Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

All right, good morning, everybody. Today is September the 15th, 2026. The time is 10.01 a.m., and I'll call this regular session of Commissioner's Court to order with our pledges to the flags and a moment of silent prayer. 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 to the Texas, one state under God, one and only. Amen. Thank you. It's good to see everybody this morning. I hope you're all doing well. I'm going to move to item three on our agenda, which are citizens to be heard. We had no individuals sign up. Is there anybody in the courtroom, online, or on the call that would like to speak under citizens to be heard? Okay, I don't see or hear anybody indicate they wish to do so. If anybody would like to speak on any individual item, please just indicate by raising your hand or grabbing my attention. I'll invite you up to the podium if you'd like to speak on an item. We're going to move to item four on our agenda, and that's discussion. And the first is the Guadalupe County guidelines and criteria for tax abatement and reinvestment zones. Mr. Tize, do you want to give just a little bit of feedback on this item?

Yes, Judge. Starting at my computer, I apologize. I know that every two years, we have to renew our tax abatement guidelines to be eligible to offer tax abatements under 312. And if those are not in place, then we are not eligible to participate in tax abatement agreements in the future. And so that will be something that we will need to readopt In November moving forward so if there's any changes in those guidelines That the court wants to be made we can work on that in the meantime Any substantial changes that you're aware of that need to be addressed at this moment or Some of the things that I would consider looking at are And these are discretionary for you, but minimum investment numbers, minimum employee numbers, those types of items, because as prices on everything go up and inflation, the investment should match potentially. But that's a discretionary item for the court.

I know a majority of the guidelines and criteria stayed pretty consistent over the years. We have made some substantial changes in other areas. But to your point, I know that original minimum investment of $1 million or 25 jobs seems like it fits a little bit more with something that would happen years ago as opposed to some of the economic development conversations we've had recently so that's a that's a good point to think about commissioners are there any other um specific points y'all can think of at the moment that we need to be brainstorming thinking about that we want to try to address

No, I just think that two collapsing parameters would be a bad thing. So my concern wouldn't necessarily be the specifics, more like that we don't want to.

To limit ourselves?

Yeah, marry ourselves into something that's too strict so we aren't able to have some flexibility in the negotiations.

That's a good point also. We can try to be too cute in a way to try to be specific about minimum investment amounts and then not be able to participate based on our own rules. And I know there's maybe individuals that look at this and probably a lot of different opinions and some emotions about incentives and tax abatements. We completely understand that. Again, we're not talking about an individual project. This is just a larger... structure and criteria that are required to be in place so we equally look at all of these parameters when we consider a project. We could probably have long discussions about reinvestment zones, about tax abatements, about sales tax, reimbursements, incentives, benefits, the downside to them, all those things. But again, this is not tied to an individual project. This is tied to the county's requirements and the ability to participate in some type of economic development. Like Mr. Tye said, we have to have this in place that has the resolution, has our guidelines, criteria and guidelines, a copy of the application, everything that has to be filled out for Commissioner's Court to consider participating in any project.

This is basically the rule book.

Correct. So, Commissioners, if you do have anything in the near term that we want to take a look at or have further discussion on this as a court prior to us considering final approval, just please let us know. We could put this back on. But if not, Mr. Tai is talking about putting this on in November.

Yes, Judge. It expires on November 12th. We have court on the 3rd and 17th of November and December 1st. If it lapses, it's Just means that during that lapse period, we can't approve any tax abatement agreements. So this has to be in place before we approve any. But there's no harm, so to speak, if we take an extra meeting to figure out what we need, or if we approve it, A FEW DAYS AFTER. SO I'LL GET TO WORK ON A REVIEW OF IT. I KNOW IN RESPONSE TO COMMISSIONER OTT, THERE ARE SOME ITEMS IN THERE. THERE'S SOME EXCEPTIONAL, I BELIEVE, CATEGORIES, EXCEPTIONAL CAPITAL INVESTMENT JOB CREATION CATEGORIES. in excess of 50 million and over 500 jobs. So that's also a way to consider it when you're thinking about the amounts, the number of minimum investment jobs is making categories of what the court considers to be a minimum versus a exceptional. I mean, you can lay it out in that way too. And so what I'll do is I will pull some tax abatement guidelines from some other counties that are very active in Texas. And I will do some comparisons and let you all know what those are and what they're doing that might work for us and what might not. And we can go from there.

Okay. But it looks like without substantial changes, we could potentially consider this the last court in October or the first court in November. So it didn't have a lapse, right?

We have November 3rd and then what's the last one in October? The 27th. Either one is fine. And we wouldn't have a lapse for either of those.

All right. Any other comments or discussion, commissioners? All right, then we will move to item B under discussion, and that's reallocation of Marion Building remaining funds for the site work of the Guadalupe County Fire and Rescue Portable Buildings. Commissioner Gurman.

I just wanted to bring this to court. This is a real simple discussion. In the Marion project, which, by the way, we're still on for approximately two or three weeks from now, it'll be completed. We have money allocated aside in the budget for furniture and so forth. But this is not what I'm bringing for discussion. The architect and the CMR, Kahler Company, Deborah Docorisa architect, they've done a good job and they've kept it below budget. Each one of them, I don't have the exact figure But each one of them still has around $20,000 left in their budget. The fire department is working on, the GCFR is working on getting these temporary units brought in. One of them will perhaps go into Marion. into that yard that is behind the Marion building. And in order to get that done, you have to have some help from an architect or a construction, because you've got to hook the sewer up, the water up, and so forth. The only question that I'm bringing forth is, I mean, this is not for a vote, it's a discussion. Is it okay if I allow my CMAR and my architect to work on establishing that temporary location in the yard of this building? Or is there an objection to that? In other words, that we start over from new or can we just That's why I brought it for discussion.

I think the first comment or maybe question I have maybe for purchasing also, sorry Don to ask you, but in that original scope of work when we went out and secured the contract for professional services with the architect and then hired the contractor, did not have anything about GCFR on it, but it's on the site. And then the second part of that question is, do we really need an architect and or the contractor involved just to place a portable building even if utilities are being hooked up?

Well, first, this wasn't part of the original scope of the contracts, so we could not use that contract for setting up the building. I'M NOT SURE OF THE ACTUAL REQUIREMENTS FOR THAT PORTABLE BUILDING. HAVEN'T SEEN IT, DON'T KNOW THE SPECS FOR WHAT IS REQUIRED, SO I CAN'T ANSWER THAT WITHOUT KNOWING THAT.

WE DID THE BUDGET AMENDMENT ALREADY TO MOVE FUNDS TO ALLOCATE THE MOVING OF THE BUILDING, RIGHT? So, I mean, it's all gravel. It's base lay down yard. But are we talking about the biggest need for, like, utilities for, like, water and electric and that kind of stuff to be hooked up to it?

The biggest thing is the tie downs, getting it anchored correctly. There is a lift station. that Green Valley has right next to where we want to put it. And so they have agreed to work with us on tying in the sewer to this temporary building and the electrical. That's really about it. It's not a lot.

Commissioner, I was going to ask, in your opinion, wouldn't it be cheaper to directly contract with either A PLUMBER ELECTRICIAN TO DO THAT INSTEAD OF GOING THROUGH A ARCHITECT AND CONTRACTOR. YES. YOU WOULDN'T HAVE THAT ADDITIONAL 15, 20% GENERAL CONDITIONS. DON'T HAVE TO GO BACK THROUGH A BIDDING PROCESS. IT'S GOING TO BE PROBABLY A MINIMAL AMOUNT OF MONEY COMPARED TO THAT. IT'S MINIMAL, YEAH. i see where you're coming from though if we were trying to use the additional leftover funds from the marion building project it would take a budget amendment for us to move some of those remaining funds to align to allow us to expend them for the fire portable building but i think we i think we directly contract with either plumber or electrician to set that up and the mover to do the tie downs and that structure and kind of see how far we can get that way it's probably quicker and cheaper

GVC, who's going to be a supplier out the way there, they have inside wiremen now who'll take care of all that for you. They'll set the panel on the box on the pole and bring it into the house.

Maybe you and I can get with Don just to brainstorm to make sure we're not missing anything and look at the bidding requirements and what we think we can... We can do. I know Commissioner Engelke finished up a couple of those other projects. I mean, Commissioner Wolverton's really familiar with construction also, but I think there's a way to do it that's still the right way, but quicker and cheaper instead of going back to the architect and contractor.

Yeah, okay. Is this going to be a permanent structure there?

It's a portable building that's going to be temporary, but it could be there for an extended period of time.

It'll be there for a while. You'll need road and bridge to go out that way and pour two runners on either side where you can level up your trailer at that point.

Like how they set some of the mobile homes with a poor concrete or they'll put down road base and put a gravel pad, but they'll have concrete runners for those solid blocks to sit on.

So it has a good foundation to sit on. Yeah. Let me just give you a call, Don. Thank you. I just wanted to bring it. We'll discuss it.

Any other conversation and or questions, comments on discussion item B? all right hearing none we'll move to item five on our agenda which are consent items under consent item a the bill list item b the eba list item c the pca bill list item d in accordance with guadalupe county travel policy authorization for out-of-state travel for one sheriff's office employee to attend the texas association of vehicle theft investigators conference in norman oklahoma september 28th to october 2nd 2026 Item E, the agreement with SG Architectural Solutions for the annual inspection and preventative maintenance of the smoke curtain and elections. Item F, terminate the contract with Level 5 Architecture PLLC for RFQ 25-14, architectural slash engineering services or animal control facilities and authorized purchasing to send notice. Item G, the interlocal agreement with the Alamo Area Council of Governments, ACOG, regarding rental of property for transportation and use of space at 415 East Donegan Street, 10126-93027. Item H, the official bond oath and rider for Donald Reed Crane Jr., number 89035131, Reserve Deputy Constable, Precinct 1, Guadalupe County. And Ryan Thompson, number 89035302, Reserve Deputy Constable Precinct 3 in Guadalupe County. Item I, the appointments of presiding and alternate election judges, early voting ballot board, and central counting station personnel for the term of September 1, 2026 through August 31, 2028. Item J, the updated early voting dates and locations and election day polling locations for the November 3rd, 2026 general and special elections. Item K, the joint election agreements for the November 3rd, 2026 general and special elections and authorization for the election official to sign the agreements. And item L, the excavation permit request for the following county roads, 102 River Park Drive, Precinct 1, and 7950 Bannock Road in Precinct 2. Commissioners, any items you would like to be pulled for separate discussion?

Item I, sir.

All right. We will remove item I from consent for separate discussion. Any other items to be removed from consent? move to approve items a through l with the exception of item i second we do have a motion and a second on all consent items except item i that has been removed for separate discussion any further comments or questions all right hearing no other discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye any opposed Hearing no opposition, that motion passes. We'll move back to item I, and that is the appointment of presiding and alternate election judges, early voting ballot board, central counting station personnel for the term of September 1, 2026 through August 31, 2028. Commissioner Wolverton.

Judge, it's been brought to my attention that we have an updated order coming from the state. We don't know what it is as of yet, so they would like to pull this item and put it on the next agenda once they get all the documentation from the state of Texas.

Actually, we've got a new order. It's just been updated since it was submitted to the agenda. Okay. So, I mean, everything is still fine. Just some of the names have been updated on it.

So we currently have the updated order right now. Yep. JUST ORIGINALLY, WE WERE ANTICIPATING HAVING IT AFTER TODAY, I GUESS.

NO.

OKAY. SO WE HAVE WHAT WE NEED. YES. AND WE'RE STILL GOOD TO MOVE FORWARD RIGHT NOW?

WE ARE GOOD TO MOVE FORWARD. IT'S JUST A DIFFERENT, IT'S JUST AN UPDATED ORDER THAN WHAT WAS INITIALLY SUBMITTED ON THE AGENDA.

SO WE CAN GO AHEAD AND APPROVE THIS WITH THAT PARTICULAR PIECE OF PAPER. WHAT WE'VE GOT NOW. MOVE TO APPROVE ITEM I, JUDGE. SECOND.

DO WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND TO APPROVE ITEM I? ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION?

NO, SIR.

Hearing no other comments or questions, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Hearing no opposition, that motion passes. Item 6, Action Items, Discussion Possible Motion Relative to Item A, the request for a variance from the requirements of Section 10, Road Construction, Section A9, General Requirements, the Guadalupe County Subdivision Regulations relative to 550 Riley Road, Lot 7E of the Herbert Riley Subdivision located in Precinct 1 with us this morning, our Road and Bridge Administrator, Mike Brooks. How are you?

Good morning. How are y'all this morning? Good. Mr. Franks, which is here in person, has requested a variance for 550 Riley Road. He has built a metal shop and he is wanting to attach a carport that will be covered over the driveway. The carport will be in the county right of way. and be put from the edge of pavement once it is completed on that side. So Mr. Franks is requiring a variant or asking for a variance from section 10 of the road construction A9, which does not allow any building or objects in the county right of way. So he's asking for a variance on that. Mr. Franks has some program that he would like to speak and talk with you all about his.

Okay.

Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Thank you sir.

Good morning, judge, commissioners, county staff. My name is Kevin Franks. My property is located at 550 Riley Road here in Seguin, Texas. I'm here today to respectfully request a variance from the section 10 road construction section A9 general requirements of the Guadalupe County subdivision regulations that applies to the approximately 15 foot encroachment of the open sided carport into the county right of way on the Rose Road side of my property. The carport faces Rose Road, which is a minor side road with significantly less traffic. I've provided a complete packet for each of you containing the project renderings, same as over here, the official permit, my current survey, and the engineered structural elevations. I want to be completely transparent about what I'm asking court to approve. The main shop structure itself is entirely within my property boundaries. which has been verified by the new director of the county road and bridge. The variance I'm requesting is solely for the attached open sided carport, which extends approximately 15 feet into the county right of way because of unique physical constraints of the property. My primary home, and existing septic system occupy the central and front portions of my lot, leaving no practical alternative that will allow vehicle access to the shop while maintaining the necessary health and safety setbacks. The only other residential driveway on Rose Road is the current driveway for my residence. Early in the planning process, I personally contacted county and inspection staff to discuss the project. We walked the proposed layout, reviewed dimensions, and measured the site together. My understanding from those preliminary discussions is that the primary concern would be ensuring that the structure did not interfere with road operations, visibility, or safety. That has remained the top priority of this design. The proposed carport is an open-sided, column-supported structure rather than an enclosed structure with solid walls. It does not extend over the traffic portion of Rose Road. The support columns will approximately be three feet behind the edge of the roadway. and the roof overhang will remain approximately one foot behind the road edge. The design maintains visibility along Rose Road and allows vehicles to enter and exit neighboring driveways. The only neighboring driveway is a commercial driveway on the other side of Rose Road. It allows vehicles to enter and exit the neighboring driveways without the carport creating a visual barrier or extending into the travel portion of the road. The renderings in your packet illustrate these places. Now, y'all have to forgive me. I'm not very good. This is my first attempt at using AI. But what it does show is that it is an open-sided structure. And the sight lines are not impacting any travel along the road as well. We spoke once about liability, and I'll come to that. The structure itself is made of light gauge. It's not a heavy gauge columns. They are actually cold rolled galvanized steel. Actually, I have that very picture coming up. So I also want to address the county's long term interest in liability. I understand the court has to consider the county's right of way and protect the county's interests. I'm fully willing to execute a standard hold harmless and indemnification agreement or a revocable encroachment lease. if the county determines that such an agreement is appropriate. It's also an important piece of history regarding this location, which you're just actually showing me right there, so I don't need my other display. My ski boat was parked in essentially this same footprint right there for eight years without creating a reported sideline, access, or safety problem. I understand that the bow is obviously not the same thing as a permanent structure, but I believe that history provides useful context regarding the actual conditions of this portion of Roseroad. Before purchasing materials or finalizing the design, I personally spoke with my immediate and adjacent neighbors about the project. I want to make sure that they understood the proposed placement. and that their views and access would be preserved. At that time, I received nothing but positive comments. I spoke with the neighbor directly behind me. I spoke with my next door neighbor, who is also a proprietor of the business on the opposite side of Rose Road. And I received nothing but positive comments. I understand that concerns have been raised by individuals who not live immediately adjacent to the property. And I don't want this request to become a dispute between neighbors. My request is simply for the court to consider the actual design, the specific location, the road conditions, and the safeguards proposed. On a personal note, as a 100% combat-disabled veteran and former military pilot, taking pride in being a good neighbor and responsible steward of my property is the foundation of how I operate. My goal has always been to build a quiet, safe life and to be the best neighbor that I can be, doing things the right way, and respecting the people around me isn't just a habit, it's central to who I am. Thank you for your time, your service, and consideration today. I'm happy to take any questions the court may have.

COMMISSIONER TARULLO. Commissioners, any questions?

COMMISSIONER TARULLO. This one, do we have any setback requirements on the side of the house between properties? Because this one shows he's about a foot away from the fence on the right-hand side. And then is that, I believe that is his home on the left, correct?

This home is right there on the corner of Rose and Riley.

The commissioner's looking at that picture on the left. The left-hand side.

Oh, that is, that was, when was that spit? That was 1957 when this flat was platted.

So there was no setback requirements at that time?

No, there was no setback requirements at that time. And then that lot was subdivided. Do you remember when that lot was subdivided?

Originally, it was one lot, and then back, I believe, in the 60s, it was split, which then turned into the two lots being developed, and it was never corrected. So it is an applied facility. It was just split illegally way back when.

So, Danielle, before you go back, sorry. So when you have a lot that is on, a roadway like this and then has a side road, right? So it's basically two sides frontage and we have a front setback requirement. I understand that the plat is old, but when you have new regulations now and updated, how is that looked at? Is that considered a side because it's not the front part of that or is it still, or do we have two front setbacks?

Correct. I think at one point we did approach the court and we asked how the court would consider it to be the front. And it was mainly where the property was accessed would be considered the front or where the front door faces. We were assuming that that would be the front. Everything else would be considered a side. And I believe on this one, the plot did not dictate any setbacks. However, any new construction that is in the plot, it would incur those setbacks.

Sure. When I understand, I mean, the owner's point, I mean, where you have a higher travel speed and traffic count on the other side in front of the house, but with the access being on the side, you know, that is a smaller roadway, but you still have some of those same limitations of access and drainage and line of sight and safety and all the things we're probably going to talk about more here in just a minute. So I was just curious how we're looking at that from a staff and requirement standpoint.

The part that's in the right-of-way is actually the uprights, the supports? The posts, correct.

And then the roof.

And the roof, the height requirement of the roof is what, 10 foot?

Well, the actual height of the roof is going to be level with the lowest hanging communication utility line, which is approximately 14 feet. 14 feet.

So the front supports are actually in the county right-of-way?

So commissioners, to be clear, these are AI images. This structure is not completely accurate.

I struggled and fought with AI for about six hours.

I just want to make sure that the court's aware. So this is not a... This is not built yet.

No.

And so one of the issues and one of the reasons why Mr. Franks requested to present this information to the court today is that he feels that in conversation with Road and Bridge that they were clear on the design here and therefore took action based on that. I don't know that we're all on the same page as far as the conversation, the interpretation of the conversation. So it was important to Mr. Franks to come and bring this to the attention of the court. The right-of-way edge is pretty much the edge of this driveway. So the supports and the overhang are both in the county right-of-way. So that is really what we're talking about today. Is that fair? I would agree. OK. So I believe the design, as far as the outreach of the poles, is more accurate on the image that we all see to our left, if we're looking at these, where they're closer to the street versus about halfway through the concrete area.

Like I said, I did the best I could.

Oh, no, of course.

What are the dimensions on the planned building?

The building itself that is within my property boundaries is a 30 by 40 building, and the It's 40 feet wide by 15 feet.

Okay.

Yes, sir. But the columns will be set three feet back from the edge of the driveway or the roadway, where the driveway and the road meet.

And the way you have it laid out here, what's the distance from the back of the building to the back of the property line behind the building?

Well, the right side, as you're looking at this first display, the right side of the building is basically on or within an inch of the property line. Because as you can see on that one, it lines up exactly with the original, that little one car garage.

And behind it, what's the distance?

To the far property line? Yes, sir. I couldn't tell you that one off the top of my head. I mean, just a guess. Roughly 70 feet. The problem with that is I wouldn't have access to be able to get all the way around. Like I said, I'd lay the building in the location I did because that would have the easiest access to the road, and there was already my existing driveway for my houses right there on that same side.

So, I mean, the building would basically sit right in here.

Yes, sir. That's exactly.

But you've got 50, 60, 70 feet to the property line over on this side. But this is, I think I saw in a picture, was it a fire pit, sitting area, that kind of stuff?

It just, but I also have what is not visible in that picture is I also have a patio cover that is not shown that extends beyond where the building would not have fit in that same orientation anywhere in the backyard.

i'm gonna start out i don't know what other commissioners are thinking i mean i understand what you're trying to do and i feel for you trying to place a building of scale or size that you think you need in a spot that it doesn't really fit that well um and i you've got you're just trying to find a solution to a challenge right well uh the building has already been purchased the slab and the concrete driveway have already been placed

the issue on this one is just whether i'm going to be y'all will accept a 15-foot aerial encroachment with three columns into the county right away if you want to pull it all the way down gotcha and i i did do quite a bit of diligence when i first started this i took my survey from my house and i got with the county gis and the survey had not been updated in the county GIS site. So that has since been rectified. Because I wanted to verify, I met before I ordered or purchased anything with a county representative and verified that, yep, this would all fit just fine, you know, whether or not we did the lean-to as far as the building and the driveway. The driveway or the lean-to, I was told, for lack of better words, but these are the exact ones. County really doesn't care. Just don't piss off your neighbors. And unfortunately, I didn't do that. It just seemed to automatically happen the day we start setting forms for the concrete.

So you went through the driveway permit process and all that? Yes.

His driveway permit is approved. You have a completed copy of that in the packet I provide.

So with drainage, there's no utilities there. Easement for GVC. I assume that's GVC. GVC is all area. So if you were to build the building without the lean-to, your building structure is out of the right of way.

Correct. Yes.

So the problem, the challenge I have is the liability. And I know you had mentioned something about a contract with the county or something. I don't know how Stephen Tice feels about that. But it sets precedent. And this is not just a single... thing i'm discussing because of this it's overall i think that way so it would set a precedent if you're going to put something in the right away ups driver coming down the road amazon whoever hits your lean to structure who's liable at the end of the day it turns into a big mess i understand exactly what you're saying i've actually spoken with my homeowner insurance provider and anything that is hit on my driveway

which the driveway belongs to me, the county will not maintain my driveway. The county owns the dirt underneath for sure. However, anything that is struck or hit or damaged on my driveway, be it a column or a lean-to or whatever it be, if it was my car or my boat, my homeowner insurance and the individual who created the damage, those insurances would be the ones battling it out, not the county.

Even if it's not on your property?

Well, if it's on the driveway, it would be the same thing as if my boat was on the driveway and a UPS truck hit it. I would be going after UPS. I would be going after UPS.

Because that picture, like if you build a lean-to and you go over the fence of somebody's side property, that's basically what you're doing. I mean, you're building it on the county property. I promise you the county would be involved in that lawsuit.

Yeah, I mean, it's a big deal.

I absolutely understand what you're saying, which is also why I am fully willing to stipulate where I assume all responsibility with the revocable encroachment lease, which would be documented and transferable if the property was sold.

While I definitely appreciate that, I do not think that that would indemnify the county from liability if the county gave permission for something to be built that would be an exception or a variance and a person hit it, then I don't think that that document would prevent that person or entity from suing the county because we gave permission for something that is not within the bounds of our rules. And that's my concern. And I think that court, I want to just be clear really fast that one of the main issues here is that Mr. Franks has informed me that he has gone forward with this plan and purchased these materials based on his reliances from information he's received from the county. So I wanted to see if we could clear that issue up or those issues up while we're here in court today. While I do of course want people to be able to do whatever they want with their property at a certain point if it comes to BEING AN ISSUE FOR THE COUNTY TAKING ON LIABILITY FOR A POTENTIAL INJURY OR IF EMS NEEDS TO GET THROUGH OR IF THE ROAD NEEDED TO BE EXPANDED. MR. FRANKS, THAT'S SOMETHING THAT WE HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT WITH OUR ATTORNEY AS WELL AND RECEIVED INFORMATION ABOUT THAT NOT BEING SOMETHING THAT WOULD BE A RECOMMENDATION. because of certain things that we've had to do in the past in regard to what Commissioner Engelke is saying about setting precedent that there's been several buildings similarly situated that we've had to remove or talk to property owners about. So it's difficult to approach the situation differently when it's similar in the sense that it provides you know, a little bit of line-of-sight issues, but more that if the county right-of-way ever had to be expanded or we had an emergency vehicle or even just a private company came and did strike part of this structure, then they would be looking at us, even though I understand your goodwill and appreciate your goodwill that you are willing to sign an indemnification, but I don't know that that would really shelter the county, and I believe that our attorney has advised us accordingly as well. But I do want you to be able to explain that. And I know Mr. Englehart is present in court. I wanted him to be here today because I understand that y'all had that conversation. And I want to make sure that the county acknowledges any responsibility. But also, if this is something that Mr. Englehart is saying that he doesn't understand that occurred the same way, I want to make sure that we are all clear with each other. Because in conversation with him, it's my understanding that that's not quite his impression of what the conversation was like. And so I wanted you to have an opportunity today to discuss that as well with him being present.

And I was doing everything I could not to... lay any responsibility at any one individual. I hope you all appreciate that because I don't want to, for lack of a better term, I don't want to jam anybody up. That's not my intent. My goal for this was to present this request. And as far as the revocable encroachment lease, that is language that I got It's pretty much close to straight from the county. So through research. And if that's not something that the county is willing to offer or willing to enter into an agreement with, I mean, that's understandable.

Mr. Ties, would you weigh in on that? This is our attorney over here, Mr. Ties. OK. Yes.

Good morning. I'm sorry. I'm trying to look at these documents. Is this going in place at the shed?

Yes, the small one-car garage that the boat was parked in front of, you saw that earlier, that garage has been demoed out. OK. And that's where this new structure is going.

I guess my initial concerns when this was brought to my attention is if I'm looking at the transportation code, Section 251.008, general requirements for county roads. It states that a public road of any class must be clear of all obstructions. That is a pretty clear statement in the transportation code. And so I, number one, I don't think a variance is the accurate method for allowing encroachment into a county right-of-way. County right-of-ways cutting, altering are done through the excavation permit process. However, those are generally buried and restored processes. The only time that I've seen an excavation permit being done in the COUNTY RIGHT-OF-WAY FOR A STRUCTURE WAS WHEN WE DID THIS FOR SAN MARCOS. AND WE AUTHORIZED A BUS STOP TO BE PUT IN AND THAT WAS FOR A PUBLIC PURPOSE, A BUS STOP FOR A PUBLIC PURPOSE WITHIN THE COUNTY RIGHT-OF-WAY. THAT HAD CONDITIONS WITH IT, BUT THAT WASN'T THE PRIVATE USE OF PUBLIC PROPERTY FOR A PRIVATE PURPOSE, WHICH ALSO BRINGS UP ANOTHER CONCERN THAT IF WE ALLOW ONE HOMEOWNER TO USE PUBLIC PROPERTY FOR THEIR OWN PRIVATE PURPOSE, THEN I don't know. Then we would have to show how that benefits the county. And I don't know that that does benefit the county. And I think that that's another concern to be brought up. In addition, we have recently required a homeowner to remove an entire portion of a structure from the county right-of-way. So I built a shop into the county right-of-way. They had to remove a portion of that structure that was built into the county right-of-way fences. And so... The transportation code says that we have to keep it clear of all obstructions, and I think that that is, with the exception of utilities that are specifically mandated, I think that that's state law that is pretty clear. And so those are my concerns.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And I will say that the structure that was recently removed was also in Precinct 1, my precinct, so I did have opportunity to go both out to that location and this location to observe the proximity of the potential structure and in yours as well to the road and do acknowledge that they are as close as we've been talking about. And I really, I hate to ever talk about wanting to have any sort of control over anyone's property because I do feel like the government should be very hands-off on that. I think in this situation, with this cover, I am fearful that the liability that we are incurring is going to be a risk for the county such that I'm not sure that it's that it's reasonable or safe for the county to be taking that in. But I did want to see if, in conversation with Mr. Englehart myself, it is my impression from the conversation that he does not feel that he gave any sort of express permission from the county for the building of this in the right of way.

Absolutely correct. He did not give express permission. However, he also did not give any express decline that I was absolutely not have the ability to purchase and build the structure as we had laid it out. If he had told me a flat no, you can't do it, If I had heard those words, I'd follow the rules. I would not have designed and purchased paid cash already for this entire structure. I am going to lose. If I remove the lean-to, I am now voiding the entire 30-year warranty on the building.

Mr. Franks, what's limiting you from, back to my original question, pushing the building back 15 foot?

The fact that I already have $37,000 worth of concrete on the ground.

Well, you wouldn't have to tear out your concrete. You may have to add a portion to it. Please don't take this as rude. No, sir. I want to speak freely because I'm a country boy, right?

I appreciate you wanting to.

What made you think that it would be okay to build something in the county right of way? We live on 123. We've got 40,000 cars a day. If Dad and I want to stack hay because we filled up our hay lot and put it in the bar ditch, the state's going to contact us and go, you can't do that. That's not safe. It has to be drainage. We have to mow it. There's cars going by it. That's a problem. We start parking big trucks and trailers out there. Or even on a county road, there's going to be an issue, right? So, I mean, to me, I guess it's kind of common sense and common knowledge that there's a property line. You keep your stuff on that side and the county has to maintain the roadway, the bar ditch. There has to be future expansion. All those things that are going on. I mean, conversation or not with anybody matters. I'd be going, man, that property line is the defining boundary that says you shall not pass, right, on either side. We can't just, I mean, if we would have come to you and go, hey, we need to build something. We don't want to do anything. We'll just sign this thing, but we want to build on your property. You probably would have looked at us like we were crazy, right? Going like, what? You can't do that. This is my property. So I'm trying to figure out what got us to this point besides the conversation that said let's build out in the county right away.

Well, the first conversation, I appreciate that. The first conversation, if I had not been given an explicit no, then I would have obviously thought differently. However, I also, through the design of this, the distance the columns are being set back, the height of the E, the leading edge of this, is at the same height as the lowest utility cable. I've had 18 wheelers get lost off of I-10, come around this corner, and yanked off a previous AT&T line because it was hung too low. They've all since been raised up. The fact that the traffic density, I mean, I'm not a traffic engineer, but the traffic density on this, you've got school buses, garbage trucks, UPS, FedEx, Amazon, and then the residents that live behind on Sunset. I just dealt with the traffic density. I did not, I never understood where the the problem would occur because I'm not impeding traffic in any way shape or form as well as being able to see completely clear coming around either corner anywhere down that street. It is the only other driveway on that street other than my existing one for my residents. Residential driveway I want to stipulate.

You ever see any of this farm equipment have to travel down this road?

Never seen it move once in eight years that I've lived in this house. Not one single time. That's a lot of money there. Not once.

Just for my curiosity's sake, you said that someone from the county told you you could do this?

No, sir. Nobody's told me explicitly that I could, but they did not tell me explicitly that I couldn't either.

Who did you talk to?

I spoke with Mr. Englehart, the county inspector.

Is it possible that you could extend the slab back to move the building back? What's preventing you from doing that?

Portions of the overhang for my patio cover that I built.

So you built the other structure off of the house?

Yes.

And you wouldn't consider taken that portion down to move the building back?

Sir, with all respect, I can't move anything. I can't move the building. We're talking over $100,000 worth of concrete, metal building, and everything else all in. I'm, for lack of a better term, pot committed at this point.

Right, but how do you lose a warranty on a pre-engineered metal building if you only remove the carport?

I'm not building it fully the way it was designed. I have a stamped engineer plan. And if I modify it.

So you changed it in it.

Correct. Because I've already asked those questions as well. When I started this, I did all the diligence that I possibly thought I needed to. I checked with the city, fire, permitting. I checked with my survey and the GIS. I spoke with everyone in the county, environmental. I've spoken with Daniela. I don't know how many of y'all.

And Ms. Falthas and Mr. Englehart, would you all mind coming up? Would you all mind coming up? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you.

So Mr. Franks did contact me after Erlaff had made the scene. And that's when Mr. Franks told me that the conversation was had between him and Erlaff about the driveway permit. And he asked about the encroachment in the right of way. I told him that absolutely not. I would not give him permission because not only is it a violation of state law, it was a violation in our county subdivision regulations. And so that's when I advised him that if he needed to pursue it any further, he would need to speak to Mr. Brooks. But I did tell him on the phone that absolutely not, I would not give him any permission to obstruct the right-of-way in any manner.

The conversations with Mr. Englehart were prior to, I did that prior to ordering the building prior to hiring my contractor, prior to anything. We met out there, stood right there, and used 100-foot tape and laid everything out. The conversations we had, because I asked you this very exact question when you came and did the inspection. for the replacement for the driveway, which is the only portion of anything that needs to be inspected. I verified. The conversation we had was the county doesn't care. And I said, well, OK. Well, he goes, but if somebody complains, I'm like, well, what if somebody complains? He goes, well, don't piss off a neighbor. And that was the end of the conversation. I was not told any more or any less. In any of that conversation, I never heard an explicit, no, you cannot do that. It's against the law. It's against county policy or any of that. Based on that information, I moved forward and pulled the trigger on a $40,000 metal building. Signed a contract with the contractor to do $60,000 worth of concrete. mental building erection if i had been told no explicitly i never would have moved forward with this not in this manner i would have designed the building differently lots of different things i'm not trying to hold mr englehart completely responsible but if i've been given more better guidance wouldn't have gone down this road we wouldn't be here right now

What official written approval do you have from the county? None. Is it on the driveway?

The driveway permit is all the approval of anything that I'm required to have in the county.

Right. I mean, you don't need a building permit, right? You don't have to do that. But the only I mean formal application you submitted for review to the county was a driveway permit and you've received approval of that in writing That's the entire process in a nutshell, right I mean when I asked

Danielle up because when we had to start going through how am I going to get beyond this, she goes, well, we have a waiver process, but Roden Bridge doesn't. So now we're away. So therefore, that's why I had to come before the court.

Let me just clarify that. So I did advise him, yes, we do have a variance process and usually I handle the variances. However, if this was my variance, I would not accept it because it is a violation under state law and of the county having an obstruction right away. And that we had also made the property owner on Santa Ana remove the partial building.

But like you said, for environmental health with that variance process, usually tied to acreage change, a replat setback. I mean, there's a number of things, right?

Correct. But typically when I receive a variance request, I will also verify that it is not in conflict with any state law or any other regulation before I move it forward. So as soon as he told me what the issue was, I said, that's going to be a no. And then it proceeded from there.

Okay, thank you, Danielle.

Mr. Englehart, did you want to have a comment?

The only thing I can say is there was an existing driveway out there, and that's how come I told him he could have a driveway permit. And so we issued him the driveway permit. And then we were visiting about the building. And I told them we need to find the property pins. And I offered to come back the next day and find the property pins to make sure the building was not on County Roderick.

And you did. But the property pins, the dimensions he brought to find the property pins do not match my current survey. Because he was going off what the county had prior to updating my survey.

And then I told the gentleman that, hey, he called me the next day and he said he knew exactly where the property line was at, that I didn't need to come back. And I didn't go back. We didn't really discuss the plans, because there were no plans of the lean-to or whatever. I guess I made a comment that I shouldn't have made because he was asking about encroachments in the right-of-way, and there were some. And I told him, yes, there probably are some in Guadalupe County, but until something takes place and the county's not going to go out there and do a survey on everything that you may think is in the right-of-way because it may not be there. So how much money is the county going to spend, especially down on the riverfronts and so forth? And that's kind of where this all led to. And I apologize that I didn't make a comment that was exactly clear to him that you cannot construct something

I mean, it's still, I mean, my understanding of your conversation, you and I have talked separately as well with the same thing that it's more of a retroactive, like there are probably some things that are in the right of way at some point in the county. However, we don't go around policing, but if someone does call that to our attention as it's been called to our attention, then we do go out or if a neighbor does complain. then we do go out and look, and then it is at that point our obligation to make a determination of whether or not there is a structure in the right-of-way and for liability purposes. That's my impression of our conversation, and I wanted to make sure that was clear.

Yes. I know that when he emailed Mr. Engelke, he put in there that I said it may become an issue if there's something encroaching on the right-of-way. Is that correct?

I'm just something to that. It's close to that. But I mean, I wrote that email probably.

Yeah, no.

I was just intending to send it to you copying. I'm simply trying to garner as much support for this as I obviously could and try to get ahead of it as fast as possible.

It's never a problem to email another commissioner if you would like to communicate with them. I don't have any sort of issue with that. I saw the email as well. Commissioner Engelke did forward that to me. And it's not, you know, I want you to understand, Mr. Franks, that none of us want to tell anybody what they can or cannot do with their property. But one of the things that we have been actively working on as a court is our transportation plan. And in that transportation plan, we've been talking about and anticipating the expansion of some of our county roads as our county continues to grow. Now, a lot of places such as this location right here in Riley Road, you have bigger tracts of property and less landowners because it's a lot of families and people that have been there for a long time. But we are seeing all over the county where pieces of property sell and more— either businesses or more homes come in where there is a more dense flow of traffic and or just the location. So quite simply, you're looking at this being a connector between I-10, you know, and another busy road in Seguin. And so if we do have a situation where we have more flow of traffic and we have to exercise use of our expanded right-of-way, the county has to be able to do that. And if we have a structure, these poles so close to where that right-of-way expansion would be, we wouldn't be able to expand our lanes at all

I completely understand where you're coming from, and I would absolutely agree with you, except for this situation. You're talking about Riley Road being a feeder between 90 and 10. This is not on Riley Road.

And I'm aware it's not. I know it's on Rose. I have been there. I have looked at that property physically myself.

And if you expanded Rose or Sunset or Dawn, all that loop that goes around behind... would be cutting into the already minimal amount of driveway that my current residence has and this driveway this driveway is 15 feet deep the driveway that i have on my house is like 17 feet deep i have to park diagonal across them anyway so i mean the purpose of the lean-to was just to be able if i need to get something up underneath there to keep the hail off something or protect my boat you know whatever it's not It's aesthetic as well, but it also gives me the minimal amount of protection. The house that the residence was expanded prior to my purchasing it. I bought it as is. I accept that. However, I don't think it's wrong for me to try to provide as much safety for the property that I do have as possible.

And Mr. Franks, I'm hoping we can end up seeing eye to eye on this, and I fear that we may not. But I want, in thinking about this and in truly considering, you know, in wanting to let people do what they want to do to the extent that we can, if we allow this, then how could we not allow everybody else to do the same thing?

I understand you're talking precedence. But I mean, precedence is one thing. This does not have to establish a precedence. I've driven around the neighborhood and some of the other areas. All other residences, I'm extremely unique in the way mine is set. There is not another situation in this entire neighborhood that is the same as mine. All the original lots, they were all full depth. Houses were built much farther back from the streets. They all face forward. They all face the main road. There's not any other ones that have the same situation as mine. It's a one-off. It is not a typical situation as any of the rest of the houses in this neighborhood or any of the other little surrounding ones that I've driven around to. It is not typical.

Commissioner, I'd And Mr. Franks, I appreciate the conversation today. I know this is a challenging situation for you and what you're in. I know just for me, my concerns are too great to overcome to be able to support this. For the encroachment issue, the precedent, even a road widening of simplest fashion does not give the county the ability to try to maintain a public environment benefit of any kind in that way with those polls there I feel for you I do apologize and I'm sorry if the county created any any additional problems with anything less than very clear communication but at the same time I don't think we have complete liability in that either because we don't have that permit process it wasn't written you had a conversation asking somebody about that generally without plans without all those things sitting there going we went out and gave you written approval for a driveway permit not a written approval and a yes. You said multiple times, nobody gave me explicit, you know, approval, but nobody said I couldn't do it. That sounds, no, and I understand, I'm just saying, that sounds like you pushing the limit as a landowner to say, let me see what I can, how far I can get, right?

Sir, I understand exactly where you're coming from, and believe me, I stated it here, and I 100% back it up. If anything, I'm not trying to push anything. I want to do things the right way. And I felt I had done all the diligence that I could and asked all the right questions. The lack of a process within the road and bridge department, it's not my fault. And it's not. And like I said, I'm not trying to push. There wasn't anything else unless somebody was going to give me a written email to specifically give me permission.

Well, Mr. Frank, briefly, the road and bridge department doesn't have a process for this type of thing because this type of thing is not within the bounds of the law or our processes. One of the reasons why I wanted you to be able to come to court today and talk to all of us about this is because of the impression that you had that the county had given you permission or at the very least said it's not a problem until someone complains. And from my conversation with Mr. Englehart and from what he said today, I don't feel that he has done that. I don't believe he had any sort of set of plans in front of him to make a determination on this. He's simply saying there probably are situations in the county where those types of things are there, but we don't, one of the road and bridges active duties is not to go around and pursue those things. So I don't feel Mr. Englehart has taken on any liability from anything he's said. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I think this is too much of a liability for the county seeing the structure and what it will be. And I don't, Road and Bridge wouldn't have a policy for this because we would be basically having a policy to allow people to build in our right of way, which we can't do. So it's not that Road and Bridge is deficient and then they don't have a policy. It's that we wouldn't have a policy for that. I hope that makes sense. Environmental health, that's different because there are a whole lot of other variables and structures and things they have to deal with, but it's much more complicated what Ms. Valdez is dealing with than driveway permits, and for that reason, again, Road and Bridge would not have a policy. We do not have a policy. It's not a deficiency. It's that we wouldn't carry a policy with, you know, this is how we can go against... standing policy I hope I hope that makes sense and I want to be sensitive to your concerns I do but I don't see how we can with all due respect allow this with the county taking on the amount of responsibility what if we did give you permission for this any other questions commissioners any other discussion or comments

Do we need to consider a motion on item A? I'll make a motion we denied the application. Second. Do we have a motion and a second to deny the variance request and action item A? Any other comments or questions? No, sir. Hearing no other discussion, all in favor of the denial say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion does pass. Thank you very much for the time. Yes, sir. All right, we'll move to item B. In accordance with Guadalupe County Travel Policy, authorization for Judge Squires to travel out of state for the following educational training, national judicial colleges designing and presenting courses effectively, a faculty development workshop September 28 through October 1, 2026 in Reno, Nevada. Commissioner Wolverton.

Judge, I have... An email from Ms. Elizabeth Beasley stating that we will offer CLE credits for this course, and I will talk to my registrar about the amount of CLEs when she is back later this week, which we have not received anything from her CONCERNING THAT, BUT THEN WE DID GET A LETTER FROM THE NATIONAL JUDICIAL COLLEGE PRESIDENT, AND IT CLEARLY STATES, PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THE WORKSHOP IS A FACULTY DEVELOPMENT AND INSTRUCTIONAL SKILL PROGRAM DESIGNED FOR JUDICIAL EDUCATORS WHO WANT TO IMPROVE THEIR TEACHING SKILLS. Further says, as the content does not constitute substantive legal education, the program does not qualify for continuing legal education credits in the state of Texas. Further down, it says, participants attaining this workshop should not expect to receive Texas CLE credits for participation in this course. The program focuses on professional and instructional development rather than legal education applied to CLE accreditation requirements. So at that point, I admire the man for wanting to continue his education. It's wonderful, but just not using taxpayers' dollars. This is definitely going towards his Ph.D., and he makes over $229,000 a year, and he should be able to pay for that for his schooling, actually, especially if it's nothing that actually benefits the taxpayers of Guadalupe County.

I know Judge Squires wanted to be here, but he had a very busy docket this morning. I talked to him at the end of last week, and he texted me yesterday. I was unable to get back to him. I do apologize for that. I know Khalees is here also. For me, it... I was confused because Judge Squires forwarded the email to us stating that he did get that. And all he did was copy the email he received from the National Judicial College. And then we have another correspondence from somebody else at National Judicial College that says he doesn't get CLEs. And for me, it's very simple. I mean, we could debate all the details and comments about training and benefits and what's tied to the job and what the... For me, if you get CLEs, I support it. If you don't, it's hard to explain while we're approving something that isn't connected to the job. But even after these two things, I'm still confused. Does he get CLEs for it?

As far as I can tell, I mean, the email that we got back was, yes, he wrote a statement, if you want me, if I can read that.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. Judge Kutcher and commissioners, I regret, excuse me, I regret I cannot address you personally today. I have a full docket including contested family law cases in Guadalupe, excuse me, county residents. Sorry. THEIR ATTORNEYS AND WITNESSES ARE DEPENDING ON THE COURT TO HEAR THEIR MATTERS. I APPRECIATE YOUR INTEREST IN MY COURT AND YOUR CAREFUL STEWARDSHIP OF COUNTY FUNDS, PARTICULARLY A CHALLENGING BUDGET YEAR. THE CONFUSION ABOUT CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION CREDIT ARISES FROM QUESTIONS IN COMMISSIONER'S COURT ON SEPTEMBER 3rd ABOUT WHETHER THIS COURSE WOULD QUALIFY FOR TEXAS CLE CREDIT. On September 4th, I requested clarification from the NJC on the CLE issue. After I requested this clarification, the college program manager advised me in writing on September 8th, quote, yes, we will offer CLE credit for this court with the number of hours to be confirmed. I forwarded that response to every member of this court on September 9th and asked whether additional information was needed. The value of this training, however, extends beyond credit hours. This program develops the teaching and communication skills of judicial educators, skills that strengthen our service to the public and our ability to educate other judges. Continued professional development is an investment in better public service. Having a member of our judiciary participate in a national program of this kind reflects well on Guadalupe County and is an opportunity our community can take pride in. My reimbursement request is limited to airfare and one meal per day. I respectfully ask for your support based on the training's professional value and its benefits to the people of Guadalupe County. Thank you for your consideration, Judge Bill Squires. and then I just had the copies of the emails from Judge Squires to Elizabeth Morgan, which he sent on September 4th, and Elizabeth Morgan replied to Judge Squires on September 8th, and then he sent y'all the email on September 9th. So I'm not sure. I mean, it's conflicting, but, you know, he was told that he got CLE. I don't believe he's getting that, as you say, Commissioner Wolferton, to his Ph.D. No.

Yeah, well, it's...

THAT'S JUST CONTINUING EDUCATION.

NEW SPEAKER They offer the Ph.D. THROUGH STUDIES OF MASTER AND DOCTORAL DEGREE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, CORRECT? NEW SPEAKER I'M NOT SURE ABOUT THAT. NEW SPEAKER IT'S RIGHT HERE ON THE NATIONAL JUDICIAL COLLEGE WEBSITE.

NEW SPEAKER I'M JUST A MESSENGER, SO I'M NOT GOING TO ARGUE WITH YOU.

NEW SPEAKER IT'S NOT ARGUING. IS HE HOLDING CLASSES? IS HE TEACHING?

NEW SPEAKER NO, NOT RIGHT NOW. HE'S IN COURT.

NEW SPEAKER EVEN IF HE'S NOT IN COURT, IS HE HOLDING CLASSES AND TEACHING? I DON'T THINK SO. HE DOESN'T HAVE A DEGREE YET.

I THINK HE COULD, ACTUALLY. YEAH, I THINK HE COULD. BUT I'M NOT SURE ABOUT THAT. YOU COULD ASK HIM YOURSELF.

ALL I KNOW IS WE HAVE CONFLICTING LETTERS, ONE FROM A STAFF MEMBER, ONE FROM THE PRESIDENT. I WOULD BELIEVE THE PRESIDENT FOR THE STAFF MEMBER BECAUSE WE NEVER GOT A FOLLOW-UP THAT SHE SAID SHE WAS GOING TO GIVE US AFTER SHE TALKED TO HER, LET'S SEE, MY REGISTER.

Have you seen the email that we got from the letter that was correspondence back? Yes. Yes. OK, you've seen it.

Yes. Was it sent to Judge Squires too, or just to y'all?

I don't know. I had a copy of this up here yesterday. I didn't have it sent to me. It was just a copy handed out. I don't know who has seen this. That's why I was asking. Do you all have a copy of this?

I don't actually have a copy of it. No, not with me. But I know that there was some email sent from what Mr. Wolverton just said.

This is a letter on request that I've asked for the district attorney to find out, you know, is this accredited or is it not accredited? And this is the letter he got back for me.

Okay. We're going off of what someone told us from the college, too, so it's not like somebody's trying to slide a hand. I understand that.

No, it's just the fact is, you know, you have one from a staff member. I have one from the president.

I'm a taxpayer, too, so I help pay our salaries, so I wouldn't want him to be doing that myself. As we all are in this room. Yeah, every one of us. Yes, I know. Yes, sir. Clearly. Clearly.

Any other thoughts, questions? Well, it just sounds conflicting. I don't know how. Yeah, I don't know how to.

I mean, we would need to talk to someone, obviously. Because we've got yes, you all have got no, apparently.

Yeah.

I mean, I thought really fast. We did receive a copy of this letter dated September 3rd to Ms. Hall. And I do see where this is saying it does not qualify for CLE in the state of Texas. And then subsequent to that, Judge Squires receives an email five days later that from online learning program manager, it says he will receive credit for this course, that he will receive CLE credit for this course. So that's hard because if this is the information that he's working with and I understand why he came and said the things that he said and that it's a CLE credit course, and I don't know why he would have any reason to think Other than that, or why we as a court would have any reason to think other than that with the information that we've received, which is, I believe, why the court voted the way they did. I don't know what to say about this, because this is two different messages being sent from the same organization. So that's unfortunate that we're all caught in the middle of this, because I understand the concern, but We also have the same organization saying something different. It seems like we need to have a consensus from that organization with both of these individuals on an email saying the same thing for us to be able to make a good decision.

I was going to ask, I mean, it seemed like every, I mean, we've already approved this last court, right? If everybody's okay with still approving it based on our prior action, but with the judge receiving CLEs, and we're fine, but I was going to throw this out there. Why don't we just, can we do something today saying if he gets CLEs that the county moves forward and reimburses it. If he doesn't get CLEs and doesn't submit that in, then he has to pay for it himself.

You can. I think the mix-up may be coming in using the word CLE. So CLE is continuing legal education, which can be very broad. Any kind of legal education, whoever's putting it on can classify it as a CLE. Texas REFERS TO ACCREDITED CLE CREDITS OR MINIMUM CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION CREDITS AND I THINK THAT THAT SO WHILE ONE LETTER MAY SAY THAT HE'S NOT GETTING TEXAS CLE CREDITS BUT HE IS GETTING CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION CREDITS IF THEY'RE CALLING IT CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION AS A UNIVERSITY OR AS A NATIONAL JUDICIAL COLLEGE THEN THEY CAN CALL IT CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION AND THEY'RE GETTING CREDITS AS CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION BUT IT MAY NOT BE accredited Texas continuing minimum continuing legal education credits and the state bar has said that because our office was asked to about the credits and we saw the conflicting letters and so we just went to the source who in Texas actually gives the accreditation or approves these courses the state bar said that in 2018 an attorney requested Texas MCLE credits for this course. And at that time, it was the course was denied because it wasn't because it was teacher type training and not legal training. And so I think that that's the distinction. We broadly use the word CLE. Texas CLE approved towards your mandatory continuing legal education may be different than just general term continuing legal education.

So this National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada, the CLEs might be considered towards their degree? and not something in the state of Texas, correct?

Correct. And it says on a lot of their flyers, because I've seen their flyers come across each time the judge puts this on. And it says, you can receive up to so many hours of CLE for this. And it said, but for any states, you have to apply independently, et cetera, et cetera. And there is a process in Texas for out-of-state training, for unaccredited out-of-state training, that if you complete the training, then you can submit a nonrefundable, it's like a $25 fee, I think, requesting credit. And at that point, the CLE or MCLE department board determines whether or not you should receive credit after you've taken the course.

So would that be a more valid question? Somebody on the phone? I think it's Patton.

Yes, commissioners. This is Patton Sarato with the county attorney's office. If I may jump in and clarify somewhat. Yes, sir. Go ahead. I spoke directly with the MCLE department in Austin about this particular course. And they've said that this course will not receive CLE credits. And what Mr. Tice was referring to was back in 2018, a State Bar member attempted to get credit for this, and they denied it based on two of the accreditation standards that are in their accreditation standards and that are current as of April 24th, 2026. Those standards were standard 2A, which reads, which defines what is a CLE-credited activity. And they say that the activity consists of an organized program of legal education dealing with, one, substantive or procedural subjects of law, two, legal skills and techniques, three, legal ethics and or legal professional responsibility, or four, law practice management. Okay. And so they were saying it did not fit that definition. And that there is a section 3D which says a CLE activity shall not be accredited for MCLE in Texas if it is, D, an activity that is intended to teach non-legal skills such as training in the use of hardware, office equipment, or non-legal software. general communication skills such as public speaking, individual money management or investing, career building, rain making and marketing skills, supervisory or general office management skills. And if you notice it says such as. So on those two bases, this particular course, this specific course was denied. So while we have conflicting information from the National Judicial College, The state bar of Texas is clear, and I believe has settled the matter. This course will not receive CLE credit. Now, they can always apply for it, but there is precedent in this case in 2018 where they specifically denied this particular course, and I don't imagine that it's changed.

But we don't know that either, right? I mean, not trying to be picky, but we're hanging on a request from 2018 and two conflicting corresponding emails and letters, right?

No, Judge, I don't think so, because the email to me reads as follows. This course was submitted by an attorney as a member request back in 2018. The course was denied for 2A and 3D. The National Judicial College has never applied for this course and at this time hasn't applied for the course being held on 9-28-26 to 10-1-26. I've included the new accreditation standards. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance. So the State Bar of Texas has said that there has not been an application for this. So out-of-state people have to apply for pre-approval. And Ms. Morgan Beasley, the person that Judge Squires received the email from, has told me herself on the phone that they don't seek pre-approval. And the state bar has said that they haven't applied thus far. So it will not receive credit.

So it didn't just cite the 2018 request. It was also specifically pointing out that they haven't asked for the conference on these specific dates.

Right. They haven't currently... applied for credit for this CLE. And my conversations with Ms. Morgan Beasley, who works for the vice president of that organization, has stated that they don't seek pre-approval. Now, the letter that you have in front of you was sent to our office by Tony Ramirez, who's the executive assistant to the president of that organization. So in terms of support staff, I believe she's higher up on the command chain than Ms. Morgan Beasley, who sent the email to Judge Squires.

I'm also wondering, you know, I think the judge's suggestion in regard to if Judge Squires comes back with the ability to use this as continuing legal education, I don't have an issue with that. I know that, you know, as far as reporting yearly for our attorney hours, we are able to report at least three hours of self-study. I've called the bar several times on that person. personally in reporting my own hours, and I know that you can do that for quite a few things. One of them would be teaching classes. One of them is attending certain classes. One of them is just self-study and preparation for work. And so I'm not sure if this would apply to that or not. I know every time I've called and brought certain situations and myself being adjunct faculty for Municipal Courts Education Center. And the classes that I teach there, I have actually been able to claim credit for that personally. Now, granted, that was in the state of Texas, but the bar has always given myself permission for that. Again, I don't think we have enough information. I don't really want to weigh the importance of one executive assistant to another member in the judicial college. I'm not sure that's within the purview of this court to be looking at those types of things. I think it could be as simple as what the judge has said. If Judge Squires can receive CLE credit, then great, let's reimburse him. And if he can't, then that's another issue. I DON'T KNOW, I'M HONESTLY QUITE CONFUSED ABOUT WHY WE'VE GONE SO DEEP INTO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE. WE'VE NEVER REALLY SCRUTINIZED THIS AS HEAVILY. AND I SEE THAT, I UNDERSTAND MR. ZARATE WHAT YOU'RE SAYING ABOUT REMEMBER REQUESTS BEING DENIED BACK IN 2018. without having all the details on that and without knowing whether or not they will apply afterward the NJC to receive CLE credit. I don't believe that this court is in a position to take action on this based on a lot of vague and conflicting information and at this point some hearsay.

Well, we can go one step further. This will be his 11th time to the National Judicial College. And according to the State Bar of Texas, not one of these 11 courses has been accredited for continuing education in the state of Texas. In that time, he spent taxpayer's money $22,014.26. Now, if he can't show CLEs on this, are we going to request that money back?

I don't know, Commissioner. This is not something that I've ever you know, needed to look into as a member of this court.

The whole thing is, if you don't get CLEs, according to the state of Texas, it's going to help you in the state of Texas and Guadalupe County. We shouldn't be paying for it. It shouldn't be on the back of the taxpayers. So, Judge, I'm going to make a motion that we deny. Action item B.

Yes, sir.

There's a motion to deny the out-of-state travel and reimbursement.

Judge Squires, I'm sorry.

No, let me see.

He said he did get.

Khalees, let me see if I can get a second. No, you're good. Then we can have discussion. We do have a motion. Is there a second? There is a motion. Is there a second? Really need more information. All right, then that motion fails at the moment. I apologize. No, go ahead. You're fine. You're good.

He did get CLE for all of them. He said he got CLE for all NJC classes. And I'm sorry, I'm reading the text. It does not count towards his PhD or a PhD. He gets CLE for teaching classes, which this will help him do. But then he just said that he did get the CLE for all of the NJC classes.

Sorry, I don't know.

I guess I'm just kind of thrown out there.

No, you're fine.

But I think, in my opinion, it's just a taxpayer, too. I mean, I would just find out more information. To me, it's just conflicting emails coming from the same entity. But that just seems common sense to me. And it kind of seems strange that, as a taxpayer, we're up here, you all are talking about this in such depth. I've never heard that before.

We did have a motion. It did fail to receive a second. Are there any other motions to consider and or discussion?

Well, I like your idea before, Judge, on clarification and verification. Once we get that, if that AND I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU WOULD SIGNIFY IT WOULD BE A STATE OF TEXAS CLE DESIGNATION? BECAUSE AS YOU STATED, STEVEN, CLEs CAN BE STATED IN DIFFERENT WAYS. SO IF WE WERE TO GET VERIFICATION THAT THE STATE BAR OF TEXAS ACCEPTS THE CLEs AND THERE'S REIMBURSEMENT, IS THAT FAIR TO SAY?

So it is. I mean, as attorneys, we can go log on our bar page and click a transcript, and it tells us what all we have credit for. It's easy to find. And so if that's the verification you're looking for, that's something that is easy for us as attorneys to see the transcript of all the classes that we've taken. And so if that's the verification you're looking for for Texas, then it would be a Texas CLE credit or MCLE credit, minimum continuing legal education.

Okay.

So restate the motion referencing item B with that added to it. Is that appropriate for what we're discussing?

Steven?

Just one second.

Oh, now we're getting the auditor involved.

I think you could authorize the out-of-state travel with the reimbursement contingent upon the state of Texas CLE certification or verification of Texas CLE.

Yeah, so I mean, the authorization to go out of state, I mean, that's already, I think he's already registered for it. It's a scholarship. So the only thing I'm seeing on this end is just reimbursed for the travel. and one meal a day or something.

And that's what, based on our last conversation, seemed like everybody, I mean, yes, there were questions, but it's like, well, if you get CLEs, it's fine. If that was the hinge point, that's why I threw that out there. I'm like, okay, if he gets CLEs, then we're good. And if he doesn't, then you tell him it's on him. Seems pretty simple. Really. Okay, so...

In accordance with Guadalupe County Travel Policy, moved to approve the authorization for jet squires to travel out of state for the following education training, the National Judicial Colleges Designing and Presenting Courses, effectively a faculty development workshop, September 28th through October 1st, 2026 in Reno, Nevada. with reimbursement of travel and daily meal expenses to be reimbursed based on verification and certification of state CLE credits. Is that proper, Steven?

I believe that covers what you're trying to do.

Okay. All right, there is a motion. Is there a second?

I'll second.

All right, we have a motion and a second on item B. Any other comments or questions?

No, sir. Thank you for being here.

All right, hearing no other discussion, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. That motion does pass four yays and one nay. Commissioner Wolverton, thank you. All right, we'll move to item C, review the bid results and award the contract for IFB 26-18, Lenny Road Improvements. The lowest responsible bidder, Clark Construction. Mr. Cunningham.

Good morning. Morning. This project was budgeted in the fiscal 20-year budget in the capital projects under contractor road repair. The plans and specifications were produced by Freeland Turk Engineering. Commissioners Court approved the order to advertise and specifications on August 4th with the IFB being published to our electronic bidding site and sent to an additional 747 potential vendors. This closed on September 2nd with eight submissions received with Clark Construction being the lowest responsive bidder. There were three alternates included with alternate two being a Guadalupe County bidder subgrade widening alternates one and three were in the new berlin as city limits and they would be responsible for reaching out to the vendor if they wanted to do that and take care of it themselves that was the conversation we had where they could piggyback to try to you know get the the benefit of the economies of scale bidding it all at the same time right yes sir right

I know Clark Construction has done some asphalt overlay for the county in the past and I think did a very good job on, I think it was Huber Road. Did they do Barbarossa also, Mike? Correct.

Yes, sir. They have done, for us, they've done Huber and Barbarossa Road. Okay.

A different company did Ilka, right? Yes, sir. Okay. I mean, they were very timely. I mean, the work looked like it was done well and it's held up.

It's held up quite good.

Right.

And just kind of clarify a little bit on the New Berlin side. Freeland and Turk has reached out several times to the city of New Berlin to see if they would want to participate in this, and they've never had any response back from them. But it is out there for them to have that offer if they want to piggyback off of it.

All right. Thank you for that. Some really tight bidding.

I'll say the numbers are tight on those final bid numbers. Mm-hmm.

Well, everybody's scrambling for work.

Thank you to all the companies who spent the time to bid. It's nice to see the competitiveness.

Yeah, it really is.

I move to approve the contract for IFB 26-18, Lenny Road improvements to Clark Construction. Second.

We have a motion and a second on action item C.

Any other discussion? I just wanted to be noted again what Mr. Brooks has said. We have REACHED OUT TO NEW BERLIN AND SAID, YOU KNOW, OUR CONTRACTOR WILL BE THERE IF YOU WANT. AND IT'S NOT NECESSARILY THEY HAVE TO REBUILD A ROAD. IT COULD BE, YOU KNOW, CLARK SAYS WE'LL PATCH A FEW HOLES FOR YOU. I'M JUST USING A SIMPLE APPROACH. THIS IS AVAILABLE TO YOU. WE PUT THAT IN OUR SORT OF IN OUR BIDDING PROCESS.

Yes, sir. Freeland and Turk did reach out to them, and they put this into their plan for City of New Berlin to look at, but they also reached out to them in respect of whatever work they wanted to do regardless of what it was. If it was a rebuild or just patching or however they wanted to handle it, they had that opportunity to talk with that contractor.

Yeah, it wasn't like locked into completely us. Yes, that's correct. Yes, sir.

All right, we do have a motion and a second. Any other comments or questions? Hearing no other discussion, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. That motion does pass. Commissioner Ott had to step out, so that's just for... All right, we'll move to item D, change order number one to the contract with Alert Roof Systems for RFP 25-17, metal storage structures for a three-hour firewall for the central yard location. Mr. Brooks.

Yes, sir. This is a budget amendment. I want to see about moving some money. It was unexpected. It wasn't in the direct plans, but the size of the building required a firewall to be built in this because it was over 10,000 square feet. So we had to build a firewall in between this here to accommodate the permits that was required. as an additional $35,000 cost for the construction of this firewall. We had some money left over in our capital outlay as far as what we did for the well. So some of the funds, about $11,142 was used out of the funds that was left over from the well. So I'm asking for a $23,858 to be pulled out of our fund balance to make the $35,000 to make the new contract, amended contract to $1,065,000.

Is that firewall going to split the building in half?

Yes, sir.

Is it enclosed with doors on the front or is it still?

Yes, it is going to be enclosed with doors in the front. The firewall that is being structured in there will have a door in it to go to proceed from side to side on that side.

And after some of the discussions we had today, I was waiting for you to go, no, we left the front open, but the fire code still says we have to put a firewall in it.

No, it will have doors on it.

Thank you, Mike.

Any other questions? The construction is just going to be two layers of sheetrock, or is it going to be foam, or how are they doing it?

They are doing it with sheetrock. With sheetrock? So, yes, but it's going to be a three-hour firewall.

Yeah, which is usually two half-inch, actually three layers of 5-8. Yeah, 5-8, so. They're expensive for sheetrock. It's a big building. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, basically one layer is equivalent to an hour.

Yeah, so they double it up.

Correct.

It would be required to have a three-hour burn.

Yeah, I guess because of the commercial use that we have. Okay, move to approve the change order number one to the contract with Aylor Roof Systems for RFP number 25-17 metal storage structures for a three-hour firewall for the central yard location.

Second. Do have a motion and a second on action item D. Any other discussion? Hearing no other questions or comments, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Hearing no opposition, that motion passes. We'll move to Item E, Revisions to the Guadalupe County Employee Personnel Policy regarding Section 4.10, Longevity Pay.

Commissioners, where would we like to start with the conversation? I've got a couple questions I have on us, Mr. Douglas. How many years has this policy been in place?

Mr. Douglas.

Is it still morning? Morning. Hey, good morning.

Good morning. The longevity policy has been in place since 2014 with the one year of continuous service.

In that time, has there been any issues with that?

No, there has not been any issues. So that's why I'm a little confused why this is on the agenda to change it to six months.

Well, the old saying, if it's not broke, don't fix it. So that's that.

I know as part of the budget discussion, I mean, I voice my concerns, but just for everybody, if not familiar, right, we've got our normal longevity that is $5 per month that employees are able to receive for their longevity, but they don't receive until after three years.

Three years, yes, sir.

We added the additional longevity base multiple years, right, starting in 14, 15 budget year. And the idea was to still promote longevity, but to try to get more county employees involved in that benefit to help motivate that longevity. So we kept the three-year side and the additional longevity base. You had to be here a year to be able to receive it.

Exactly, as of October 1.

As of October 1.

Yes, sir.

And then that discussion kind of changed a little bit this year. I think we were talking about a single position, but also... Just as importantly, it got tied into part of that conversation when we were not sure if we could afford a COLA, trying to include more employees. What does that look like? Now, as I stated before, I have a concern with it because I've had individual conversations with employees who weren't able to receive that longevity. Had to tell them, I'm sorry, we can't give that to you because we have to have a cutoff and didn't want to just give it to anybody who'd been here three weeks when somebody had been here 23 months, 22 months getting that same thing. But just, again, wanted to kind of just go back through some of that discussion that we've had in the past and also this year and it's discretion of the court it just it does in my opinion make it a little bit messy if it switches every year to change that for applying the rules to trying to keep a consistent standard but then also have an expectation for employees of when they start and who gets the benefit and who doesn't and what that looks like

Because there has been in the past where there's been employees that has missed it by one or two days because October 1st fell on a weekend.

Those are usually the people you all probably have conversations with and I've had conversations with.

Yes, they call us and we have to explain to them because they weren't hired or started as of October 1st. BECAUSE IT WAS A WEEKEND, THEIR START DATE WAS OCTOBER 3rd, WHICH WAS A MONDAY, SO THEY MISSED IT, SO THEY WEREN'T ABLE TO GET THE BASE LONGIVITY BECAUSE OF THEIR START DATE. WE DID A LITTLE TESTING, TRIED TO COME UP WITH SOME NUMBERS FOR YOU GUYS, AND IF YOU MOVE TO THE SIX MONTHS, IT'S GOING TO COST AN ADDITIONAL $59,000 FOR FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES AND ABOUT $4,500 FOR PART-TIME.

So is that, I mean, I guess with the 1,000, it's an extra 59 positions? Yes.

And it would be a little more difficult for the part-timers just because they have to average 24 hours to work.

24 hours of pay period, but on a consistent basis, right? Yes. Because when we originally implemented that, we talked about the challenge of temporary Not temporary workers, but part-timers who had more of a seasonal kind of work schedule where they were busier for a period of the year but then weren't busy at all or didn't work at all other times of the year.

Yes, they could take vacation or something or maybe when it's busy, you know, during June, July. Right. So if you're talking about the six months, it's probably going to affect the part-time employees.

It depends on what. snapshot of the work schedule you look at to create that criteria, right? Yes.

Am I missing anything? Am I missing anything?

Okay. You're up there all by yourself, kid.

I guess so. Chris, did you want to add anything? I know you had some questions as well.

That's why you get the big bucks. I do have a part-timer and have had regular part-time and greatly appreciate that from the court because they are absolutely, part-timers have been worth their weight in gold and a huge asset to the county. With the six months, if we're only looking at April through September, We could have somebody, I had a previous person who would take off. She worked more in the other time periods, but it's, I don't know. It's numbers and it's accounting and there's a lot to it.

Yes. And the other thing I want to add as well, excuse me, Chris, is that we would have to set up a rule set. So in New World, we have to set up a rule for the six months to be able to calculate the full-time and part-time people, but there's still going to be manual entries, manual calculations for the part-time people. So it's harder with the six months than it is with the one year. So we've already kind of like, you know, worked those kinks and bugs out for the one year continuous. But the six months is going to be like starting all over again.

Any other discussion?

It was my impression that during our budget conversation, because we decided that we were unable to regrade anyone and that there were very few new positions that we were willing to explore because of the difficulties that we experienced this year that this was something that we agreed to do and I believe a majority of the court did express agreement to doing this at least for this year to change the policy this year to help those individuals that we otherwise anticipated possibly being able to regrade or have new positions to decrease the workload. But, you know, due to that not being possible, I thought that was why we did this. And because it needed to be done as a change in policy, we had agreed to put it on the next agenda as that was the only way to make this happen. So I am a little confused about why we would not be doing this as we expressed a majority was in agreement with it at that time. And I think that that was part of the overall budget discussion and agreement that we had. I'm also a person that started in October back in 2014. So I didn't get it. And I'm fine with that not applying to other people and some people getting it. You know, this year, I know that this year was more difficult than other years, and that's not a big deal to me. And I'm sorry for people that would be upset that other people got it this year, but I think that they would need to understand that this year was a little bit different. We were met with some unique challenges, and this is, again, an attempt for the county to take care of our employees.

Can I ask a question, because I want to make sure I understand you. Yes. Are you talking about changing it now to the six months, because there were some employees that were not able to get an adjustment because of the county's financial situation, and then changing it back next year?

The only conversation that we had, to my recollection, or at least maybe this is just my impression, so maybe clear about that, is that during September 1st, during our budget for hearing agenda item, that we were willing to change it to six months specifically for this. Now, I don't know that we tied up any loose ends about future years, but I didn't think we necessarily committed to it being six months always going forward. Now, I'm open to whatever the court wants to discuss about that. I was focused on this one for this particular situation.

Any other thoughts on that?

I do have a quick question. If the court is going to consider amending the policy, can we actually look into what we are considering the continuous service for a year? And the reason I bring that up is I know there's FURTHER DOWN IF A PART-TIME EMPLOYEE MOVES TO A FULL-TIME POSITION. BUT WE'VE HAD SCENARIOS WHERE MAYBE A FULL-TIME EMPLOYEE GOES PART-TIME AND COMES BACK FULL-TIME BUT THEY'VE BEEN WITH THE COUNTY AND DOES NOT GET THE LONGEVITY. MYSELF, I'M GOING TO BE HERE I THINK SIX YEARS OR HAVE BEEN HERE SIX YEARS AND I THINK I'M JUST GETTING MY THREE-YEAR $180. I think that if we do amend it, that would be something, because the continuous service has been interpreted different ways. And especially if employees move departments or move part-time to full-time, maybe that could be clarified. That happened to you, didn't it? Correct. Yes, ma'am. And you missed it, didn't you? Yes. And that was for going part-time for two months. So I know that it is for, like I said, part-time to full-time. But if there is some transition there, if we could define that, if we're going to clarify the policy.

Sounds like a can of worms right now. Judge, it's been working since 2014. I'm going to make a motion that we do not revise the Guadalupe County personnel policy regarding section 4.10, longevity pay.

Do you have a motion? Is there a second?

I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. to basically leave as is the longevity pay section 4.10 of the guadalupe county personnel policy any other comments or questions yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna comment on this because i'm on board with what commissioner aught was saying when we sat in the budget workshop uh

We had talked about that we have a significant number of people that have not been here very long. I don't have the list in front of me, but Dr. T had made it for me, and we were going to try to help them out via our longevity. bonus that we were going to give them. I don't have a problem with like what the commissioner is saying. If we you know, it sounds kind of weird, but but change it and then change it back. I don't have a problem with that. But but if we continue with our regular policy, that doesn't help out those short term employees. And And that was not what we discussed in our budget workshop. One question.

If you change it and change it back, what are you going to do to the people that get hired after that? Change it and change it back again? Well, that night we discussed. That's not what I'm asking what we discussed. I said if you have to change it and then next year you're going to change it back and then we get part-time people again, are you going to change it back to where it was what you want to do today and then go back again? Are we changing it every other year to take care of the new hires? That's what it sounds like to me.

Commissioner, with all due respect, it's not that easy changing it back and forth. It causes additional work on my payroll team in order to do this. It causes additional work for HR. So I don't know why it needs to be changed. It's been working just fine. But it will become an issue and a problem for us if we change this back and forth.

I don't disagree with that. But what I'm saying is we sat here in a budget process and we made a promise to some employees that had not been here very long. And if we do this right now, we're reneging on what we said we would do in the budget.

That's also my impression of it. And we made an overall agreement and reached an overall consensus. And this was part of the conversation. We had at least three court members saying they had no problem changing this to six months. That being part of the overall conversation and overall factor, I think, is what led us to our full budget conclusion that we all voted on. If we're switching that up, if some court members are switching that up today, certainly that's unfortunate. We can't control people saying they'll do one thing and then doing something else later at a different date. Unfortunately, I don't think that's the first time that this has come up with some payroll issues with us this year. I'm unwilling to do something differently than what I said. Now, if it's difficult to switch it back, I don't have a problem leaving it at six months. I don't have an issue with that either. You know, it may be a little extra work, and certainly I'm appreciative of all the work that everyone's doing. I am. But I also think that we need to do what we can to support our employees. That was a big part of our budget conversation. And I think that those that have been here at least six months that are working here, you know, everyone's at a squeeze. Everyone's shorthanded. You know, all the things we spent such a long time talking about. But we did have at least three members of this court, I believe, more talk about, being willing to do this, and that was part of the overall decision that we made, so I would be in support of it.

I do want to be clear that I was not one of those people. I voiced my concern during the workshop just like I'm voicing it today. I'm not going to speak for anybody else. I think it should stay at a year because originally when we talked about doing the additional longevity base to gain additional benefit to promote longevity, but to try to include more people, just like the conversation to go into the six months was already done from three years to one year. That was a big conversation and a big thing and a hill to climb, if you will, for us to get to a point. It's called longevity. Six months is not much longevity. Now, I understand completely why any court member would want to support that because it's a benefit and it includes additional employees. Like I stated during the workshop, my concern for support is just because I've had those individual conversations, tried to hold the line, so to speak, to promote that consistency and that approach year after year because this has been going on for over 10 years now and there's been a number of employees that have not gained that benefit that base because of that policy but that structure was there that consistency was there we handled everything the same way no matter what the situation was or who the person was I think there's a lot of credibility and a policy when that consistency and approach stays the same so for me that's I think probably use more words today, but that's what I stated before. And I think that's what I'm still in favor of doing today.

Appreciate it. Yes, sir.

So I know we do have a motion and a second. Any other comments, questions, or discussion, commissioners?

Was there a motion to approve or deny these revisions?

The motion was to deny the revisions and leave the personnel policy regarding longevity to pay as previous. Thank you. All right. Is that correct?

Yes, sir.

So, yes, we had the discussions during the budget workshops, consideration by myself. And so after going through the process, as I always do, you all know I do this, in relation to looking at every angle. So going back to the six, or going to the six-month, not back to the six-month, affects people who, like Ms. Douglas said, have already been through this process and it affects them, affected Commissioner Ott, as she had said. I did some research, got calls from people in reference to this, both in favor and against But just going through the process, trying to explain, well, at the time, the consideration was there. But after doing more research, as the judge stated, it's a longevity pay, just in the name itself. I'm leaning toward that other way. So I don't want to say I don't support employees, which I do. I think we were able to get the $1,000 and the 3%. Health insurance, as we've discussed, fully paid for employees, which is a benefit that may or may not exist in the future. And so I just, these are tough decisions that we have to make, and I appreciate what's being done, but I have to stick with where I'm headed with my decision on this.

Any other discussion? Comments? Okay. All right, we do have a motion and a second to deny or not approve the revisions and leave the policy as is with the one-year requirement for the additional longevity base. Hearing no other comments or questions, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Opposed. Opposed. All right, that motion does pass, three yays, two nays. Thank you, Linda.

Thank you.

All right, we're going to move to item F, to modify the public educational outreach slash events policy to include the veterans annual chili cook-off as an authorized event. May need Ms. Klein's assistance on this one. But over the years, we've had multiple departments start to do additional public outreach and educational type events. I think one of the first ones was environmental health doing Help me out. Earth Day. Thank you. Such a difficult title. I forgot. Earth Day, but built the, I mean, talked about recycling, built the birdhouses, did a lot of that downtown, set up the booth, actually won awards year after year, a number of things, talk about environmental impacts and all those things. But with that type of event goes hand in hand with some additional expenses and It also then turned into a fire marshal doing fire prevention week and outreach down like at the county fair, that interaction with the public. Again, we have a policy just so there were guardrails and standards set up so departments just didn't decide to to go out and do something that wasn't the same level of benefit, but then spend a considerable amount of funds. And the request is just to add the veterans annual chili cook-off for this. Didn't know else where to put the request, except in this structured policy. So we wanted to have this conversation and see if there were any thoughts, concerns, if everybody was okay with that request.

Well, same sign to me.

We do review these. The department would fill this out, explain and describe what the cost is, the itemized individual items. It's not a tremendous amount of money. Again, we're just trying to make sure that we're only spending funds on things that are actually needed, and the department communicates, and we go through and have that discussion. Danielle, I mean, was it a couple thousand dollars for Earth Day? I forgot what the amount was.

So for Earth Day we get $400 in there.

Okay, maybe it was $1,300 or $1,400 that we talked about for Fire Prevention Week.

I believe so.

I mean, it's a minimal amount of funds to get those booths and everything set up.

It is, and a lot of stuff, some staff will contribute to it, just to any shortfalls. But ours, obviously, we are required to do certain events for CRS credit, our new MS4 permitting and all those things. We have to turn those things into the state. That's why. But yeah, it is a minimum cost, and we have a great turnout, and it supports the community.

Well, thank you for that. So are these the only events, as per this thing, authorized events? Correct.

So that's what we, with somebody asking to do the same thing, we're like, should we have the list of events? Now, it may, yeah, as time goes on, more departments do more outreach and additional events. Maybe the policy needs to get changed instead of just having a single page in a form for these listed events. But as of right now, this is the only thing that's considered.

Could it say other events as approved by a commissioner's court, something like that? I don't know. I mean, it could, yeah. Where's Steven? Where is he going? I don't know. That's the only thing I see is just the limiting those three events, but either way, it's fine.

And haven't heard of any additional requests by departments for other events. Right. But we could do this if the court's in favor, and if other things come up, we could have a bigger discussion like that.

Yeah.

I don't think it's a big deal. I could support that.

Not hearing any other discussion, is there a motion?

Yeah, so move to approve the modification of the public outreach events policy to include the veterans annual chili cook-off as an authorized event.

Second. We have a motion and a second on action item F. Any other comments or questions? All right, hearing no other discussion, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Hearing no opposition, that motion passes. Item G, the resolution to commit a portion of the fund balance and general fund in accordance with Governmental Accounting Standards Board, or GASB, statement number 54. Chris Klein, how are you?

Good. How can I? I've updated it and changed it.

Chris, it's your favor there now.

Oh, OK. Great. Dynamic, exciting, short, brief presentation about things that are crazy exciting and important to commissioners court. And we're talking this morning about fund balance and about committed fund balance. And one of the things that we came up with a few years ago that was kind of an issue was how this committed fund balance resolution, how does it affect the county? What is it affecting? So what I thought we'd do today, and I will again try and be brief, but you know I have a problem with that because I'm pretty passionate about this, is fund balance and what does it actually affect. So Government Accounting Standards Board number 54 is what governs fund balance. And the GASB is what we call them, says that this statement established fund balance classifications that compromise a hierarchy based based primarily on the extent to which a government is bound to observe constraints imposed upon the use of resources reported in governmental funds. Well, that's not easy to understand. I said, but it is if you break it into pieces. So the governing body is what affects our fund balance of how we use our fund balance. And the fund balance is not a budget item. This is what is presented on your financial statements. And Commissioner Woolsey will remember when we implemented GASB 54. So we have two sets of balance sheets on your financial reports. And I can remember Jim saying, I know what two sets of balance sheets are. One you give the IRS, and we ought to give your wife. That was our joke. But in governmental financial statements, you do truly have two sets of financial statements. One is your government-wide. The other is your fund accounting. So your government-wide financial statements shows an overall financial position. And you'll notice on the screen that this is one column. This throws everything into one big pot of money. So you've got general fund and road and bridge and your forfeiture funds. Everything is included in here. It also includes things like land and building and bridges. So when you're looking at your equity, your net position, this isn't the fund balance we're looking at. So I have to stop sign up there. So when you look at your financial statements, this is important, especially when you're When we're going out to borrow money, the bond people are going to absolutely look at your government-wide statements. But as a commissioner's court, what we want to look at are your fund statements. And all of a sudden, we go from one big column, one big pool of money, to a little bit of pots of money. So we have the general fund in Rodenbridge and your capital projects fund. And then we've got courthouse security and forfeiture funds and grant funds. And all of these are in little self balancing set of financial statements. So Road and Bridge has its own cash balance. The courthouse security has your own cash balance. And they all have their own fund balances. And if you look at general fund, general fund takes and divides your fund balance into these new five different categories. And one of those is permitted. So I'm going to back up about two seconds here, because I talk about fund balance like we all know what fund balance is. Fund balance is a snapshot of what happens when you've brought in all your revenue and you've paid all your bills, what your ending balance is. And the analogy that I kind of liked that you're going to have to be over 50 to understand now, is that it's like your ending checkbook balance register. So if you have that, that's what your fund balance is. It's truly what your ending balance is. So that's what we're looking at, fund balance. And the Government Accounting Standards Board in Statement 54 has now divided that into five categories. So we used to have, prior to GASB 54, we had reserved and unreserved. Now we have five different categories that are on your financial statements. Non-spendable. For the county, that's going to be like inventory. Restricted. And you have a whole lot of funds that are restricted, like your road and bridge fund. Can't use road and bridge fund for the constables. It's got to go to roads and bridges. Courthouse security has to go to the, by statute, has to be spent on specific court-related security issues. So restricted is by somebody above us. So it's the law. It's grant funds. Somebody is telling us how we can or cannot spend the money. Committed is what we're here for today. Not to be committed, but to commit specific funds of your fund balance. It's what the governing body does on your financial statements. So this is about financial statements. It's not committing money to budget. It's not how we can spend the money. It's when you look at your annual comprehensive financial report, your annual audit, How are we telling the public you're using those funds? Assigned is going to be the next lower category. That's usually done by your auditor's office. And it's generally things like something that would be assigned was if we had bought vehicles in October, but they're still not in as of the end of September. That is money the county has I don't want to say committed, has already agreed to spend that money, and it wouldn't be considered unassigned.

It's already earmarked for a specific purpose.

That's earmarked. And then unassigned. That is when you're looking at what can the governing body use for any purpose that you are legally allowed to do. Committed is done by the governing body. It has to be done officially. It has to be done before the end of the year to be on your financial statements. It is hugely important when you're looking at those financial statements for the readers of the financial statements to understand where you're going to be and how you're going to spend your fund balance. I have a whole slide on just committed fund balance. It goes through your five categories again. And I have given you a draft of the committed fund balance that we'll look at next commissioner's court. But for example, what we have historically done is on any of the capital projects that you are budgeting for in the new fiscal year, you're telling the public, hey, we have $6,750,000 of capital projects that we are looking at in the new upcoming fiscal year. We need the public to understand that that money is coming out of fund balance. So the commissioner's court would make that commitment. We also self-insure the county and district clerk and indemnify the county payroll regarding to payroll rather than having specific bonds for them. My main takeaways for committed fund balance is it's how it's presented on your financial statements, does not have anything to do with budget, doesn't have to do how we spend money. Spending money is the budget process, your budget book, and your financial statements are a totally separate document. I didn't really... don't really need to take action today on it. We will, on the next commissioner's court, review the resolution. But I thought it was important to talk about committed fund balance, talk about fund balance in general, so that we have this exciting, fun, dynamic presentation on your financial statements. Because the governing body truly is the owner of these financial statements. And it's going to make a big difference going forward on borrowing money in major projects. Any questions?

Yes, we have questions. Well, I was going to say, I know you and I have talked about this. And with the court, we've kind of, I mean, I think scratched the surface, but it really is court discretion when you get to the assigned, that unassigned, unbalanced, right? Like you said, when it is non-spendable and restricted, I mean, it's out of our hands. We don't have discretion over any of that. When you get into the committed and assigned and unassigned, it's a different category for the county, right? We've gone past that, and I know we've had a committed... resolution for the fund balance and we update it and we add those things that we know are absolutely expenditures that are there. But we've also talked about is it proper to add additional things to that list? Yes. Now, if the court does add additional things, whether it be disaster recovery or mitigation or response efforts or additional funds for just ongoing operational expenses. Cash flow. Yeah, cash flow over 20% or 25% level. But something needs to be changed. The court has the ability to revisit this at any time, correct?

Anytime, absolutely.

So I don't think, I mean, personally, I don't think it's smart to just say, okay, we're going to create a new list that has all of our funds assigned to something, right, or committed to something. But also it doesn't make a whole lot of sense just to have a pot of money that sits there that doesn't have some thought and boundaries set up to say, okay, That's a big number here, but when you start carving all these things out that are truly needs and priorities, there's not as much left, right? So, I mean, court, I think we, as Chris said, we don't have to take any action today. Some of the conversation that her and I have had during the budget process going, okay, that 20% in the policy is really not as accurate as I think it should be because three months of operating expense is 25% of a budget with a general operating fund of $100 million. $20 million doesn't cover those three months. It takes at least $25 million to cover that. We've talked about a major flood or event coming up where, in the old days, $1 million went a long way. Now it doesn't. Based on timing and response and compliance with FEMA or disaster recovery, could it take an extended period of time to get funds back? Absolutely. We've talked at $5 and $10 million ranges. Bigger issues the county may have to address in the not too distant future with jail capacity, we have to house inmates somewhere. You build a bigger project, whether it be an adult detention facility and or a government center, and you have even a minor overage or change orders in that that's not covered by a bond, on a $200 million project, you can get into 5% overage and that's $10 million very quickly. So just some of the conversations and not to ramble on too long, but to just give a couple minute backstory. When I started the county, I think the county was always very conservative trying to keep low debt and the Commissioner Wolverton was on the court trying to be proactive with looking at facilities, major improvement projects, but really managing the funds to a level going, things are tight, but we need to have some funds here. What does that look like? Now you fast forward into the first couple years, 2012 into 13, when Rio Nogales Power Plant sold to CPS, City Public Service of San Antonio. There was a discussion on whether that project, because of its ownership, was going to become tax exempt. Long story short, the county, the city, and the school district signed an agreement with CPS and got 15 years prepayment of taxes to basically not contest that tax exempt status. And the county received $7.65 million in payment that we use for capital projects that offset our need to dip into what we're talking about today, back then. You move past that and we got into an issue with some detention officers at the jail where we were having a challenge hiring people, but we left those positions in the budget intentionally knowing the need was there. But if we did not fill those positions, there were funds available and we used those to purchase end-of-year vehicles for law enforcement, did a number of things. Now, people could argue you could have lowered taxes, but we would have been doing the seesaw thing back and forth CONSISTENTLY, AND I THINK WE TRIED TO BE PRETTY STRAIGHTFORWARD WITH THE PROCESS, BUT THAT WAS UNFILLED POSITIONS ARE A LARGE PART WITHIN DEPARTMENTS OF WHAT MAY GO BACK INTO FUND BALANCE AT THE END OF THE YEAR. THEN NEGOTIATIONS WITH WASTE MANAGEMENT FOR TIPPING FEES WHEN THEY MOVED OUT OF COMEAU COUNTY INTO GUADALUPE COUNTY. WILDLY WRONG ESTIMATES ON SALES TAX THAT I BLAME MYSELF AS MUCH AS ANYBODY ELSE WHERE The onset of COVID, people went out and spent money like crazy, and we thought that they wouldn't spend anything, and we underestimated revenues. When those extra funds came in, went into fund balance. All those reasons we're talking about helped grow a fund balance, but also at the same time that is running parallel, the need for additional facilities, the cost of construction, more activity in road projects and land purchases, facility. I mean, everything is going up. Plus we've had disasters that we've had to use funds out of, again, at much lower levels. But where I've voiced my concern in recent months is that now there's kind of this crossroad occurring where the spending and becoming more efficient as a county on utilizing funds and resources within departments is happening. where we have less of those bigger occurrences of putting more money into fund balances coming in. And it's not a bad thing. It's good to be efficient, to have the tax rate as low as possible, but also have a threshold and a buffer to be able to address emergencies and major needs and all those things. I just say all that to caution the court moving forward that's going to be here next year and a few years from now. We can talk about bonding and interest rates and all those things as well. It's just there may be a time in the not-too-distant future where more money is going out than what has come in historically, and when that happens, the fund balance isn't as strong as it is today. And it's just one of those things I think everybody just needs to keep an eye on. There's no perfect recipe. There's going to be things that the county has to address that we cannot absolutely foresee or tell in detail today. Hoarding a bunch of money is not a good conservative practice, but also spending blindly because we just have money sitting in a pot is not smart and prudent fiscal position either. So it's somewhere in between all those things. But that was the main takeaway on all that. There's a number of things that led us to have funds that we have today that have changed. But the good thing is, even if funds get assigned or committed, the court, if faced with this unique challenge in the future, needs to change that. And that's seven months from now. The court can visit that and change it, and it's at that court discretion. Just not in those top two, non-spendable and the restricted. As you can tell, Chris and I like talking about reserves and fund balance and all those things. But this is one of, for some it may be boring, but this may be one of the most critical and important resources that a commissioner's court has to be able to address problems that can come up not only within county departments, but that truly will affect the public for safety, for their well-being, for major events, for problems. I mean, all those things are encompassed in this fund balance conversation. So just wanted to throw that out there. Anybody have any questions, concerns, or want us to consider something else we're not talking about for when we bring this back?

No, I think it's the reason we got such a good bond rating is because we do have a good reserve. If we continue to take that down and down and down with the major, I guess, projects that would have come out, the new jail and the justice center, we need to have a good, healthy reserve so we get a good bond rating and excellent rates. If we don't, it's going to be extremely costly. It's our responsibility as commissioners and the judge to make sure that, you know, the county is taken care of. It's not going to be an easy one. Some people are going to just chastise us from one end to the other.

And as a commissioner's court, your job is never easy because you have so many different things that could impact the court, whether it's all the different things the judge was talking about. And we've got self-funded insurance. And in 2001, we had a really bad year. And it wasn't any one decision that the court made. It was we had just opened up the new jail. We were hiring jailers. We had Marshall's contracts, but we weren't getting any Marshall's inmates. Our self-funded insurance, it was when I believe that was stents and knee surgery and the hip surgery, laparoscopic. So we had all these people hitting stop loss. I mean, it was just a really bad year.

I had very, I look back on it, but my memos were memos of serious financial concern.

But what I will tell you, and I've When I've done presentations, it's much easier to be a commissioner when you have the available resources to make tough decisions and handle flooding or remove debris, whatever you need to do, does not make the job EASIER BUT AT LEAST YOU WOULD HAVE THE RESOURCES TO DO, YOU KNOW.

IT HAPPENED THIS YEAR WITH THE APPRAISE VALUE AND THE APPRAISAL RULE. WE TALKED ABOUT A MAJOR EVENT OCCURRING. WE DIDN'T ANTICIPATE IT, RIGHT? BUT IT HAPPENED IN A WAY WHERE WE HAD THE FLEXIBILITY TO AT LEAST MAKE A DECISION AND GET SOME THINGS DONE, RIGHT? LEGISLATURE POTENTIALLY CHANGING exemptions and a number of things there's a big desire statewide to do away with property taxes it has to be replaced with something but there may be these periods of time where local government has to have funding to cover certain services because the state may change something completely that could that that's not pie in the sky those conversations are going on right now for the sixth year in a row right so

And sales tax is great. It is a great resource. It's basically user-based. I get that. But if you look at our sales tax historically, it's bouncing all around. I mean, it's very hard to plan on a budget when you can't count on your sales tax. It would make the court's job that much harder. It's great when you're growing and more sales tax is coming in. Much harder when all of a sudden the economy tanks and people stop spending money, and then you don't have a guaranteed source of income, and most of your budget is payroll. Because we are a service organization from the court system, the tax office, elections,

Back in the day, it was easier. I remember we did $15 million for the new jail. And when the interest rate was 10%, 12%, we were making money hand over fist. Whoa, we were in high cotton. And then we found out about arbitrage. God. You don't ever want to go to arbitrage because just when you think you understand it, they throw another wrench in it, and you don't.

The county treasurer, Commissioner Wilberton, and I went to an arbitrage conference in San Antonio. Eye-opening. Yeah. Eye-opening. Federal government is not going to let you.

No.

EARN A TON OF MONEY ON TAX-EXEMPT BONDS BECAUSE THAT'S MONEY THAT THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN COLLECTING IN INCOME TAXES INSTEAD OF PEOPLE INVESTING IN TAX-EXEMPT BONDS.

ANYTHING ELSE, CHRIS, YOU CAN THINK OF THAT WE HAVEN'T TALKED ABOUT THAT WE NEED TO ADDRESS TODAY?

No, just the whole, the financial statements are the court, they're your financial statements. So what you put in there is crazy important for what you want the readers of your financial statements to see. But like the judge said, if you commit funds today and you decide that you don't want to build that building or you want to use it for whatever, All it takes is governing body action so you have control over that.

Well, the good part about a resolution like this when you made a restrict funds, You're telling the public this is what we're planning for. These are the things that we're considering as opposed to going, well, we have this pot over here that we can pull from when we need to.

Right, we may need it.

Right.

But that gives a much better, and that's why there's a number of the GASB statements that I'm not a big fan of, subscription-based information technology, one of them. But on this fund balance, I do think it helps both the readers of your financial statements, the public, and the governing body to figure out what pot of money are we going to put that in and what are our plans going forward.

Right. Well, thank you for the presentation and the discussion today.

Any other questions, comments?

Chris, is there a timeline that this is required by?

We have to have a committed resolution. Now, if you don't take action, your current committed fund balance will stay in effect. But we need to do that next Commissioner's Court because in order to be on your, this would be for the financial statements ending 9-30 of 2026. We have to do it before the end of the fiscal year.

Okay.

Otherwise, your current committed fund balance resolution would just stand. Okay. So if you want to make changes to it, and I think you should because we've got new projects that we need to look at.

Right, new projects and then those items we talked about, whether it's disaster recovery or.

Cash flow, any of that type of stuff. Right. To help people understand your financial statements and what your intent is going forward.

All right, thank you again. Anything else, commissioners?

So no action?

NO ACTION TODAY. MAINLY WANTED TO DISCUSS THAT AND GET A FIRST GLANCE AT IT. IS EVERYBODY OKAY TO TAKE NO ACTION ON THAT TODAY? YOU BET. ALL RIGHT. THEN WE WILL TAKE NO ACTION ON ITEM G AND WE'LL MOVE TO ITEM H, BUDGET AMENDMENT 26-97 TO REDUCE UNFUNDED PENSION LIABILITY, GADSBY 68, TEXAS COUNTY AND DISTRICT RETIREMENT SYSTEM. ANOTHER FUN TOPIC. Who doesn't love talking about pension liability?

Who doesn't like talking about pension liability?

It's important. Ms. Cline.

It is crazy important. So the county's retirement is through Texas County and District Retirement System. Part of that system ensures that you are funding your pension, which is very important for all county employees. And what we try and do, what shows up on your government-wide financial statements is your pension liability. So what we try and do for a number of reasons, one, to reduce that unfunded pension liability, is because we have retirement funds that we've budgeted for retirement, we will sweep those funds and make an additional payment to keep that unfunded liability as low as possible. It reduces your liability, and that's a great thing. But what it also does is it keeps the county's contribution rate lower and stable. Because what you don't want to happen is to have a year when you've got to raise insurance and you've got to raise the county's contribution on your retirement plan by making these supplemental payments both either through budget or through sweeping these retirement lines at the end of the year. we keep that contribution rate as level as possible, and that helps the court when you're doing budget.

Yeah, I mean, doing those smaller incremental changes every year, being, like, just really persistent, changes that discussion completely, as opposed to leaving it going, no, we don't have that issue, let's leave the contribution the same. that liability grows over time inevitably at the county the year you have to make a change is going to run into head-on another problem could be potentially large sums of money aging you know population more retiring you know all at the same time all those things i did want to tell you miss klein and the court we went to the conference in san antonio this year and i had one of the tcdrs um staff that was there fairly high up give a very good compliment about Guadalupe County with just our process and how we address pension liability the county funded portion our contribution rate how we swept accounts and made additional payments when we could that they thought that was the best way to handle a program because other counties want to but they may just not have the ability to and But they were very complimentary about how the county has handled our program and how we do things. So I thought I should share that. Any other questions, comments on that? No. So you need a motion?

Yes, sir. I'll make a motion that we approve the Budget Amendment 26-97 to reduce unfunded pension liability, also known as GASB 68, Texas County and District Retirement System.

Second. We do have a motion and a second on Item H, Budget Amendment 26-97. Any other discussion?

I do. I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am. This is a two-part process. So we'll have the budget amendment, this court meeting, and then the, I think it's a resolution, and the payment next commissioner's court meeting. All right. So you will see it again.

Any other discussion? All right. I have a motion and a second. Hearing no other comments or questions, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Same sign. Hearing no opposition, that motion passes. Item I, Budget Amendment 26-98, to increase the budget for the road and bridge building purchase slash new construction of the metal storage structures for additional cost for firewalls.

I just got one question. I guess go ahead and make a motion. I'll ask the question. I'LL MAKE THE MOTION THAT WE APPROVE AMENDMENT 26-98 TO INCREASE THE BUDGET FOR ROAD AND BRIDGE BUILDING, PURCHASE NEW CONSTRUCTION FOR THE METAL STORAGE STRUCTURE FOR ADDITIONAL COST FIREWALLS. SECOND.

DO YOU HAVE A MOTION?

SECOND. COMMISSIONER WOLVERTON? YEAH, THE QUESTION I HAVE, AND I SHOULD HAVE ASKED YOU EARLIER, DID WE GO OUT FOR BID ON THIS? WAS IT AN ARCHITECT DESIGN OR JUST SOMETHING A PRE-FAB BUILDING THAT WE BOUGHT?

if we did go out for bid on this so it did go through the bidding process with purchasing on that side but we uh basically i don't remember there was not an architectural design we did not have an architect do the preliminary design just a builder came in so it went out for bid and different builders did bid on what the proposal was and we went with a alert which had a good rating and they had the lowest price on it, but it was not from a stamped architectural set of plates.

That's understandable. The reason I'm getting that is we're inside the city limits, correct?

Yes, sir.

Apparently they never went over to the city to find out, hey, it's over 10,000 square feet, you have to do this.

This came up through the fire department, so I went on their inspection side of it. But yes, you are correct.

Okay. It would have been caught if there was... Yeah, absolutely. And I know Commissioner Engelke mentioned, I mean, previously, that he had recommended it go to an architect. Once it got to a point where it wasn't just a metal shed anymore, and then it was multiple locations, and then things got more expensive, a few things get added, and then here we go.

There's been a lot around and around on this one.

Yes, sir. When you're working inside the city limits, you've just got to dot your I's and cross your T's.

We'll call it good lessons learned at this point, right? Yes, sir. Any other comments or questions on item I? All right, we do have a motion in the second hearing no other discussion all those in favor say aye aye Opposed hearing no opposition that motion passes. Thank you All right, we'll move to item J capital projects fund bill list move to approve I Second you have a motion in a second to approve the capital project funds bill list and item J any other discussion All right hearing no other discussion all those in favor say aye aye any opposed Hearing no opposition that motion passes.

I abstain.

Oh, sorry Commissioner that motion does pass for yeas zero nays one abstention Commissioner on I And we'll move to number seven on our agenda, announcement of upcoming Guadalupe County public events. We do have Carmen Davila, our public information officer with us. How are you?

I'm good. Good afternoon. On next Tuesday, September 22nd, the Guadalupe County Fire Rescue will host a blood drive from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the courthouse. That's 101 East Court Street. County employees are encouraged to roll up their sleeves to help save lives for those in need, whether they are battling trauma. cancer, accidents, or long-term illness like sickle cell anemia. So please consider donating. On September 26, GRMC will have their annual Mamos and Mimosis event. That's a special day dedicated to breast cancer prevention and education. And that event is going to be held Saturday, September 26 from 10 a.m. to noon at GRMC at the central entrance. Later that afternoon, the City of Seguin will be celebrating its library's 10 years on Nolte Street. They will have a Folklorico and Mariachi group from 1 to 2 and followed by an outdoor concert featuring Conjunto 420 from 7 to 8.30 p.m. The public is invited to attend these events. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Commissioners, any other announcements? Our next regularly scheduled Commissioner's Court will be September the 29th. I believe that also is the planned date for the public hearing and meeting on the Guadalupe County thoroughfare plan.

Is that correct?

Yes. I know that'll be in the newspaper as well, in the publication, but just wanted to make sure to highlight that. I know it's going to be a conclusion or the ending of a very long and involved process, but just want to make sure everybody was aware that the 29th is the plan date for the public hearing and potential action on the update and revision to the MTP or the Guadalupe County Thoroughfare Plan. All right, with no other announcements, we'll move to Item 8, Executive Session. We do have three items listed under Executive Session. Section 551.074 to talk about road and bridge administrator. Just a quick update. We did have interviews yesterday. After the interviews, court came back into open session and did name Mike Brooks as the new road and bridge administrator. So I'll ask the court, is there anything we need to talk about and or consider in a closed session on item A?

No, sir. I think we even addressed the salary.

No, we did.

Okay. We did.

Congratulations again, Mr. Brooks, and thank you for doing what you're doing. All right, then we will move to Item B, and that's pursuant to Section 551.076 and 551.089 to deliberate matters related to security devices and security audits, as well as Item C, Section 551.071, consultation with attorney regarding pending or threatened litigation and take action if necessary. We will recess from this regular session of Commissioner's Court and enter closed session at 12.36 p.m. All right, coming back from closed session, we'll reconvene this regular session of Commissioner's Court at 1 p.m. On the agenda, again, we had three items under executive session. As stated before we went into closed session, we had taken care of item A with the interviews for road and bridge. We did take action after that special meeting yesterday to appoint Mike Brooks as our new road and bridge administrator. So we did not discuss item A in closed session. We do have item B, present section 551.076 and 551.089 to deliberate matters related to security devices and security audits. Is there any potential discussion and or actions to consider, commissioners?

Yes, Judge. I move that we use Texas Association of Counties as our cybersecurity audit and services. Second.

We do have a motion and a second on item B. Any other discussion? All right. Hearing no other discussion, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Hearing no opposition, that motion passes. And we will move to item C, and that was under subsidy 551.071, consultation with attorney regarding pending or threatened litigation. Is there any discussion, comments, or any potential actions that need to be considered under item C? All right. Hearing no discussion or no potential motions to consider, we'll move to Item 9. Is there a motion to adjourn? Move to adjourn. Second. Do we have a motion and a second? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Then we are adjourned at 1.02 p.m.