISSIONER'S COURT ON HIS WTCPUA ACTIVITIES AND INITIATIVES. YOU'RE DOING GREAT. Madeline Mathis, dear judge and commissioners, I respectfully ask that the consent agenda item G11 be removed from the consent agenda and considered through open public appointment process. Mr. Roberts has served on the West Travis County Public Utility Agency Board since 2012. Before extending that appointment through 2030, I believe court should provide an opportunity for the public to hear him, understand his qualifications and priorities, and consider whether other qualified candidates may also wish to serve. This request is not about the outcome, it is about the process. Public confidence in government depends on appointments being made through an open and transparent process, particularly for positions that carry significant public responsibilities and long-term services. If, after public review, the court concludes that Mr. Roberts is the best person to continue serving, that decision will carry greater public confidence because it was reached openly If another strong candidate emerges, the court and the public will have benefited from considering additional perspectives. Removing this item from consent agenda is a small step that demonstrates accountability, encourages public participation, and strengthens confidence in the court's decision making. For these reasons, I respectfully ask that item G11 be pulled from consent agenda and considered through open public appointment process. Thank you for your time and your service to Hayes County. Michael Vax. I'd like to ask that the consent agenda item 11 be pulled from consent agenda and discussed separately. I live along Onion Creek and care a lot about the long-term future of Hays County. Water isn't just another issue here. It affects every family, every property owner, and every decision about how our community grows. I grew up in New Jersey and attended school in Newark during the time when there was serious concerns about the safety of drinking water. Seeing what happens when public trust in water management breaks down left a lasting impression on me. It's one of the reasons I pay close attention to how decisions about water are made today. Because this board is important, I don't think appointments like this should be approved as a part of a consent agenda. Whether the court ultimately decides to reappoint Mr. Roberts or not, I believe the appointment deserves a public discussion so residents can better understand the reasoning before a vote is taken. Thank you for your time and consideration. Honorable judge and set a and esteemed commissioners. My name is Alana Betty and my public comment today is referencing item G 11. I wish to voice opposition on the reappointment of Scott Roberts to the WTC PUA board because of the WTC PUA controls water supply for thousands of Hayes residents. The water is extremely hot, but an issue during the ongoing drought conditions we have been in and continue to be experiencing. It seems flippant. to place this agenda item under the consent items to pass without any discussion or justification. Just appointed by this court, it seems that Mr. Roberts should be held accountable and provide updates to the court as to how he is serving the people of Hays County. From the outside, it appears there is a blatant conflict of interest to have Mr. Roberts, who is a land holder and stakeholder in businesses and develops in the Driftwood area, making decisions that ultimately determine where supply pipelines are built, and therefore dictating who gets to build what and where development occurs in Driftwood and Dripping Springs area. It seems that decisions previously made by the WTCPUA have resulted in ensuring that golf courses remain green while residential customers have faced water use restrictions. These decisions do not appear to serve the people of Hays County, but rather serve to line the pockets of a few wealthy and affluent individuals. Mr. Roberts appears to be one of those beneficiaries. I ask that you remove this agenda item from the consent items portion of the agenda so that it can be discussed. Please take the time to review the decisions that the WT has made with Mr. Roberts serving on the board, the personal benefits he has seen from the board's decision, and the benefit the larger population of Hays County has seen or not seen due to these decisions. In a time when our freshwater resources are becoming more sacred, And development threatens the quality and quantity of our groundwater supplies. There are no reason to rush decisions about who should be leading our public utility agencies. Please take time to consider other individuals as board members who can make decisions about our community's water supplies and usage without conflict of interest. Thank you for considering my plea. From Tim Mathis. Dear Honorable Judge Becetta and Hays County Commissioners, I am writing you to formally request that you do not reappoint Scott Roberts to the WTCPUA. Mr. Roberts has a clear conflict of interest that prevents him from making decisions for the good of people. Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. We've got our last one from Kathy Ramsey. Dear commissioners, thank you for taking the time to read and consider this input. I am asking that you stop consent agenda item 11 from proceeding. Do not reappoint Mr. Scott Roberts to the WTCPUA board and instead have full discussion and community input on this very critical matter. It should not even be a consent agenda item, but rather a matter that the court weighs carefully. This process itself is a big red flag. in an attempt to fly under the radar. For years, the WTCPUA has operated with very little oversight from Hayes County. There is no report to the commissioner's court, although from the meetings I've attended, it's clear to me that this is very influential board. We're regulating where water and therefore development is directed. The court needs to take much more active stance or developers will rule the day unabated and unmonitored. Because the Precinct 4 Commissioner has consistently voted against the wishes of his constituents, he is directing the county to build a very expensive, deeply problematic, unwanted road, the DS Southwest Connect. Right alongside this are plans to lay water lines and create large pockets of unwanted, dense development in parks. THIS SMALL GROUP OF PEOPLE IS DETERMINING THE FUTURE OF OUR DETERMINING THE FUTURE OF OUR DETERMINING THE FUTURE OF OUR LAND AND WATER BECAUSE THE BOARD LAND AND WATER BECAUSE THE BOARD LAND AND WATER BECAUSE THE BOARD HEAVILY FAVORS DEVELOPMENT. HEAVILY FAVORS DEVELOPMENT. HEAVILY FAVORS DEVELOPMENT. WHAT THEY ARE PLANNING IS NOT THE WHAT THEY ARE PLANNING IS NOT THE WHAT THEY ARE PLANNING IS NOT THE BEST INTEREST OF THOSE WHO LIVE BEST INTEREST OF THOSE WHO LIVE BEST INTEREST OF THOSE WHO LIVE HERE NOW AND WILL DEVASTATE OUR HERE NOW AND WILL DEVASTATE OUR HERE NOW AND WILL DEVASTATE OUR RURAL LANDS AND OPEN SPACES. RURAL LANDS AND OPEN SPAC UNICEF's problem for years and ignored the repeated attempts by nearby residents and their lawyers to please adequately repairs and maintain the system. More attention to maintaining adequate services to existing customers need to be the focus going forward. Instead, directors are building out a huge system that will genuinely greatly deplete lake water, benefit select land owners while harming others, and most importantly, pollute and pave over critical recharge areas. Areas that directly feed into the water supply the rest of the county relies on. I am asking the court to take more active position in appointing board members who have understanding of our water issues and will work for the good of people rather than the enrichment of select developers. Mr. Roberts owns extensive developments including a large golf course that is fueled by drinking water delivered at public expense and is sweetheart prices. and at sweetheart prices creates a clear conflict of interest that renders his presence on the board problematic. Thank you for your careful consideration on this matter.

All right. Your turn, Commissioner.

Thank you. I think that a lot of the comments in the public comment are just not only false but outright outrageous. And I will tell you, as a board member, whenever I was elected to office in 2018, My predecessor, Ray Wisnat, was one of the founding board members of the PUA, and I chose to stay off that board until his term ended in 2020. And the court sought fit to appoint me then. What many people don't understand about the PUA is it is not a sole appointment by the Hayes County Commissioner's Court. It's one of the very few appointments where, once we make an appointment here, the other two presiding entities have to support and approve that appointment. I've seen, on multiple occasions, that not happen amongst our two partners in the PUA. And that's the City of Dripping Springs and MUD 5 over in Austin and Travis County. There is direct dissension, or in the past, there has been direct dissension between them. I've watched President Roberts negotiate with those two entities. and not only get a board that is supported board-wide, all five positions, by those three entities, but truly make a difference as board president. Some of the aspects that were mentioned here today, I'd just like to address. Number one, I've seen board president Roberts recuse himself at least 20 more, probably more than 30 times on anything related to the driftwood development. He is not an owner in a golf course. The PUA does not directly sell water to the golf course. They have a LUV or a livable unit equivalent contract with the city of Dripping Springs. And the city of Dripping Springs sells water to the golf course. and they do that under the lue contract that we have we have a general number of lues that they purchase as a wholesale provider or pardon me as a wholesale customer of the pua i will say that one of the other things that I would mention is all of our, every single one of our customers, whether they're commercial or residential, have to abide by the exact same curtailments. Whenever we go to stage two, stage three, they all have to abide by those curtailments. I think it's absolutely egregious to attack a citizen of our county who is a multi-generational citizen of this county and has truly brought success and economic development to our area, employs hundreds of people in our area, pays literally tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes because they live here and they chose to build their business here. And that is somehow should be looked down upon. I think we should encourage people to do that here. They should want to build that business here. They should want to be property owners here. They should want to raise their families here and be successful here. And to try to degrade or speak down to them because of that, I think it's rather, I think it's just sad. I fully support the appointment of President Roberts. I think anybody that served on that board Some of the questions about, you know, there's no availability for accountability. I go to an open public meeting. We might not meet every month, but almost every month. There's a couple of months we miss a year where we have an open public comment period just like this. And we have the general public come in and ask us about those decisions, ask us about individual items, ask us about the future. Whenever we, you know, the PUA operates very differently than any other utility in the state. And I say that because the PUA is mandated by state law that we have to provide potable water at the lowest possible rate to our rate payers. So when we look at, and we talk here in Commissioner's Court about growth should pay for growth, It's not a thought or an afterthought. It's the way that we have to operate on the PUA Board of Directors. And so when we're talking about where facilities should be expanded, we actually go through, I know the court went through a CIP process or a capital improvement process to identify projects earlier this year in January. It's the first time the county's ever done it. The PUA does it every three to four years because of the growth that's happening. And we do that because our current rate payers can't pay for that growth. By law, we're not allowed to charge them for that growth. We have to make sure that whatever that growth incurs, that growth is paid for by new people coming in off of their connection fees and their impact. We call them impact fees, the connection and impact that they will have on the overall system. We are currently in a major CIP. We're expanding our wastewater, or pardon me, our water treatment plant and facility. we were bringing an additional probably 10,000 OUEs to the Dripping Springs area. And the vast majority of the comments that I saw today are actually from folks associated with the, either they are not rate payers to the system, or customers of one of the wholesale providers in the system, or they are associated with the Dripping Springs Water Supply Corp. who has, in my view, failed to plan for their future, all the while thinking, well, the PUA will bail us out at some point. They'll provide the water that we need, that we should have secured for our customers over time. And I think that a lot of the rhetoric that we heard today is over the fact that the PUA has been very direct in saying that you're going to have to make some changes to your system to really try to plan for the future in order for us to feel comfortable with providing additional water service there. And that being the case, I know that I would love to hear from the rest of the court, but after comments, I would move for the appointment of Mr. Roberts.

Yep, that's how we do it, after comments. Commissioner Inglesby, anything to add, contribute?

I WOULD JUST SAY, JUDGE, THAT, YOU KNOW, I GUESS I DID MENTION IT LAST TIME. I THINK IF WE'RE GOING TO LOOK AT TERM LIMITS THAT WE NEED TO LOOK AT IT HOLISTICALLY, NOT JUST ONE INDIVIDUAL ORGANIZATION THAT WE APPOINT MEMBERS TO. You know, because I've heard of other concerns throughout the county, you know, with other appointments that this body makes. And so I just feel that if we're going to do that, then we need to look at every. entity that we appoint people to and see if that is what this court wants to do. And maybe it is the right thing to do to give other people an opportunity. But until we do that, I think, you know, that I'm supportive of the appointment and then we look at this holistically and go from there.

Commissioner Nicole?

Yes, I mean, I agree with Commissioner Inglesby. I think it definitely opens a conversation of All of our boards. I kind of do believe in some term limits. I think there is value to fresh perspective on any board. So just Mr. Roberts has been on the board for how long, Commissioner?

He was the first person appointed after the inception of the board. I believe it was about three months after it was established in 2012. 2012. I believe that's correct. I could be wrong. I know that I was the second person ever appointed to the board. It was the original board until 2020, with the exception of Mr. Roberts, until 2020 when I received my appointment. And within four months, I was the second longest serving person on the board.

And when these appointments are considered, what's the process to invite other folks who may be interested in joining the board. Does that happen within the organization?

Just as you do anything in your precinct, I've got, I think, nine ESD boards, a couple of other boards that we appoint people to. I'm forever asking people, and at times, this is an exception to the rule because there is other interest out there, but y'all know better than anybody how hard it is to find somebody for some of these boards. And my one concern, I completely agree. I think that new blood in there at times is positive. At times, it's hard to get people to serve on like an ESD board or something like that. This one is different. I will say that one of the reasons that I stayed off the board in 2020 was they were doing system upgrades and expansions with that CIP at the time. And so they were looking to go to the bond market at that time as an entity to pay for those bonds. And there was a concern that if there was a change in board structure, that it would have an impact on the ratepayers, and they didn't want the ratepayers to have to pay a higher interest rate on those bonds, and so that's the reason I stayed off until after those bonds were let. I know that we are currently in that process now as well.

Okay. Okay, that's all I have to say. Commissioner Henry.

So last time when we discussed this, I didn't know Mr. Roberts. I've never met him in my life. And so I made the point to ask him my questions and to meet with him and to determine, you know, hey, the biggest thing you hear is conflict of interest. You've heard that a hundred times, right? And he definitely, from the recusing and he, you know, he separates himself from all those things. Saw WHERE HE HAS RECUSED HIMSELF, SO ANSWER MY QUESTIONS THERE, BUT THEN I STARTED TO THINK, YOU KNOW, WHERE CAN WE NOT FIND A CONFLICT OF INTEREST? IF WE WANTED TO BE A HAYES COUNTY RESIDENT, IN SOME WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE A CONFLICT OF INTEREST, SO WE CAN, THE BEST WE CAN DO IS HOPE THAT THEY DO RECUSE THEMSELVES FROM BEING ABLE TO VOTE ON THINGS, RIGHT? SO THAT ALLEVIATED SOME OF MY CONCERNS. I WILL SAY THAT THE WEST TRAVIS PUA IS ENTIRELY IN PRECINCT 4, SO When we talk about where we're at as commissioners, we were elected within our precinct to represent our precinct, right? I'm not going to get in the habit of putting people in Walt's precinct, or sorry, Commissioner Smith's precinct. And I know he's not going to do the same for me because he doesn't understand my precinct like I understand my precinct, right? So some of those concerns... Again, I don't know Commissioner Inglesby's precinct. I wouldn't put someone in for her ESD or anything of that nature to serve her constituents, and I would hope that they would trust me with my appointments.

With that, Judge, if you have any comments.

I do. I heard loud and clear these messages, and if I'm not mistaken, was this last time in court in... The other section, miscellaneous. And then, was this in miscellaneous last court?

I don't think so.

Or was it in consent? It was consent last time. Also last time. Because I'm always looking and pushing for it. You heard it with the license plate readers and all the other things. Transparency and process and heads up for people and I hear these concerns I hear the complaints and so I I feel that this is a very important Conversation to have and so do many others. I took down a bunch of notes of the things that were being said Whether things are true or not Yes, I'm glad to hear term limits that's great that's a good idea But really we've we've been left out of this conversation for quite some time and having him there since 2012 that's a long time and having so many people wanting to be on it and representing that part of the county and us hearing people Last court asking for it to be opened up and asking for the conversation and it just coming right back as a consent agenda item, I'm not a fan of that process. I think Mr. Roberts would have been good to come here and show everyone, talk to everyone, and defend himself. I appreciate you, pun intended, carrying water for them, but the point is when someone wants an appointment for decades now without creating a rotation of perspectives and assessments, I think we are falling short to continue to do more of the same. I was against evergreen contracts, and I know some people didn't like the idea, but just automatically renewing contracts was I thought a weakness for us as a government that we should always open it up. Not about who we like and who we don't like, winners or losers, just about the idea that, you know what, open it up and let's make sure we're doing the highest and best. And so when we open up this process, the city of San Marcos does a lot of things that are really good because that's, honestly, that's the community that I've called home for almost 30 years. This is where I raised my sons. And... DO A LOT OF THINGS RIGHT IN THE SPACE OF APPOINTMENTS, BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS. AND SO I THINK WE CAN LEARN FROM THEM ON HOW WE DO THIS WITH, LIKE YOU SAID, COMMISSIONER INGLESBY, WITH ESDs, WITH PIDs, WITH ALL APPOINTMENTS. TERS, I CAN KEEP GOING, OF COURSE, BUT THE IDEA IS THIS IS LACKING IN Access it is lacking in transparency. The podium is empty. It is lacking in explanation it is lacking on a lot of fronts and You said a couple of things that I wrote down attacking a citizen of our County that these letters were attacking or some of them I'll just say attacking a citizen of our County and he lives here and he chose to build a business here and You previously said, I thought, that he wasn't a resident of this county.

I said I believed he was a resident, and I've since confirmed that.

That what?

That he is a resident of the county.

He is a resident of the county?

Okay.

His license, please.

Yeah, I mean, he is a resident of the county. He lives here. He votes here. He's lived here his entire life. He owns property outside of Hays County. So do I.

No doubt. Ownership of property is a moot point. But residing in the county is the piece that I wanted to make sure because you weren't sure. And people said he lives in Austin. And so we as a Hays County Commissioner's Court should appoint Hays County residents. And so I just I feel that I don't have anything against him either. great food and whatever else, but my point is, I feel like we should open up, since there's so much request and interest in this position, I think we should open it up and not just make a blanket appointment on something that so many people want to be included in the conversation. I think that's the last thing I want to say, not to beat a dead horse.

Move for the appointment.

If there's no other questions or comments, please call the roll.

Wait, I have a...

Final pot?

Yeah, well, just questions for Jordan. Because we've talked about consent. Why would this be put under consent than the other categories from a legal perspective? Because that was a big heartburn for a lot of people.

Sure, sure. Jordan Powell, civil first assistant, and Candace and her team are welcome to join in since they help with agenda prep now. But routinely, any reappointments to boards, whether they're ESDs, PUAs, SOME OF THE BOARDS YOU TALKED ABOUT TODAY, THOSE REAPPOINTMENTS ARE TYPICALLY, AND ORIGINAL APPOINTMENTS SOMETIMES, ARE USUALLY ON THE CONSENT AGENDA. THAT'S JUST WHERE THEY'VE ROUTINELY BEEN. BUT SINCE WE DON'T PREPARE THE AGENDA ANYMORE, I'M HAPPY TO LET CANDICE DIAL IN IF THERE'S FURTHER DETAILS IN THAT THAT MIGHT EXPLAIN IT MORE.

SO I'LL JUST ECHO JORDAN'S.

I'LL STATE YOUR NAME AND TITLE FOR THE VIEWING PUBLIC.

Candace Boutte, County Administrator. So I'll just echo Jordan's sentiments that our department, typically we have put those appointments on consent unless the court has expressed that they'd like to pull the item. If the court would like to give direction on us putting those on miscellaneous, we certainly can.

And I would just also mention that We anticipate that the two other entities will have appointments, or at least one of the other two entities will have an appointment in the next month that, again, We don't have a say over who their nominees are. We just have an up or down vote as to whether or not we would approve them. Those will probably come within the next one to two court sessions. And this is a process that since I've been on there in 2020, they always come in the end of July, the beginning of August. And I'm not sure just off the top of my head which one of those two will come. But I would anticipate, again, that will probably be on the consent. I don't know why it wouldn't be. But I want to reiterate that all three of the entities have to vote for that appointment. And so there is, I have to put trust in the city of Bee Cave that they are appointing someone that should be approved and that they have to do due diligence on those individuals. We should be doing the same thing. I try to exponentially, especially on the Mud 5, because I'm just not as familiar with that community. It's one small neighborhood in Travis County. But I would just tell my colleagues, anticipate we'll get at least one of those within the next month.

Mr. Roberts is the president, correct? Who puts them in charge to be the president?

The rest of the board votes on the appointments. There's three officer positions. There's a president, a vice president, and a secretary treasurer. And those are voted on by the five members of the board. And so the rest of the board has expressed their... support of his leadership by his appointment as the president. The vice president of the board is Jack Creveling, who is an appointee from the city of Bee Cave, and I've been elected as the secretary treasurer.

Okay, so all of them believe that his leadership has been successful in those efforts there. And when it comes to the golf course, he is part owner. What is his relation connection to that?

He sold the property.

He sold the property.

So he developed it?

He sold the property.

But the first part, he developed it?

No, he sold the property as raw property. Okay.

Okay. All right. And you say you're the Secretary-Treasurer. That was just a good piece of information. How much money is in that bank account?

In that bank account?

You've got to be more specific because we've got about 30 of them. Now, what I would say is in our overall CIP, it's probably about a $220 million amount. Overall CIP that's currently in operation with projects, probably operating budget, probably about $60 million. It varies from month to month. I mean, it's a large budget.

So 220 plus 60, you say?

No, because your CIP, so again, with our CIP budget, it's done very differently. A lot of that is bonded funds. And so right now we've got probably 15 to 20 projects in process. And depending on what day of the month they're on, one of those projects could fluctuate. For example, there was an award for a pipeline this week, or pardon me, last week, two Thursdays ago. That one award was $11.5 million. So those accounts fluctuate with 30 projects going. They fluctuate up and down on a monthly basis by tens of millions of dollars.

YOU SAID THAT DRIPPING SPRINGS WATER SUPPLY CORP DID NOT PLAN FOR THE FUTURE, AND THAT'S WHY YOU GUYS ARE HAVING BUDDING HEADS. CAN YOU ELABORATE MORE ON THAT?

SURE. I THINK THE DRIPPING SPRINGS WATER SUPPLY CORP, THEY OPERATE SOLELY ON GROUNDWATER WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A VOLUMETRIC CONTRACT WHICH WAS ESTABLISHED BY THE LCRA PRIOR TO THE FOUNDING OF THE PUA FOR ONE MILLION GALLONS A DAY. Given the fact that we are under such a, we have had a prolonged drought, the groundwater district, the Hays Trinity Groundwater District, has prohibited the drilling of any additional commercial wells within the Hays Trinity for right at two years now. I think the anticipation, and I can't speak for, I would never venture to speak for the Drifting Springs Water Supply Corp board, but I think that they always felt like they could, if they needed additional water, they could just put more wells in the ground. Or they could come to the PUA and say, we need additional water. Can you provide that water to us? Unfortunately, that's not the way it works. The PUA has a, we have a policy that we will take no additional commercial or wholesale water customers. And those customers that we do have, of the 14 customers that the PUA have, they all operate on an LUE basis.

You're getting too many letters in there. Sorry, I don't want to interrupt.

Livable unit equivalent basis. So that means that for every one of those LUEs, that customer, that wholesale customer, gets 864 gallons of water a day at peak. Most of them don't use near that. But under state law, that is what we would have to provide. The contract that the Dripping Springs Water Supply Corp has is for a million gallon today. No LUVs associated with it. Over time, since the establishment of the West Travis County PUA, all of those contracts, all of those wholesale contracts have... Anytime there has been additional water requested, all of those, we have to look at what system improvements have to be done in order to deliver that water, what the cost of that would be. And those wholesale customers have had to pay for that, and they've done so on a livable unit equivalent basis. And at this point, they've refused to negotiate to do that.

Have they come to you and asked you for more water?

Oh, absolutely. About three years ago, they came and asked for additional water at that time. There was an offer by the PUA to say, look, we will get you more additional water. However, currently the LUE calculation that they use isn't the 864 gallons. For that million gallons, they paid about 500 connection fees, which would equate to about 1,600 gallons a day, so about twice what everyone else in the system would get. So they've paid about half of the connection fees that they would get. the PUA said, look, we will negotiate with you, but you're going to have to pay for those additional LUEs that you're receiving. And in addition to that, you will have to convert your contract to the same standard contract that all of the other 13 entities use. Additionally, we know that you're using groundwater, and we would be willing to, if you will, all of our other contracts are exclusive contracts.

Sorry, Commissioner. Whoever's got a phone that can't turn it off, please go outside. Sorry, Commissioner, go ahead.

No, it's fine. But all those other contracts are operating under a basis unlike theirs. So we said you would need to, all of those contracts are exclusive contracts. If the PUA spends millions of dollars to bring additional water to a wholesale customer, then there has to be a guarantee that you are going to use that water and that infrastructure will be paid for. And so What all of those other users have said is we will cut off any groundwater usage that we have, and the PUA will be the exclusive provider of water for that entity. The Dripping Springs Water Supply Corp has refused to do that, and there was even an offer to say, look, whatever you pump out of the ground, we'll give it to you at cost. That same amount of water, the PUA will give that to you at our cost and provide it to you, and that was refused.

So, long story short, they came to you for more water and you said to cut off their groundwater supply and you would give them water at cost and they didn't want to cut off the groundwater supply?

That was part of the equation. There's a lot more of that equation, but yes. The conversion of the contract was really the biggest problem.

Why wouldn't they want to turn off the groundwater? Why would you think?

Because they consider it free.

But also, I remember just a few short months ago, you had a boil notice in West Travis County PUA. How many boil notices have you had in the last year?

In the last year, maybe two. One was for a... line break that we had no control over. And one was for a pressurization issue within the plant whenever they were switching out filtration units in the plant. I think both of those lasted for less than six hours once testing was done. And what happens is the water in a water system like this, the vast majority of that water, when do you think it's used? It's used between 7 o'clock at night and 7 a.m. in the morning, especially in the three highest usage months of the year, which are August, September, October. It's not the middle of the summer. It's the end of the summer when that heat's there. Every water system in the county, if you take them on average, During that time period, about 75% to 78%, in some cases over 80% of that water is used for irrigation overnight. And so those tanks have to fill again in the morning. The last time that there was a boil water notice where we had major issues within our system was when the PEC shot up in the middle of the night while we were producing water as we were going. they shut off the power to our water treatment plant. And so we had no ability to produce water for several hours. Well, what happens is the storage supply that you have in those tanks, there's nothing wrong with the water, but once it gets down to a certain period, or a certain point in those storage facilities, it automatically triggers a boil water notice. And so that's what occurred in that situation. But it's not uncommon. Actually, we've had more from our wholesale users who've had line breaks and those kind of things in the last year than we've had ourselves.

So let me ask you this, because we all have that appreciation of TWO OPPORTUNITIES AND TWO OPTIONS, WHY WOULD YOU GUYS PENALIZE SOMEONE CREATING A BACKUP PLAN FOR PROVIDING WATER TO THEIR RESIDENTS WHEN YOU HAVE HAD HOWEVER MANY AND FOR WHATEVER REASON BOIL WATER NOTICES AND THEY HAVE NOT IN THE SAME INSTANCE. What is wrong with the idea of the diversification piece if they said, leave us our wells that we are currently depending on, and we will buy water from you? I think that would probably be doable. It's a leadership question, but is that getting too far for you? It's getting pretty far. It's getting a little in-depth.

And I understand some of the questions related to the functions of the board, which is you're doing an appointment here. I think those are absolutely valid questions. I think we're getting a little into the weeds. So if we could wrap it up, that'd be great.

That's fair.

Thank you, Judge. I appreciate it. The other thing is, is from this seat, as it was mentioned earlier, I'm also the commissioner for Precinct 4. And my level of confidence, given the fact that That specific entity has over-pumped their wells. They're the second largest over-pumper.

Well, they're not here to defend themselves either, so I would just want you to... They were willing to make comments, so I'm going to make a comment. What I'll say is that... Those individuals, I'd just rather you keep it tight so we can wrap this up.

One little thing, just in regards to the comments, because this was stated in the comment, because everyone said, oh, There are the West tribes PUA only allows for indoor watering. They're on restrictions. There was a lot of talk about the makeup of that and the restrictions that come along with it. I just want to say from the water supply study that we are doing, this is going to relate back to our problems. The water supply study that we're doing, it showed that dripping Springs in total from the water supply companies over there are around an average of 7,500 gallons per month per household. And in Wimberley, we're at 3,500 per household per month. So it just, the whole indoor watering use and restrictions and those types of things, I mean, Wimberley is able to do it for half of what Dripping Springs in a total are currently doing.

Well, and I would say those are also dictated because we purchase our water, or the West Travis County purchases its water from the LCRA. And so we have to implement all of the restrictions that they have. And currently, for any additional water that the LCRA is providing, they're asking for permanent stage two restrictions on the entire system.

Please call the roll.

Commissioner Smith.

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen.

No.

Commissioner Hammer. Yes. Commissioner Inglesby. No.

Goodness gracious.

Yes. Judge Becerra.

Nope. Please open G30.

G30. Authorize the purchase of a new fence from Elite Fence Company, Inc. for the Hayes County Transportation Yard located at 2171 Yarrington Road in the amount of $95,590 and amend the budget accordingly. Second. Second.

So I asked for some information about this, some images besides the generic map that was on the information. Because I want to understand why we're going to spend $100,000 on a fence. And I wasn't able to get it on time. And I was wondering if you knew any more than I did.

Could you repeat the number again, please? 30. Thank you. Yes, sir.

So I was able to negotiate, well, and our team was able to negotiate an additional five acres for Mr. Coleman for our transportation department. We feel that it's important to fence that area, one, because it is now our property. But also, we have run out of space, and so we're trying to transfer some of that equipment onto this property. And so we have millions of millions of dollars worth of equipment that we wanna try to protect. And so really, that's the reason to identify that it is now Hays County property. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY TO SECURE OUR EQUIPMENT AND OTHER ASSETS THAT WE HAVE OUT THERE IN THE AREA.

VERY GOOD. AND I COULDN'T GET THAT ANSWER, BELIEVE IT OR NOT. AND I WILL ASK, SHOULDN'T THAT COME FROM A DIFFERENT FUNDING SOURCE? IF YOU CAN PLEASE STATE YOUR NAME AND TITLE FOR THE VIEWING PUBLIC.

SCOTT WOODLAND, BUDGET OFFICER. IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE, THE The road and bridge funds could be used because that is the road and bridge transportation, although that is not the main focus of those funds, I would say, but due to it being the road and bridge and securing that location. just like road and bridge funds can be used for supplies for them. I believe because it is related to road and bridge that that would be okay. Like I said, though, not the function that most people think of when they think of road and bridge.

Okay, so you bridged that funding source over to that. I consider it a reach, but the spirit of that fund is... for residents to have the support, the financial support. And I feel that this should be from our internal operational budget is the only thing I was going to say as a final commissioner. Fencing it in, I fully support it. Just the source where if you have someone building a roadway and their fence is gone because of XYZ, we would use the money for that fence. but not for our own. And so my only request is that we would leave that for the residents budget and instead consider commissioner, I support your fence, consider a different source.

Yeah, I'd have to turn to, I just have one question since, since it is coming out of the contract road and bridge, Contract or do we have any additional? Contracts coming forward for that account before the end of the year that was was my only question because I think that's probably money That would be rolled in the next fiscal year for road and bridge contracting We just did all of our contracting for mill and overlay those kind of things last session of court.

That's the reason I was wondering Yes, Commissioner Smith So In that regard, there are still contract budget left over in the road and bridge department. With that being said, this would be considered a capital item, but I believe that that is the source that we move the funding for in order to recognize this capital item.

The spirit of the fund is for capital. Thank you for using that word. The spirit is for capital. I only ask that we change its funding source. That's it. I support the project, just changing the funding source. Are you able to pull that off?

Judge, I'd have to look. into our general fund, if that's the case, and see what funds I can locate within there.

Commissioner, would you be okay with that mild edit in time?

I'm fine as long as we can find the funding for it or partial funding for it from other sources. I'm fine with that.

You've heard the direction from the court. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Cohen?

Yes.

Commissioner Hammer?

Yes.

Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Judge Becerra?

Yes. Thank you very much.

Judge, may I just, one quick comment on the item previously, the previous item. Can we also ask I don't know what department that would be. I'm looking at somebody, but I'm not sure. I'd like to get a list of all the organizations or departments or agencies or whatever it is, boards that we appoint people to, and maybe we can have a further, more in-detail discussion regarding appointments and how we want to move forward on those.

We can send that list out to the court. Okay, thank you.

Perfect. And I ask one step further, Commissioner, if you don't mind. I ask, let's bring an agenda item so we can have some proper dialogue that we can openly discuss, officially and legally. Thank you so much. Okay, so I'm going down the list. I'm going to go J2 and then K3. And I've been asked to pull K15. J2, please.

J2, PLN-2981-PC, hold a public hearing on July 28, 2026, regarding the Rolling Oaks, Section 4, Lot 77, replant.

I'm opening this agenda item for a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak for or against this agenda item, please approach the podium. This is your chance to say whatever you want. Just state your name and title if you have one associated with the agenda item, and we'll give you three minutes to speak.

My name is Ricky Charles Dodson. Thank you, Judge and Commissioners. I'm directly across the street from this property. I understand that the Commissioner of Court's responsibility today is to determine whether or not the subdivision complies with Texas law and Hayes County's subdivision regulations, I also understand that the court does not enforce private deed restrictions. However, I would like to point out to the court and the developer several facts. We have deed restrictions. This track is subject to the rolling open deed restrictions which prohibit commercial or business enterprises. These restrictions are not simply words in an old document. They have been actively enforced and defended by the property owners for many years. In fact, this is the same property where a commercial bar was once proposed. 113 property owners joined together in a lawsuit to enforce these de-restrictions. As a result, the commercial property did not go forward. That history demonstrates that the restrictions are real, that the neighborhood take them seriously, and that the property owners are willing to enforce and defend them when necessary. A few days ago, I sent the developer a certified letter welcoming them to the neighborhood and informing them of these deed restrictions so there'll be no misunderstanding in the future. I respectfully ask the developer to ask a few questions. Is he here? I don't know. Then for the record, I'm asking that he answer a few questions at some time. Do you acknowledge that this property is subject to Roland Oaks deed restrictions? Will every prospective purchaser receive a copy of these restrictions before purchasing a lot? Will those restrictions be disclosed in the sales contract and at closing? And will the lots be marketed and represented as residential only lots subject to these restrictions? In addition, I represent a number of the people in the neighborhood with these three concerns. First, On one side of this property is, the entire property is very small roads with one way in, one way out. On one side, which has an access to that property now, is right on what we call Dead Man's Curve, an extremely dangerous little curve. We live right there and it's really hard for us to get in and out without getting cranked. On the other side, Roland Oaks Drive, it's at the top of a blind hill. You don't get to see until until you get right there, right there upon where this property is, you do not get to see what's in front of you. We're talking about five pieces of property, one acre each, squeezed into a little piece of land. We want to know that this is going to be safe and that they thought this through and that we are not somehow endangering not only us but everyone else that comes to our neighborhood with this situation. Fire.

Sorry, I just got to ask, how much longer do you have to wrap up?

Just less than 30 seconds. Fire. This property is set up in a way that he's going to break it up into five pieces, several of which are deep into the property with no other access. We've had fires out there. Our entire neighborhood of 400 families is woods, dense woods. We've had fires before. We want to make absolutely sure that he's thought this through and that there is some sort of a plan for access to fire trucks and other emergency vehicles. Thirdly, drainage. This is on a slope. There's a creek on one side. We're talking about putting five pieces of property in there, each one with a water tank, I presume. This is going to greatly add to the water use. We want to know if he's thought through the situation in such a way that drainage will not, because we've had this problem before, will not negatively impact the properties around it. Thank you, Your Honor and Commissioner's Court.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else wishing to speak for or against this agenda item?

Yes, I would. Thank you.

Thank you. If you'll state your name and title, if one's tied to you at the podium.

Thank you. My name is Steve Burkhart, and... I live adjacent to the property. My property is 76, and this property would be 77. And let me say, judge and commissioners, this is the first time I have attended this. I am very impressed. And thank you for your thoughtful comments. And your staff has got to be very hardworking. So let me tell you, I will shorten this because I believe And you'll forgive me, I'm a little nervous. I've owned this property since the early 90s, and that's been over 30 years. So what I'd like to be able to do is, as Rick pointed out, this is a five-acre plot that he's breaking up into one acre, 1.2 acres. We don't know yet what the, is he going to build there? Are they going to be raw land? Is he going to sell those? Is there, you know, is it going to be a retirement home or rehab? We just do not know. We do not have enough information. Now evidently he's going to collect rainwater, and that's great, but we don't know about the septics or anything along those lines. I additionally believe as far as the property lines, and an easement. He's not allowed to put an easement between his property and my property without my permission. That was a big concern that I had as far as power. Additionally, going over just some of the possibilities of how this property will be used, one thing that the Wimberley Valley is considered a dark sky community, and we are very close to that, We're also considered dark sky, unofficially a dark sky community. So I don't know if he's addressed the lighting. I know that stargazers and other people really enjoy that about Hayes County and particularly Wimberley and Driftwood to be able to go out at night, see the comets, and I've actually watched several and see satellites going overhead. So this is another big concern. But as far as wells, I believe that has been taken care of. But we do have serious concerns. When I originally purchased this, this neighborhood was not to have any commercial property. And these would be relatively large acre tracts, five acres or so. And that allowed additional privacy, but also would prevent, you know, us from seeing everything that everybody has. Thank you. Did I go over?

No, it beeps when you're over, but you did great. You got 12 seconds left. But thank you very much. And thank you for the compliments. Is there anyone else wishing to speak for or against this agenda item? I see no movement. I will close the public hearing. As is customary, I now ask staff to come up and give us the background.

Good morning, Judge Becerra, commissioners. My name's Colby Mahachuk, Hays County Development Services Planner. So this project actually is currently under administrative completeness review. Right now it is pending the receipt of a water service plan. That is the only item needed before the project may proceed into technical review under state statute. So at this time, no technical review has been conducted.

Okay.

Start with you, Commissioner.

Okay, perfect. I love the fact that we have to do these public hearings because it gives us a chance to connect with the neighbors and to ask questions and discuss this with y'all. Has there been any indication, because I've heard a couple commercial issues, is there any indication that this is going to have any type of, because rainwater in the state of Texas, that's not public water supply. You cannot use rainwater. That's not approved with the state of Texas, so. I don't think that that could be a possibility, but have you heard different? What does that look like?

As far as we're aware, we are not aware of the type of development that is proposed for these properties. We are assuming single family residential use. I would like to add with the rainwater collection lot size requirement under the Hayes County minimum lot size for sites served by onsite sewage facilities. This area is also in the Edwards Aquifer Contributing Zone. So our lot size requirement at minimum is one acre. WITH RAINWATER COLLECTION AND ADVANCED ON-SITE SEWAGE FACILITIES TO SERVE EACH LOT AS PROPOSED.

OKAY. SO THEY WOULD HAVE TO HAVE AN ADVANCED, NOT A CONVENTIONAL.

SO BASED ON THE THINGS YOU'VE LEANED IN SO FAR AND LEARNED IS THE LIKELIHOOD WOULD BE, ESPECIALLY BECAUSE COMMISSIONER HAMMER JUST POINTED OUT THAT RAINWATER DOESN'T QUALIFY FOR COMMERCIAL USE, THEN THE GENERALIZATION CAN BE AT THIS SAFE ASSUMPTION POINT OF RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT. As a safe assumption, we assume, yes. I hope that helps those that are here in attendance. What other pieces of information can you contribute, Commissioner? Any questions or in conversation before we move on to the next one?

Yeah, so we talked about, I know that someone mentioned from an emergency vehicle accessibility standpoint, there are a major road that connects or that meets on each of these lots, right? Correct.

Well, two roads. Looking at the proposed plat, I see that three lots access one road and two lots access the other road.

So from an emergency perspective, they should be able to be taken care of there. Correct. I'm trying to think. So they've met their plat notes.

My question was, is there a plat note that could say residential only?

Can we put a plat note that says residential only, that this will never be a commercial?

At this time, I don't feel comfortable answering that or confirming that. Again, since we are in administrative review to have a complete application, we'll have to go through a technical review against the regulations as they stand and go from there.

So before we ratify for approval for administrative review, can we talk about the plot notes then?

In the future. Because today there will be no action. Yeah.

No, I know. That's what I'm saying. Whenever we get there.

I'm just keeping the public following along. Yes. I'll make note of that. Okay. Commissioners, any other questions or comments? No.

I was just making sure that there is no action today. And then I guess as we move forward with that review, Colby will have more information of what we believe, maybe even stronger belief that what the development will look like.

That is correct, Commissioner. And Colby, did you have... An email or a letter go out to the neighbors? Yes. Good. So with plenty of heads up, please continue that. Every time this is coming to court, I don't want them to feel surprised, sideswiped, or ignored.

And every time the conversation is going to come here, I want them to know about it.

Please.

To elaborate on that, if I may? Yes. On the receipt of an application to subdivide? A notice is sent out to contiguous property owners as well as political subdivisions, your independent school district, emergency service district, groundwater conservation district. For public hearings, the same is sent out. We send it first-class mail as well as certified mail, and we post in the newspaper of general circulation to that area. Perfect.

I really love the idea of making sure everyone knows. I know we asked Pacheco a long time ago to do such a thing consistently, and so I'm grateful that that's in place. Yes, sir.

One, I just wanted to say thank you so much for coming out here and spending a couple hours with us. Is there any other question for someone that is here regarding this issue that we can answer or that we can look into? Any questions at all? No?

Well, that's a great, sorry, Commissioner, but she started asking you guys things, but she really shouldn't yet. That's a great question, but let me get to that in a minute. Commissioner Smith?

Oh, I was just going to say, I think because the public hearing's closed, maybe it would be great to... We can't ask anyone to come up to the table. Well, we can, but just let me follow the cadence. Well, I was just going to say, it might be good for all y'all to come in together and meet with your commissioner. I know she'd be more than willing to do that. I'm speaking on behalf of her, but I know she's done this. Be more than willing to sit down and speak to all the neighbors about the concerns that you have and review the plan.

100%.

Thank you. Anything else to contribute, commissioners? And I will say, now after the commissioners are done, I have a little cadence of running this thing. If there are some last parting ideas or questions that you want to bring up to the podium, you can say something. We can call you up and you can say something.

And, Judge, you can absolutely reopen the public hearing. You bet.

Thank you very much.

You bet.

But I think this is just going to be a tidbit of information you want to share. Am I right?

Yes.

Perfect. If you'll just state your name for the viewing public.

Sure. Irene Biggins. And I've lived in Rolling Oaks for over 20 years. And we've seen growth in our little development. But as far as fires, we've had a lot of fires in there. There's a lot of cedars in there. If anything ever catches fire, it'll blow everything up in that little subdivision. And I just want to say this. We have a hard time getting in and out of that subdivision. There's one way in and one way out. And the more people we get in there, the harder it's going to be, not only for emergency vehicles to come in, but for us to get out of there in case of a fire. And I want to say this in addition to that, that our roads are in horrible condition. It's almost having to go through an obstacle course to get out of there. I just want to lay that on everybody, and thank you so much for letting me come up.

Absolutely, and thank you so much. And most importantly, when you walk away from this courtroom, I want you to know that we see you, we hear you, and your opinion matters. Thank you very much. Please open K-3, and it's going to be followed by... It's going to be followed by... It's going to be followed by, come on now, where's that page? K-10, 13, and 14, we'll open those as a block.

K-3, discussion and possible action to approve a change to the Hayes County Investment Policy recommended by the Hayes County Investment Committee.

Good morning. Judge, Commissioner, Daphne Tenorio, Hays County Treasurer for the record. The Hays County Investment Committee met and have approved.

Let me make sure I get a second. So moved. I'm so sorry. I'm so excited. Don't worry. We've got a motion and a second. Now, Treasurer, let's go with it again.

Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. Daphne Tenorio, Hayes County Treasurer, for the record. The Hayes County Investment Committee met and have approved the following changes to our investment policy for your review and potential approval. Our Investment Committee membership is as followed. County Judge Ruben Becerra, County Treasurer Daphne Tenorio, County Commissioner Debbie Inglesby, County Auditor Marisol Alonso, Valerie Van Vlack, Texas State University Director of Investments and Assistant Vice President and Treasurer of the Division of Finance and Support Services, William T. Chittenden, Ph.D., President and CEO of the Southwestern Graduate School of Banking Foundation at SMU Cox. Chittenden formerly served as SWGSB's Chief Academic Officer and as Presidential Fellow, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs, and the Department Chair at Texas State University. He is also a lecturer for the Texas Association of County Investment Academy, of which I am a member and a graduate. The newly committee approved policy has been sent to you in two forms. And for the public, both of these versions are available at the agenda as an attachment for review. One is the newly revised policy, which is recommended by all of the committee, and two is the former policy with the revised requests highlighted. I know you have a full agenda. I would like to ask, do you want me to go through them individually, or would you just like to ask questions? I think just asking questions is best.

Thank you. Let me start there. Sure. Commissioner, do you have any questions or comments for what she's presented? No.

Those are some pretty, I got to tell you, those are some pretty impressive resumes. How did we appoint those people and where did they come from?

Well, we asked them to serve and they've served. Mr. Chittenden is one of the, go ahead. Go ahead, Marisol.

Marisol Alonso, Hayes County Auditor. We have historically always had the treasurer representative from the Texas state. University and the professor from the Texas State University. He just recently moved to Dallas, but they have always been on the committee as long as I have been on it since 2008.

And they consistently are willing to work with us and we're eternally grateful for their knowledge base.

That's right. Any questions, Commissioner Hammer? Nope.

I would just say, looking at the changes in policy, there are several in here that I think you've moved to more long-term on most everything we did from two years to three years, from one year to two years. I think that anybody who looks at this would think that this is a good policy change on most of these items. I would say that as you look at those maximum The next time we look at this, those maximum maturities to three years, if there are funds that we know are not going to be used or in place for, because I know we've got some of those that are five, ten, much longer, I would encourage the committee to look at those longer terms and get a much better return on those.

We follow everything through the PFIA as well as my main concern is our liquidity. That's why we've stuck with these numbers, but I will definitely bring that up on our next committee meeting. I would like to let you know that we are going, I have requested an RFQ for a public investor advisor as we have seen some changes and fluctuations in the market. It's my way of trying to get us some more investment money coming in. So that will be on the next agenda as well.

Beautiful.

Oh, it's on this agenda. I'm sorry. So that's coming up as well. My goal is to look at other opportunities to bring in more money for our county.

If there's nothing else, please call the roll.

Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen?

Yes.

Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes. Please open all together K-10, 13, and 14.

Discussion and possible action to authorize the acceptance of the Judicial Commission on Mental Health JCMH court liaison pilot program grant in the amount of $165,000 for the grant period of September 1st, 2026 through August 31st, 2028 and create one grant funded behavioral health court liaison position grade 117 within the county court at law effective September 1st, 2026 and amend the budget accordingly. K-13, discussion and possible action are authorized the execution of amendments to the Assisted Outpatient Treatment Program, AOT, Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, with access of mental health care PLLC, effective December 1st, 2025, and Phillip, Carolina, and execute a termination notice to Dr. Vikram Mehra. And K-14, discussion and possible action to authorize the execution of contract amendments to the County Court of Law Mental Health Specialty Court Program contracts with access of Mental Health Care, PLLC, A Better Boat, LLC, C. Nicole Mueller McMorris, LCSW, Moonstone Counseling, Novo Recovery Center, Revive Recovery, Texas Helps, and Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. So moved.

Second. Second.

All right. You can set your name and title for the viewing public.

So I'm Judge Elaine Brown. I am the judge of the Mental Health Court, the Assisted Outpatient Treatment Court, and County Court of Law number three. And we're very excited about the grant that we were able to obtain from the Judicial Commission on Mental Health. We believe that this behavioral health court liaison is going to play an important role in helping to divert individuals from our criminal justice system who have mental health and other behavioral health issues. So we're really excited about that. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Commissioner Smith. I would just say I appreciate y'all updating these before the end of the budget year, as y'all have in the past. As you're looking at these overall numbers, some of them, it looks like they're doing, and I'm judging by the usage, they're doing a good job they're increasing by 10% or whatever. And I assume we'll see that in the budget. There's a number of them that have cuts of 40% or 35, 40% cuts to those individual programs. Do you see those fluctuating as the need dependent upon those individual cases? Or do you see, and this is a general question, do you see those as, okay, Here's kind of what the new standard for next year is going to be because we've learned that we're not using those specific types of services.

So yes, what we do is we kind of look at where the need is and which programs and opportunities that we have are best utilized. And that's why we have moved some money around. We have been taking in a lot more high need individuals lately into the court. And so because of that, we really need to make sure we have intensive services for those individuals to get them the help that they need to keep them out of our criminal justice system again. And with the Assistant Outpatient Treatment Court, some of those changes were actually because of the way the MOUs were drafted and the fact that we are now using access to mental health care. And they're going to use their own psychiatrist. They'll pay the psychiatrist versus the county paying the psychiatrist directly, which is a better use, I think, of the funds that we have, and I think it will actually benefit the county financially in the long run.

While we've looked at each one of these contracts individually as they've come through, I know we've had to update as we picked up some providers, lost other providers. I know there's, for example, on item 14, there's one, two, three, four. There's eight different providers there. If in the future these come forward, knowing what each one of those providers actually provide would be helpful as well.

Okay, sure.

If that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. And they do provide different services and a variety of different services. So absolutely, I think that could be helpful.

Thank you. Commissioner Hammer. Anything else? No. Commissioners on this end?

I would just say, and I'm really excited to judge about this position also because it provides or enhances that continuity of care for those individuals. You know, I like that we are providing now more specialized treatment and care for these individuals, you know, which is needed a lot of times. We don't get that specialty care that even, you know, in our health department and other areas that individuals need. And so, yeah, I'm supported and thanks.

Commissioner Cohen. No, just thank you for the diligent contract management of these individuals. services and I'm think I'll keep an eye on that and having to You know adjust when necessary and nothing really great on staying on top of that.

So fully support Thank you for caring for Hays County residents like they've never been cared for before Please call the roll judge.

I just do I have one other question and this is a conversation we've had in court I think twice now All of the work that y'all do in coordinating with these different vendors to provide mental health services, it'd be great if, because of our work with our behavioral analysis, or pardon me, our behavioral individual in our health department, having them looped in to know what those contracts are I'm not saying having them looped into the negotiation or anything else. I completely understand that as a court, y'all are standing alone and trying to provide those services for those individuals. But there's a number of these contractors, as well as our regional authority, that work with both y'all and with our health department, and having them involved in that process somehow to even just know that it's coming. I sit on the regional mental health board, and I know if there's something coming through the health department, a contract with them, or there's something that is pursuant to that, I'm aware of it. I know like a couple of months ago, we had an issue, not an issue, but we had an item come from the court specifically with that regional authority, I didn't know anything about it. I got into that meeting, and I had to try to defend what Hays County was doing or try to understand what was going on, but I didn't have any background on it. Having a sole source where I can go or us as a court can go and say, yes, we have three contracts with Evoke Wellness. One is in the mental health court. Two are doing other things for the health department. I think that would be helpful, and I would just share that with you.

I would say our county administrator's office should be the focal point on that, and I think we already got a handle on that. But that's a great piece of advice, to be the focal point of all county business. I don't know. Who knows? But you heard them loud and clear. Thank you very much. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

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

Yes. Great recommendation still, nonetheless. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Please open G37, and then we're going to take a 10-minute recess. Thank you.

G37, approve specifications for RFP 2026-P17, investment advisor and authorized purchasing to advertise and solicit for proposals. So moved. Second.

Go through the process. That's the process. So please call the roll.

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

Yes.

Judge Becerra?

Yes. 10-minute break, or sorry, 15-minute break. Thank you. We're back from a short recess. Let's do these in this order because I have lots of texts that come in, Candace, just so you know. We're going to go G23, G34, K9, and K1 in that order. As fast as we can, as fast as we can.

G23, approve out-of-state travel for Chief Deputy Roxanne Rodriguez to attend the Property Records Industry Association or pre-conference annual conference in Buffalo, New York for an estimated amount of $1,707.33. So moved. Second. Please call the roll. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith? Yes. Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes. Which item, Judge? Whatever. Let me read them again.

Sure.

Okay. G34 and then K9.

Okay, got you. G34. Authorized payment to SHI Governmental Solutions in the amount of $5,094 for additional services needed for the implementation of the Vista SG software where a purchase order was not obtained per the purchasing policy. So moved.

Second. All right. So Ms. Hunt, would you like to shed a little background?

Stephanie Hunt, purchasing agent. So the court approved for the county clerk's office to get the SG or the VISA SG software is for to allow the public to be able to get documents online and be able to print those out and pay during the implementation process. There were additional services needed and this is the dollar amount for those in order for SHI to, and that is their name, sorry. In order for them to invoice us, we have to issue them a PO, but they've already given us an invoice, so we can't just issue a PO on an invoice. So that's why we're bringing it to court.

Perfect. Any questions, commissioners? Please call the roll.

Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith? Yes. Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Commissioner Hammer? Yes. And Judge Becetta?

Yes. K-9, then K-1. K-9. K-9.

Discussion and possible action to ratify the submission of a grant application to the St. David's Foundation catalyzing community-led change grant in the amount of $277,212.10. Someone? Second. Beautiful. Any questions or comments on that?

This is the purpose of the grant. Purpose of the grant. And we have someone ready to speak on that. If you'll please approach the podium. We have several options. And state your name and title, please.

Good afternoon. I'm Cynthia Malonzi, the Assistant County Clerk.

And I'm Jennifer Doyenoff, the Hays County Election Administrator.

So part of our budget process this year was our office had requested a mobile van, and when we were in the budget process, Scott so kindly said, why don't you guys consider a grant? And so we put in a request to the grant office, our offices jointly, and lo and behold, a grant opportunity came up, and we've been working on that with the grant staff, and it's ready to go. And hopefully we can... get this mobile van to do further outreach for elections and the county clerk's office as we're already doing. But you know, that's our initiative is to get out in the community more and more and more and more.

Well done. Well said. Anything else, Jennifer?

Yeah, I'm excited about the opportunity. Hopefully if we received the van to be able to get out into the community to offer more voter registration services, voter education services, we've been working, greatly on our outreach efforts and this was a great opportunity to collaborate with the clerk's office on this and also as Cynthia said a little while ago which is also exciting is that this kind of got our thought process outside of the box to be able to connect how both of our services work together and also work to benefit overall health in the community. So we're very EXCITED ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXPLORE MORE OF THIS.

JUST REALLY BRIEFLY, CYNTHIA, CAN YOU JUST DESCRIBE WHAT TYPES OF SERVICES, WHAT ARE THE MAIN SERVICES THAT YOU THINK THAT YOU WOULD BE OUT OFFERING IN THE COMMUNITY WITH THIS BAN?

Absolutely. We've been doing a bit of it already, like with the community health fair, going out, being on site to issue birth certificates to families who need them to register for school. And we know that we have rural customers that can't even get to our our substations, so we'd be able to get out to them and provide documents, property documents, again, birth, marriage, all of the things that we do if you have to come into the office. We're working with the schools directly, and we'd be able to go to their locations and provide the services there as well. Thank you.

So I do have one question. You mentioned the substations. I know we've talked about this in the past, fully staffing the substations every day of the week. Where are we at on that? Because we bring this up every year, and I know it's going to come up in budget, but it's just a question.

Absolutely. And I know why the question comes from Precinct 4, because that's the hardest office for us to staff. So we keep trying to shift and advertise the job for people who live in Dripping Springs. And that's where we're at right now. So we When we get a new clerk, they have to train with us in San Marcos, and it takes about six months to have a staff member fully trained to be on their own out at Dripping Springs. And that's what we're caught in right now. We had someone out there. They left. We've been training someone else. We got them out there. There's a shift there again. And so we modified the hours to be open three days a week. And Roxanne, how close are we to, do you think, to being open again?

I would say we could have, currently, like you mentioned, we do have someone on staff out there three days a week. For those two additional days, I would say anywhere between three to six months, like you mentioned.

Okay, but the intent, our intent, just know this, is that we have that office fully staffed, and we're looking for a commitment from new employees that if we hire you for that location, that you commit to stay there and stay with our office.

Any other questions or comments? Please call the roll.

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

Yes. K-1, please. Good luck.

K-1, discussion and possible action to adopt personnel policy 1A103A, attorney hiring classification flexibility, effective July 28, 2026.

the motion in a second.

Please state your name and title, sir. Greg Cox, first assistant from the district attorney's office. Prior to our current heads of HR and budget, we had an informal policy. When we had attorney vacancies, we were able to fill at any level that we could afford as long as it was below the level seven, which is reserved for supervisors. That was never a written policy, and we had some confusion over the last few weeks about some of those matters, and we huddled up and came up with this draft policy that basically puts into writing what the informal policy had always been, and I'm here to speak in support of that and ask you all to adopt it.

Thank you. Can you summarize what that policy is for the viewing public?

So when we're hiring a lawyer, we're hiring an attorney. The attorney career ladder is attorney one through attorney six is based upon the number of years experience the person has and the type of competence they have, what kind of cases they're able to handle. And when we lose someone, we often will underfill a position. So we'll hire an attorney one straight out of law school because we have a need in a third chair role in a misdemeanor court. If that person doesn't stay with the office and they leave, I need to be able to hire whatever the need is at that point. And the problem we ran into was if an attorney one left, The administrative departments were thinking, well, I can only hire an attorney one now. I don't even have a need for an attorney one anymore because those needs have been filled. This gives us the flexibility to hire at two, three, four level. And we're very careful stewards of the public funds. So we are always looking to fill positions at the lowest cost possible while making sure we hire people with the adequate experience to handle cases in court.

For almost a decade is how it rolls into my head because I'm a lumbar bundler versus a splinter. I've always believed that department heads and elected officials should have that autonomy and sometimes I feel that we as a court micromanage your day-to-day operations beyond what I feel is productive and useful. And I say the community has voted. They voted for such and such to be the person running that department. And once we approve your budget, you should have that autonomy and freedom to run your department. And so in spirit, I'm in full support of this because Autonomy is what we need more of from elected officials and department heads Commissioner Inglesby I'm supported Commissioner Cohen I Think it's great to empower our departments to be able to do that and also save the county money for being smart

Right on. Commissioner Smith, I think it's a good policy. Going through the written policy itself, I think you hit all the points that I would have had questions about specifically on the budget process and the packet that has to go to HR. I think it's perfect. If you remember when District Attorney Higgins got into office, his first item he brought forth was hiring additional attorneys. And I was shocked that he was asking for a salary variance at that point. And I told him at that point I was shocked he was able to get the competent staff that y'all have at the rates that y'all were paying. So I have full confidence that y'all can do it. Thank you. All right, thank you, please call the roll.

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

Yes. Now, Candace, have you received any texts that I haven't? Otherwise, I'm going to start opening slates.

No, sir.

Please open the rest of, oh, I move that we open the remainder of consent agenda items. Second. Are there any items that need to be pulled forward for more discussion? We're talking consent.

Stephanie Hunt, purchasing agent. I just want to give an update on number 15 and number 32. When we were approving the agenda items, the quote, we had to send it to the purchasing cooperative to review those for compliance, and both of those did come back, but there was a note down there that we were reviewing that, so we may have to pull them. So I just wanted to let you all know that they were good.

Anything else, commissioners? Please call the roll.

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

Yes. Let's just move through the agenda like we know how. Let's continue through roads. Let's open I, which one are we on?

I-1? I-1. Hold a public hearing with possible action to change the yield sign to a stop sign at the intersection of Creek Road at Mount Gaynor.

And let's, Jordan, can I open two public hearings at the same time? I think so, right?

Sure. Yeah, as long as they're clear on which one, if someone's here to speak, which one they're speaking about.

I'd like for you to open I-2 as well.

I-2, hold a public hearing with possible action to change the yield sign to a stop sign at the intersection of Socklin Road at Wayside Drive.

I am opening both I-1 and I-2. for a public hearing. Anyone wishing to speak for or against either one of these, please approach the podium. I see no movement. I know you appreciate my efficiency. I close the public hearing. Let's move on then. Nothing else to contribute, anyone? Okay, so let's open three and four.

3 discussion impossible action to call for a public hearing on August 11th 2026 to establish a no parking zone along Mesa Verde Drive with within Belterra subdivision and I for discussion impossible action to call for a public hearing on August 11th 2026 to establish a no parking zone along science hall loop okay, so please call the roll on three and four I Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

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

Yes. And just to make sure, I don't want to go too fast on accident. I-3 and I-4, who was our motion and who was our second? Just to make sure. I motioned. I'll second. Okay, just to make sure for the record.

For one and two, we also have to vote.

It was just a public hearing with possible action. Do you guys have a vote that you want to make on that? Yes. Okay, sorry. Sorry, I'm moving. Let's please open I-1 and 2 again because there is some action to be taken.

I1, hold a public hearing with possible action to change the yield sign to a stop sign at the intersection of Creek Road at Mount Gaynor. And I2, hold a public hearing with possible action to change the yield sign to a stop sign at the intersection of Saxelvin Road at Wayside Drive.

Move for both actions.

Second.

And then, what's your motion, sir? I move to place a stop sign at the intersection of Creek Road and Mount Gaynor. and to place a yield sign to change a yield sign to a stop sign at the intersection of however you Sashleben Road and Wayside Drive.

Second.

Is that for both right there? Yes. Perfect. Please call the roll. I just got to be honest, guys. I just got word, and I'm not trying to get anything, but I just want you to know my hand just died.

Sorry.

It was just me turning the light. Call the roll.

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

Yes. I-5.

I-5. Discussion of possible action authorizing execution of a contract for engineering services 2026-PSA-87 between Hayes County and Bowman Consulting Group, LTD, to provide engineering services for the Cotton Gin Road, County Road 129 project in Precinct 1.

So moved. Second. Commissioner Inglesby. Bowman was selected in June, and so this is the negotiated contract.

Thank you. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Cohen. Yes. Commissioner Hammer.

Yes.

Commissioner Inglesby. Yes. Commissioner Smith.

Yes.

Judge Becerra.

Yes. I-6.

I6, discussion and possible action to authorize the execution of a contract for engineering services 2026-PSA-50 between Hayes County and right-of-way of Texas LLC to provide right-of-way acquisition services for the Goforth Road project in Precinct 1. So moved. Second.

Please call the roll.

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

Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Inglesby. I7.

I7, discussion and possible action to authorize the execution of a contract for engineering services, 2026-PSA-56, between Hayes County and Pape Dawson Consulting Engineers, LLC, to provide utility coordination services for the Yarrington Road Segment 1 and Precinct 3.

Second. Commissioner, anything else? No. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Inglesby? Yes. Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

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

Yes. J1 and J3, please.

J1, PLN-2899-PC, hold a public hearing on July 28th, 2026 regarding the Bridlewood Ranches, Section 2, Lot 17R, Replat, and J3, PLN-2980-PC, hold a public hearing on July 28th, 2026 regarding the Douglas Estates Replat of Lot D12.

agenda item. Both of these agenda items, if there is anyone wishing to speak for or against these agenda items, please approach the podium. I see no movement. I will close the public hearing. Colby, anything to contribute?

Thank you, Judge and Commissioners. Actually, no. I have nothing to contribute at this time. This was just to hold the public hearing.

Perfect. Thank you, sir. Let's move on to K-2.

K2, discussion and possible action to regrade the vacant civil engineer position, grade 130, within the development services department to an environmental development manager, grade 127, effective July 28th, 2026. I move. Second.

All right.

What say you, sir? Good afternoon, Court. Michael Berlatt, Interim Director for Development Services. Basically, we are taking a vacant civil engineer position that's been vacant for about the last three to four years, and we're going to regrade it and reclassify it to an environmental development manager with the focus that this individual will have a keen relationship with all of our stakeholders around water. It was the one water principles that the resolution that the court passed here recently, the industrial significant water use resolution that was also passed, This is a very big focus for the court and something that we also want to make sure that we're focusing on. The individual will also be working through our conservation development and conservation development plans. And they'll also be working with our parks and natural resource department, making sure that we're coordinated, have a good coordinated effort as well.

And do you have a candidate in mind?

Not at this time.

Okay. Who will be interviewing?

I believe right now the setup will be myself, our chief environmental health specialist and floodplain administrator, and then Carl from our parks department as well.

Beautiful. Commissioner?

Yeah, so we actually, Michael and I, we attended a Hill Country Alliance Institute for Leadership meeting, and the city of Cuyahoga was going over their conservation development manager and how he, I think it's conservation development manager, is that correct? Division manager, yes. Yeah, and how they were saving the county thousands and thousands of dollars from instituting native seeds and not having to mow all their public spaces and just other things and we looked at each other and I was like, all right, let's get this list together because this is something that we, as a court, we've always supported intentional development and being intentional with conservation and preservation when it comes to development. So this person will really just be a hands-on approach to doing that. So we were all in for that. And I know that with that as well, it'll help us and hopefully we can get a conservation development in Hayes County where we make a model and we set precedent.

I love it. Anything else to contribute, Commissioner?

Yeah, I would just say my top priority in our development services rewrite that we're undergoing right now has been the conservation development title. And I know that you all know that. But having someone in your office to coordinate not only that but the watershed studies we've done the individual, the work that's going on both in Wimberley and Dripping Springs when we're looking at our new flood plains and those kind of things related to where those conservation developments are. I think between the two of us, we have more conservation set-aside property In our portions of the county then probably the three surrounding counties combined. So I really appreciate this and I appreciate the initiative There you go. Please call the roll Commissioner Cohen.

Yes, Commissioner hammer. Yes, mr. Inglesby. Yes, Commissioner Smith. Yes, judge Becerra. Yes, please open k4 k4 Discussion and possible action to authorize submitting a termination notice to munition LLC related to the Hayes County website second

We're doing a better job now, and that's a summary. Please call the roll.

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

Yes.

Commissioner Cohen? Yes. Judge Becerra?

Yes. K-5.

K-5. Discussion and possible action to authorize the Deputy County Administrator to conduct outreach to other Texas counties regarding a potential regional pretrial services grant opportunity and gauge interest in future collaboration with any formal agreement being brought back for Commissioner's Court approval.

So moved. Second.

i really do love and support tucker but i have a hard time understanding why we would do this having a brand new department and you needing all hands on deck within the county and having someone of his caliber roaming around the state while we have an entire grants department please walk me to your conclusions

Hello, Court. Tucker Furlow, Deputy County Administrator. And there are many reasons why. Thank you for asking. This is just to be, in summary, a proactive measure that's going to help us for potential grant opportunity through the Department of Justice. You'll recall that It was on the agenda in June. However, it was pulled as an item. What we're seeking to do is, at that time, we had a very short notice of a grant opportunity out of the Department of Justice. It's roughly $4 million. But this is an opportunity for Hayes County to take a lead on this grant and seek other counties' assistance and help in coming back and Doing that. Any formal agreement or anything to that effect, which I don't know what that will look like, we'll come back to you all for approval.

Totally understand and agree. But back, back, back, back, back. $4 million is a lot of money. So let's talk about what you mean by that. $4 million has been awarded and you're going to find a way to weave Hayes County into it. Can you speak a little better on that?

It has not been awarded. This one hasn't even been set out. This is an extremely proactive measure because last time when we were approached, we didn't really know much about it. But there's a very strong likelihood that this grant is going to be reintroduced in August or September. So what this is an opportunity for me to speak to other counties and say, hey, we think this grant opportunity is going to become available. Let's talk about it and let's be ready whenever it does so that we can all apply for it.

And what will that grant be for? Sounds like you're hunting for this specific focus, and I love and appreciate it, but explain it more.

Yes, there's reporting requirements, and there's many other things. For example, Senate Bill 6 and Senate Bill 9 pretrial reporting requirements that different agencies within our county have. And as earlier, Jason Facundo came up in here. I mean, Albert Sierra, I apologize, on behalf of our pretrial services division came and talked to you about. That's what this grant award in part is for. And it's for counties to take a look over a three-year period of what we're doing, numbers-wise and data-driven, to report back and say, this is what we're doing to prevent recidivism, or this is what we're doing to report individuals not coming back to court, things like that.

Right on. That's wonderful. Honestly, it's what started this whole thing, Texas Indigent Defense Commission. Commissioner Smith? Good. Was I the only one with questions? Over here. Thank you.

Tucker, I did want to ask one question. So the $4 million that's available, and I know that we're reaching out to different counties so that they can apply also, but it'll only go to one county, but we're giving others the opportunity? Or is it shared?

No, it's not. will go to helping out the other comes also so we're not going to need all that four million dollars okay I mean it's gonna be a lot less for Hays County but whenever we formulate that in the future which I'll report back to you that money is going to go towards helping out other counties and the cost that they'll have yeah so I can imagine there's you know when you have a coalition of counties come together supporting something it's you know it

It really helps and enhances that application.

That's correct. And this county is about rural. It's a rural one, right? So we're looking at analogous counties size-wise to us and what their pretrial services are doing so that we can all help out each other. Okay.

Thank you. Commissioner Cohen, not yet. Just in case.

No, I think that, I mean, I fully support this initiative. I think it's important for us to understand what, what other counties are doing and what initiatives or ideas that they're implementing that we haven't thought of yet. And so if we're looking to have this really robust criminal justice reform plan of the future for Hays County, then I think this is part of that contribution to that for us to explore what other counties are doing and have more of a regional impact into this growing area. So I fully support it.

Thank you. Tell me one time the counties that are top of mind that you're going to reach out to.

I don't have that list. I know on Thursday we're going to be having a webinar on this, and I'll forward you the link if you want to join, and to each of you on the court. And we have probably 50 registrants on behalf of different counties that are showing interest. So right now, it's all our oyster.

So the green light is for you to lean in on this particular effort. All right.

Correct.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Roxanne.

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

Yes. Six, please.

Case six, discussion and possible action to authorize the acceptance of a grant award from the Texas A&M Forest Service Watershed Protection Plan Implementation Grant in the amount of $50,000. So moved. Second. Second.

Carl Flocky, Director of Parks and Natural Resources. We're just looking to accept this grant that's been awarded, $50,000, no match requirement. Love it. Good job. Please call the roll.

Commissioner Smith?

Yes.

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

Yes. K-7. Thank you.

K-7. Discussion and possible action to authorize the submission of the application to the Hayes County Master Naturalist in the amount of $1,500. So moved. Second.

Yes, sir. Carl Flocky, Director of Parks and Natural Resources, looking to apply for a $1,500 grant, no match requirement, to build a chimney habitat at Jacobsville National Area. Beautiful. Please call the roll.

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

Yes. Whose phone is really distracting? Please open K-8.

K-8, discussion and possible action to authorize the submission of the grant application and execution of associated documents to Texas Parks and Wildlife Local Parks Non-Urban Outdoor Program in the amount of $32,257.42. So moved.

Such a good use of time. Keep it going.

Carl Flocky, Director of Parks and Natural Resources. This would be to construct a fence and observation platform around the Wimberley Bat Cave at Carson Canyon Preserve. This is necessary to ensure visitor safety, resource protection, and to help interpret that very important feature to the people. This grant does require a 50% match.

I will say that that fence is extremely required and it's also extremely expensive and it has to be a certain type of fence that we put in.

We are hoping to offset that with this grant. Please call the roll.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I got to look. Commissioner Inglesby.

So the $32,000 is that, or is that 32? Is that with our match? Yes.

That's the total, so the match would be approximately 16.

15, 16, yeah. That's all I wanted to know.

All right, thank you. Yeah, I always scan the court. Please call the roll.

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

Yes.