Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

She made it. Good morning, everyone. It is Tuesday, July 14th at 9.01 a.m. It's a regularly called session of the Kendall County Commissioner's Court. It is now called to order. We'll begin by calling roll. Commissioner McCall. Present. Commissioner Wieschen. Present. Mr. Chapman, Mr. Carpenter, thank you all. We have a quorum of all five members of the court. Just before I hand it over to my colleagues for the pledge and the prayer, just a couple housekeeping matters. So correct me if I'm wrong, members of the court, it looks like we are going to be pulling or striking several items from today's agenda. From closed session agenda items 24 about Prop A, 26 about the fire marshal, and 27 about Mr. Busbee, is that correct? Those three? Okay, thank you. from our regular agenda, I believe we're also striking number nine. Is that correct, Commissioner Carpenter? Final flat fees? Yes.

Okay.

And then there would be here. And then And I'll just announce my recusal from number 23 now while we're at it. Okay. And with that, did I miss anything from you ladies? Gentlemen, did that cover everything from y'all? Okay. All right. I'll hand it over to Commissioner McCall and Commissioner Wiesner for announcements regarding our prayer and our pledge.

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome Pastor Vanderbush from Messiah Lutheran. He's going to open us in prayer.

morning. I do welcome you to join with me in prayer. Praise the heavenly Father. We thank you for this good day. We thank you as always for the gift of rain. We pray that you would give us the ability to deal with the water, that you would be with those that are struggling with flooding this morning. We also ask, O Lord, that you would bless us as we are gathered for the consideration of business especially these commissioners, and as you are the ruler of all, we graciously regard those who have been set in positions of authority among us, that guided by your spirit, they may be high in purpose, wise in counsel, firm in good resolution, and unwavering in their duty, that under them, Kendall County and the residents thereof may be governed quietly and peaceably. All this through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This time I'd like to welcome Wyatt Rue, who had a little bit of trouble getting here because of the rain. Wyatt is a senior at Ernie, is that right? Yes. And you're at FFA and High School Rodeo, so if you'll just face the flags and lead us in the pledges. Thank you.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God. Oh, I can't believe we made it.

Next up, conflicts of interest. Anything from you, ladies, gentlemen? I have already announced mine. Next up, comments from the bench. Commissioner McCall, would you lead us on?

Good morning again. I wanted to acknowledge the beautiful flower arrangement I have here. I received it from the residents of Dodge Road, Whitworth Road, and Skyview Acres. Their kind gesture was offered in appreciation for my role in helping their road repairs forward. While I'm grateful for that thoughtful recognition, the real thanks belongs to our road and bridge department. They listened to constituents concerned. worked hard to address the road issues in this area and continue to serve Kendall County with dedication every single day. Kendall County is truly blessed by their hard work, commitment, and continued service to our community.

Thank you. Commissioner Regan?

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I want to recognize the Champion High School welding students who were invited to Washington, D.C. recently in honor by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins. Mr. Vick's welding team, you probably read about it in the paper, built an innovative mobile dipping vat that helps protect our cattle industry. It's a proud moment for Kendall County and great recognition for career and technical education. And then I'd also like to, could Brady come up, recognize Brady Constantine, our fire marshal. Brady has earned the designation of Master Structural Firefighter Certification from the Texas Commission on Fire Protection. Is he here?

You see him right in front of you.

Oh, I'm sorry. You were over there a while ago. His college hours and degrees and his years of service time combined with numerous classes and certifications contributed to this master certification. Well done.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Chapman, anything from you?

Don't brown.

Don't cross those low crossings. Mr. Carpenter?

I just want to keep the comfort community in prayer. A 16-year-old kid that took his life yesterday early, early morning. It's hard to celebrate at a time when you have this kind of stuff going on in our community. Anyways, just keep that community in your prayers.

Great. Thank you. Just a brief comment. The bake sale has come and gone for the county, our annual bake sale for our county picnic. Kendall County did amazing. We raised $2,110.70. Just want to thank everyone that baked, bought, and donated their time to make this a success. And thank you for all the patrons coming to the courthouse that supported us. So thank you all. All right, moving on, accounts payable claims. Number six, I know Corinna's got an amendment that she's going to hand. Consent agenda, I'm sorry. So consideration of possible action on approval of accounts payable claims for purchases, services, and vendors.

Good morning, Judge. Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. Today, claims are in the amount of $1,277,740.78.

Of the 36 pages, does anyone have any questions at this time?

Judge, I would like to disagree with Commissioner Wieschen's expenditures of $583 a night per room.

What page is that, sir?

It would be one of the first pages. I don't think that's setting a good example. for this court and a budget that's already over budget. So I know it is illegal. Orly, I don't think that it's right. And I plan on bringing agenda item next court to solve this so it doesn't happen again. Anything you'd like to add?

Yeah, I'd like to ask Corinna about this. So this is the conference that was recently June 15th. Corinna, did I submit all the required documentation for my travel reimbursement request? Yes, ma'am. Within the budget? Yes. And that was my conference registration, the hotel receipt, mileage. I did not turn in any meals. Did the documentation confirm my attendance at this conference? And that also confirmed that I earned 13 hours of continuing education, which is required for me to do. So were all of these receipts in supporting documentation in complete order?

Yes.

Okay. And as the county auditor, did you approve this reimbursement request for placement on today's claims docket?

Yes.

And based on your review, did my reimbursement request comply with the county's current travel reimbursement policy? Yes, it did. Okay. And to your knowledge, did my reimbursement request violate any county policy? Okay. And finally, if the commissioner's court wishes to change the county's travel reimbursement policy for future travel, that is something the court has the authority to do through the adoption of new policy. Is that correct? Correct.

Yes. Thank you. I think the overall thing is just, I think where you're going is this. Why did you spend a hotel in San Antonio for a local conference?

That's one thing. It's 30 miles away, and we spent $583 a night for a hotel room at $30 away, 30 miles away. The other thing, the room rate that was set by the conference was $250 for a single bed and $279 if you had a double occupancy. And the accommodation charges, not counting the tourism, state tax, local occupancy, recovery fees, all of the other fees, just the room was $391 for one night and $427 for the next night. When the room rate was $250 and 275. That's what I object to.

Commissioner, as you know, those room blocks run out, and I've actually asked TAC to be on the committee because I think that we need to do a better job of securing more rooms. And if you want to go to a conference and you're out in the middle of an area where there's no other hotel and there's an early morning prayer breakfast and there's a late night thing with Bexar County and other commissioners there, I mean, you know, it's all you can do. So, I've used my Marriott account in the past to actually buy down room rates when I haven't been able to do it. So it's all part of the training that we're required to do. And as I asked Corinna, we can certainly adopt the new policy, although I don't know how you adopt a policy to limit the taxes put on hotel rooms and the inflation and the higher cost of everything.

We cannot limit that. And also as a local government, we are not exempt from hotel occupancy tax. We tried that years ago, and the state said, nope, you have to pay that. So there are taxes associated with all the rooms that we are required to pay as well.

What I think this court can and should do is to set a policy. I don't care what you paid for the room, but I think the court should set the policy that we are not going to pay over the established room rate of the host hotel.

I think that's a conversation for another day, and I have some thoughts on that at the time the court wants to address because it's not an individual policy. It's embedded in a policy, so that's going to take some work for us to update.

So I wanted to add one thing. Commissioner Chapman, I don't remember you commenting when a county employee was allowed to attend a commissioner's and judge's training and be compensated for the hotel and conference in place of the elected official, so... I think it's interesting that you bring that up now.

We've had many employees go to commissioners' conferences.

Well, it wasn't brought up. I just wanted to point that out.

All right. So I guess moving forward today, do we push forward? You're going to bring something in. I'll bring an agenda. Okay.

I just want to say I submitted my second request in four years for my hotel stay in Galveston. And so is that going to be an issue next March? The room rate was $238 a night. That's probably what the room rate was. No, I didn't get the room rate because they never have enough rooms to get unless you beat everybody else to it. For someone that's declined raise and pay over the last several years and saved the county $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, this is kind of... Looking for a fight is what this is. Are you taking your full amount of pay now? I am now, but I'm talking about the one you're trying to make.

I'm talking about today. Today, this room rate was, in my opinion, excessive. And I think it sets an example, a bad example. that we're telling the rest of the employees when they can go on a conference that it doesn't matter what the room rate is. They can pay up to whatever. That's a dangerous precedent to set. I plan on curing it, and we can have a full discussion at the next court. All right. Let's leave it at that.

So, Quinn, I move to approve accounts payable claims for purchases, services, and vendors in the amount of $1,277,740.78. Stand by. One second.

Okay, motion be by Commissioner Weijian. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Commissioner McCall. Any further questions or objections? Teresa, please call the vote.

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Weijian?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman? Aye. Commissioner Carpenter?

Aye.

Judge Stolarzik?

Are you, did you say Chapman? Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, aye. Motion carries five to zero.

Judge, would y'all like to start signing? Yes, please.

And while we're signing that, um, we'll move on to agenda item seven presentation discussion regarding the Kendall courthouse parking garage fees, commissioner Chapman and Mary Ellen, who's going to take the lead on this.

I'll kick it off.

Okay. Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning. Um, so Kendall county and the city of Bernie had, um, entered into a feasibility study to look at parking garage, um, located in the parking lot, uh, behind the courthouse. and to look at a potential benefit-cost ratio for the construction of the parking garage. We used Kimley Horn to do the evaluation. We had meetings with the City of Bernie to talk about what their expectations were, what the county's expectations were out of the feasibility study and what data each of the city and county had that we could provide to Kimley Horn. In their analysis, they evaluated expected occupancy of the garage and determined that operating costs exceed the annual revenue by about $100 per stall. And so that equates to about an operating loss of about $26,000 per year. That is based on current trends of development in the downtown area and availability of on-street parking. So it's kind of a snapshot in time, those trends and those The evaluation of costs could change as we lose parking on Main Street or lose parking on River Road or other areas. And if development increases or the number of events here in Bernie increase, that would have bigger use of the parking garage. And so at this point, I think it would be very useful to look at this parking garage as part of the long-term feasibility study that the county is looking at. and whether or not it makes sense to add additional office space for the county or retail office space that could be rented or leased and how that might benefit the county. The parking garage does need to be looked at from a long-term standpoint, and the court at some point will need to determine whether or not that's something that they want to invest in for the long-term future or if it doesn't make sense at this time. The city of Bernie is looking at some additional surface parking since the numbers right now don't really make good sense, but I think it is important information that can go into that feasibility study.

Mr. Chapman, would you like to add something? So I thank Mary Ellen. I think that what city has done when they looked at the overall cost and didn't feel that there was going to be enough, was they started looking around for pockets parking spots that they could do a pocket of parking here and a pocket of parking over in different areas. So that is one of the areas of city. The city has not abandoned this project, but, uh, I do agree with Mary Ellen in that this is a, a perfect thing to present to the needs assessment because in speaking to some of the different architects and, uh, uh, Construction companies, they're doing something similar in, I believe it's Odessa, either Midland or Odessa right now. The post office was, they're building a new justice center. The post office was in the area right across the street. They needed that for parking. They made a deal with the postal service to tear their building down, build them a new one, and build the parking garage over the top of it. So same thing could happen here. We could still build a parking garage and to actually subsidize, so to speak, if the parking, we could either put retail space under it, we could put county offices under it. Many things that we could do, but I think this will give an option to our needs assessment definitely having this information there.

I agree. You know, I don't necessarily think you look at this. This was never intended to generate revenue. It was provided to create parking for the downtown community and this courthouse. So I always thought of this as an extension of this building where there was going to be office space built into this so we could gradually move people out of this building that don't necessarily fit within the courthouse complex. And then, so... I don't think looking at the, that it's a losing proposition from a, if you run it purely as a parking garage is the be all end all. So I think looking at it in the big pictures, what you got to do.

What was not brought into play here was the, how much, and there's, I don't know if anybody could even guess, but this is going to, if you had a parking garage, this would definitely increase the traffic in my opinion. to coming to Bernie, and so which would increase your sales tax revenue, because once people knew that there was a, they're not going to have to walk a mile to get to downtown, there's plenty of parking, more people would actually come. That's an intangible that we, that's just my opinion. Anything from you, Commissioner Carpenter? Ladies, anything?

Yes. How much did the study cost total?

It was $50,000.

And we split it with the city.

And, yeah, $25,000 apiece.

So was this solely to look at return on the investment to partner with the city of Bernie for downtown businesses rather than space needs for the county, for our employees, and possibly citizens?

It was... No, it was not solely just to look at return on investment. That was one of the things that was added by this court. Actually, I think Commissioner Chapman, you specifically requested that that be included when this proposal was brought forward to make sure we had an idea of what those costs were. But I think the idea was always to look at How much parking can we have? What are the options that we can do? Can we add office space? Some of the slides in the packet do have office space listed on the analysis for certain layouts. So it was always to look at what are the options? How could a parking lot be used? But also just to have an idea of what is the cost benefit? What is, you know, is it going to generate money? Is it going to lose too much money? I mean, at some point a parking garage and having parking for the community It's an investment that the county and the city have to make because people are here, but you don't obviously have to plan for it from a budget standpoint.

So since the county owns the property, exactly what was the city's role in all this? Just helping to fund the feasibility study to look at it. Which tells us that it's not profitable to go into the parking lot business, and we still need to do a space needs assessment after spending $25,000.

Can we get a copy of that at some point? It should be in your backup. The contract set that back. And I believe this contract did go through court. I don't have the signed copy in here, but it would have gone through court for approval.

It would have been helpful to have a presentation at some point so everybody in the public could have seen this, but not today, I guess.

Melissa is out sick today, so if there was the ability, it would have been presented.

All of the information that Kimley Horn put together in their presentation is included in the backup and available as part of the agenda, so anyone can see.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Any other? Did you get it? No, I didn't. Thank you. Thank you.

Brady, you should be short and sweet today. Burn ban. Yes. Agenda item A, consideration regarding our burn ban. Can you give everyone just a summary of what happened last night and what the forecast is the next couple days? I know it's not going to be burn ban, but...

I'll tell you, prior to the weather hitting yesterday, our burn index was sitting at 358, and it was climbing just little by little. We have seen a couple of grass fires from control burns, but they haven't grown out of control. Um, as of last night, we had quite a bit of rain that covered the entire county. On average, we got about two inches from what I'm hearing from all the fire chiefs across the county so far. Um, I will say the heavier stuff that was anticipated to circle from Kerr on to Kendall, we did dodge some of those heavier pockets. I have not had any reports of major road closures that have been extended. Currently on the county aspect, I can't tell you about the city, but on the county aspect, when court was starting, we still only had one road closure that came up early about 5 o'clock this morning, which is Old Fredericksburg at Bear Creek at the Bear County line. That is one of our known low-water crossings that we always anticipate having to close anyways. The storm has circled. It strengthened at weekend. It strengthened at weekend. With the high and low of the pressure, it kind of seems like it's going in a circle and stalling across Kendall, Bandera, and Kerr. The heavier stuff is sitting more on the I-10 corridor between Bernie and Comfort as far as our county goes. Everybody to our west and southwest of us are getting copious amounts of rain right now. There's multiple rescues happening in Medina County. All that being said, we're going to have a break during the day today, it looks like. Probably still have some light drizzle. But from what the forecast is showing, from what the state is saying, and everybody that's prepared, we should see a break from a lot of the heavier stuff until late this afternoon into this evening. And then we're in for another round of heavier pockets of rain up to eight inches or so in those pockets an hour. That doesn't mean we're going to get eight inches. It doesn't mean we're going to even get any of that. But that is what is projected in those pockets. The question is, do they sit in one area? Does it last over 15 minutes, 30 minutes or an hour? Those are the trends that we're looking for to see the rise in the creeks in the river. Currently, the river is maintaining on the Kerr County side from the north and south fork all the way down to us. We're seeing a little bit of an increase, the cubic feet per second. It's flowing pretty good in comfort right now, but not on the flood stage aspect. It's still well within its banks and it's flowing. It'll be several hours from now. We'll start to see a higher flow down towards Edge Falls on the east side of the county, which we have some debris buildup that has washed from the last incident. That's going to help break some of that up. I do believe we're going to see that. As we go into tonight, the overnight hours, the patrol deputies, they're all keeping an eye on it. I'm going to keep in contact. I'm in a text group with Kerr, Bandera, and Gillespie, as well as our CLO for TETM. And we've been just texting, sharing current information upstream, what I have, and then I'm sharing it with the new EMC with Comal County as well, starting today. So that's where we're at. I do not recommend a burn ban in any way, shape, or form. We have no issues with fire. And I actually, I did not reach out to the fire chiefs and ask that question because I already know what the answer is on their side right now. Absolutely. So that being said, the 358 on the burn index was updated just before all the rain last night. So I don't have a current number for you, but as it comes in tonight and tomorrow, that number is going to drop significantly. And this is the lowest. I mean, just before today, it was the lowest that it's been in months.

So now's the time to burn.

I would say yes. But again, stay with your piles. Don't venture off. By law, you're required to sit with it until all the smoke is gone and it's cold.

Perfect. All right. No objections, I presume, to keeping the burn ban off.

Can I touch on one thing since we're talking about burning? Sure. Absolutely. We did have a mulch fire out in the Berghain area between Berghain and Candelia on a mulching site that has been mitigated to this point. The pile has been torn up. We expected it to last a lot longer, but they got creative on how they were tearing it up. Using an excavator that they couldn't reach it with. So using a cable and a very heavy cement pipe that they are throwing down the embankment and dragging back up the company that owns the property. This is what they do is the mulching. So they have mitigated that. And between myself and TCEQ, we've discontinued the fire department doing follow-ups out there. And they have mitigated that and put copious amounts of water on it.

When this rain helps.

And the rain is now helping, so. The smoke should subside completely, and I'll do my final check with them tomorrow morning. It should be my final check.

Unfortunately, that area only got six tenths this morning. That's it?

Yeah. I do think the way that this storm is going, that they're going to see more this evening. If not tomorrow, we do anticipate a lot more heavy rain again tomorrow through the day. And the last thing I'll touch on, there's a lot of notifications going out from the National Weather Service. I've seen some bleed over from Medina County. So for the employees, the court and anybody that's on Zoom or listening, if you get an emergency alert that comes in kind of like an amber alert for the national weather and it's an imminent threat, look and see just to verify what city and or county or location it is actually pinging on. We do our best to make sure it stays within our area, but we can only do as much as technology allows us to. And now that I've been in that situation of things are happening right here, right now, sometimes there is an oversight on clicking one single button. And so we are seeing a little bit of bleed over. I'm getting some from Kerr. They come from the National Weather Service. And I've got some from Medina County. And I've notified both of them that we're getting some bleed over. So just if you do see something that's imminent, Take a second to look at the entirety, the totality of the circumstances and the situation on what your steps are for evacuations if needed.

And then would a second verification, if you have questions, go to your emergency management page because you are keeping that current, correct?

Yes. Between Rebecca Fink is helping me and we are keeping the Kendall County emergency management page active. And I'm pushing out an email with everybody. So call your commissioner for the latest if you want to all. Thank you very much.

I just wanted to say thank you for keeping us updated. We've been aware of what's going on, so we really appreciate it.

The updates that I've been sending, is there anything as we move through this week with the storm event that I can do differently?

I think it's great. Good report, too.

Thank you.

Well done.

So we're keeping the burn man on. Burn man's outfield.

Next up, we're going to hit several resolutions. So, Paisley, we're going to start with We'll try to go through these relatively quickly. First one up is consideration of possible action regarding resolution number R-20260714-1 authorizing the county judge to accept the Texas Water Board Homeland Security Grant EMT-2023-FM-001-0040 Kendall County Phase 1 South Watersheds CNCB Project scoping FM FY23 DMP submitted under the fiscal year 2023 flood mitigation assistance grant in the amount of $562,152.12 in federal funding. As a condition of this grant, Kendall County is required to contribute non-federal funds equal to or greater than $187,384.04 for a total approved project budget of $749,536.16. However, before we can So I don't have to read every resolution on these because they're all going to be pretty much the same. Have everyone on the court had an opportunity to read these and you approved me not reading them aloud? Okay, thank you. All right, Christine, I'll hand it over to you to explain why we're here today and what this is all about.

Good morning, Judge, Commissioner. We are here in front of you. Back in 23-24, Kendall County applied for a grant for a drainage master plan through the Texas Water Development Board. And we have recently received news that we have been awarded the grant. The reason there are four different grants awards in front of you today is because the project was broken down into four phases. So we have phase one, two, three, and four in front of you today. What this is, is Kendall County strategically was broken down into these four phases. The grant was submitted and we have been awarded all four phases for the drainage master plan, which is in front of you today. And that is why there are different amounts for each phase. And so with that and separate awards for each phase, we do need to bring them to you for approval in separate phases.

Okay. Marilyn, do you have anything to add?

Yes, if I can add, we are also in the process of applying for FIF funding, state funding, that would help offset the match. We're still just in the application process of that, so it's going to be a little while before we know what portion of that may be awarded to offset that. match but this is written as the maximum amount if we didn't receive any fif funding i'm sorry i think from a budgeting standpoint um these funds are not budgeted for this fiscal year um but since we are waiting on the fif grant still this wouldn't be expected to happen until next fiscal year i could just miss auditor what can you shed shed light on um yes so just every grant that you

approve, we do have to make sure that we are budgeting the match. So all of the match, which is, I believe, about $692,000 or $93,000 on these particular four phases, that does have to be budgeted. The entirety of the grant has to be budgeted. And then we budget the anticipation, the revenue that we anticipate from the grant. And the net offset is the, or the net difference is the county's portion. So we haven't gone over grants yet.

So will you make note of this amount to bring up with us tomorrow or Thursday, please?

Christina has given me her spreadsheet of all the grants that the county has approved to apply for. And that she takes care of. So I do have that total amount. And that is something the county still has to go over. But you do still have to. Just know when you're approving these, you're approving to fund the match. That's just the important part for me.

And in your opinion, these are critical to fund?

Oh, very critical to fund. This has been something that has been on Kendall County's to-do list for quite some time. So it's very good that we're receiving these funds. And as Ms. Spear had spoken, I have included all of these matches in the spreadsheet for the budget that y'all are working on right now. So she does have these totals. pending approval by court, but it is in her total that she will present to you during your budget hearing. And as well as Ms. Schooley had stated is we are in the process of applying for up to, I believe it's $330 something thousand dollars that if awarded on that FIF grant can be applied to the county's match on these four phases. But the application is coming up in due. We are intending to apply for that. And if that's awarded, then it will go there. But as Ms. Spear stated, you do need to budget the entirety until we, if we get the FIF grant, then she will do her auditing on that to offset the cost.

And if we over budget, that'll just roll back into the general operating fund. So it's not a loss of taxpayer dollars in any means. Correct. Okay. A couple of questions, and this is silly.

There's no match on the FIF grant, right? Correct. Okay.

It's a straight financial ask from Texas Water Development Board to help cover the county's cost.

Do we know the deadlines of when we'll actually have to cut checks and It'll be in FY27 for sure.

So we have been working with Eric Scheibe and Scheibe Engineering on this project. When it was applied for, he was part of this project and this grant application. He is continuing to assist on this. And in visiting with him... Working with the Texas Water Development Board, it is not anticipated that any funds for these projects are going to be needed in this current budget. But the earliest possibly is October, November is what we can forecast of needing these funds, which is why a couple of months ago I started working with Ms. Spear to make sure that she was aware that these funds are going to be needed.

And the FIF application deadline is coming up very quickly. We'll be looking to have a special called meeting in order to meet the deadlines for approval of some documents that are required for that application. It's a very fast turnaround on the state FIF application. But again, we have to get our application in later this month. They'll have to go through their review process. And then there's a whole contracting phase for both of these grants. So I would expect that it's well after October before any funds are needed.

Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Well, I move to approve or authorize the county judge to accept the Water Board Development Homeland Security Grant EMT 2023-FM-001-0040. Kennewick County Phase 1 South Watershed CNCB Project Scoping FMA FY23 DMP submitted under fiscal year 2023 flood mitigation assistance grant in the amount of $562,152.12 in federal funding. I further authorize the court to contribute funds equal to or greater than then $187,384.04 for a total approved project budget of $749,536.16. Do I have a second? Motion made by the judge. Seconded by Commissioner Chapman. Any further discussion?

Can I ask a question? Yes. On the language equal to or greater than? Yes.

That is in the documentation from the Texas Water Development Board, and it is my understanding that that is what the grant was applied for. If there are any funds that go over from the project being done in 23-24, then that's just stating that that is our match. And if there is added expenses, then the county is responsible for covering those, that we will not have any more of the grant than what they are giving us in federal funding. So if there's additional costs for the project, the county will be responsible for covering those.

Yeah, that's kind of weird wording.

And I think we can look at that from a scope standpoint in the drainage-wide, county-wide Drainage master plan is if there's items, if it looks like we're going to be exceeding these amounts, are there scope items that we would want to remove in order to stay under budget?

When we get this and the master plan is drafted, do we get ourselves into drainage protection zones and that kind of stuff like that?

That is entirely up to Commissioner's Court. That is not specifically part of this grant. The grant is to look at mapping efforts, you know, reduction in floods. Are there strategies we can do to reduce flooding in areas, you know, specifically comfort? Are there things that we can do? What strategies does the county have to change to the rules to better protect from flooding? But those are all decisions that Commissioner's Court would make. They would just be strategies that are presented.

Good.

So just one more question. Did you budget any money in contingency in case we don't want to limit the scope and want to pay for one of those items?

That is, there's nothing budgeted for this project at all right now. So I think during the budget hearing when we talk about grants, if there's something we want to add, we could. This will be a multi-year project. So it's not necessarily something that would have to be budgeted. I don't want to speak for the auditor.

She may yell at me.

It wouldn't necessarily need to be expended.

It would be budgeted for the whole period, but it would yet be appropriated up front at the beginning of the multi-year period, even if you know it won't be spent all in that first year.

But if it comes down later that there is scope we want to include, that contingency could be covered. And I think we can discuss that during the budget hearing. Good idea. Thank you.

Anything else? All right. Teresa.

Commissioner McAuliffe.

Aye.

Commissioner Whedon?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye. Judge Stelarczyk?

Aye. Motion carries 5-0. All right, another Water Board grant. Consideration of possible action regarding Resolution R-20260714-2, authorizing the county judge to accept the Texas Water Board only and security grant EMT-2023-FM-001, dash 0 for 2 Kendall County DMP phase 2 North watershed CNCB project scoping. FMA FY 23 DMP submitted under the fiscal year 2023 flood mitigation assistance grant in the amount of $626,250.00 in federal funding as a condition of this grant, Kendall County is required to contribute non federal funds equal to or greater than $208,750 for a total but approved budget of $835,000. Quick summary and then...

Same thing as the first one, but this is just phase two, which is the north watershed of Kendall County.

Okay. I move to approve the county or authorize the county judge to accept the Texas Water Board Homeland Security Grant EMT 2023-FM-001-0042 Kendall County DMP phase two north watersheds. C and C B project scoping FMA FY 23 DMP submitted under fiscal year 2023 flood mitigation assistance grant in the amount of $626,250 in federal funding. Further authorized Kendall County federal funds equal to or greater than $208,750 for a total approved budget of $835,000.

Motion made by the judge.

Seconded by Commissioner Chapman. Any further discussion?

Just one question.

Did Eric Shivey's team work on this as well? Yes. As I stated earlier, he's been working with the county from the inception of the application. Okay. Teresa, you're up.

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Leeson?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye. Judge Jaworzyk?

Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Next up. Consideration of possible action regarding Resolution R-20260714-3, authorizing county judges to accept the Texas Water Board Homeland Security Grant, EMT-2023-FM-001-0086, Kendall County Phase 3, Central Watershed CNCB Project Scoping FMA-FY23, at DMP submitted under Fiscal Year 2023 Flood Mitigation Assistance Grant in the amount of $589,632.12. in federal funding. As a condition of this grant, Kendall County is required to contribute non-federal funds equal to or greater than $196,544.04 for a total approved budget of $786,176.16. Christina? Same thing.

This is Phase 3, which is for the central watershed of Kendall County.

Okay. Motion made by the judge to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Chapman. Any further discussion? If not, Teresa, you're up.

I have Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries 5-0. And last but not least, consideration of possible action regarding Resolution R-20260714-4, authorizing the county judge to accept the Texas Water Board Homeland Security Grant EMT-2023-FM-001-0039, Kendall County DMP Phase 4, West Watersheds CNCB Project Scoping FMA FY23. The MP submitted under the fiscal year 2023 flood mitigation assistance in the amount of $900,000 in federal funds. As a condition of this grant, Kendall County is required to contribute non-federal funds equal to or greater than $100,000 for a total approved budget of $1 million. Christina?

Same thing. This is just your phase four, which is the western part of Kendall County for the watershed.

We have a motion made by the judge to authorize the county judge to accept the Texas Water Board Homeland Security Grant, EMT. 2023 FM-001-0039 Kendall County DMP Phase 4 West Watershed CNCB Project Scoping FMA FY23. DMP submitted under fiscal year 2023 flood mitigation assistance in the amount of $900,000 in federal funding. Further authorized Kendall County to contribute non-federal funds equal to or greater than $100,000 for a total approved budget of $1 million. Do I have a second? Second. Motion by the judge. Second by Commissioner Chapman. Any further discussion? Thank you. I'll get you those signed ones after. Okay, next up, public comments. It doesn't look like I received any public comments today, so we'll be moving on. Is there somebody in the waiting room? Okay, perfect. Okay, next up, number 15, consideration of possible action for Kendall County EMS to transition to ambulance currently operating at a 24-72 shift schedule to a 48-96 shift schedule, resulting in all EMS ambulance units operating under a 48-96 shift rotation to take effect on adoption by submission or support.

Okay, thank you. So during budget, we approved this shift change to take place at the FY27, beginning in the FY27 budget. But we have come to ask for that to...

be changed before that time. And so I'm going to let EMS kind of talk to what the idea is here.

So right now we have a split schedule. Part of our crews run a 48, 72, a 96, and the other guys run a 24, 72. And the guys on the shift for the 24, 72, there's only two members on it. That are on that shift due to staffing issues. We recently hired people to fill those positions. And last week we hired three more people. And so by the time they get all finished, those new three people that we just hired, they'll be going on the truck on or going through orientation in August. Right now it's taking. all of our full timers having to try to fill that 24 72, which generates a tremendous amount of overtime and stress on those guys having to cover all those shifts. Luckily we haven't had to shut a truck down as the case may be because our guys have stepped up and picked up that overtime. I'm glad you're there. Cause I was going to talk to her about that overtime. Um, I am not sure how much money that generates when you're having to take full-time staff to cover truck, to cover that truck, but maybe Corinna might know something.

I don't, I don't have like what the overtime is. What I can tell you is when EMS came to the compensation committee to first broach the subject, one of the things that Clint did in my office is he calculated what eight staff members, that it takes eight staff to do the 24-72 truck or shift, and it takes six staff members to do the 48-96 shift. So the difference in the eight and the six is an additional $31,215. I know that seems specific, but you could round $32,000 to go for every truck to be $48.96. It is two less employees. And so you think, oh, well, why isn't it a bigger saving? Well, it's because those six employees are now going to work more hours. So they do earn more overtime. we're looking at today's salaries, today's base salary, somebody that works on the 24-72 shift, their annual salary is $58,788. The additional overtime that they would work based on that shift would generate for them another $9,927. If you take somebody that's on a 24, I'm sorry, a 48-96 shift, their annual salary is $62,292. If you take the additional hours they're required to work, that's an additional $38,093 for them. But then when you add all the benefits, you're reducing two employees' cost for insurance. So yes, while things that are percentage-based, your Social Security, your Medicare, your retirement are increased because somebody is making more, you're taking out about $20,000. and just insurance costs for two employees. So the net difference for an entire year is only less than 32,000 to go for everyone to be on the 4896. And I think it's easier to hire those employees from our conversation that you had with us. And it's the schedule that's in the, I'm going to use the word market. It's the schedule that's out there in the world. So it's a very small increase to reduce to go to that staff the $32,000 but it is I think more efficient for the county because everybody is running on the same truck you also end up probably reducing your overtime line of filling in and but that's something I can't calculate because I don't know who's going to be sick or who's going to do that that's where your real savings comes in this is like $32,000 more dollars to budget for sure number. But we also have to budget the overtime when they are calling in their PRN employees.

We had a long discussion during compensation committee and it was unanimous that we thought this was a good idea to start in 27th. financially, do we have the funds to start this further request today?

You do have the funds. I would say that it probably needs to start on a payroll start date because that's typically what HR does is they want somebody to start on a paid day date.

So what would that be? What would be the earliest that you would recommend? Well,

I would talk to Juanita, but you are in the first week of a pay period right now because payroll is Friday, which means we're getting paid through last Saturday. So this Sunday that we just had started a new pay period.

Like August 1st would be a good time to approve this because doesn't that start the new pay period as well?

I think that would give us a little bit of an opportunity to, number one, onboard the new people that we were just putting on board and get them established so we could try to start reducing the overtime from, the full-time staff that's already here, and put everybody on the same page.

I'm just trying to find out when the first day of the next day is.

If the court desires, and, I mean, it sounds like this would be the right thing to do, then I would just say that we instruct Brian to work with the HR to start them at the appropriate time. Like, you know, no earlier than April 1st or August 1st.

So 7-26 is the first day of the next pay period schedule. If you go past the first, now you're at the second and you're looking towards the next one on the ninth.

Okay. So just get with, if we approve this, work with HR to see which of those two pay periods work best for this process. Okay.

So I wanted to add a couple things. First of all, we kind of didn't have all the numbers for what the overtime is, but it's time and a half for all of those shifts that these full-timers are picking up. So right there, those are numbers we didn't capture in what we heard. And then secondly, they're having a hard time hiring people because nobody wants to work the 24-72 shift. And so With all of that, that's my reasoning for bringing this forward so that they can hire those people and then everyone likes the $48.96. And then we're already paying overtime, which seems to be a wash in a way. We don't have exact numbers, but when you're paying time and a half for everything over those two people for this whole truck, it's tough. Possibly a washer. Correct.

And one of the things that we discussed is it is a lot more hours, but it is more attractive to find somebody that's in their world to say, well, I can only work these and I'm going to make 68,000 or I can work these more hours, but I'm going to make a hundred thousand, $385 and not be picking up another shift somewhere else. And so I think it's more attractive and certainly more lucrative for the employee to work the same shift as their counterparts are working. Um, and they're going to make more money because they're working more hours, but it is overtime. But also, the people currently that are on the 24-72 shift, they can be picking up overtime on a shift if somebody else is out, and we're already paying them overtime because they're already making overtime. So you will see an offset. I will not know what that is for an entire year until you have one full year and we can look at it. But it should be a small savings, at least to the county, overall.

So it all boils down to your schedule.

Once it's implemented, and we even did a schedule in our office because Clint had to do this to come up with what we think it would just be looking at six employees and eight employees on a different shift. So I think overall it would be a slight savings to the county based on the amount of overtime that they're having to fill.

Okay.

Commissioner McCall, entertain the motion.

So I move to have Kendall County EMS transition to, I'm sorry, transition the ambulance currently operating on a 2472 shift scheduled to a 4896 shift shift schedule resulting in all EMS ambulance units operating under a 4896 shift rotation to take effect upon adoption and checking with HR for a start date.

We have a motion made by Commissioner McCall, seconded by Commissioner Carpenter. Any further discussion? If not, Teresa, please call the vote.

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Regent? Aye. Commissioner Chapman? Aye. Commissioner Carpenter?

Aye.

Mr. Watson?

Aye.

Motion carries 5-0. Can I say one more thing? Sure. I just want everybody in the court to know, obviously, Commissioner Chapman was part of the interview board, but Shelly was officially hired as the assistant administrator effective Sunday. We went through about 10 applications. A lot of them came from Indeed, which many of them did not meet qualifications, the basic qualifications of job description. The few that did, some of their requests were unreasonable. And the request. So she was the best candidate based on that information in the interview process.

Congrats for everything you've done. Awesome, Shelly. And a journey. I love it. Just a question. Brian, did you receive any applications in Kendall County or just neighboring counties?

I got two from in the county. And one of them had that unreasonable request in his application. And I attached a letter to that and sent it to HR.

Okay.

Good job on advertising it far and wide.

Thank you all.

Thank you, guys. All right.

Next up, consideration of possible action regarding appointments to the AMPO and Technical Advisor Committee. Commissioner Meejan?

So as everyone knows, or maybe I'll just tell you, Kendall County became a member of the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization in January. We had been accepted by AMPO and the governor finally signed the paperwork in January. So there's about a year lag time on that. Um, so judge Solarzik has been serving on the transportation policy board. I am his alternate. I've been serving on the technical advisory committee and Mary Ellen Schooley is my alternate. And we all pretty much attend, attend all the meetings. So judge, you and I talked about if we wanted to continue this, um, Scenario the situation or we went and make an adjustment.

So well, let me use it more just continuity that you know Everyone knows I will not be here in a few months. And so it just makes sense to if someone wants to sit on there to make sure there's Someone that is will be on the future court to stay current on what's going on that this is the time to do it and so the recommendation was for Commissioner region to take my place and then commissioner Mary Ellen to take her place on the advisory board until the future court makes future decisions. So that's what the, our thought process was.

And that's totally fine. And the, the boards have an interesting makeup. Uh, the technical advisory committee, uh, people often think that that's only in our engineers, but I think out of the 21 people on that, uh, technical advisory committee, maybe half are engineers. There's another commissioner there. In addition to me, there's a lay person who used to be a city council person from, uh, Guadalupe County, and so on. And on the Transportation Policy Board, that is sometimes a county judge and a commissioner, and sometimes it's two commissioners. In fact, the chair of that board is Rebecca Clay Flores, who is a commissioner in Bexar County, and the other member is Grant Moody, who's a commissioner. So Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai doesn't even sit on that. So I guess the discussion now is if I sit on that board, who would be my alternate? And I'm open for discussion on that.

Can you tell anyone that's listening why it's important that we're part of AMPA?

Oh, okay. Well, that's a very good question. So for several years, the city of Bernie has been in the regional planning. Regional planning organizations are funded mostly by the federal government, and it's a way for counties to come together and plan transportation, not independently as an island, because we're not, because all roads connect as a region. And the county has not had any representation other than through the city. And so we thought it best to go ahead and get a seat at the table so that we have a say-so in regional planning and what happens here in Kendall County. So again, we're connected to the other counties and we need to not have it planned for us, but have as much input and engagement as possible. So it's very important that we are part of this organization and we can't bury our heads in the sand and think that growth is not coming because it's here and we have to address mobility concerns. Does that kind of sum that up?

And some of the funding, federal funding and state funding, does it come through? Does ANPO have a huge part of the recommendation that eventually has the impact of getting funded?

Yes, there's a very in-depth, lengthy process for projects in the pipeline. And in fact, if I may, can I just update everybody on kind of what's going on? And the judge knows this. But as you know, the Kendall County, Bernie, Fair Oaks Ranch Transportation Committee, which worked very hard, Commissioner Durden was on that for more than two years, dubbed the 46 East Herp-Esser intersection as the worst intersection in the county. And so when I attended a lot of those transportation meetings online, over time. And when I came on the court, I was really excited about trying to get that fixed. So I started talking to TxDOT. I know that others on the court, including Commissioner Chapman, talked to TxDOT about trying to get something done there. And TxDOT said it was a good idea. And so they applied to AMPO on our behalf to get funding before we were actually officially seated on AMPO. So we are going to get that project funded and upgrade that intersection. But it was pushed out to fiscal year 2032 to be let in October of 2032. But the good news is, is that TxDOT is moving ahead with the engineering design and they're going to cover the costs. So the county does not need to provide funds for that. And then the other good news is, is that AMPO is working with us to move our project forward. And so what happens, Bexar County, City of San Antonio, the other partners sometime have big projects with millions of dollars, and they don't get it ready. They're not shovel-ready. So what we're doing is getting our project shovel-ready. TxDOT is starting to work on the engineering let for some firm to design that intersection specifically. We're looking at plans, looking at what right-of-way needs to be acquired. So I'm real confident that we can get our project moved up in time. And so, again, that is federal money, and we have a say-so in that planning and that pipeline. And then beyond that, we're already looking at the next four years after 2032.

And just another update. I had a meeting following a meeting that you had with the planning board about the 46 corridor and let Everyone know at AMPO that it looks like, I know the budget's not set yet, that we were increasing our amount of funds available for that particular project, and they were excited to hear that. So, I mean, even if we can increase it more than $500,000, it may be even better, but I at least said we're shooting for $500,000. Thank you for that.

And I just want to thank the City of Bernie and TxDOT and all the AMPO staff. I mean, we've had just really good collaboration. This has all come together very, very nicely, I guess, in the last year, better than it's ever been. And everybody is working very well with the common goal.

So I'm an arcane emotion at this time.

Well, I'm open to who wants to serve and be the alternate on the transportation policy board. Right. And so so if I sit on the transportation policy board. That commissioner who's going to sit on that is going to be very key because I go to the meeting when you're seated. And then if you're not there, I can go. So I'm open to suggestions.

Yes, my suggestion is I would like to see the judge stay on it. I think that in a smaller county like we are, I think the judge should stay on through the year, end of the year, and then the new judge take his spot. That would be, I think that gives us the most amount of leverage, having the judge in that spot. And I would support this judge staying on and the new judge coming in, going on.

So I appreciate that. I did talk to Mr. Gleason, who I believe has joined us today. And he is fine with not serving on that for a year. Mr. Gleason is coming in, is going to be doing probate. He has a learning curve. We're here and very committed to helping Mr. Gleason get up to speed on everything and look forward to working with him. So for this year and for whatever time next year we can always reappoint, then I would like to serve again. Judge Sakai from Bexar County is the county judge and does not serve on the committee. So there's just really no requisite for that. Commissioner McCall, Highway 46 east or west is in your precinct, and you have a lot going on there. You're working with TxDOT on AMPO. That would give you the opportunity to be very much involved.

Well, I've been working with our state legislators and with TxDOT, and so I'd be willing to serve if that's what the court desires. Okay.

On which board?

As the alternate on the Transportation Policy Board. Okay, who will be the alternate on the Technical Advisory Board? Mary Ellen, would you like Nicholas? Would you come up, Mary Ellen?

Okay. I think if we could bring back an alternate for the technical advisory committee, um, at the next court, I think that would be appreciated. I think we, um, I have some items I'm discussing with you guys this afternoon. Um, and so I'd like to be able to bring that back at a future court.

I don't see why not. We can have another agenda item on that. So, but you're willing to serve on the technical. Absolutely. Yes. I enjoy those meetings. So, um, You know, last call, Commissioner Chapman, you had expressed interest in being involved in TxDOT, and you were very offended that you were not in on these conversations, so I open the door wide open and welcome you to participate.

Again, my feelings are that the judge should be on there.

All right. So with that, I move to appoint Commissioner Rieschen to the Alamo Area Metropolitan Planning Organization Transportation Policy Board with Commissioner McCall as the alternate and appoint Engineer Mary Ellen Schooley to the Technical Advisory Committee. Would that alternate to be decided?

All right. Motion made by Commissioner Wiesch and seconded by me. Any further discussion? If not, Teresa, please call the vote.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries 5-0. And will you make note to bring this back at a future court?

Motion carries 5-0. Before we get to the next one, which could take some time, I'm going to request a five minute restroom break. So we will recess until 10, 11 a.m. All right. It's 10, 11 a.m. And we're going to resume with agenda item 17. Consideration and possible action to adopt in addition to the Kennell County personnel policy to require an annual countywide job description review. and maintenance process requiring all elected official department heads, department heads, and supervisors responsible for county employees to review all existing employee job description and update them as necessary to accurately reflect the current duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and reporting relationships of each position. The initial job description review process shall be completed by September 30, 2026. I'll hand this over to Commissioner McCall and Commissioner Carpenter.

Yes, I'll go ahead and start. There is no uniform job description process in Kendall County. Commissioner's Court has not adopted a standard process for creating and maintaining job descriptions. The county has not adopted a standard job description format. Due to the fact that Kendall County employees could potentially have job duties that are not reflected in the job description or job duties that have been removed, I'm proposing we adopt a process that will establish an initial job description for FY2026 with an annual update review and acknowledgement. Each reviewed job description shall be acknowledged by the employee and the department head through signature and date with the original maintained in human resources. A copy will be maintained in the department's personnel records and provided to the employee. A copy shall be provided to me in my assigned role as Commissioner overseeing the employee evaluation process for which job descriptions constitute the foundational performance document. All employee job descriptions shall be reviewed, updated as necessary, and submitted no later than September 30, 2026. The approved job descriptions shall serve as the county's official position descriptions and shall be utilized as the basis for employee evaluations, position classifications, compensation considerations, and positions included in the county's adopted fiscal year 2027 budget. Any material change in duties, responsibilities, supervisory authority, qualifications, or essential functions of a position occurring during the fiscal year shall require the department head to update the job description and submit the original and the revised copy to human resources, copies to the employee, the department head, and commissioner's court within 30 days of the change. My example job description format provided in the backup documents, I anticipate to be the minimal information utilized. The DA and the sheriff have already established a functioning format that accurately describes their unique job descriptions. I will be working and collaborating with other departments to create a format that will be utilized for Kendall County employees during fiscal year 2027. Any further details that arise, I will address. This process shall therefore become an annual requirement with all departments completing job description, reviews, and submission by September 30th of each fiscal year. Upon adoption by Commissioner's Court, the Kendall County Personnel Manual shall be amended to include this requirement. Kendall County employees are Kendall County's most valuable asset, and they deserve to have their work accurately recognized, documented, and compensated. An annual job description review process demonstrates the county's commitment to its workforce by ensuring that employees are evaluated on the duties they actually perform, not on outdated descriptions that may no longer reflect their responsibilities. Accurate job descriptions validate employees' contributions, support fair compensation and performance evaluations, and acknowledge how positions evolve over time. At the same time, they provide transparency, accountability and consistency for the county, ensuring taxpayer resources are aligned with the services being delivered while reducing organizational and legal risk. Ultimately, maintaining current job descriptions is a simple but meaningful way to recognize employees, support their success, and ensure the county and its citizens receive the full value of their public service.

Commissioner Carpenter, anything to add? Well said. And this is just good housekeeping. This is just good HR management of our taxpayers' dollars. And eventually I'd like to see this linked to performance. And that's where this is leading. And I'd also like to see it where if the department head's not keeping up with these requirements, they're also limited on what they are able to tap into taxpayer dollars for performance pay.

So I'd like to add that I spoke with the DA's office, the sheriff, the tax office. I spoke with a number of department heads about this before it came to court. and have a lot of support and agreement that this is a good process going forward. And so I move to adopt a countywide job description review and maintenance process requiring all elected official department heads, department heads, and supervisors responsible for county employees to review all existing employee job descriptions and update them as necessary to accurately reflect the current duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and reporting relationships of each position, therefore amending the Kendall County Personnel Policy Manual to reflect the change. The initial process shall be completed by September 30, 2026 and annually thereafter. This motion takes effect immediately upon adoption.

Motion made by Commissioner McCall, seconded by Commissioner Carpenter. I'll open it up to discussion. Do you have something on that?

So was everybody that you talked to on board with that September deadline? That's a, that's pretty ambitious.

Yes. I did. I did not have anybody who said that they, they, I, I did talk to one department who said it may be a challenge, but didn't say they couldn't get it done.

Okay. Okay. That's good. Well, I think you're on the right track. Job descriptions are the foundation. If we get job descriptions, right, we build the right organizational structure that in turn makes us or helps us serve our citizens more efficiently. And, The right staffing level also drives that space need, so I think it's key.

I 100% agree with the fact that we need accurate job descriptions. I'm not on board with the way the policy is set up right now. I think September 30th is too ambitious. I know we have certain departments that are drowning in work, and just adding this is – necessary. And I think that the original plan of forming a committee of people that have experience in drafting these job descriptions, combining them with other department heads and elect officials that may not, was going to be better for the county to make sure we have a uniform process versus just delegating it to the department saying, fix your job descriptions. We're going to have different kinds of job descriptions coming in that are written differently, have different content. We need uniformity. And I think that's where the committee that we originally agreed upon was going to be the strongest suit for this because we all have strengths and weaknesses, and that's where a committee can bring out the best in everyone. So I disagree with the – I don't disagree with the concept of what you're trying to do and what the ultimate goal is to leak this to merit pay. No objection to that. I just think this is the wrong approach to doing it.

I agree. I mean, because and I'm going to pick on Mary Ellen because I'm looking right at her. So she is a great engineer, but she may not be a great HR person. And to put everything that you need into that, I agree again with the concept. I disagree that it should be every department head doing this. I think it has to include HR, and HR has to be the main driving force to work with these people to get this done so that they are all drafted, as the judge said, the same.

Yeah, because we see in compensation committee when people bring in updated job descriptions, Some are six pages long. Others are two. They have every activity they do under the sun, including how many restroom breaks they take. It's just ridiculous. So we need to make sure we're having the right amount of information that directly impacts their job duties. So I just don't think that this is going to be successful, but I do support the concept and I'm open to a new, new strategy.

So, Oh, go ahead. No, make up, make a point. Um, I hear what you're saying and employees are not experts in how job descriptions are written, but I do think each employee is an expert on what he or she does every day. That person is the only person who knows how that time is spent. And I think that if that gets documented, that is a huge part of getting the job description written. I think we're saying the same thing, formatting and, you know, the way things, well, I guess formatting, the way things are formatted, be standardized and that employee may not know that but i think the point is just to gather the information from that key source and that's the employee who knows what their function is and what tasks they do every single day i agree they they are the best most knowledgeable person as to what this employee does but i think for it to be a uniform

It has to be not just the department head or the elected official. It has to be with HR at every step so that they are very uniform and they're all meet the standards that we need them to meet.

Would that not be the next step after gathering that key information from the employees and to take that and then start standardizing that?

So as I stated in what I said in my opening remarks to this item, we did have a job description training, and all the department heads were required to go by the court. They have the information. They have current job descriptions. They know between them and the employee, they are the two people that know best what that employee does. And this is a start, but it will be current. Three years ago, I know the job descriptions were gone through. And so we have addressed job descriptions at various times. I do know that there was a job description that was under the court for a number of years and was missed since 2016. So if we can at least address and get current information, and then we'll work on formatting, as I said, in the future, next year. to a more uniform type of job description that is across the county. This is the starting point, and again, we're going to just take what we have. I think the employee and the department head are the two people who know the best, and it will be put in the employee's file, the hard copy, and everyone will get a copy, and we'll just start from that. I didn't have objections to the time frame.

So the other question, and maybe I missed that piece, but after The person sits down and writes down what he or she does every day and reviews that with the department head. There's also comparing and contrasting what was just written by the employee to what's written down officially. And then at the whole point, what they're doing may not be what their job description is. Right.

So they're going to take the current job description and that's what they're going to work from. And they will discuss with the department head those changes that may need to be made. There may not be any that need to be made. A lot of department heads that I spoke with, even the DA, they've gone through theirs very recently. So There may not be substantive changes to those job descriptions, but they'll start with the current job description and make changes that need to be made, and then they'll change them if necessary. If not, they will print. They will each sign and date it, and we'll get the original to HR. I have a suggestion.

Yes, Juanita.

Hi. I'm sorry I'm not present because I live in Hondo. Commissioner McCall did not address this with me. Didn't discuss any of this with me. Currently, we do have a format that we use that DA's office originated that format. And then I discussed with Ms. Osteen and we felt it was a good format to use. I have multiple job descriptions that I'm working on that I coordinated with the department heads, and you will receive quite a few of them as soon as I can finish typing those and bringing them to court. Department heads are working with me to take care of these and update them since our workshop. So they're not ignoring this. Some of them do not need to be updated because road and bridge work diligently on theirs. So did county engineer, just to name a few. Certainly the DA's office and I mean, CDA's office, And Sheriff Auxier recently had updated his. And there's been a couple of tweaks. And those are the ones that are coming to court. So we are making a lot of progress and those department heads are working really hard to get these done. So did Brian at the EMS department brought some to my attention and we're working on those to update them and add maybe some certifications. They're minor, they're minor changes on some of those. But it does take a lot of work from everybody. And September the 30th, I just don't see that that's going to happen. And what are the consequences? I mean, is there a policy that's going to be drafted to include in the policy manual? Because that would be a totally different section of the policy manual for department heads and employees.

So yes, in my presentation, I said that we would amend the policy manual to reflect the personnel and policy manual to reflect this change. And again, I think as One of you said there are a lot of job descriptions that may not need any change. And again, I did not have a lot of pushback or actually I had a lot of affirmation from the sheriff and the DA that this was very doable.

So I have a suggestion. There are multiple other departments just to be aware of. I have a suggestion. Can I add one thing? Certainly. Who is going to be responsible under your recommendation to update the personnel policy? Me.

I will work with HR and the general counsel to do that. Perfect.

Okay. I think what I'm hearing is that there are parts of the job description that the department head has the most knowledge of with the employee that's the subject of the description, and then there are other sections that they aren't the expert. So maybe having a policy where the department head reviews the whole thing, but they're not expected to be able to say, for example, what the physical requirements are necessarily. that people who are more experts in the job description will look at the essential duties that are identified by the department head, the exemption status they think is appropriate, who that person would report to and or supervise, and then any educational and licensing requirements that they think are appropriate for that job. And once that data is provided to, I would say, the committee that you talked about, you're basically saying a committee with HR and you and me, Then we would look at what the department head and the employee think are the appropriate things and then fill in the gaps. So help them with the description. So they're not expected to start at the top of the description and work all the way to the bottom and fill everything in on their own because that's not feasible. For example, the physical requirements that we put in a job description are essential when we're looking at workers' compensation injuries or even an off-duty injury and someone's returning to work. How do we know if they can return to work if the physical requirements of the job and the job description aren't accurate? They have to send the job description to the doctor with the employee, and they sign off that they can or cannot do the physical requirements of the job. So we need to make sure they're accurate. I don't expect every department head to be able to complete that section on their own, and I don't think you do either. So maybe if it's okay with you, we could work on drafting policy language, which is what Juanita wants, to be able to put the language directly into the policy manual. And I'd be happy to help you do that if you'd like. but that the department head is the responsible person for making sure it gets done, at least the part that they are most capable of completing. Maybe that's really what you're asking and not for them to do it start to finish on their own.

Well, every employee was hired with a job description. There is a job description in the employee's file. So we're not starting from scratch. And just to clarify.

Not every description has every section is what I'm saying.

Right. And again, I just put an example in the backup just as the minimal requirements. And I am aware that the DA created an exceptional format. And we'll work towards that being the standard. But again, we're taking existing job descriptions. and going over it with the employee so that we have, it would be, I think it would be very transparent for this court to pass a budget that has not only our numbers in order, but the job descriptions for our employees, which benefits the employees and the taxpayers that we're using.

You know, I agree with you because I got here almost a year ago. And one of the things I've said to the court all along is we've got to fix these. We've got I just worry that some department heads might be panicking, thinking, oh, I don't know how to do all of that. And I just wanted to make the statement that I don't think you expect them to, that you expect us to work together as a team to get all the necessary data into the documents, and you don't expect each department head to go become an expert on their own, that will be there to help and support them.

Right. So we're taking the existing job description. We're making any changes which may be necessary and then moving forward.

Okay.

So just a comment. I think it's really good that we're working in this direction. And I don't think anybody's trying to exclude anyone. I see Juanita being a key part and general counsel as well. So thank you for helping the commissioner. I'm just grateful that someone's taking a very assertive lead to get this done, because as counsel said, we've been talking about this for over a year. And if you don't set a deadline, then you're not going to have a deadline. It's not going to get done. So let us know how we can help you in anything. Last comment, and then we're going to call the vote.

Since I was picked on earlier, if I could have just a quick opportunity. Commissioner McCall did reach out to me when I was in the departments that she talked to. I was the department that expressed concern of having it done by September 30th because it is a lot of work. And we talked about the fact that it was really sitting with the employee, the employee looking at the job description, us looking at the job description, and finding if there were discrepancies that needed to be corrected. I already know off the top of my head there are one or two job descriptions that I have that do need some corrections. And so I do have a little bit of a concern and I guess a question on at what point does the job description get finalized and signed and into the file? Is that by September 30th or is it this communication and this dialogue of identifying the duties that need to be revised by September 30th?

My hope was that you would take the job description now, have the employee look it over, and then you meet with them sometime between now and September 30th, and then make those changes. I don't think they're going to be substantive. I don't think it's going to be a huge change to what we have on file now. You make the changes. You print it out. You have you sign it, the employee sign it, date it, and we will take the original and have it turned into H.R., And the copy will go to the employee, yourself, myself. and the original will go to HR, and we'll have a process to turn those in.

At which point in that process does Commissioner's Court approve the job description? I just worry about having the employee sign, this is my new job description, but Commissioner's Court hasn't approved it. I wasn't sure when in the process that would happen.

This is more just to say they agree with what it is. There's not changes to it. If it's a substantive change, it does have to come through Commissioner's Court like it does now. But otherwise, it's just a recognition by the employee that this is what they do, these are what the duties are, and the department head working together, and you both saying, yes, this is what the employee does, this is what we have on file, and I agree. And you sign it yearly. So that way, if there are changes, and again, it's going to be a basis for an evaluation process, we have to have that fundamental document to start the process, so.

Right. I think annually going forward, that's easy. You know, when we have the baseline established, that certainly makes it easy and it's a good process for consistent evaluations. I just wasn't sure on the timeline of those pieces this first year.

Right. And so once we approve this today, I was going to send out an email that gave exact instructions on how that would work. Thank you.

I just want to make sure that the September 30th is nothing that's going to impact FY27's budget. I know you said for FY27, but you will have already had a public hearing to adopt the FY27 budget.

So we can't even include the new policy changes in that, correct?

Well, just in your budget. And so the detail in the back of the budget lists every single job title and then the salary. So that's part of the adopted budget. That gets filed online. It gets filed in the county clerk's office. That will be as of the date that the court adopts the budget, which is prior to September 30th. So I just wanted to make sure y'all all understood that whenever you do moving forward, after you get your information by September 30th, y'all can impact that and make changes if you want in FY27. that nothing that you're doing by September 30th will be in the budget that you adopt because it'll be prior to September 30th. I just want to make sure you understand that.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Corinna.

Teresa, you're up.

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Regan? Aye. Commissioner Chapman?

Nay.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye. Judge Stolarczyk?

Nay. Motion carries three to two with commissioners from precincts one, two, and four in favor. and the judge and commissioner for precinct three opposed. I'm going to hand this over to Commissioner Chapman to carry on with court. I need to take a call from Keaton right now. Commissioner Chapman, you're up.

So item number 18, consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda are considered to be of routine nature by the Commissioner's Court will be considered by one motion and no separate discussion will occur unless any member of Commissioner's Court desires to remove an item from the consent agenda for it to be considered in its normal coincidence on the agenda. A, consideration of possible action to approve the minutes for June 23rd, the regular call meeting on the June 24th and June 25th special call meeting for budget workshop. B, consideration of possible action on accepting list of donations received in June 26 on behalf of Kendall County per Local Government Code 81.032. C, receive the County Auditor's Monthly Financial Report for May of 2026. D, consideration of possible action... to declare the attached list as surplus salvage property and proceed with the disposition through an online county auction. E, consideration of possible action on the approval of amending fiscal year 2026 budget through the regular budget adjustments. F, According to the minutes of the Commissioner's Court, the District Court judges order setting the salary of the Kendall County Auditor as presented by the Kendall County District Clerk pursuant to local government code 152.031B. G. Consideration of possible action regarding the cash summary at Frost Bank for April and May of 2026. H, consideration of possible action regarding the naming of a private road located off Crabapple Road. Two more adequately direct 911 emergency responders to buildings and uniquely owned properties. The proposed private road is named as Sacramento. I, consideration of possible action regarding the naming of a private road located off of Sadden Sticker Drive near Old No. 9 Highway. Number nine, to more adequately direct 911 emergency responders to buildings and uniquely owned properties. The proposed private name is Tolman Road. J, consideration possible action to approve financial guarantee for right-of-way permit associated with town of comfort amending plat creating lots 129E-1. 129G-1, 129H-1, 129J-1, 129K-1, and 129L-1 in the form of a cash deposit in the amount of $51,900.50. For water and sanitary sewer improvements within the Kendall County maintained right-of-way on portions of 2nd Street, 3rd Street, and Main Street, in Comfort, Texas. Are there any of these items that anyone would like pulled from the consent agenda?

Commissioners, I actually have an updated for item E, the budget amendments, based on discussion yesterday in the budget hearings. So if we could pull that for discussion in an updated list.

Okay. So we will pull item E. Are there any others that need to be pulled? Do I hear a motion for the consent agenda A through D and then F through J?

I move.

Moved by Commissioner Carpenter, seconded by?

Myself. McCall.

Commissioner McCall. Any further discussion? If not, do you want to call the roll?

Commissioner McCall.

Aye.

Commissioner Regents. Aye. Commissioner Carpenter.

Aye.

And Judge Potem Chapman.

Aye. So the motion carries four to zero with the judge being absent at this time. Now we'll take up item E, which is consideration possible action on approval for the amending of the fiscal FY26 budget through regular budget adjustments. And the auditor... has presented those to us. Would you like to?

Yes, the only addition, commissioners, is the top, the $82,900 for elections. That was based on Ms. Decker's presentation yesterday during the budget meetings, that if she could get her election equipment that was needed this fiscal year, she did confirm she could get it. So this would be for the election equipment and the poll books needed. So that is the only addition to the original list submitted with my budget package. last Tuesday. So that is the addition I'm adding is the $82,900 from contingencies miscellaneous into the operating line of the election.

Are there any other questions? If not, I'll entertain a motion for consent agenda item E. I move that we approve agenda item E. Motion made by Commissioner Carpenter, seconded by Judge Pro Tem Chapman. Commissioner McCall?

Aye. Commissioner Weasley?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye. Judge Pro Tem Chapman?

Aye. So the motion carries 4-0 with the judge being absent, and the judge is now back present, and so I will turn it back over to the judge for item 19 on. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. All right, next up, Consideration Possible Action Award, bid number 2026-10, Guardrail Repairs, FEMA Disaster Recovery Projects, 4879DR-TX to Roy Jorgensen Associates, Inc., in the amount of $76,535. And they're authorized to county judge execute the contract upon final approval of general counsel.

I think I forgot to give you a sense of the backup tab. Let me show you something else again. Good morning, by the way. Good morning.

This is the item to award the bid that the county went out for for the list of roads which guardrail repairs needed to be performed in response to the FEMA disaster recovery project scopes of work from the July 4th flood last year. So we had one bid come back, Rory Jorgensen Associates, and the amount was $76,535. So I'm just asking if the court would like to go ahead and award this bid to that vendor.

And are you satisfied with the vendor?

Yes. They did perform some guardrail work on a previous one, but we did go out for bid for all of these since it was a list of them in accordance with FEMA guidelines.

Okay. I move to award bid number 2026-10, Guardrail Repairs FEMA Disaster Recovery Projects 4879DR-TX to Roy Jorgensen Associates, Inc. In the amount of $76,535, I now authorize the county judge to execute the contract upon final approval by general counsel. Do I have a second? Second. Motion by the judge. Seconded by Commissioner Weijian. Any further discussion? Yes. Okay.

So the Edge Falls Road Bridge, what other than the little concrete curbs that are missing, we do not have on Edge Falls, we do not have guardrails.

Could it be at the base? Was there any damage to those pillars underneath?

I think there was some scopes of work.

So through this process, what this is, is this is the DR4879 flood grant with FEMA and now turned over to TDEM for the scopes of work. Working with... Sharon, on this and the bid that went out, what we did is take the scope of work from the TDEM and FEMA projects and included those in the documentation for this bid because in order to be reimbursed by TDEM, it has to stay within the scope of work. So I don't have my binder in front of me. I apologize. I didn't know that some questions could come up about this, so I did not come prepared for that. But what I can tell you is this is the scope of work for those projects. If Edge Falls is in there, it may be a post for something else. Mary Ellen may be able to address that even more for the specific project. But again, I don't have the actual project scope in front of me to explain exactly what each project is.

So on the Edge Falls bridge, just so that everybody knows, there are no guardrails, but there are curbs that are approximately six inches wide, 10 inches long, and probably four inches tall, which are not going to stop somebody from going off, unfortunately, but it's been that way for as long as I can remember. The folks that live out there know how to travel that bridge. Since the bridge was built sometime in about 1987, it's been that way. There are some of these little curb and they're not even continuous curb it's it's only about every foot that there's one of these curb stops and some of them are damaged i'm assuming that is what it is when we did the site inspections with tedum to establish the scope we identified which of those we felt had been you know cracked or damaged in the past versus which was newer damage as a result of the flood

And they marked those in their assessment for calculating the cost for the project. And so that would be my expectation is that that's what Jorgensen had bid on. And when he did guardrail work a year and a half ago, he had done some concrete work to reset some of the beams for the metal beam guard fence. And so I would expect that that would still be within his abilities.

This caught my attention because there is no guardrail.

Commissioner, if you would like, and any of you are more than welcome, I have a binder of every project with the scope of work on it as well. I did bring them in front of y'all for approval on those projects. But if there are any questions specifically to the projects that Jorgensen would be working on, I would be more than happy to sit with you and go over that scope of work.

One second, I have a question about Edge Falls. Of the ones that you determined were predated the flood, are we repairing those, being useful of our time and replacing the ones that were damaged so the bridge is completely repaired?

I believe at this time the scope was limited to what TETM would pay for.

It just makes sense to me. If we're going to make the bridge whole, we make it whole.

Right. And that's understandable. And there was a discussion amongst us when we were going out for this that in order to be reimbursed by TIDM, there could not be anything over the scope of work on the billing. If it was something that's extra that they get out there and see, they would have to get with Commissioner's Court, Purchasing Agent Mary Ellen, and bill completely separate. This is just for what is in the scope of work of the project's submitted by TDEM. Anything over would have to be covered by the county. It was discussed that if they get out there and say, hey, look, really this needs to be done as well, then they will come back and approach it and get with Mary Ellen and purchasing agent to say, hey, this is some other work that needs to be done. But in order to qualify for the TDEM reimbursement, nothing on the invoice can be an excessive of what the scope of work is listed on in the project.

Just keep with you on the scope of work because that it just I don't know what the scope of work is, so it's hard for me to comment without saying it.

And if there are other things, like she said, that come up or we want to replace it and repair the other blocks, that would be separate scope. You know, when we replaced the guard fence before, we worked through purchasing, and that came out of Road and Bridge funds to replace the guard fence. So there are funds through Road and Bridge to do these repairs. They would, whether there were disaster funds or not, and it's just trying to keep the T-DEM reimbursement separate from any additional scope that would need to come forward.

All right. So just to make clear, just make sure just Jorgensen, if it's approved, that they know we want to bridge it. We want to make the repairs to get them back to their condition. So to bring extra stuff back to you for consideration by the court, because there's no sense having them come back and do that.

And that was the discussion in the scope of work. And I will offer that if you are concerned about the scope of work in these projects, and you want to table this item, I can grab all of my documentation and come back and get more in-depth with you if you'd prefer.

I don't have a problem with doing it. I'll just go over the scope with you. That's cool. Commissioner Regan has a question.

Yeah, I was just looking at it. I actually pulled up a street view on Google Maps, and you can see some of these little curb stops are completely gone and some are broken. I was just trying to understand, are they like set in like an inset in the concrete?

It's part of concrete. There's like rebar coming out. And there is rebar coming from the bridge deck that goes up into these curbs. If you look enough there, you'll see a couple pieces of rebar.

And then if you're looking underneath the bridge, they're not columns that go down.

No, it's extensions from the main base.

To replace those at this point, they would have to dowel in because, I mean, there's no rebar sticking out to attach them to, so they're going to have to dowel in to attach them.

All right. So we have a motion. A motion made by the judge, seconded by Commissioner Wieschen. Any further discussion? Teresa, you're up.

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Wieschen? Aye. Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye. Judge Galaxic?

Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Next up, consideration of possible action on staff recommendation to end contract negotiations with TransWestern Property, SWGP LLC, based on its response to the county's request for qualifications 2026-06 to provide project management owner's agent services related to remodeling project at 119 Old San Antonio Road. Commissioner Regent, Commissioner Chapman, I'll turn it over to you.

So just to tee up Sharon, um, We did a very sophisticated, elaborate ranking system, and TransWestern Property Company was awarded this, and your request for proposal qualifications was just on point, very detailed, and I'm very disappointed that this company didn't seem to understand their role. So we stalled in contract negotiations. I don't know if General Counsel wants to add anything, but nevertheless, we need to move on. Is that why we're here today?

Yes, ma'am. I do want to add something. I want to say that they were great to work with. It's a shame that we couldn't come to agreement on the terms of the contract, and we've encouraged them to apply, I guess, to respond to other solicitations in the future. This just wasn't a good fit on this project, but I do want to say that they were very easy to communicate with, and we appreciated very much the effort they put in in trying to make it work. But unfortunately, we just couldn't come to common terms.

Okay, so I'll entertain a motion. Commissioner Regents?

So I move to end contract negotiations with the Transwestern Property Company, SWGP LLC, based on its response to the county's request for qualifications 2026-06 to provide project management owner's agent services related to the remodeling project at 119 Old San Antonio Road.

We have a motion made by Commissioner Weijian, seconded by Commissioner Chapman. Any further discussion?

I just have one thing. We're going to go to the second choice on the list.

Oh, okay. Gotcha. You're good to go? Okay. There being no further discussion, Teresa.

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Lincoln?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Perkins? Aye. Judge Flores?

Aye. Motion carries 5-0. And now it's a related item. Consideration of possible action on staff recommendation and request to begin contract negotiations with Is it AGCM Inc. based on its rank response to the county's request for qualifications 2026-06 to provide project management owners agent services related to their modeling project at 119 Old San Antonio Road. Quick summary.

Yes. So just based on how Chapter 2254 Professional Services Act works, since we're ending negotiations with one, the top rank firm, we go to the next rank firm, which was AGCM. Okay. Commissioner Weeson. And how and when will you communicate with this firm?

I'll reach out today. Okay, perfect. So I move to begin contract negotiations with AGCM Inc. based on its ranked response to the county's request for qualifications 2026-06 to provide project management owner's agent services related to the remodeling project 119 Old San Antonio Road.

We have a motion made by Commissioner Weijan, seconded by Commissioner Chapman. Any further discussion? There being none, Teresa, you're up.

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Regent?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye. Judge Lois?

Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Next up, consideration of possible action regarding an authorization for the purchasing agent to issue a RFQ for professional services to prepare a concept development plan for Guadalupe River Ranch Park, located approximately 7.8 miles to the northeast of downtown Burney near FM 474 and the Guadalupe River.

And so as you know, we purchased the Guadalupe River Ranch recently with ARPA funds, Prop A funds, and it's a beautiful park, over 300 acres, and we want to make sure that we take the time to do the right thing with it. And so tell us what your thoughts are, Joe, on this proposal.

Yeah, so this is also required for the grants we're looking at as well. They require a site plan as well as estimated costs, so But regardless of grants, I think this is the proper way to do it. But I did bring with me a desired scope of work. If y'all would like to see it, you've already seen this document, but if y'all want a copy of it.

It would be helpful to give everyone a copy, I think. Thank you.

Thanks.

Joe, did you want to mention the grant that we're actually looking at right now?

Yeah, I'm meeting with Daniel Oppenheimer of Hill Country Alliance on Thursday, so I'll have a little bit more details after that. But it is Gambolis landscape. We could use the purchase price still on that as well. Up to $3 million in the planning process could still be reimbursed, if awarded, of course.

So, yeah, if awarded, then we would get reimbursed with this concept plan. Correct. Okay.

So, basically, this item is just approval to go out for an RFQ for this.

The court still has to approve expenditures. Yeah, I don't know later.

My thoughts are, I thought we had talked earlier in budget about, not this budget, but last, over the course about waiting until we've expended Prop A funds and create a master plan to figure out what we're going to do holistically in the county versus starting to pick isolated parks. And I think we're getting ahead of ourselves by doing this. I know everyone's eager to start developing, but I think Best for taxpayers is wait a few more months until we expend the rest of the money and then do a master plan and then form a long-term strategy for the parks in the county versus picking this one park. I think we're just getting ahead of ourselves on this. That's just my two cents.

This particular park, Commissioner Rudolph, I think the first thing that needs to happen here is we need to go through there and get a detailed map of this park and detail out what property we know we own, what properties we think we own, and then what properties we know we don't own. Because that's the last thing I want to do is develop a park and put a pavilion out here. And somebody comes along and says, oh, thank you for putting a pavilion on my parcel of land here. It's going to be very nice this summer.

Well, that is all defined on a map that we have. I can supply that to you. We have a warranty deed through the title company for most of the property. General Counsel can help me recall this. There are some parcels that were not going to be insured with title insurance by the title company. The owner who sold us the property has put up the guarantee or the warranty deed so that if there is a dispute, then he has to handle those costs. So for all intents and purposes, we own the park and we have to find those parcels That's something that's going to be required in a grant. I would think that that would be noted in any kind of plan that the concept development team or firm, if we choose to hire them, would note. So this is just the first step. To Judge's point, what other properties or what other parks did you want to include in the master plan?

We got the Gill property, and then there's still funds left, so I don't know if they're still looking at another purchase of another park. We picked up that half-acre property. I think on the other side of the gale property, and then we do have our existing parks that have we fully utilized and considered what is the maximal use of the rest of the acreage out there. So I think you got to look at it holistically. That's just my, I just, I support doing this project. I just don't think we do it today. I think we just give a little more time to see what the property does with the rest of the funds and then sit down and allocate one big sum.

to park to park exploration management whatever is it surveying architecture whatever planning whatever the right term is so the gill property b1 don't we have a master plan though for existing parks we do have a master plan that's going to go through 2033 um for i can't speak to any future parkland the prop bay is going to recommend but if we're seeking reimbursement for the planning process we've already owned due to the floods we were kind of We use as a, you know, as a debris station, but we have owned that property too long to get reimbursed for it.

And I'm not saying necessarily to go out for reimbursements. I'm just saying, what are we going to use it for? Because you, The Gill property may be better for one concept versus the Guadalupe River Ranch, and why do you want to focus on just one property?

So there's two properties, the Guadalupe River Ranch and Gill. Commissioner Carpenter, that's in your precinct. What are your thoughts?

And then Commissioner Chapman was looking at one too, so that's why I'm saying we're not done.

Well, at this point, the only thing the Gill property could be used for is open space and then a either a granite jogging path or go out for bid or go out for grants for a concrete bike path or something like that. There's not much else. And river access? Yeah, river access.

So I'm open to the judge's suggestion. I just don't want to interfere with the grant process that there's some timeline that's specified that we need to get this done before a certain other step in the grant process. So can this wait until we've

I just wanted to throw it out there that if we want to use the purchase price as a match for a grant, we cannot include the guilt property. It has to be it's a per property basis.

And we're talking about a $2 million grant. Three. Three. Okay. Yeah. So it's pretty much.

I mean, nothing is guaranteed, of course, but it's definitely worth exploring.

I don't think it hurts to get the ball rolling to get the request for qualifications out. We don't have to hire the firm.

So can I ask you a question, too? From the grants that you've applied for and received in the past, is it per project or per park generally?

Generally, yes. Myself working with the nonprofit that we have is typically local grants, though. So it's a totally different ballgame. But just for using the purchase price as the match is the kicker.

So that's kind of specific to this property.

Because the $12 million or $12.2 million, whatever we paid for it, could leverage $3 million.

Do you know the deadlines for all these? What do you know about this grant?

I'll know a lot more. I have a meeting on Thursday with Daniel Oppenheimer.

So is there a harm in waiting?

It will be next year, though.

Since this is not going to affect any of the other properties, it doesn't make any sense to wait.

But you do have to have a site plan and an estimated cost to even apply for these grants. Right.

Commissioner Carpenter, did you have something? With that knowledge, we should move forward and get the process rolling. I wish we would have done that with the Gill property now that I know that we possibly lost.

Missed a deadline.

Of course, we got set back eight months on that from the floods, but that was unforeseen circumstances.

And then if we, I think we have, what, two and a half million left that we can spend?

Off the top of my head, I can't give you an accurate figure.

I'm sorry. I just want to ask, because this item was just to request, to go out for a request for qualifications. If y'all wanted to include a bunch of, we could make it a broad scope of parks, and then they could do it by project, right?

Is that outside the scope of this agenda item to add other ones?

The request for qualifications, just we have the basic idea of what we think the job will be, but they will give us their individual qualifications. And once we choose a professional we want to work with, then we would choose the scope of what we want them to do for us specifically. And you could add whatever properties you want. What he's saying about having to have it be property specific in order to qualify for reimbursement, absolutely true. It could be that we do that part as like a phase one of the job that we do with that professional, and after that's completed, then we could potentially ask that professional to look at additional properties that we would pay for with a different funding source.

I just want to make sure we're looking, the county's looking at it big picture, not just focus on one and forget about the rest, you know, because... Well, I don't think we're forgetting about the rest.

I think this is a specific grant, but it's good to know that we all get what we want right now, and so I'm going to move to authorize a purchasing agent to issue a request for qualifications, RFQ, for professional services to prepare a concept development plan for the Guadalupe River Ranch.

Motion made by Commissioner Weijian. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Commissioner McCall. Any further discussion? There being none, Teresa, please call the vote.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Nay. Motion carries 3-2 with 1, 2, and 4 in favor, and the judge and Commissioner three oppose. I'm going to hand it over to Commissioner Chapman for agenda item 23.

Thank you, Joe and Sharon. Thank you.

Item 23 is consideration possible action to approve the financial guarantee of the final plan established Establishing Bergkamp Terramada in the form of a letter of credit in the amount of $2,868,178.16 for road and drainage improvements. This action satisfies the conditions of the final plan approval. Subdivision property is located at State Highway 46 East, approximately 0.45 miles east of South Farm to Market 3351. Can you tell us about this?

Yes, so back in May 26, court conditionally approved the final plat for the Bergheim Terra Amata commercial subdivision. The condition was that the financial guarantee be executed prior to plat recordation. They were working to get their financial guarantee. Howard, we had already reviewed their opinion of probable cost, and now they've come forward with a letter of credit to that amount, and the We're bringing this to court to lift that condition.

I'm assuming that you, engineering, has approved the figures and you have everything you need.

Yes, the cost to cover the road, the detention, I guess. Okay.

With that being said, I'll make a motion to approve the financial guarantee of the final plant establishing Bergheim Terramotta in the form of a letter of credit. The amount of $2,868,178.16 for road and drainage improvements. The action satisfies the condition of the final plat approval. This subdivision property is located on State Highway 46 East, approximately 0.45 miles east of South Farm to Market 3351. Do I have a second? Seconded by Commissioner Carpenter. Is there any further discussion?

Yes.

Just for the record, I have received at least one email in opposition to this. I just want, for the record, for all the keyboard warriors out there, that we don't have the ability to deny. When someone meets all the requirements, they meet the requirements. A county, court, municipal, anywhere, government cannot deny landowner from doing something and moving forward on a project once they've met requirements am i right about that that's correct that's correct otherwise we open our county up and individually we're opening ourselves up to um personal responsibility or liability for um for for messing with the business transaction so i just want that to be known um We get requests periodically where people say, deny this, deny that. And there are times where we have the ability to step in when there's a public safety concern. And so that's all I wanted to say.

Thank you, Commissioner Carpenter, and you're 100% correct. We sometimes vote for things that we don't want to, but that's the law. So with that being said, would you like to call the roll?

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Regan?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter?

Aye.

Judge Clark-Champion?

Aye. The motion carries four to zero with the Judge Delarsik being absent. And the judge is now back.

Just for the record, to clarify, I believe you recused yourself from that item. You weren't just absent.

I recused. I'm sorry. Thank you for that clarification. All right. That concludes our open portion of today's session. We have a very brief executive session. So would the court like to transition Berkeley and the executive and knock this out? With the bathroom break? Would you like? Okay. So it is officially 1108 a.m. on Tuesday, July 14th. We're going to recess until 1113 and resume with our executive session. It is 1150 a.m. on Tuesday, July 14th, and we're resuming our open portion of today's session. All entertaining motions at this time. Ladies, anything from you?

Judge, I do have one motion. I move to approve the proposed revised organizational chart presented by Mary Ellen Schooley, effective October 1st, 2026, that will result in the designation of a development engineer and a county engineer and authorized county staff to begin making preparations and furtherance of this change.

Okay, we have a motion by Commissioner Regent. Do I have a second? Second by Commissioner Carpenter. Any further discussion?

Do we want to, for the public's benefit and transparency, just kind of recap? Go for it. So we heard a presentation from our county engineer, Marianne Schooley, and talking about the county growth and the increased work, also the Texas legislative mandate for the shot clock. We see Mary Ellen working very hard and being pulled in 15 different directions, and it's time to split that department into two. So the proposal is she will be the county engineer over Roden Bridge. and capital improvements, capital projects, where we have a development engineer just dedicated to development. And I think your presentation was well received, and thank you for the in-depth information, the job descriptions. And we are doing this pretty much with no increase in budget, correct? Correct.

There would be no increase to the proposed budget.

Okay.

Okay.

So we have a motion made by Commissioner Wieschens, seconded by Commissioner Carpenter. Any further discussion? Teresa, please call the final vote. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Motion carries five to zero. Any motions from you, gentlemen? All right. And with that, it is officially 1152 a.m. on Tuesday, July 14th, 2026. And this regularly called session of the Kendall County Commissioner's Court is adjourned.