Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. It is Tuesday, the 28th day of July at 9 a.m. And we are hearing our regularly called session with the Kendall County Commissioner's Court. We're going to begin by calling roll. Mr. McCall.

Present.

Mr. Region.

Present.

Commissioner Chapman. Here. Commissioner Carpenter. Here. And I'm present. We have a quorum consisting of all five members of the court. And over my colleagues, Commissioner McCall and Commissioner Region for announcements regarding our prayer and our pledge.

Good morning, everyone. I wanted to welcome Milt Eichner. He is the executive pastor at Curry Creek Church. He's going to open us in prayer.

Great. Father, we love you, and we invite you today to this meeting. Father, thank you for our land. Thank you for Kendall County. Father, we thank you for the rain we've had. We pray for those impacted. Father, I pray for the leadership here and those seeking answers, Lord, that you would just give us your wisdom today. Father, help us to balance what's right for our county, what's right for individuals, and what's right, Father, just for the organizations and businesses, Lord. We need you. We need your wisdom. Father, we love you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Our youth presenter was not able to make it this morning, so I asked Kendall Giusti. to pinch hit for us. And she's with Taylor's Ace Hardware and Kendall County Republican Women. Thank you for you doing this. Thank you. Use the pledge.

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

Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance

Thank you. All right. Next up, declarations of conflict of interest. Anything from you, ladies and gentlemen? Anything from you? No. Nothing from me. Next up, comments from the bench. Commissioner McCall, would you mind kicking us off?

I just wanted to say I was not able to be part of what happened with the flooding last year, but this year it was an eye-opener to see our emergency management coordinator and just all of the departments from EMS, law enforcement, We had animal control. We just had the engineer's office. We had so many different departments assisting, and it was just wonderful to see everyone come together to assist the community. So I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Regan?

You took the words right out of my mouth. So just thank you to everyone, including the businesses and the volunteers who stepped up as well.

Great. Thank you. Commissioner Chapman? Thank you, Judge. So a couple items. Coming up on August the 8th, Sisterdale is having their annual barbecue and dance. And so everybody that can go out and join Sisterdale and help promote the fire department there and make a donation would appreciate it. And on the flood, everybody, we had a lot of water and everybody thinks that we're out of the drought and For the most part, I guess you would say we are. But I would encourage everybody to continue to be very mindful of the water that you use. Many of the wells, if you'll go on to Cow Creek's website, you will see that the wells did take a jump, some as much as four feet. But when you look at the all-time historical values, four feet is not much. Some of the wells have recovered and are leveling out. Other wells, they did a temporary surge, and now they're going back down already again. And so I would just ask everybody to be mindful of our water. It is a precious resource. And just because it's rained, it doesn't mean that you can just go turn on the tap and use whatever you want. Finally, I'd like to thank Claudia in our IT department. She helped Mariela and I get Up on our website, we now have the Dark Skies petition. And if you go to the Kendall County website and you go to the home page, to the bottom of the page, you will see several icons there on the home page. And at the icon at the very bottom right, you see Support Dark Skies. That takes you directly to the development department's link to our dark skies. It has the dark sky petition. If you would like to get some people and support it by signing, filling out the petition, you can certainly download one there. If you're in an organization that would like to support the dark skies initiative, there is the Dark Skies letter of support. And soon, but not right now, there will be the link to the Dark Skies International if you want to learn more about the Dark Skies. But thank you, Claudia, and thank you, Mary Ellen, for providing this site so that everybody can easily get to it.

Great. Thank you.

The only thing I'll add is I believe our development office will be in comfort tomorrow. Is that correct, Mary Ellen? And meeting with folks in the comfort community, looking at trying to get their restoration done on their homes for those that can't make it to Bernie. And so we're trying to accommodate. And if you need anything, please let us know. So we're here to help.

All right, thank you. Just to touch briefly on the flood, I know everyone thinks of the first responders, but we had a lot of other people step up. Think of road and bridges, cleaning roads and bridges on the weekend, our animal control, helping with animals. Folks from our elections office, Rebecca Fink, who is vital to our efforts, folks in maintenance, our auditor, our purchasing agent. It takes a team to get through a disaster like we just faced. And so just don't think of just the normal folks. There's a lot of people that stepped up. And I just want to thank all of you. Unfortunately, my next part of my comments is a little bit of sad news. This week, we lost a part of the Kendall County family. Jason Hildebrand from our EMS was one of the kindest and most genuine people to work with our Kendall County family, and we're privileged to have him as part of our team for many years. He was dedicated to his work, took great pride in what he did. His commitment and excellence led his team to earn his critical care certification, furthering his education, and strengthening the care he provided to others. Beyond his professional accomplishments, he was a devoted father and grandfather who loved his children and grandchildren dearly. He never met a stranger and had a remarkable way of making everyone feel welcome. To him, everyone was a friend. He will remember for his kindness, patience, compassion, and unwavering dedication. The impact he made on those around him will not be forgotten, and his absence will be deeply felt by all who had the honor of knowing and working alongside of him. He had more friends than anyone could imagine, and we're all feeling the impact of his loss. We'll miss him tremendously, and we're grateful for the many years, memories, and friendships we share. May his memory be a blessing to all who knew him. And unfortunately, the Kendall County community lost another... dedicated community member, Colonel Ruth Elizabeth Edmonds. Ruth served as an RN in the United States Air Force. After serving during the Cuban Missile Crisis, she moved to Kendall County where she began her career as a historian and pen and ink artist, sketching over a thousand historic buildings, ranches, and homes in our area. Her works have been published in the books Along Country Roads and The Texas Hill Country Volumes 1 and 2 and A Journey to Bernie, which chronicled the early German settlement in Kendall County. Betty was very active in local community affairs. She was instrumental in establishing and continuously updating historical files in the Bernie Public Library archives for over 40 years. and took great pride in leading the research, certification, and restoration of the 1612 Low German Bible, which had been found in a closet at the Burney High School and took over 10 years to complete, and is now on display at the library. She also provided valuable research and documentation helping to preserve St. Peter's Catholic Church in Burney for a legal case that was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. She also served as president of the Burney Area Historical Preservation Society, and chairman of the Kendall County Historical Commission, where she wrote the text for many of the county's historical markers. She also served on boards of the Bernie Cemetery Foundation, Hill Country Women in Business, Bernie Concert Band, Visit Bernie Advisory Board, and Society of Retired Air Force Nurses. She received multiple lifetime honors, including the 1985 Citizen of the Year from the Bernie Chamber of Commerce. And in 1987, she was honored with a resolution from the Texas legislature for significant contributions to her community and the state of Texas in the fields of history, art, and leadership. There's a lot more to say about Ms. Edmonds, but we mourn her loss and give her family our prayers and thoughts. So with that, we'll move on to today's agenda. First up, we got consideration of possible action on the approval of accounts payable claims for purchased services and vendors. Morning, Corinna.

Morning, Judge. Morning, Commissioners. Today, accounts payable claims are in the amount of $1,188,304.88.

Does anyone have any question on any of the particular items listed on the accounts payable claims?

Just a comment. Thank you for getting those allocations out to Berghain VFD and Comfort. Volunteer Fire Department for the fourth quarter in the first month of the fourth quarter, so I know that they greatly appreciate that.

With that, I'll entertain a motion at this time.

Judge, I move to approve accounts payable claims for purchases, services, and vendors in the amount of $1,188,304.88. Motion to be made by Commissioner Weijian.

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

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Weijian?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman.

Aye.

Commissioner Cunningham. Aye. Judge DeLarza.

Aye. Motion carries five to zero. Yes, please.

Thank you.

While we're getting those signed, we'll do our service awards for this month. We have two that are not able to make it today. First, Mike Hallwell with the Sheriff's Office, 20 years. Congratulations to him. And then also Sheila Scott with the attorney's office, five years. We're going to kick it off with a man who serves many roles in the county. And whenever there's an issue, you can always count on Jason to step up no matter what the issue is. Jason Reese, five years of service. He also proved that I don't want to do it.

Joshua Watmau, Sheriff's Office, five years.

I had the privilege of serving with Investigator Watmau when he served at the courthouse for a little while, moved on back to investigations.

So thank you for your service here. Appreciate it.

Thank you, sir. Anything you'd like to say?

No, sir. It's just a privilege to be here. in the county and working for the sheriff. Well, thanks for everything you do. Thank you, sir. We've got your phone.

Okay, good. Did you get it? I don't. Oh, you did? I'm too slow. Lieutenant Clark. And Miss, you got one more. Okay, yeah, yeah.

And then you get up there.

There you go. All right, and last but not least,

Someone everyone knows after 30 years of service, Brian Webb. I know that no matter when there's a need, he steps up. Even when he's away from the office, he's always answering his phone, trying to help out. And so now he has Shelly, a deputy, to help out, kind of take the load off him. So we're very lucky to have both of y'all. So thank you for your 30 years. Would you like to say anything?

It's been a great 30 years. Everybody that I've worked with throughout the county has committed. Well, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right. Next up, we have orders and resolutions. First up, consideration of possible action regarding order number 020260728-1, order temporarily waiving the development permit fee for individuals needing a permit to repair, elevate, or replace a structure damaged by the July 13th through 16th floods. for permit applications received within the next 120 days, excluding federal holidays, for a submission deadline of Tuesday, December 2, 2026. Good morning, Mary Ellen.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Yes, we are requesting Commissioner's Court waive the development permit application fee for individuals who are needing to repair their house following the recent flooding. This has already been put in place through emergency management in our office to waive the fee, but we want to extend it up to 120 days for people to get their applications in. we will continue to work with people. They may need more time depending on what their project is, but as long as they've started the process within the 120 days, we should be able to get everybody covered.

You know, this was part of our emergency management team's decision to expedite some of the processes to get people able to recover quickly because we know people want to get back to their daily routines. So we made that decision. We're asking the court to, what's the bright word, to ratify the decision that we made earlier in the week. And to extend it up to the 120 days. Correct. So I moved to temporarily waive the development fee permit. for individuals needing a permit to repair, elevate, or replace a structure damaged by the July 13-16 floods, for permit applications received within the next 120 days, excluding federal holidays, for a submission deadline of Tuesday, December 2, 2026, pursuant to Order No. 0-20260728-1. Do I have a second? Second. Motion made by the judge, seconded by Commissioner Carpenter. Any further discussion?

I just wanted to say it was nice to see this. I had a few phone calls about this exact issue, and so I really appreciate that you guys are memorializing that. Thank you.

Great. With that, could you please call the vote?

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Leeson?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye. Commissioner Isaac? Aye.

Motion carries 5-0. We're going to have a bunch of several orders that require all the court signatures, so I'm just going to wait until the end to pass everything around. Next up, consideration of possible action on order number 020260728-2, an order temporarily waiving the residential brush site disposal fees for county residents for a period of 14 days to assist with the recovery efforts. Again, this is a similar concept, but I'll let you explain.

Correct. The brush site currently collects residential fees for delivery of brush at the site, and we are looking to waive that. We started that last week as part of the emergency management effort. Last week, that was the equivalent of about $1,000. Chris took just notes on what was dropped off so you guys could have a value of what that would have been, and it was about $1,000. And so we were looking to extend this for 14 days. Okay.

I move to temporarily waive the residential brush site disposal fees for county residents for a period of 14 days to assist in the recovery efforts. MOTION MADE BY THE JUDGE, SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER CARPENTER. ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION? THERE BEING NONE, TERESA, PLEASE CALL THE VOTE.

COMMISSIONER MCCALL?

AYE.

COMMISSIONER LEAGUE? AYE. COMMISSIONER CHAPMAN?

AYE.

COMMISSIONER CARPENTER?

AYE.

JUDGE DELAWARE?

AYE. MOTION CARRIES FIVE. NEXT UP, WE GOT SOME GOOD NEWS. CONSIDERATION OF POSSIBLE ACTION REGARDING RESOLUTION R-20260728-1. A resolution authorizing the county judge to accept HB 3000 Rural Ambulance Grant Program Award AIA-0000002735 in an amount of $350,000 and authorize the county judge to execute all necessary documents. The awarded funds are to be used to purchase an adequate ground ambulance. We just got word that our application that was submitted a while back or a rural ambulance was granted. And so one of the two ambulances that we either budgeted last year or budgeting in this new budget will be covered. I don't know what the terms are. We'll have to figure out which year it is. But the good news is we'll be getting $350,000 towards one of those ambulances. And so I moved to authorize the county judge to accept the HB 3000 Rural Ambulance Grant Program Award. IA0000002735 in the amount of $350,000 and authorize the county judge to execute all necessary documents. The awarded funds are to be used to purchase an adequate ground ambulance. Do I have a second? Second. Motion by the judge. Second by Commissioner Chapman. Any further discussion?

I just want to say something. Following the EMS budget workshop on June 25, 2026, I sought additional information regarding the judge's statement that Kendall County had not been approved for the SB 3000 Kendall County Rural Ambulance Grant. After contacting the State Comptroller's Office, I learned that the staff had attempted to obtain required information from Kendall County on March 27, 26, and again in mid-June, but had not received a response. I was advised that the county had only a two-week opportunity to provide the requested information. Had the documentation not been submitted within that period, Kendall County would have been disqualified and lost its ability to qualify for the grant funding. I shared the comptroller's request with EMS, the judge, and the grant coordinator. Brian Webb promptly provided the necessary information, allowing the required documentation to be submitted before the deadline and preserving the county's eligibility for the grant. I appreciate Brian's assistance and am pleased that Kendall County has been awarded the approximately $350,000 in grant funding for the upcoming fiscal year. I'm grateful that my efforts to facilitate communication and obtain the required documentation helped ensure the county met the grant requirements and remained eligible for this funding. Great. Thanks for sharing.

I can only judge on that. The documentation had been provided, and so then the state had neither misplaced it, and whenever it was checked on, the proper documentation was proven that it was supplied in a timely basis. And I think that was one of the reasons that we actually got the grant besides the fact that Brian helped and other people was the fact that it was a state mistake that they had misplaced our original application. Thank you for clarifying. All right.

With that, Teresa, please call the vote.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Commissioner Chapman.

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter. Aye. Derek Stilisak.

Aye. Motion carries five to zero. Next up, agenda item 11, consideration of possible action on resolution R202C0728-2, a resolution of the Commissioner's Court of Kendall County, Texas, to withdraw the July 14, 2026 bid award for bid number 2026-10, Guardrail Repairs, FEMA Disaster Recovery Projects, or 879DR-TX. Previously awarded to Roy Jorgensen Associates, Inc., reject all bids and authorize the purchasing agent to distribute a new solicitation for bids once the damage resulting from the July 13 flood event is fully evaluated to ensure all damage, new and existing, can be repaired at the same time. Okay. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

Yes. You kind of said it all. Um, yes. So the last court y'all approved to award the guardrail bid to Roy Jorgensen, but unfortunately the next day it was the, uh, flooding event. So since there is new damage to the existing damage, it was the recommendation of Tiedem to, to assess all the new damage and to go out and do it all at once. And we can, um, I think Mary Ellen said we can bill it separately because we still have last year's FEMA funds that will be for the scope of work that we talked about last time and then whatever is new. So that is the recommendation. So basically, we just have to I've already talked to Roy Jorgensen. They understand and they know. So we just have to I guess go back, recall that one, reject it, and then authorize me to go out for a new bid at some point when we have all the assessment done.

All right. All right. I'd like to make a motion.

All right. Thank you. I was thinking where to start with this one, so go for it. To approve resolution number R20260728-2. a resolution of the Commissioner's Court of Kendall County, Texas, to withdraw the July 14, 2026 bid award for bid number 2026-10. guardrail repairs. FEMA disaster recovery project 4879DR-TX, previously awarded to Roy Jorgensen, Associates Corporation, reject all bids and authorize purchasing agent to distribute a new solicitation for bids once the damage resulting from the July 13th flood event is fully evaluated to ensure all damage, new and existing, can be repaired immediately.

at the same time. Motion made by Commissioner Chapman, second by the judge. Any further discussion? There being none, Teresa, you're up.

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Weedon?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Kudlick?

Aye.

Judge DeLazer?

Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Next up, we got consideration of possible action on Resolution R-20260728-3. a resolution to request that Governor Abbott temporarily suspend the plat review deadlines contained in Section 232.0025 of the local government code due to the July 13, 2026 flood disaster and subsequent recovery efforts. Commissioner Chapman?

So, Judge, we did this last year, the same thing. We've already got a strain on the engineering department, and I think this would at least give the engineering and development department a breathing room so we can take care of the flood issues and the normal business. I agree. I want to chain a motion at this time. Judge, I'd like to make a motion to adopt resolution number R20260728-3. The resolution to request that Governor Abbott temporarily suspend the plant review deadlines contained in Section 232.0025 of the Local Government Code due to the July 13, 2026 flood disaster and subsequent recovery event.

Affirmative. Opposition made by Commissioner Chapman, seconded by the judge. Any further discussion? If there being none, Teresa, please call the vote.

Commissioner McCall? Aye. Commissioner Wiesner?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye. Judge DeLarge?

Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is public comments. We have comments reserved for a specific agenda item. There are no others. Next, we'll move on to agenda item 14. Yeah, that's Mr. Patterson. We got it covered. Thank you, though. Number 14, consideration of possible action to amend Section 5.02 of the Kendall County Policy Manual to establish an annual job description review process as approved by Commissioner's Court on July 14, 2026. Commissioner McCall?

Yes. Morning again. As I stated during the agenda item presented to Commissioner's Court on July 14, 2026, I was tasked with developing a countywide performance evaluation process. During the Human Resources Job Description Workshop, it was emphasized that elected official department heads, department heads, and supervisors are responsible for ensuring that job descriptions remain current and accurate as they are fundamental to effective recruitment, employee development, and performance evaluation processes. Simply put, employees cannot be evaluated fairly and consistently without clearly defined duties, responsibilities, and expectations. In reviewing this process, it became apparent that many job descriptions had not been updated since 2019, creating a significant obstacle to implementing a consistent and equitable countywide evaluation process. I was advised that a comprehensive update of all job descriptions was not expected to be completed before the end of 2026. Given the substantial effort invested in developing and conducting job description training in March of 2026, I believed it was prudent to build on that work and begin the review process as soon as possible. So, this process, again, would put a change as listed in your backup documents to the proposed policy change for the Kendall County Policy Manual would be in Section 5.02, Contents of Personnel Files, and that would be for employees a copy of their job description and their signed acknowledgement of having received a copy of the job description, and we would be adding which shall be updated and acknowledged annually. With that, I move to amend Section 5.02 of the Kendall County Policy Manual to establish an annual job description review process as approved by Commissioner's Court on July 14th, 2026.

Motion made by Commissioner McCall. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner Carpenter. Any further discussion? I do have a question. To me, this doesn't belong in the employee handbook. If this is a duty of supervisors and elected officials, there's only probably a couple dozen in the county. Why don't we just update their job descriptions? You must annually perform this job description review. And that way, once you do have performance reports, if they don't meet that requirement, you can hold them accountable. Because this doesn't apply to all the employees to monitor and do this. This is on the supervisors and elected officials.

That's right, because they're the ones that need to implement this policy. And many of them, as I talked to those department heads, said, is this going to be in the policy manual?

And no. Yeah, but if you put it in their job descriptions, it accomplishes the same thing without confusing all the employees because they're going to read it in personnel policy or personnel files and be like, what's this about? It makes no sense. It just might do sense.

Well, so again, I think this addresses it and it brings the, it adds it to the policy manual kind of mandating that it needs to be done. And maybe in the future, we will have another type of policy manual for department heads and supervisors. But at this time, this is where it can be placed. And with my agenda item last time, we said we'd be adding it to the policy manual. So here, this is why.

This is for discussion. And I'm asking why isn't it proper for in the job descriptions of supervisors and officials?

You can put it there as well. But there are people in our county courthouse that will say it's on the policy manual. I don't have to do this.

So can there be a part of the policy manual that addresses supervisors and managers, like just a section within the manual?

I think there should be a separate pamphlet for supervisors and managers outlining what training is expected, what their obligations are, because it only applies to a small niche of people. And if we're not giving managers guidance on what's expected of them, I think the court's failing. And giving them the class schedules that we project for the years, I think there needs to be more focus on managerial supervisors than globally the employee handbook. If our guidance is to get better trained managers and supervisors, that's where the focus needs to be. Again, these are just my thoughts. Do what you will.

Well, we don't have the ability to do that. We don't have that type of a policy manual now. So that's why it's going to be addressed here.

Juanita and Commissioner McCall and I met and discussed the idea of having an employee handbook that's for managers only. And it's in its very preliminary stages of discussion, but that is something we talked about and would like to be able to bring to the court at some point for consideration.

So maybe it just lives there for now and then we work on, or you all work on another manual. So at least it's memorialized.

Yes. Okay. If there's no further discussion, if not, Teresa, would you please call the vote? Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman? Nay. Commissioner Carpenter?

Aye. Judge Velasquez? Nay. Motion carries three to two with precinct commissioners one, two, and four in favor, and the judge and commissioners three opposed. Next, public hearings are on a consent agenda. We have five items on today's consent agenda. Consideration of possible action to approve minutes for the July 13, 2026 special call meeting for budget workshops and the July 14, 2026 regularly called meeting. E, consideration of possible action to approve the June fee office reports. C, consideration of possible action to authorize the purchasing agent to prepare and distribute an invitation to bid for pavement surface repair. D, consideration of possible action on the summary of road work report for June 2026. And lastly, consideration of possible action on the summary of signs report for June 2026. Is there anyone that would like to remove an item for separate discussion and voting? If not, I'll entertain a motion at this time.

Judge, I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda items for July the 28th of 2026.

Motion made by Commissioner Chapman, seconded by Commissioner Carpenter. Any further discussion? There being none, Teresa, please call the vote.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Re-flood Warning Siren and Flood Gauge System. Award a contract for those services for a fee not to exceed $546,965,000 with a reimbursable expense of up to an additional $3,000 and authorize the county judge to execute all necessary documents.

Good morning. So yes, this was previously brought to court to move forward with Streamline. This RFQ 202608 was awarded to Streamline. And now we are just bringing the contract back to court for approval. This is the contract just to do the engineering services for the flood gauge, for the flood warning siren and gauges. And has General Counsel had an opportunity to review this one? He wrote it up, yes.

Okay, perfect.

And if you have any questions, Streamline is here too.

Just for the public's information, the state is awarding this grant- to actually put in some sirens. But there's a lot of engineering study and calculations that have to be done prior to us placing or actually in looking at the placement of them. And this is something that our engineering department does not have the time to do. Is that a fair access, Mary Ellen, of the...

And I think it's also the fact that there's a lot of different stipulations of where they can go, how they can go, according to TW.

It's not just time for our office to do it. It also has technical things that our office doesn't have the capabilities of doing. It has advanced modeling, H&H modeling to figure out flows for the river and gauge locations. It has siren evaluation to determine whether or not they are loud enough to reach all areas that need to be warned. There's mapping updates to Texas Water Development Board that says these are the areas that need sirens. And all of that has to be done by the end of this year. So it's not just a time for our office. It's things that our office doesn't have the ability to do.

But touch, if you would, on the modeling. I mean, because that's going to go over most people's head. What does the modeling mean?

Correct. So the streamline would be preparing floodplain models for the county to establish what the flood levels are that would trigger the sirens, look at where the gauges need to go, what the gauge height needs to be set at to trigger the warning. It's also establishing a flood forecasting so that we can look at what rainfall is occurring and have more time to warn people besides just the we hit the trigger at the gauge and the going off. So it gives emergency management more time to get people evacuated and more time to warn people.

So, yeah, once the gauge has been activated, it's almost too late. This modeling gives us that advanced look to be able to get out to the people before they become inundated.

Yes.

Thank you for all that. I'll entertain a motion at this time.

Judge, I'd like to make a motion to approve Streamline Engineering LLC as a successful respondent to the request for qualifications for professional engineering services for the RFQ number 2026-08 related to the planning, implementation, and deployment of the SP3 flood warning siren and flood cage system. Award a contract for those services for a fee not to exceed $546,965 with reimbursable expenses of up to an additional $3,000 and authorize the county judge to execute necessary documents.

All right. Thank you. Motion made by Commissioner Chapman, seconded by the judge. Any further discussion? There being none, Teresa, you're up.

Commissioner McLaughlin?

Aye.

Commissioner Regan?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter?

Aye. Judge Delante? Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Next consideration possible action to either reject all bids or award a contract or contracts pursuant to seal coat work bid number 2026-12 and authorize the county judge to execute all necessary documents if awarded. Sharon, what can you tell us?

So seal coat work bid 2026-12 had four respondents. The The lowest respondent was, um, it was a disqualification of their bid. So we, I think that we are proposing to go with the next lowest respondent, which was CK Newberry.

And are you as a, are you comfortable with that? Yes, sir.

And what about you, Clay? So, um, One consideration for court is the, I'm comfortable with the second apparent low bidder for the reasons specified. However, We have really two major components of construction that we're bidding here. One is seal coat, which is the second two items. So it's an asphalt material and then an aggregate, right? Those are for the roads that are starting to lose rock. There are reasons that that's the appropriate treatment for those roads, and that's what's bid here. And those prices are fine. The first item is a fog seal. That's where you have a road that has plenty of rock, but it's starting to turn white. Maybe it's not as aesthetically appealing. And it basically, it's a coat of material that's going to make it black. It's going to seal any type of cracks. The one item I wanted to bring to your attention is that that unit price of 375 is almost twice as much as I would have expected it to be for the quantity that we're bidding for this project. I looked at tech stock bid prices for the item. They had one that was in the realm of 30,000 gallons, and it was $1.75. Now, those are the last three months of bid prices. It could be that world events are driving this price up, but I wanted to bring that nuance to your attention because it just seems higher to me than we ought to be paying for it. But I don't know that that's going to be a price that comes down in the future. I was just really surprised to see that price for the quantity that we're bidding and the type of construction method that we're using to be that high. So I just wanted to bring that to y'all's attention. In rare form, I don't have a strong recommendation for or against. I just wanted y'all to make the most informed decision with the information. It may be that we come back a year from now and we're not doing any better and we missed an opportunity to maintain our roads. But at the same time, if we believe that this price is unreasonable, not doing the fog seal in this maintenance cycle is not going to, the roads aren't going to fall apart extra because we didn't fog seal them. Okay. So I want to just y'all to be aware of those facts.

When you look at the bid overall, when you look at everything, even with that one high aspect, it's still lower than everything else, correct?

Yes, sir. And the overall price is still within our budget. It's just for that element, it was higher than I expected.

Does anything in the procurement laws prevent us from going to the contractor, going, you are the one that we are going to negotiate with, but this portion of it seems a little bit high?

In a bid, there is no negotiating. It is just a straight bid. We didn't do it as a proposal.

When you award a bid, you're not awarding a guarantee that we will purchase a certain quantity of any item. If the county chooses not to purchase that specific item on the bid list, that's an option. To do the other work at the prices the county finds to be appropriate and acceptable and to forego that specific item, as Clay mentioned, we could probably get by, it sounded like to me, he said for this year, without doing the fog seal. Alternatively, we could reject that part of the bid and re-solicit for fog seal.

Is fog seal like an oil-based thing? Material. Well, could that be with the ebbs and flows of the oil in Iran issue? Could that be attributable to why we're seeing that?

That would be my speculation.

And so we have no way of knowing when that's going to come down and it could actually go higher. Correct.

I'm good with rolling with it and just doing it the right way and rolling the dice and missing out.

Because honestly, the bids across, if you look at Fog Seal across the bid tab, they weren't that much different than each other.

Okay.

Do you still have some concern?

Yeah, I do. But I guess if we rejected the Fog Seal, and I see that Donnell just walked in the door, so how much of this could, do you feel that we could actively get done ourself? Which one are you talking about? The fog seal.

Could you come to the mic? Sorry.

How much of the fog seal could we get done ourselves realistically and not if the answer is none, then the answer is none. I mean, I understand we just, we have a lot of work to do with the flood.

Yeah, it is a lot. It's kind of hard to, I would say 50% we could probably do ourselves, but it's a challenge that we're dealing right now with all the flood stuff, cleanup, and then still trying to do the prep work to get to that point too, for them to do the fog seal and chip seal. So, you know, you're taking a chance rolling the dice. You do it or wait till next year, you know, so it's hard to say.

I think the only saving grace is that if it's within, they're within pretty close to every bidder, I mean, it must be the market rate at the time they submitted those bids. So I don't know. I'd rather not put the strain on Donnell. I know you tried to do everything you can for us.

I mean, that's the purpose of having a steel coat contract. You could do that for us so we don't have to struggle with ourselves. Just to let somebody else do the work of that, which makes it nice. That way we can focus on our stuff that we need to do ourselves.

So objectively, would it be better for us to outsource this one during these events in light of the recent events? Yeah.

If we could just let somebody else focus on the FOG seal and the CHIP seal and we do the prep work, which we're doing right now anyway, so it would be better for all of us.

Okay. Then I'll take staff's recommendations. Okay. Judge, I'd like to move to make motion to award the contract pursuant to seal code number 2026-12. and authorize the county judge to execute necessary documents if awarded.

A motion made by Mr. Chapman, seconded by the judge. Any further discussion?

Can you please amend your motion to include the name of the vendor?

And the name of the vendor is?

A Newberry LLC.

Did you get that?

C.K. Newberry. C.K. Newberry. C.K. Newberry. C.K. Newberry. C.K.

Newberry. C.K. Newberry. C.K. Newberry. C.K. Newberry. C.K. Newberry. C.K. Newberry. C.K. Newberry. C.K. Newberry. Consideration possible action in agreement with AGCM.

Judge, I think we're pulling this item.

Oh, we are. I'm sorry. That's okay. Agenda item 18 is pulled. Next up, we're moving on to development roads, bridges, and floodplain. Number 19, consideration possible action on approving the final plat establishing Shipman Acres, a subdivision located at 10209 Johns Road. In accordance with the 2022 development rules, The proposed private residential subdivision plat would create two lots out of 6.91 acres with an average lot size of 3.38 acres per lot. Lot one shall be served by Texas Water Company and lot two shall be served by Rainwater Catchment. Both lots shall be owned or served by individual onsite sewage facilities. Travis and Christina Shipman, owners.

Yes, thank you. Good morning. So this is a, as you mentioned, a single lot that's going to be split into two, a private subdivision, average lot size 3.38 acres. As you mentioned, lot one is going to be serviced by Texas Water Company. In fact, it's already currently serviced by the main that's crossing the line there. And lot two will be serviced by an on-site rainwater catchment system. They did submit their report and calculations and for the single-family resident that's going to be going on that, and the calculation satisfied our requirements. Okay.

All right. At this time, I'll consider a motion as to agenda 819.

I move to approve the final plat establishing Shipman Acres, a subdivision located at 10209 Johns Road. In accordance with the 2022 development rules, the proposed private residential subdivision plat would create two lots out of 6.91 acres with an average lot size of 3.38 acres. Lot one shall be served by Texas Water Company, and lot two shall be served by a rainwater catchment system. Both lots shall be served by individual on-site sewage facilities, Travis and Christina Shipman.

Okay, motion made by Commissioner McCall. Do I have a second? Seconded by Commissioner Carpenter. Any further discussion? Yes.

So let's say we approve this plan today. Yes, sir. It goes through, it's established as two plots. The rainwater catchment lot decides, you know, I don't want to do rainwater catchment. Go to Cow Creek and say, hey, I need a permit for a well. I got a lot here that the county approved. What's the outcome of that?

So our plot enforces, we can only enforce what we have on the plot, and that is that they can only allow rainwater catchment. Hopefully, we would contact Cal Creek and let them know that this lot is restricted because they are still within the CCN of Texas Water Company. likely they may also want to reach out in the future to Texas Water Company to tap into them, in which case if they do, they'd have to amend their plat. The same thing if they were to be released from the CCN and want to drill well, they'd also have to amend their plat to allow them for that, but they don't have the size for that. This lot's too small.

Wouldn't it be better to put in a clause saying this is limited to rainwater catchment period, no wells authorized by the county? I believe. It's hard. The print is so small, I can't read.

There's a plat note related to the rainwater catchment and water usage. And in conversations with Cow Creek, when there is a plat note in place, they've notified us that they would honor that if somebody were to apply for a well at that point.

All right. If there's no further discussion, Teresa.

Commissioner Powell?

Aye.

Commissioner Regan?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye. Judge DeLisle?

Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Next up, 20, consideration of possible action on approving the final plat of Georgia's Ranch Unit 2B. a subdivision located within George's Ranch development near the intersection of Suite Adeline and Highway 46 in Bernie, Texas, in accordance with the 2010 development regulations. The proposed private residential subdivision plot would create 37 single-family residential lots and one non-residential lot, the private roadway, out of 44.972 acres, with an average lot size of 1.22 acres per lot and 2,956 linear feet of private roadway. Subdivision will be served by public water system and individual on-site sewage facilities. Lookout Group, LLP owner. Good morning. Good morning, Mike.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Judge Commissioners, yes, you have this plat before you for consideration is a continuation of previous development. There's been a Unit 1 and a Unit 2A. There's also preliminary plat approval. There's an additional information page in your packet that has all the background of this development that's fit to print. this is public water and individual on-site sewer. It is in conformance with the Kino County development requirements. The 2010 rules is what this fell under. And our office recommends this plat for approval. Okay. Answer questions you have.

Any questions for Clay or Mr. Seifer before we take a motion?

Just a comment. When we were actually working with you at the beginning of the development, then we had agreed that your engineer would go back and confirm that the detention plan still works as intended. And so I was very pleased that we made that as part of the agreement, and it's on the plat note. So that is still coming into play. Is that correct?

Yes, ma'am. That's correct. And one of my updates I want to give you. Yeah. I'm not going to interrupt you, but can I speak to that? Yeah, sure. Go ahead. So you're right. Early on, one of the big concerns was the amount of impervious cover that was assumed in the development. I think normally 20% is assumed for these types of developments. Working with Rick and Mary Ellen at the time, and Patrick agreed to bump that up to 25% impervious cover on all the lots. So we're really over-detaining. And we are tracking everything that's built in the community. You can see we're, you know, 50-ish houses built, and we're at 18.22%. So we're well within or well below that standard that we're using on the detention design. So that was a really big issue up front in the approval, and we'll continue to track it. And every time I come up here, I'll give you guys an update of where we're at. Appreciate you doing that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. We really appreciate that. And I think everything looks in order. So with that, Judge, if I may, I move to approve the final plot of Georgia's Ranch Unit 2B, In accordance with the 2010 development regulations, the proposed private residential subdivision plot would create 37 single-family residential lots and one non-residential lot out of 44.972 acres with an average density of 1.22 acres per lot and 2,956 linear feet of private roadway. The subdivision will be served by a public water system and individual on-site sewage facilities. Lookout Development Group LP, Michael Seifert, owner.

i'm mostly by commissioner region do i have a second second second by commissioner mccall any further discussion one question yes sir did uh you all happen to go out there during the flood event and actually look at the detention and see how it was performing um our guy austin was out in both of our projects during the event i don't recall seeing any or anything

out of the ordinary from those? No, I didn't. Did you happen to?

No, I did not. I was just kind of curious. As I drive around, I always, during these events, I look at the detentions. Some of them work better than others.

I think the great thing, just about the timing of George's Ranch, is that was designed from the beginning with the Atlas 14 rainfall with the higher rainfall intensities. So I would, and we didn't have a single phone call from anybody in the neighborhood in George's Ranch stormwater related. So I think the benefit is Patrick used the Atlas 14 data in the design of all the infrastructure. So that much higher rate is already baked into that stuff that's the stormwater infrastructure so you combine that with your oversized estimates for yeah attention and yeah that's good to hear yeah and for what it's worth because Esperanza is in the county as well both Esperanza and George's Ranch you know there's some minor things we've had to work with really phases under construction those get challenging but from a global stormwater infrastructure standpoint we feel very thankful and happy with how things performed in that intense rain

So to speak to that, from what I understood from residents that I talked to, everything was, as you say, I couldn't go personally look because I couldn't get out of my driveway on Ammon Road for a day.

You know, flood control structure number four, it did operate as designed. So my compliments to the engineer on that one. I don't know who did all the engineering on that one, but that one did work properly. And I don't doubt that with the new criteria, you all will do the same.

We calibrated our flood models with the SARA draft. models that we're still waiting for them to come out with the new maps, but we calibrated with them when we first started the development. And each of those bonds has an emergency overflow where, just in case we exceeded the storm event for whatever reason.

What is the timeline on the CIRA maps?

The latest I've heard, and it's been a moving target, is they should issue the draft maps by the end of this year and protest period be in the spring of next year.

Good. That'll be helpful. Okay. If there's nothing else, Teresa.

Commissioners in the panel?

Aye.

Commissioner Weeson?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter?

Aye.

Judge Storizek?

Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Next up, consideration of possible action approving the financial guarantee for Georgia's Ranch Unit 2B, a subdivision located within Georgia's Ranch, development near the intersection of Sweet Adeline and Highway 46 in Bernie, Texas, in the form of a bond in the amount of $2,934,682.56. to secure street, drainage, water, and sewer improvements. I'll entertain a motion, Commissioner Weeson.

Yes, Judge. I move to approve the financial guarantee for Georgia's Ranch Unit 2B in the form of a bond in the amount of $2,934,682.56 for street, drainage, water, and sewer improvements. Lookout Development Group, LP, Michael Seifert, owner.

Motion made by Commissioner Weeson. Commissioner McCall, you second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner McCall. Any further discussion? If not, Teresa.

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

George's Ranch development near the intersection of Sweet Adeline and Highway 46 in Bernie, Texas, in the form of a cash deposit in the amount of $23,250. Mr. Wieschen?

Yeah, just a question. Was this the one we had a little hiccup with on getting that MAP revision?

Yes, that's correct, but it's been approved by FEMA.

Okay, good. Thanks for your patience on that one, gentlemen. All right, Judge, I move to release the financial guarantee for the letter of MAP revision for George's Ranch Unit 1. In the form of a cash deposit in the amount of $23,250 and no cents, Lookout Development Group LP, Michael Seifert, owner.

Motion made by Commissioner Regents. Seconded by Commissioner McCall. Yes. Any further discussion? Theresa, please call the vote.

Commissioner McCall.

Aye.

Commissioner Regents.

Aye.

Commissioner Perkins.

Aye.

Commissioner Isaac.

Aye. Motion carries 5-0. Okay. Last one, consideration of possible action on approving the financial guarantee for the completion of the letter of map revision for Georgia's Ranch Unit 2B, a subdivision located within Georgia's Ranch development near the intersection of Suite Adeline and Highway 46 in Bernie, Texas, in the form of a cash deposit in the amount of $23,250. Commissioner Weijan, do I take your question?

Judge, I move to approve the financial guarantee for the letter of map revision for Georgia's Ranch Unit 2B in the form of a cash deposit in the amount of $23,250 in no-sense lookout development group LP, Michael Seifert, owner.

Motion be by Commissioner Wieschen, second by Commissioner McCall. Yes. Any further discussion? Not Teresa.

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Wieschen? Aye. Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Chapman? Aye. Thanks to Isaac. Aye.

Motion carries 5-0. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you very much. Have a great day.

Appreciate it.

Okay. All right. Next up, consideration and possible action on approving a replat creating lots 4A and 4B, Wynwood subdivision, a subdivision located at 31 North Creek Loop, Comfort, Texas, in accordance with the 2022 development regulations. Proposed private subdivision would replat would create two lots of 2.10 acres with an average lot size of 1.05 acres. per lot. Lots 4 and 4B shall be served by water from WCID 1 and individual on-site sewage facilities. I'm not even going to attempt to butcher the owner's name. Go to roll with this. Nick? Okay. So, yeah, this is a property located at 31 North Creek.

It's, again, splitting one lot into two. Average lot size, 1.05 acres. Both lots will be serviced water by WCID 1 and will be serviced by onsite OSSF. This is a replant, so we did have a public hearing held back in April 14th of this year. We had received no comments at that time, and we are now at this stage presenting this to a court for consideration. This is the one where you had to kind of redraw some stuff? Yeah, this is the one I had.

Okay. All right. Does anyone have any questions or comments for Sterling?

If not, I'll entertain a motion. Judge, I move that we approve a replat creating lots 4A and 4B, Wynwood subdivision, subdivision located at 31 North Creek Loop, Comfort, Texas, in accordance with the 2022 development rules. The proposed private subdivision replat would create two lots out of 2.10 acres with an average lot size of 1.05 acres. Lots 4A and 4B shall be served by water from WCID number one and individual on-site sewage facilities. Motion made by Commissioner Carpenter.

Is there a second? Seconded by Commissioner Chapman. Any further discussion? There being none, Teresa. Oh, I'm sorry.

There's comments. So I guess the question, same question I'm going to ask every time. The historic values of the water levels in Comfort, even with the last 30 days, it has gone up approximately one, two, three, four feet. And so, but historically, it is down from, let's just say 2020, it is down over 20 feet. So again, the WCID has the control over what connections they do. Is that correct? Right. And so are they automatically required to provide water and service if we provide a lot?

No, they review the plot prior before. They have to give a will serve letter that they can't serve before.

They did provide us a letter that they would service a lot. And I think there are some stipulations with statutes that they do have to service it. Up to what capacity or all that. I mean, I don't know what's with them there.

and their rights. I know if you get to a certain density or a certain amount of lots, they're going to ask for a water well or some type of public infrastructure to suffice for their development. But another water well is not going to solve the problem.

Not the problem that I'm looking at here on my screen where it has gone down. And at what point in time, I'll ask this question again, at what point in time are we going to hit the bottom in that area, and then there is no water, and all of those people are going to come to this court and demand us to do something.

So WCID are the ones telling us that they have water. If they told us that they didn't have the water or anything like that, then we wouldn't allow them to subdivide. off of this.

I agree with Commissioner Chapman on the concern for water, and if you look at pretty much all the wells throughout the county, they're all dropping. They have over the past 50 years. They're already providing water to this property. They do have a connection there. This isn't anything new added on. There's already two manufactured homes on this property. We went through the process of a really, really weird shape, division to please the courts.

What Chapman is saying is the two mobile homes are being already served. We're only going to the plat so that he can meet the septic.

And I'll add one other thing. There's only one other property in the Comfort Water District that they would be obligated to serve if the landowner decided to to develop it. Otherwise, they're not forced or obligated to give anyone water at this point in time. I just hope they know what they're doing. Yeah, the guys running the water district are the old timers in comfort, and I can promise you they are very concerned. That's an interesting question.

With that, Teresa. Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Wieson? Aye. Commissioner Chapman? Aye.

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye.

Motion carries 5-0. All right. Next consideration of possible action on approving a replant of Wilshire Farms Estates Unit 2. You're good. You're good. A subdivision located at 3 FM 1621 Comfort, Texas, creating lot 1A... 1 in accordance with the 2022 development rules. The proposed private subdivision replant amends the setbacks for an existing 10-acre lot as previously approved by the court pursuant to a request for relief. The lot shall be served by water by individual well and shall be served by individual on-site sewage facility.

Nick? Yes, thank you. So this is for the existing 10 acre lot there. The purpose of this is to amend the setbacks and it's actually capturing a request for a leap that was granted back in July 22nd of 2024 that had amended the setbacks and approved the encroachment of a pole barn that was in one of the setbacks. The property was under violation or is under violation for this development. And so this is a step, this plat is a step to kind of get them in the right direction. They still have to go through a few more steps after this plat, but this is us moving forward.

Commissioner Carpenter, entertain a motion.

Judge, I move that we approve the replat of Willowshire Farms Estates Unit 2, a subdivision located at 3 FM 1621 Comfort, Texas, creating lot 1A In accordance with 2022 development rules, the proposed private subdivision replant amends the setbacks for an existing 10-acre lot as previously approved by the court pursuant to a request for relief. The lot shall be served by water. Served water by individual well and shall be serviced by an individual on-site sewage facility. Okay. Second.

Motion made by Commissioner Carpenter, second by Commissioner Chapman. Any further discussion?

Yes. Can you tell me if there's any plans at all to address the other three violations?

I actually don't know the other three violations. Uh,

Yeah, I don't think you were involved at the time.

No, they only asked me to do the planning.

As the representative, I was just asking the question.

I wouldn't know. I hope so. Okay. Thank you. All right, so any other questions? If not, Theresa.

Commissioner McCall?

Aye.

Commissioner Wilson? Aye. Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye. Commissioner Stalagic?

Aye. Motion carries 5-0. And at this time, we're going to take a five-minute recess until about, no, I'm on top of this statement, until 10.13, and then we're going to resume with a unique process of appeal of permit applications.

So with that, we're in recess. And we're back in session.

We are going to be taking up three items separately. They're related but different. First, consideration of possible action on the appeal of the county engineer's denial of an access driveway permit application on June 22, 2026 for the property known as Track 7 in Six Hills Ranch Subdivision, Wichabut's Big Joshua Creek Road near FM 289 owned by Rana Rojo Partner LP, which is represented by Patrick Cahoon in this appeal. Before we begin, I'd like to give Jay Patterson an opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Judge. Thank you, Commissioner. Good morning. My name is Jay Patterson. I'm speaking on behalf of Sutherland Kendall County LLC, the developer of Six Hills Ranch. I'm here today on agenda items 26, 27, and 28. to address one issue. Lot owners at Six Hill Ranch are wrongfully being denied basic use of their property, including 9-11 addresses and driveway permits without justification. There are taxpayers who want to invest in Kendall County, build here, and contribute to this community. Instead, they're being denied fundamental property rights. The county wants to blame the developer. However, it's a county who prefers to spend unlimited amounts of taxpayer dollars on litigation seeking to delay and defer a decision on the merits of its baseless arguments at every turn. Six Hills Ranch was designed as a very low density, low water use, environmentally responsible community. The kind of development the county should encourage. It was developed to meet the platting exemption under Texas local government code. Every lot exceeds 10 acres. No property is dedicated to public use, and an affidavit can be recorded with the county clerk. We did everything right, yet the county wants to force us to do things that are not required in its own rules. I want to be very clear on this point. The only tracks at Six Hills that have been divided and recorded are all 10-plus acre tracks on an existing county road. These owners are seeking access to an existing county road. The county engineer recently approved permits for a 10 plus acre track, literally right across the street from Six Hills Ranch. These are legal tracks under state law and the county's own regulations. For decades, landowners and developers have divided similar properties without being denied basic permits in Kendall County or elsewhere in Texas. These lot owners are being singled out. In fact, the county appears to have taken away an address and access to a home that's been on the property for decades. That matters. Without a 911 address, these owners cannot connect to electric. They cannot obtain water or septic permits or be located quickly or at all by emergency responders. Virtually any other property owner in Kendall County who requests a 911 address receives one typically within a week. These owners being denied only because their land is at Six Hills Ranch. That's not how government should work. The county should not deny one group of landowners something that other land owners receive as a matter of course. These owners have done nothing wrong. They bought legally exempt property, submitted proper applications, and are being punished for a dispute they're not part of. The county may disagree with the developer on the interior lots, and that dispute can be addressed separately. But withholding addresses and driveway permits from citizens in the meantime is unfair and contrary to their basic property rights. I respectfully ask the court to direct that 9-11 addresses and driveway permits be issued to the lot owners of Six Hills Ranch. It's fair, it's lawful, and it's the right thing to do. Thank you.

Thank you. Before we dive into this, I reached out to Patrick yesterday about a concern I had about a statute I found, Texas Government Code 24-020, which gives the district court supervisory and control and appellate jurisdiction over the commissioner's court. And so I asked Patrick. How is this not a conflict of you to represent today?

Well, Judge, under 24.024, the district courts, when you have two or more in a county, they have the ability and the discretion to sort between them who will hear what cases. And all of my cases in this county go to the 498th and or they're sent out to a visiting judge categorically. And I don't know how that's handled, whether it's a local rule or whether that's handled through the district clerk's office or however it's handled. But I never appear in front of my wife, and I couldn't be happier about that.

Okay, and I understand that. But what happens if Catherine McDaniels has a conflict? Who appoints to replacement?

If there's a conflict to that issue, and I'm not with the OCA, so I couldn't speak specifically, but I can say from past experience that this would go to Jimmy Blaylock on the Texas Supreme Court. who would be appointing whoever.

So it wouldn't be because your wife is the special administrative regional judge for this area, so it would not be her? It would not be her. Okay. You've alleviated my concern. All right.

All right. I don't know how the proceeding goes.

No, I guess we'll start with her and then give you a chance. This is new to me, so bear with me here. Very good. Fair enough? You bet.

I wanted to just start by saying a little bit of information that will apply to the next three items, and then I'll dive into the item 26 specific property. On March 24th, 2026, the county was named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by developer of Six Hills Ranch, Sutherland Kendall County Co LLC. That lawsuit involves various issues, including whether or not the development must be plotted or whether it met requirements for an exception to platting this is important because it is whether or not the property is legally divided is one of the major issues as to why permits are being denied by the by our office and then now appealed by the property owners so Because of the litigation, I'm going to have to be very careful about what information I provide to you. I will provide the information that I can. And if you have any additional questions, General Counsel can address those. So for the first property, which is Track 7, is that correct? That's the first item?

Sorry. Yes, it's Track 7, owned by Rana Rojo Partners.

Okay. So, Track 7 is represented as a tract larger than 10 acres and with ultimately connecting to Big Joshua Creek Road. Our regulations require that we evaluate the applications for completeness for the requirements in Chapter 3.1 and then the subsequent requirements of each individual permit requirement for what's been applied for. Rana Roja has applied for an address and an access or driveway permit. In our regulations, the address, that's probably the easier part to address, so I'll start there. The address is not issued until the access has been formalized. So looking at the address, that is basically on hold until an access application has been issued for a piece of property. Regarding the access application, upon review of that and the information submitted by the applicant for the property, which includes a copy of their deed, our office, based off that information, was unable to verify that the property was legally divided. Chapter 3.1 of our regulations requires that no permits will be issued for illegal divisions of property. And without knowing that that property meets the requirements for the exclusion to platting or must be platted, our office by rule chapter 3.1a2, cannot approve the permit. In addition, our office, when we do look at a permit, needs to be considered a complete application. At this time, it is an incomplete application. There is some missing information, which they can certainly, as Mr. Cahoon pointed in his response, can address administratively. But one of the missing items is the verification that the property has been divided legally. And without being able to verify that, the application is incomplete. Our office does not review incomplete applications. That's 3.1 . However, in this case, because of the pending litigation and looking for resolutions for the landowners to be able to continue their process, the application was reviewed and the recommendation made to deny the permits. to give them their due process and their ability to appeal to Commissioner's Court. In addition, when we're looking at access permits and why that's important, we need to consider the location of all of the access points, not just the, this is the driveway for this piece of property. What access points are across the street? What are the access points elsewhere? Is it a safe location for the access? What's the drainage for the access? And when you're looking at, you know, a plan development, we need to look at those access points collectively to ensure that safety and drainage are being addressed. So based off of that information and the lack of verification that the property was divided legally, our office denied the permit and recommends that Commissioner's Court uphold that denial.

Thank you, Judge, Commissioners. I want to kind of address one thing up front globally, and that's the incomplete application subject matter. The development code is pretty clear under 3.1 that you can't have a final ruling on any application unless the application is complete. Ms. Schill has already mentioned that to you. So there are what I consider non-substantive issues on maybe we didn't have the survey they wanted or the view or the access points that were adequate under the consideration. So I don't want any of that to be waived, but those are not dispositive of the issue as the county has already considered and made pretty plain. So I don't want to have to rehash this on every single one, but I want the Commissioner's Court to be aware that as we approach this, there's always room for supplementation to complete an application that's a constant and continuous process that happens every day in the county engineer's office. that being said these were denied and really for two principal reasons as far as i can tell one is this pending litigation which remains an amorphous concept of okay we've got pending litigation from other parties of which my clients none of the three of my clients are parties to that litigation nor is there a pending order from the court that relates to my clients in any way shape form or fashion as it relates to their properties and the ability to use those properties as mr patterson's already pointed out they don't have the use of their properties I have clients that are sitting out there. They're paying notes. They're paying design people. They're paying insurance. They're paying taxes on this property. And they can't so much as go on there and begin work. They can't live on there. They can't do anything with the property. The reasons Mr. Patterson already enunciated. So this presents a really challenging problem for my people. As you can appreciate, if you'd bought a parcel of property here in Kendall County and it was within the realm of 10 acres and it had water and had all the things that you're supposed to have to comply with the code, and the people across the street are getting permits, why are they being denied? It would be one thing if the court had spoken to this and said, look, we have ministered parties here whose needs need to be addressed. If the county was so concerned, they could have gone and sought an injunction against these sort of activities from our client, but they didn't. They used the procedural process, which began in January of this year. We're seven months into the year. And my clients have still been sitting on taxes, interest, notes, insurance, all these costs, unable to use their property. That's a denial of their rights under the Constitution. So without some clear indication, whether it be statutory law or presidential law, I don't see anything that keeps the pending litigation from stopping my clients from moving forward with getting the permit applications approved. We also have the amorphous concept that's mentioned under 3182 in the development code. It says no permits will be issued for illegal division of property. That's an issue that has not been determined to the best of my understanding at this point in time. I don't think anyone's come down and said that. I think the county has a position that what Mr. Patterson has done is illegal, but the specific division of these lots, 7, 10, and 34 doesn't I haven't seen anything written or oral that says those particular divisions are in some way illegal. Without that, and I have requested this information, each of the county engineer's office and the general counsel's office were requested information back in early July, over three weeks ago, to provide this information. No response. Absolute zero. So without anything more, I'm arguing against myself. I find myself in a situation where somebody says, hey, we have a pending litigation that you're not part of, but there has no orders coming out of that court that binds you, and we just think that you guys don't get to move forward without any substantive allegations coming from a law, a statute, some case law, nothing. So you can understand my client's situation. I appreciate that general counsel may have urged this court to take a certain route. I would never advise someone to go against the advice of their counsel. But you understand, we have to come before this court. We have to make this case. And I hope you can understand and appreciate the nature of what my clients are facing. It's a difficult situation. They have been painted into a corner. It's not their fault. Now, it's within this court's jurisdiction. realm of power to move forward and allow these folks to at least get an address and work through the main process on having a home, establishing water permits, and being able to live on the properties that they are paying for. Or you can deny. If you do, that only magnifies the pain and suffering and expense that they're going to continue to go through. The decision is in your hands.

Thank you. I'd just like to add one point of clarification. These permits are not being denied because there is pending litigation. These permits were denied, again, I said largely because we have questions about health, safety, welfare, where the access points are going to be located. But at the end of the day, we cannot verify based off the information that these applicants provided that the property was legally divided. And therefore, 3.1a2, I cannot issue permits because we cannot verify that the property has been legally divided.

Okay, but let's be clear here. I heard a couple of different things there. We went back to, I can't tell where the access points are and that sort of thing. Three weeks ago, I wrote a definitive letter for each of these clients asking for the specific information that says, what do you need? And most of it has been supplemented. And we can sit down with the accounting engineer's office and show them that the survey has been provided, that the information as near as we can tell that they're requested has been provided. If there's more specificity needed, I would have expected within three weeks I would have gotten a written response that says, here's precisely what we need. I've been doing business with the county for a long time now, and that's a pretty typical response. I've got zero here. I want a clarification. Hold on. I'd like to complete my thought, please. I apologize. So without having that response, I find it very difficult to be dealing with this primary issue of, well, we're going to give you a denial, but you're also incomplete. The law says you can't say we're incomplete and give a denial. So it's got to be one or the other. You can't paint people into a corner and say, hey, we're going to deny you, but you're also incomplete. That was the reason for my initial comment. We understand that it's a process. If there's additional information that's needed, great. Tell us what that is. We'll do our best to satisfy that. If at some point in time we reach an impasse and it's not possible to satisfy that, then we'll be in a different position. But we at least have to meet the initial threshold. If you're telling me that you're going to go ahead and deny it, which is what has been done categorically, then you're telling me that we're far enough along in the process that you have enough information to deny it. Otherwise, we're in opposition to the development code as written.

First, Mary Ellen, then General Counsel, or you and General Counsel first. Okay, Jen.

I just want to clarify that I have not advised the Commissioner's Court regarding these appeals in any way, shape, or fashion. In fact, we've been working very hard as staff to make sure that they can maintain neutrality in this matter and haven't spoken to them about the subject matter of these appeals today. And just to make sure your client's rights are protected, just so you know. Also, the letter that was provided by the engineering office regarding denial did list the reasons why the denial was issued. And we're kind of in a situation where we're darned if we do, darned if we don't. If we say your application is incomplete because, in fact, we can't determine whether it was lawfully divided, then you would be left with no recourse. You would be left with no right of due process to seek review of that decision. That was an unacceptable outcome from our point of view. So in order to allow your clients to have a process to move forward to ask the court to review this today, we went ahead and the county engineer determined that she could not move forward with the issuance of the permits due to 3.1 and not being able to determine whether they were lawfully divided. That decision was made to allow your clients the opportunity to come today. Without her doing that, you would be left in a stalemate, and that was an unacceptable outcome in our point of view. So please know that the idea was to afford your clients the opportunity to speak today and to give the Commissioner's Court their feedback and information. But also to note that, as Mary Ellen said, when we're looking at access permits, we have to look at it collectively among the division, the whole subdivision, the whole property. We know here that there are 35 lots being developed and each of them will be expecting to have access. So without having information on all of those lots, the engineering office doesn't have the information it needs to determine whether safety concerns are addressed. And also this road that many of them would be gaining access to is a curvy, somewhat narrow and variable width and hilly, curvy road. So there are concerns just based on that. We'd love to work with you to see if there's something that we could do We're just a little bit handcuffed, as you know, due to pending litigation. So I must apologize to you for not being able to work with your clients as much as we would like. But please know we do understand that this is a complicated issue for all. And we do appreciate you coming today.

Questions? I did want to speak to that because I don't want to give the wrong impression here. My clients, I came... about a month ago, and I asked for this very hearing, right? So I'm not complaining that we have this hearing or that, yes, we've skipped sort of a piece of the process because, in truth, if we didn't have this pending litigation and this question here, my clients, I think, would be working this out or have worked this out already by providing whatever this missing information is. So I don't want to give them the wrong impression. But by the same token, I don't want my clients to waive an argument at the end of the day that, No, you were actually denied because your applications were incomplete. I need it to be clear in this record that their denials are because we have pending litigation and because of the development code provision that the county is relying on. And that's why up front I said, let's get this out of the way. Let's talk about these things, which typically during the application process, there's a give and take. If something's missing, a request is made for more information, that information is provided. I'm not suggesting that every one of those dots As have been dotted and T's have been crossed. But I don't want to, at the end of the day, have to stand in front of a judge and say, hey, when the county argues, well, they never completed their application, therefore, judge, you need to deny their request. That would be a problem. And I want to make sure that the air is clear and that the record is clear. At the end of the day, we're talking about two issues. We're talking about the litigation and whether or not the second subsection of 31A has been complied with, right? And those are legal questions that need to be addressed. So for purpose of this argument, I just want to make sure that my clients are not waiving some issue because of an alleged failure to complete an application. You have an absolute right to put everything you want on the record to preserve your issue.

So no offense taken. So just lay it all out there that you want to lay to preserve your record.

Is there anything else you'd like to do to preserve the record? Other than that, just we appreciate the coordination with General Counsel, we understand that everyone has a role to play here and everyone needs to do their job. So we appreciate the ability to be here today and not in another month or in six months. That being said, we need to move this forward because there are genuine people with genuine money and... real interest at risk here, and those need to be resolved. So we're asking you to make whatever decision you deem is appropriate so that we can try to get them to the point where they can have some relief. Are you on the field? A couple questions from the court?

Sure. Okay, so there's a law in Texas for division of property without having to plat. We understand that. I do think y'all were selling off property before it was through the process is what I think... were caught in right now. We were dividing property up and then selling them to people, which is unfortunate for those landowners. I do have a question, and this may be directed more towards Mary Ellen, and I have not had any discussion with either one of them about this until right now, other than initially when we sat down a couple years ago with you guys. In order to meet straightforward the 10-acre minimum and no platting, I believe all properties would have to touch the county road with a certain amount of frontage. Is that correct?

We can't get into specific things that are an issue.

Well, this has everything to do with whether or not I move to allow them to move forward with permitting. So I'm going to ask these questions.

I understand, but I have to advise county staff to not address the issues that are directly being argued in litigation between the developer and us. I will say this. that the 10-acre exception is set forth in Chapter 232 of the local government code, and the provisions that a property must meet are found there. And 232.0015F is specifically the 10-acre exemption. So you will see what all of the requirements are in that statute, and I hope that answers your question.

It doesn't, actually.

There's no frontage requirement in 232.0015F. That's the best I can do commissioner. There's no frontage requirement in that statute.

From my understanding of the development rules in the 10 acre minimum is once you get away from frontage property and you start doing internal developed or divisions, that's what strikes the bigger concern. I can tell you, I mean, most of us in the county don't want new subdivisions. We just don't, we'd have a water problem. We know we have an issue. We also have the road issues where the safety, as far as width, we have a lot of smaller country roads, and adding a lot of volume of automobiles on those roads poses the concern. Added expenses to our fire safety, schools, and all those things, that's where we're able to apply something called rough proportionality. So if I can't get answers from my counsel, I don't know even where I can even move on this topic right now, because, I mean, if it's being litigated. I mean, can we go into executive session? Can we like what are our options right now? Because I can't get answers from you right now and what I need to make decisions on what we have in front of us. I understand your concerns.

I will say that as it goes to these three appeals, we need to discuss them in open session. That is the process. This is an appeal hearing. And so everybody needs to be able to participate in the public part of the meeting for that. I know it must be frustrating that I can't directly answer your questions related to the litigation. I will say that whether that development meets all of the requirements by law to be exempt from the plotting requirement is the main issue in the litigation. The county staff and I are not taking a position today on whether the development does or does not meet those requirements because that is the subject of litigation. So what we're asking you to do is look at the requirements that are in the development rules. 3.1 says that we cannot issue permits for a legally divided property. The question we have before us is if we can't determine whether it's been legally divided, what can we do? Well, from the engineer's office perspective, the engineer may not issue permits if it cannot be determined that it's lawfully divided. So that's the portion of this decision that we're asking the court to review today.

We'll circle back to you, Chad. In relation to what Chad, to me, part of our rules are that they meet the rough proportionality the improvement of this road. And so if we put the platting aside and just say, okay, let's not argue that right now. Is platting required or not? The road proportionality, the way I read the rules, is still required, and that's not being met. So then you mentioned earlier that you all have provided water. Well, by not planting, you do not do a groundwater availability report. And therefore, I don't think that there's any way that you can stand there and say, not being a geologist, that there is adequate water available to the people that are moving in there to buy these lots, that they may have water and they may not. So for you to say that you're providing water, I guess I'd like to know how you're providing water.

Well, respectfully, Mr. Chapman, this is not the argument for the day. If it were, we would be talking about the pre-approval process, the application process. That would be where we would address any rough proportionality. That would be where we address whether or not water, once they make an application for use of a water well, right? So my appreciation is that there's water on the property, at least on Mr. Perkins' property, because there's an existing well.

You said there was water. So I was asking, how do you know there's water?

Well, Mr. Perkins has water. I know that. But it's not the issue we're here for today. So I'm happy to take those up if we want to go back to the application process. But we're here today because there are two reasons that my clients are being denied, as I can appreciate it. First, there's pending litigation, right? And we already discussed there's no order. My clients are not parties to that litigation. And the second reason is that the county's interpretation of Section 3.1a.2, that no permits will be issued for illegal divisions of property, applies here. And that is the reason my clients are being denied for items 26, 27, and 28 on today's agenda. That's my appreciation. I've scratched my head and tried to understand what the authority is for that. I don't have an answer for it. I think that as it relates to any application approval, I've tried my best to address that. certainly as you go through the process where the driveway is needs to be clearly identified the county needs whatever tools it needs i made a request for that information but to general counsel's point we're not here really talking about that today because that's a process that can be handled my clients to move forward are going to ultimately be denied for these two reasons and that's why we're here today and so i'm trying to get an answer from this court whether those two reasons are going to be enough to deny them or not. And if not, then we can go back to the application period and my clients will do their level best to fill out whatever forms and bring whatever information is needed to make sure the county engineer's office has what it needs to make a decision about where a driveway goes, whether or not the density is adequate, whether or not there's adequate water, whether or not we've got the lights in such a way that we comply with the dark skies provisions. All of those things lie in front of us, but I can't begin to address them now because we've been denied for two wholly separate reasons.

Sounds like, sir, that you're asking that we consider each property like we would if it were being plotted on its own and considering all of those factors for each individual lot. And the issue we have is that we've received a document that identifies an entire development of 35 lots where we make those considerations of all of those factors as the whole. And by piecemeal asking for permits for development, it puts us in the position of not being able to fully evaluate the factors necessary to determine whether access can be safely granted because we don't have information for all of the surrounding lots. That's the trouble with granting access permits specifically. Drainage and safety cannot be reviewed on an individual basis when we know we have a 35-lot subdivision. We need to consider that collectively. So that's the struggle from an engineer's office perspective on evaluating those applications. Just for clarification.

I appreciate that this is not a simple problem. I also appreciate that these are individual homeowners or property owners that bought this land with an understanding of the basic principles of law at issue. They're on a county road. We have an example directly across the road that was approved like that. So they feel like they're being treated differently. And I don't have anything I can point them to that says, here's why you're being treated differently.

Is there a distinction between the property across the street and this one? Do you know what he's referring to?

I don't know the specific.

Were they not part of a subdivision and illegally planted or whatever this basis is, apples to oranges?

If it's outside of the Six Hills subdivision, then it wouldn't be the same evaluation. So Everything within the Six Hills subdivision is treated one way, right? We have not been able to determine that those properties have been divided legally and allowing us to proceed with full issuance of permits.

So we can't look at what's happening outside of Six Hills as a comparison for why one person is being treated one way and Six Hills is being treated differently because it's two different scenarios, correct?

Correct. They are not the same situation.

I have One further question for Mr. Cahoon. Can you tell me where in the state statutes that it defines and the use in the law that was passed here, what, four years ago, that allowed for these particular exemptions? Public road. I have looked. I'm not an attorney. I can't find the definition of a public road. Commissioner, if that's...

That's also part of the pending litigation and not at issue today, but it's 232.001A3. If you want to go and look, that's the statute at issue, but that isn't something that's part of this discussion today. And I apologize for punting, but it isn't today. Sorry.

If there's any, if there's no further questions, I want to get questions. Okay. And then I'll give you a chance for closing remarks. Is that fair? Okay. For summary.

Would you refresh your memory about the Strahan family and Heartland? Some of the same situation. We have a lawsuit with Heartland and Vaqueros and Strahan was caught and not being able to move forward with development on their property. And we somehow allow them to do. separate and apart out of the litigation. Do you remember that?

I do. That was a different situation in that the subdivision had been properly platted and there were a number of other factors going on. They, at the end of the day, they platted their property as an amending plat independently. So the property as a whole had been evaluated. The subdivision had been evaluated. They purchased two lots, combined them and resolved some of the issues associated with their property. did an amending plat individually that, as an amending plat, didn't change things such as where their access had already been or where the bridge had already been constructed. And so, it's a different situation because that subdivision had already been plotted and had access. Ms.

But I think my point is, is that we were able to move forward. It's very similar in that there was pending litigation in a subdivision and somebody, being pulled out of that. So I tend to agree with your statement that the heart of the litigation is whether or not it's been illegally subdivided and it's kind of like Santa Claus. It is and it isn't because it hasn't been proved yet that it isn't, right? Or that it was subdivided. Let's talk a little bit like, let's pretend that you're going to move forward and the development office would be asking for certain items. So first of all, how big are these properties? What's the acreage?

10 plus acres each.

10 plus acres. And so- Would we have to have a GAR from property 10 plus acres? Isn't that what Cal Creek wants? 10 acres are good. You get a well.

Groundwater availability report requirements are triggered when you plat, not when you qualify for an exclusion to platting. So I can't answer that question because that's the question of the litigation.

Understanding 10 acre minimum well, right. And then what other information would be needed? Obviously, these people have to safely be able to get in and out of their property and emergency services have to be safely get in there. I think there's going to be some of the lots that don't have direct county access, but some county road access, but some do. Is that correct?

I think in other portions of the development, I think that may be true. These clients, each is on Joshua Creek Road.

And it's a state highway, I guess. Is it not?

Joshua Creek Road is a county road. Big Joshua Creek Road.

And so you do have access points, so that's been determined, right? Yes, ma'am. And then the rub proportionality, it's just one residence going off a road. Yes, ma'am. I live on Ammon Road. I have 10 acres. I have a well, and I get on my road. So to me... I don't understand why we can't help these folks. I don't even know what that action looked like. But we haven't determined that it was illegally subdivided. They do have access. They do have 10 acres.

I have a question to ask you on that. Okay, hold on. Let's get Mary Ellen to answer this one first, and then you can address so we get.

So with the Heartland, that was a legally divided. It was determined to be legally divided and platted. Their issue about how to move forward was an entirely different situation. And we weren't stuck at step one. I get it. I know, but we weren't, we weren't at step one where no permits shall be issued for an illegal division of property. In this, in this case, we know that there are 35 lots with an annotated land plan for the development for the subdivision. That requires that we look at that collectively. We look at where not just this individual person's accesses, but where all of the access points are. If, you know, if, one property owner was able to proceed, they can say my access point is going to be here, but there's no way they can tell us where every other access point is going to be.

Those people aren't here. These people are here and they do have access.

But if we take your argument to its logical conclusion, by granting it for this one landowner, could you indirectly impact negatively future property owners because you may limit their access and like they may have only one place for a road and because of where property owner A puts their road, there may be no access to another property because of your holistic, it doesn't fit holistically.

Are the roads going through these people's land? Are the people that are on the county road, are they going to have to have a road for the rest of the subdivision through their land? Possibly.

We have to evaluate that. But to answer the judge's question, it is possible if we issue an access for property one and then property two comes in later, or property three, and they both get an access point, there may not be adequate site distance, safety, uh, separation distance for property two to be able to have the access.

What happens then? And that's why she's saying you got to look at it holistically when you have a subdivision like this. Am I understanding?

Well, we've already caught, we already, so, um, the only way I would, I would be comfortable, um, Cause I think what will happen is this is going to keep coming up and we're going to probably get sued over and over again by different landowners that continue getting, buying property. Again, I would, I would, I would never buy a lot from someone and then start selling off parcels without having everything done. That's not the way you would normally do this. The problem I have is I don't know where the lawsuit's going. but I'm sure we'll have plenty of time in the future to talk about it. But if we give permits and allow this to move forward, can they dedicate frontage? Because if we win this lawsuit, Far Heels is going to have to widen Big Joshua Creek Road to be compliant. If we give permits out, we're going to give up our ability to enforce any type of widening of the road. And I know a lot of people live back behind this that are very angry that this is happening. And they're asking me for protection from driving down a narrow road where they have to take the ditch in order for someone to pass that's going too fast. And so this is a bigger deal than just trying to give permits to people that are buying property.

And that's really, at the end of the day, Mr. Carpenter, why I'm trying to make sure we isolate the things we're talking about, because these go to the application. Things that we're talking about right now go to the application. What's prudent here? Where should these things be? And I want to address that. Before I do, I want to take the logical conclusion thing one step further. Yes, we need to look at what we know now when any parcel of property is being developed. But we can't anticipate everything that's going to happen in the future. It just can't be done. We can't take a parcel of property that's being broken up and say, well, what if somebody takes this 20-acre parcel and they turn it into a condo project? Well, if they comply with the law, they're entitled to do that. Right? So are we going to anticipate that happening? Or once you buy the land, if you're going to do that, then you're going to have to do whatever it takes to make that acceptable. If that's widening roads, if it's putting turn lanes in, if it's something else, you buy it as you see it. We can't address every forward-looking thing that's going on. We can address what we have in front of us, which is, I think, an appropriate thing to do.

We do have 35 divisions in this one property. We do have that in front of us that we're This isn't like landowners wanting to build a homestead for their new 400-acre ranch.

Right, but it's a 10-acre parcel, and they have certain rights. And so are those rights something they can exercise now? We're being told no because there's pending litigation, because there was a legal subdivision. Regardless, let's just say to Mr. Chapman's point that that wasn't an issue today. We would be talking about what is appropriate to allow these applications to go forward, right? We concede that work would need to be done there, right? It's not the issue. The question is, should we have the right to do that work? And that's what we're asking for.

but let's take your argument to its logical conclusion. We know there's going to be 35 homes here, right?

In the area, but understanding that that's not on this road, it's off of this road. And that's it. My clients didn't buy this property so that they could be concerned about the other 34 lots or whatever it is.

But we grant your access. Okay. Let's say, say you get everything you want. Then it turns out one of these later landowners who now becomes property owner. And the County says for safety reasons, Because of where A, B, and C put their roads, you're not getting a road. Now you've impacted someone's property rights because is that fair? Because then they're going to come into us. So you see my logical conclusion? You can make it to the final conclusion and it could be in the same place and then we're going to be forced to put a road in that impacts health, safety, welfare of everyone living on that road.

Is that a fair rundown? There's always the potential, Judge, for this sort of thing to happen and that's why the The county engineer's office exists, and that's why we have a wide variety of law that says, okay, we have rough proportionality for this very reason. When we're going to have an overall impact on the traffic and the well-being and health and safety of folks, the county is going to be entitled to require some certain concessions. And if you're not the first to improve your property, then you're not going to get the first shot at the trough. That's just part of life. Here's the thing.

That's why we look at the package holistically to make sure it's safe for everybody, because we're looking at the community as a whole, not just one individual person. That's my position. I get that.

And what I'm saying is, even knowing that, it doesn't mean that you couldn't look at this application in that light and say, you know what, we're going to have to have a decel lane, and it's going to have to be just part of how we do this. That could be part of the analysis, but we're not even having that discussion. We're just being told no.

Counselor, are you suggesting that your clients would be willing to talk about rough proportionality on an individual lot basis instead of the whole subdivision?

I don't know what my clients would be able to do because we haven't had the conversation. We can't even have that conversation yet. Can I ask a procedural issue with today?

Is there a way to have those discussions with... or do we have to follow this through to a ruling today, or is there an opportunity to allow those discussions to occur to try to figure something out? I don't know. I don't know what the process is.

I don't know the answer to that, and I don't want to speak for council, but I just want to be clear what we're asking for. We're not asking for, hey, give us a rubber stamp and give us everybody a driveway today. We're asking for the ability to go back to the application process and satisfy what the county needs for the application process so the applications can be approved, not to be hung up on these two issues about, hey, there's pending litigation or you're part of an illegally divided subdivision.

Are you asking the court to give the engineer permission to evaluate the application based on the information available and to disregard the issue of whether it was illegally subdivided and look at the face of the application? Is that what your request is?

Yes, our request is that we don't think either of those two premises is appropriate. We haven't seen anything to substantiate that it is illegal. It's not been decided as a matter of law that this subdivision was illegal.

Unfortunately, the lawsuit was filed before the county even ever determined whether it was a subject to the exemption.

I understand, but I don't work for those people.

I understand what you're saying, but I'm just wanting to express that we have not taken a position on whether it's an illegal division or not.

You have, because that's one of the things mentioned in your letter that says we've struck this 3.1a2 that says this is the fruit of the poison's tree, for lack of a better way of putting it.

Okay. I have a question. So what if we call it to a vote, then would that still give you an opportunity to talk to general counsel and engineering to try to talk about these conversations you're having today? Because it doesn't sound like we're going to come up with a solution. I don't know.

The problem is that a vote to uphold the denial would be that no permits are going to be issued at this point. And your vote to overturn the denial would essentially be telling the engineer's office to issue permits. Right. So there's no in-between. Is there... Well, if it's...

Sorry, can I ask a clarification question? If the... So if it's overturned, the decision is overturned, then permits are issued. If the denial is upheld, is there any reason why we couldn't still have this conversation offline about what these questions he's asking with... That's where I'm going.

That if it's upheld... Is it still about the permit right now and the action of the engineer's office? Is that permissible?

I think that we would be willing to try to have a conversation so long as we can steer clear of the topics that are covered by the pending litigation. And I think the two of us could try to do that. We'd be happy to visit with you and see if there's anything else that we might be able to bring forward as a possible solution. But I do want to mention that the court's answer today is basically a blanket yes or no. So there's no yes with some conditions.

Understood. And I'll remind the court of what it is.

So could we not take any action and still have the conversations?

No, I think we have to give them a, because they have deadlines and this is appeal process. So I want to make sure that your clients are, have their deadlines met. So we need a decision or the appellate rights to the next stage.

I'm going to ask again, why take action either way? Why not just Because he has... And then set an appointment to start talking about...

He has filed an appeal. And if I understand correctly, this is an administrative appeal. It starts deadlines. And then once we issue a ruling, he needs a ruling so he can continue down the process if he so wishes. And so we're just doing this to make sure his clients have due process.

There is one other option we didn't cover, and that would be if the applicants voluntarily ask the court to not consider their appeals today and to stay it. and revisit later, but that's completely up to them, and I would never suggest it normally, as I know that they do have rights that would be triggered by a decision today. So we would be willing to entertain whatever direction they'd like to go.

Your choice, Mr. Cohn.

I don't have the ability to contact all three of my clients and get an answer to that right now. Didn't know it was a possibility. Would you like a... Even if it were? Yes, sir. The concern is that I can tell you that people are in a financial crunch. Two and three of my clients are in a significant financial bind because they can't move forward. They've got big bills coming due and they've got to have some sort of relief. And if it's not here... We can't wait another six months. We've got to have some relief.

How about this? We'll give you a ruling, but then whatever it is, then we'll discuss about your options for the next day.

I'm always open to trying to come up with a reasonable solution. And clients aren't always that way, but most of them are. And so if there's a reasonable solution that you had, then we certainly want to work with everyone to try to achieve that. Having said, my folks need whatever relief is available or not available. They need to know what's coming next. Absolutely. Okay.

So the way I understand it, so a yes vote on what, if a motion is made to uphold, I don't know, how should we word it? A yes vote is going to uphold the ruling. A no vote is going to overturn the ruling of the engineer's office.

And this is for one property at a time.

Yep. So we're starting with. So say that again. I make sure. Yeah.

A vote for yes would be to uphold the denial. Okay. A vote for no would be to overturn the denial. So yes, we agree with the engineer's office. No, we don't. Disagree.

Yes, you're agreeing. No, you disagree. And I want to say one last thing too. I love the fact that these are 10 plus acres. I love that. Yeah. I think that this is all being prematurely divided. That's my concern before all this was sorted out. And this was a discussion that we had back in the beginning, was the roadways. And so I feel like there's going to be litigation and it won't just be us. It'll also be Far Hills being sued by the people buying the property. So it's not just going to be on the county to figure this out.

All right. Before we take a motion, I promise you a quick closing remarks or statement.

I don't want to rehash this so much, Judge. I think the ground has been trod. My understanding here from our conversation today is that we know that the application process was shortcut so you get to the heart of the matter. The denial is being made for two reasons, one of two reasons, and it's either because of the pending litigation or because the provisions of 3.1a subsection 2 are not met or are met, that the permits will not be issued upon an illegal division of property. So one of those two is the catch here, not whether or not an application had an appropriate survey or indication of location for a driveway or any of those issues. So those are the issues that are being decided today. It's my understanding. The other thing, there's one property that is slightly different, and that is the Perkins property, which is item 28. This is a property that already has a driveway. Now, I just don't want to move past this because there are also vested rights arguments here for this property. There's an existing driveway.

How about this? Can you save your summary of that particular property? Because I'll open it up to number 28 so you can preserve your arguments for that individual. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. And what I just wanted to do is make sure that as we go through these, I don't fail to address that. Okay. Well, how about this? We'll give you your statement will be carried for your objections for the first property. If they're applicable, you can carry them forward to... the other two items. That'd be great. Thank you.

All right. So... All right.

Make a stab at it? Yeah, go for it. Sure. Judge, I'd like to make a motion to uphold the county engineer's denial of an access driveway permit application on June 22, 2026 for the property known as Track 7 and Six Hills Ranch subdivision, which abuts Big Joshua Creek Road near FM 289, owned by Rana and Rojo Partners LP, which is represented by Mr. Patrick Coon.

Good job, Commissioner Chapman. Motion to be made by Commissioner Chapman. Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Commissioner Carpenter. Any further discussion? There be none. Teresa, and remember, a yes vote is to uphold, a no vote is to overturn. Teresa?

Commissioner McCall? Yes. Commissioner Weijan? No. Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter?

Aye.

Judge Delisle?

Yay. Motion carries four to one with the judge and precinct commissioners one, three, and four in favor, and commissioner number two against. All right. Next up, it's Number 27, consideration of possible action on the appeal of the county engineer's denial of an access driveway permit application on June 22, 2026 for the property known as Track 10 in Six Hills Ranch subdivision, which abuts Big Joshua Creek Road near FM 289, owned by Jeremy and Ida Stewart, who are represented by Patrick Kuhn in this appeal. So I'm assuming you're carrying forward your objections from the first one. Are there any additional objections you'd like to lodge?

No, I just incorporate the prior conversation and entries into the record into this same item number. So granted.

Any closing remarks on this one?

None.

Okay. Commissioner Chapman?

Judge, I'd like to make a motion to uphold the county engineer's denial of the access driveway permit application. on June 22nd, 2026, for the property known as Track 10 and Six Hills Ranch Subdivision, which abuts Big Joshua Creek Road near FM 289, owned by Jeremy and Alda Stewart, who are represented by Mr. Patrick Cunningham.

Motion made by Commissioner Chapman. Seconded by Commissioner Carpenter. Any further discussion? There being none, Teresa.

Commissioner McCall? Aye. Commissioner Wieschen? Nay. Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter? Aye. Judge Stolesek?

Aye. Motion carries four to one with the judge and precinct commissioners one, three, and four in favor, and Commissioner Regent opposed. Lastly, consideration of possible action on the appeal of the county engineer's denial of a development permit application and a denial of a dark skies outdoor lighting permit application on June 18, 2026 for the property known as Track 34 in Six Hills Ranch subdivision. which abuts Big Joshua Creek Road near FM 289, owned by Mr. and Mrs. David Perkins, who are represented by Patrick Cohn. Okay, we'll carry forward your remarks from the first two as well as your objections. Do you have additional objections you'd like to put on the record for number 28? Yes, please, Judge.

So with the Perkins lot number 34, I think it's important to remember also that this property has been previously been developed. It's got a house on, barn on it, got water on it. It's got a driveway. Okay, so there's a vested rights issue here. Now, this all goes to application side of the argument. The other two issues remain, the denial points remain the same. But in terms of appellate points, because this is a vested rights issue, we don't have to figure out where the driveway is going to go or its impact. It's been there prior to any development. So I think that is something that changes the math a little bit. That being said, I don't know that it changes the court's mind, but it is an important point for the court to consider, so I want to make sure I mention it. Thank you.

Any clarification on this, just to get counties or that engineer's position on the record?

Yes, a couple of items. I think, Mr. Coon, you had mentioned earlier that we had removed the access and removed the address. We have not removed the access. The applicant did not file for access because they had an existing access. And we did not remove the address. We have no record of the address. The applicant filled out the paperwork with the address. I'm sure some, you know, they were told that was the address. Nowhere in our system have we found record in the 911 system that that address was assigned at that access location. So we did not go in to remove it. As far as our office is concerned, there's existing buildings there. There's existing well. There's existing septic. They can use the property as it is today. And they can use the existing access that is there today. But the permits were denied for the additional improvements they wanted to make for the property. The same reasons as before is we can't verify that it was legally subdivided in accordance with 3.1A2. So the permits were denied.

And one more clarification. Mary Ellen and I visited a little bit about the existing access. And because there's existing access and the property has been previously developed and could be used as is, If they submitted an address application at this time, I think the engineer's office would look at that and evaluate it in conjunction with the existing access.

And I think we had talked about issuing it as a temporary access because the needs for – I'm sorry, temporary address. We do recognize that if somebody is living on a property, they need to have emergency services get to the property. And so if that's the case and they're utilizing that property, we would be willing to issue a temporary address until – everything was resolved and we could issue full permits and verify the address complete. Okay.

Thank you. Commissioner Chapman? I'm confused on this one now. So we still need to deny or uphold the engineer decision on the overall.

So their permits were for an expansion to the house that exists there, A new building, they also turned in their lighting application. There were administrative things that they'll need to provide if they were to have their application completed, but that was just a completeness side of it. It was the same basis for denial of those permits that we cannot verify that the property was legally divided, so we cannot issue new permits for the property.

Okay. Judge, one sec. Did you have a question? I just had a question because there was an address request form submitted. My appreciation was everything was denied. Am I misunderstanding that?

The address, correct, they did turn in an address request, and I believe it had an address listed on it. We did not have a record of the address that was represented as 46 Big Joshua Creek Road in our system.

That sounds like an issue that can be worked out.

The address was just denied because we couldn't do the access, but just this week we were discussing if somebody is going to be living there because they can use that property, we want to make sure emergency services can get to them.

So I just want to make sure I know who's on first here. Is that address request going to go forward and be approved?

How about let's do this vote here, and then we can clarify any clarifications on this particular item for you and make a game plan for you on everything.

Fair enough? If we approve this one and litigation goes in our favor on rough proportionality and they have to widen Big Joshua Creek, is this going to create a narrow patch in the widths?

It could potentially. I mean, the I know we're talking about having offline conversations after this, but we need to be able to look at the development as a whole and look at it collectively. And issuing a single one, I don't know how we come back and hold accountable a property owner who said, here's all your permits, you've met all the requirements, now come back and widen the road or make improvements. I think the important distinction...

I understand there's a driveway there now. But now that this is a development, again, the word holistic overview of this, it becomes a different animal altogether. So it becomes part of the development.

On the access, this is the only access in this area. So there's no, you know, it's been long established. But when you start looking at the locations of everyone else's address, when we do that collective look, this location may not work. when you look at where they all go. So that's also why we were going to do a temporary address in case it does need to change in the future. But again, the permits themselves were denied because we can't verify that the property was legally subdivided and they can use the property as it is today. They can use the existing access, but we just have to evaluate that when collectively down the road.

And we have the authority to take away the temporary address after we give it to them.

They would have an expiration date on it.

Is there such a thing as a temporary address?

Yes. You've done that? Okay.

But the idea that Mary Ellen and I were discussing was there's no intent and no desire to interfere with someone's rights to use the property as it sits today. It can be used as a residence today. It has access to the road today. And it does need to have an address for emergency services. So We were going to say today, no matter what the outcome is otherwise, that we will work with you to make sure there's at least a temporary address so emergency services can locate the house that's already there.

Judge, I make a motion to uphold the county engineer's denial of the development permit application and denial of the dark skies outdoor lighting permit application on June 18, 2026. for the property known as Track 34 and Six Hills Ranch Subdivision, which abuts Big Joshua Creek Road near FM 289, owned by Mr. and Ms. David Perkins, who are represented by Mr. Patrick Cahoon.

A motion made by Commissioner Chapman, seconded by Commissioner Carpenter. Any further discussion? There being none, Teresa.

Commissioner Wheaton? Nay. Commissioner Chapman?

Aye.

Commissioner Carpenter?

Nay. Yeah. Yeah. So motion carries three to two with, would you just say yours? Yes. I vote to uphold. I'm sorry. Yeah. The judge and precinct commissioners one and three in favor of upholding and commissioners from two and four opposed. Okay. And now I encourage you to get together with Mary Ellen. It sounds like there are some things that you can work out with her and general counsel to kind of get some of these issues resolved. But at least you have your ruling to seek other options. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you for your time and putting considerable effort into this. No worries. Thank you for your thoroughness. With that, that concludes our open portion of today's session. Are you okay with just jumping in an executive and knocking it out? Yeah, we're going to take a five-minute restroom break. It is officially 1118. We'll pick up executive session at 1123. And now it is 1203 p.m. on this Tuesday, July 28th, and we're resuming our open portion following executive. Are there any motion, ladies, coming out of executive from you? Gentlemen, anything from you? With that, that concludes today's regularly called session of the Kendall County Commissioner's Court. And with that, we're adjourned.