Commissioners Court - Regular Meeting

Yeah, I have a quick question. Okay. This is not a, I promise you it's not a gotcha. With all these cases that y'all, work on, what would you say is your average success rate that you saw?

Thank you for what you do. Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Sure. Be honored to. Proclamation recognizing October 2026 is Mediation Awareness Month in Guadalupe County. whereas each year thousands of disputes between individuals, corporations, small businesses, governmental agencies, and others are resolved using a variety of conflict resolution processes both prior to and after the initiation of a court proceeding. And whereas conflict resolution processes can foster communication, enhance relationships, potentially save parties time and expenses of prolonged litigation, and increase the efficiency of the courts, thereby conserving taxpayer dollars. A

These guys almost look like bodyguards for you.

Whereas Guadalupe County is committed to protecting the lives and property of its residents from fire and promoting fire prevention throughout our communities, and whereas Fire Prevention Week, observed annually in commemoration of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, provides an opportunity to educate the public about fire prevention and life-saving safety practices, and whereas the 2026 Fire Prevention Week theme, Charge into Fire Safety, Safe Charging is a Superpower, focuses on preventing fires involving lithium-ion batteries commonly used in phones, laptops, power tools, e-bikes, scooters, and

No, I was just going to say thanks. I know we had that discussion initially, and in your mind you would think if you increase that it's going to save money, but this is great information, and I appreciate you providing this data because, like I said, common sense is going to tell you otherwise, but you're showing us and recommending that we stick to what we're doing. Absolutely. So thank you.

Commissioners, would you like to make any comments? I would. Special thanks to Mr. Bill Burnett with Pape Dawson. I've known that young man for, well, young man, since 96 we entered in commissioner's court together. And I asked him to take the lead on this to try to get with the people to make sure everything is what they wanted because there was a lot of questions going on. He did exactly that. And so that's why we're here today, because it finally is finished. So thank you, Bill Burnett. And you guys got a very good person working for you.

Commissioner, any other comments? Yes, sir. I just wanted to say I appreciate everybody. This has been a process perhaps longer than it needed to be. But still, it's been a process. There have been meetings. There have been times when people would get a little bit upset. But in the end, we could all work through it for a common goal of trying to produce a plan that would take the county forward instead of backward. various projects like the judge said setting aside land for roads when we're when we're platting which is extremely important because if a big subdivision is coming in the private l

I'll follow up on that with the help from the citizens, the input, the comments, the feedback. It has been a long process, but it is an important thing to have for future planning. So what we do today with that consideration of approval and hopefully approving today after this long process is for long-term future, long-term growth. This is something that will benefit my grandkids as we move forward. I know it's hard to see and envision now, It's a planning tool that is desperately needed. We don't want to end up like Austin in the future. So I know there's been a lot of passion involved in som

Yes, I just also wanted to echo Commissioner Wolverton's thanks for Mr. Burnett. He was really wonderful in taking the time to meet with me and nail down the details that we needed for a finished product. So I definitely want to appreciate him with the Austin-Pape Dawson office. He did a great job and was very easy to work with. I also wanted to thank everyone in Precinct 1. We did have six additional meetings that I hosted for the citizens of Precinct 1, and each one of them had a pretty solid turnout. And so we had a lot of citizens with responses, contributions, just a lot of really good th

Move to approve the remaining consent items. Second.

Yes, sir. Judge, items 5230179 and 5230180 are payments to ServPro Seguin for the Sheriff's Department's water damage. I need that to be pulled. We're having a meeting October 1st with TAC. SERVED PRO AND THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE AND ALSO MYSELF AND MR. TYZ. THERE'S A HUGE DISCREPANCY. THIS WOULD BE THE FINAL PAYMENT, AND I HAVE 12 ITEMS YET TO BE ACCOMPLISHED OR COMPLETED, SO WE'RE WAITING, AND I'M HOLDING THE DOLLARS UNTIL I CAN GET THESE THINGS TAKEN CARE OF OR WE CAN USE THAT BUILDING 100%.

Not at all. There were mixed communications with this. But just FYI, it's also on the capital project fund bill list as well. So going forward. Jim, did you hear me? Yeah. But yes, I totally agree with that.

It's not complete. With that being said, Judge, I move that we pay the rest of the bills in item A. Second.

Correct. So we had placed this on the agenda thinking that we may have to approve it through court, but after further discussion and investigation, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Tice and Patrick, It is the contractor who actually needs to do this for the temporary meter.

Okay. So if... We'll do the final service. Yes. So if we could pull this item and take no action. Anybody have any other questions or comments before we move on from that item?

So move to approve TAC health and employee benefits pool plan year 2027 renewal.

I move to approve authorization to use available general fund budget resulting from vacant assistant county attorney positions to fund the family justice prosecutor position for the period October 1st, 2025 through September 18th, 2026 in lieu of state forfeiture funds and to reimburse the state forfeiture fund or expenditures previously incurred for the position during this period.

Glad to see that you got a clean bill of health.

JUST NOT HEARING ANYTHING ELSE, I'LL MAKE A MOTION THAT WE APPROVE THE AUTHORIZATION TO MAKE AN OPTIONAL ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE TEXAS COUNTY AND DISTRICT RETIREMENT SYSTEM, ALSO KNOWN AS TCDRS, PLAN TO REDUCE PENSION LIABILITY FROM FISCAL YEAR 26 FUNDS. SECOND.

I will move to adopt the 2026 Guadalupe County Major Thoroughfare Plan. Second.

Gentlemen, thank you very much. It was long and hard work, so thank you.

I have a question to the court. We're paying $22,000 rent to Geronimo Volunteer Fire Department, and we're going to reseal their parking lot because we're housing a crew there from Guadalupe County Fire Department. And because we're having to cover their calls. And so are we going to be reimbursed from the $22,000 rent to cover that cost?

Their response has been very, very lacking. And so I don't mind helping out, but for us to take care of something and then have to pay rent, it bothers me just a bit.

Understand right this was brought up and I wanted to bring it to court as an discussion Which I knew this would would kind of go this route I think I would I would assume we have to do some kind of ILA because it's on their property to even do this Steven So the proposed parking lot improvements for Geronimo volunteer fire department property is for our road and bridge to do it, even if we needed to do that or got approved to do that, that would have to be approved through court in some kind of an agreement or not?

Yeah. So I wanted to bring this. It was asked to be put on the list. I said, go ahead and put it on the list, and we'll talk about it.

We are and we're paying an extra $22,000 to them and

We have all this written down on paper as contracts. Yes, sir, we do.

They don't have certification through the city of Saginaw anymore, do they? They do now? They haven't received that? Okay.

I just wanted to make the comment on Jen Road. That discharge is supposed to be like 3 million gallons a day when they get going on that Green Valley sewer. So my best, and I'm not an engineer, but my estimation would be that that bridge practically has water over it even on a sunny day. So we have to see where we're going to be before we can rebuild that bridge.

Yeah. Maybe we'll get some this week. To make the comment on Jen Road, it was inadvertently left off a few days of work for New Berlin. That's a typical... The way we've always done interlocals, our crew will be there. So they came to court with all those holes that a lot of the citizens are complaining about, so we can fix a few holes while we're there. That's the plan. Yes, sir. It's just real simple.

Yeah. And they've been working with Mr. Brooks about that.

Okay, so move to approve the 2026-2027 Guadalupe County Annual Road Plan, including the addition, because it was left off of the five days for interlocal with New Berlin.

So you have a motion and a second to any other discussion commission just a clarification for those of you seeing for flows on there twice one for the overlay one for reconstruct you might correct me if I'm wrong so the overlay We reconstructed sports flows not long ago from 7.58 to Kolenberg Road. So that will be the overlay portion. Yes, sir. The reconstruct will go from Kolenberg Road to 1101. Yes, sir. Which is part of the plan, what we did with all the garbage truck traffic going to that landfill. That road's held up very well.

Correct. So that's just a clarification, because if you see it, it may get confusing to some people.

You get a little money for that too, right? The county gets tipping fees. Yeah, the tipping fee, yeah.

Yeah, more consistent. It's typically reflective of the person's dedication to the county. That's exactly true. If you have that many excess vacation hours.

I agree. Yeah, it shouldn't be like a punishment, so to speak, as the judge said, to be promoted.

I move to approve the authorization to pay Mike Brooks, Road Administrator's unused vacation hours earned prior to the appointment of his salary position. Second.

With the understanding we're going to get with HR to make both the same.

Judge, I believe that there's been two... Yeah, this is the one that you have here now. It shows two per month, which... I DON'T THINK IT'S SUFFICIENT. IT'S CAUSING US TO MAKE LATE PAYMENTS AND CAUSING TOO MUCH OVERTIME. I HAVE BEFORE YOU A WORKING DRAFT THAT SHOWS THREE WEEKS PER MONTH WITH THE EXCEPTION OF FEBRUARY BECAUSE YOU HAVE SEVERAL CONFERENCES, NEW JUDGES AND B.G. YOUNG AND BRIAN. SO IT WILL BE THE 9th AND 23rd. AND ALSO WHEN YOU GO ALL THE WAY DOWN TO MAY, I WANT A SPECIAL START DATE OF 9 O'CLOCK BECAUSE WE HAVE A CONFERENCE THAT SOME OF THE COMMISSIONERS WILL BE GOING TO. And it st

Do you have to list these dates in comparison to what we're seeing? I'm in agreement. So I didn't like the two times a month thing. A perfect example of when we were talking about TAC employment benefits, the contract's due next week. And so these things are kind of rushed at times because we're having these only two meetings per month. It affects construction projects, decisions that need to be made. I'm not saying I'm old school, but I'm used to it. We always had three meetings a month. This recently changed. We tried it for a year. It's long, long courts, as you all know now. It's It's more

I'm in agreement with the three days a month. I wanted to ask Judge, because you know the budget like the back of your hand. There's a budget workshop and it says probable in August. And I'm sure we'll have one somewhere in May. It's not on there. Didn't we have one in July this year because we thought that There might be a problem. When would you estimate that ought to be?

But the thing is, if we go to three courts a month, we could just easily schedule a 9 o'clock workshop before a standing court are ready.

Would you like me to say the dates or just present this and have it posted?

No, I just wanted to see how it needed to be clarified what he's trying to say. Not to throw another wrench in the factor. We also discussed, because of what Stephen's saying, the possibility of Thursday meetings. But that is another discussion. I don't know if people want to have. Historically, it's Tuesdays for Guadalupe County. Comal has it on Thursdays. So I don't know how that would change things in your mind of postings, Stephen. You'd have the three full days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. post on Fridays. Again, we discussed this before when this all came up with the new state regulation

So for today's purposes, you just need a day and a time is what I'm understanding. But I'm willing to, Wolverton's ready to move forward with his proposal. I am. And as we said, it can be changed.

I agree with the working draft. The one question I have is none of the other days off line up the way Thanksgiving week does. Is that gonna be a chore to have?

So I mean, you run into kind of similar.

That's true. Okay. I'll make a motion that we accept the working draft as I presented with three days a month, with the exception of February, which we'll just have two on the 9th and the 23rd, along with the, in May the 25th, we start at 9 o'clock. Second.

SO ON THE DRAFT, I'M LOOKING AT IT, IN AUGUST, I SEE FOUR DATES. IS THAT CORRECT?

IT'S GOING TO BE THERE ANYWAY. IF THERE'S ANYTHING WE NEED, IT CAN BE THERE.

Okay, so there's only three in August, 3rd, 17th, and 31st, not the 10th.

I wanted to clarify, you said three for each month.

Move to approve the 2027 Guadalupe County holiday schedule. Second.

Judge, Thorne Architects. has done nine different buildings in Guadalupe County. For them to be ranked the very last on both of these things, I don't quite understand. If you're looking to save money, he designed that building. He knows what the soil conditions are. And he doesn't send one of his associates with him. He comes out and reviews everything on site every week, actually every two weeks with pay period. So I don't understand how he could have gotten rate of 58 It just doesn't make sense to me about the last two after all the work he's done. This courthouse, both levels of the Justice

I think we need to take a look at that, because our first meeting we had with Commissioner Gurman and our fire marshal there, both of them made statements that they did not have a chance to go review or make any phone calls. And I did. I went to five different locations and the ones I submitted, and I looked at all of them. I talked to them. And Mr. Thorne, with the work he's done for this county in the past, and he was my choice, but yet all of a sudden it comes down to he is the last again. I just don't understand that. I think you need to go ahead and tour the buildings that he has done for

DID THEY ACTUALLY GO OUT AND LOOK AT THE FACILITIES AND TALK TO THE PEOPLE? I ONLY HAD TWO PEOPLE CALL ME BACK, AND I WENT TO SIBLO, AND THE ONE DOING THE SIBLO PROJECT IS VERY GOOD AFTER TALKING TO CHIEF CONCROSO.

We're responsible for every building in Guadalupe County under the county. And this court should be making the decision. I just don't see how someone who's done as much work here without any difficulties, because we have trouble at 1101 Elbel Road. We have trouble at the election center. One architect in particular, and I'm not going to get in trouble for doing it, should never be there after what I've had to go through on 1101 Elbel Road.

One other thing there. I do believe he submitted one in Bulverde, Texas. Yes, sir. When I called him, he said he had it inside the weather. I will call him again because he said he had one in Bulverde, Texas. If he did, we would not get that in the application. All right. Thank you.

Yes, sir Just for contract negotiations So move to approve the evaluation scoring RFQ 26-15 architectural engineering services FM 725 building remodeled and authorized purchasing to enter contract negotiations with the highest ranked vendor of

of tsk architects second do you have a motion and a second on action item j any other discussion one question is that tsk architects the martinez architects had 100 and the weber had 92 and tsk has 82. the breakdown on this is think of it like a job application

Right. When we county purchased this property, Can't believe it's been that long ago already. It seems like yesterday. The court decided to go ahead and keep it in agricultural production, went through this process, and now we're at the end of the contract with Mr. Herzog, who had won that contract initially. And so court has decided to do this again. And it looks like Mr. Herzog was a single applicant, so. With that, I will move to approve the bid results for IFB 26-17, land lease for agricultural row crop planting, and award the contract to Randall Herzog. Second.

Their work on the other half of Stagecoach Road was outstanding.

Move to approve the bid results and award the contract ifp 26-19 stagecoach road overlay project phase two to dean word company second do you have a motion and a second on action item l any other discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed

Okay. Move to approve the order to advertise an invitation to bid IFB 27-05, North Guadalupe Street reconstruction phase one.

I just want to voice my opposition to this. This project is very similar to the Marion project. The outcome is different because it's a fire station. But this is almost $300,000. If you look at the hours, it's $291 an hour. I don't think for this small a project we don't need this. I'll do the project. I'LL OVERSEE THE PROJECT.

I GUESS I DO HAVE A QUESTION. I KNOW WE WENT THROUGH THIS PROCESS AND WE HIRED, BROUGHT US, AND I THINK I WAS IN FAVOR OF THAT FOR some large projects. And I just want to revisit the intent of the court as to the sizing of the projects. Were we wanting to have somebody managing this regardless of the size? Or if there's something smaller like this, was that our intent for all of it? Was it our intent for just some of the larger things?

What I remember is saying when needed. If he's willing to do it, and he's doing a good job on Precinct 4 now, I see no problem spending 300-some-odd thousand dollars when it's not needed, especially with the shortcomings we have this year.

It's real simple. You've got to get the architect and the CMAR together, and you've got to have a meeting with them. We're coming in below budget in Marion. and you can't spend a dollar more than what the court allocates and you got to have meetings about where you are uh on your timeline and where you are on your money and if you do that and everybody's on it communicates it's not that difficult this is not a very big project yes it's a It's millions of dollars. I mean, but this is, I don't think we need to spend, we need to spend $300,000 on something for our people there, not $300,000 to so

Mm-hmm. is that the way everybody's kind of feeling at the moment right so when commissioner wolverton had retired i i became the pseudo project manager of the county um thank you since 2019 and um So initially, when this idea came up, I was against doing anything like this, was hiring construction management firms because I was doing it. And like Commissioner Gurman said, this type of project, smaller projects. On the flip side, we just hired a similar deal because we've got two firms we can work with with this aspect of what we're doing for the EOC, which is a larger scale project. But I've

So I think that was the initial discussion.

And now it's turned into options. Do we want to do this? So bringing it to court is definitely a great idea. I've worked with Melissa and AGCM on Navarro projects as a commissioner, not as a construction manager. They're very involved, do a very good job. But again, it seems like the momentum of the court for this smaller project is to maybe put them on the next project that would be bigger, maybe. I don't know. But I do see advantages both ways. But in the beginning, I was against it because of what the money we could save doing it ourselves. But it is a time-consuming thing, as the judge men

Well, the other thing about this, too, I'm going to say is in order to start 725, you have to finish Marion, which is real close. So that's why I said I'll go ahead and do that. I don't know what we need to do with action right now today.

Yes. I'll make a motion to take no action. Second.

That, in addition to, we... We had a chief's meeting with all the volunteer fire departments to discuss funding, et cetera, and to talk about their requests for this budget coming up. And of course, the prior, which is what we're talking about right now, and the allocation. And so we did have participation from everyone except for York Creek VFD. Chiefs and representatives from the other seven were present. And then I did inquire at that time if anyone had spoken, anyone from York Creek VFD or if anyone would speak to anyone from York Creek VFD to try to get in touch with them so that they cou

So I did discern that was the response They were very grateful for what they got and Didn't mean to interrupt sorry go go ahead judge I

Court, as the Chief mentioned, we had a very long and I think very productive meeting. We agreed to disagree on some things, but the fact that they were shorted and it has no reflection on the current McQueenie Volunteer Fire Department, this is in the past, I would make the motion that we

Yes, simply because they were shorted the rest of it because of the previous administration and that it penalized them. And right now, I'm, you know, You know I'm not an advocate for volunteer fire departments because, you know, they just, you know, they need help. And this particular one, he has made all the calls, he's done everything right, and he has a plan. So I would like to give the remaining $29,502 to the McQueenie Volunteer Fire Department.

I have a question to Mr. Pender. That $100,000, I remember that. I think it was when I first got on court that that was being given out. New Berlin was the first one. Was there an allocation made for McQueenie that even though there was this issue going on, that that money was set aside? I don't remember.

I DO HAVE A COMMENT ON IT AND I APPRECIATE THE WORK THAT WENT INTO ME CREATING ALL OF THESE OPTIONS AND I WANT TO GO BACK TO WHAT I BELIEVE THE INTENT OF THIS LINE WAS AND WHEN WE MADE OUR decision last budget cycle to have this line it was an emergency vfd line and part of the agreement this court made was that we were approached by the vfds as to their specific needs that were emergent needs or pressing needs in some way and so when the different fire departments came to us some initially with certain amounts when we had this discussion in court, and some at later dates that did submit reque

I'm still digesting all this information. And looking at the budget amendment, there's not an option on here to give all the funds to that department. That's something we have to address later on, I guess. But all the volunteer fire departments have needs, and all of them have some kind of financial issue. I had asked you before in a conversation about that swift water rescue boat. THE DESIRED NEED YOU HAD FOR THAT. IT WAS ABOUT 20 GRAND? YES, SIR.

So to go back on the funding you didn't get, I don't know contractually how we're obliged to do that, I support volunteer fire departments. I've said that before. So I'm more of a proponent of more equal distribution. Nothing against your departments. But again, just finding out just now, this is my initial take on it.

All right. Is there a motion? I'm sure moved to approve budget amendment 26-99 transfer funds from the fire department fire apparatus equipment budget to capital outlay fire trucks for additional cost to upfit a brush truck.

I remember, I think on three different occasions, we had to either sandblast, recoat, or replace the boilers over the way there because of the hard water.

OK. Move to approve budget number 26-100.

Any questions, comments? So Constable Reyes discusses me. He apologizes he couldn't be here today if there were any questions. He is at Gene Mays' funeral services, county employee, a great man that we lost. And so he just wanted to utilize what he could for this printer copier was, I think he told me it wasn't, The funding that he had for it wasn't needed, and so we wanted to change that and create this uniform expense line. I'm trying to do the best I can for what he was telling me, but it's pretty straightforward in my opinion. If there's any questions, I'll try to address them.

I remember... Back in the day, Precinct 3 tried to do that, and then ran into some issues with the auditor's office about striping along the side of the bridges. Has that all been taken care of now?

It was long before your time. Yeah, I don't know. Bridges may be striped different now. They wanted gold striped down the side of it, and it was something that was really strange, and in the auditor's office, you can't do that. So I just remember it was trouble.

OK. Move to approve budget number 26, section 101. Second.

I got amended today. It's fine with me. Just get it done

Motion to approve budget amendment 26-102 as amended as follows to allocate the remaining funds from the volunteer fire departments as indicated on option 1, option 2, or option 3 as amended to give Lake McQueenie Volunteer Fire Department the entirety of the funds, that being $29,498. Second.

Excuse me, I was using the number that was on the office.

He's rolling it over. Yes, sir. Move to approve budget amendment 27-1. Second.

Move to approve the capital projects fund bill list.

Move to approve the capital fund bill, capital project fund bill list with the exception of vendor number 12747. Second.

Thank you. I thought we had a cutoff date where they had to stop that to give you a break. We're talking about the new fiscal year. Oh, the new fiscal year. Okay. Yeah, they'll be calling. Oh, God, do they ever call. 101 budget amendments.

Yes, sir, Judge. With the recent information given to us, I move that we terminate the lease agreement between the Guadalupe County and City of Church for the county facility at 1052 FM 78 and give the City of Church written notice that the lease agreement will not end later than June 29, 2027. Second.