Remarks by Walt Smith
279 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 11 of 12
- Play at 1:49:07
“Yeah, I mean, he is a resident of the county. He lives here. He votes here. He's lived here his entire life. He owns property outside of Hays County. So do I.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:51:24
“And I would just also mention that We anticipate that the two other entities will have appointments, or at least one of the other two entities will have an appointment in the next month that, again, We don't have a say over who their nominees are. We just have an up or down vote as to whether or not we would approve them. Those will probably come within the next one to two court sessions. And this is a process that since I've been on there in 2020, they always come in the end of July, the beginning of August. And I'm not sure just off the top of my head which one of those two will come. But I…”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:52:44
“The rest of the board votes on the appointments. There's three officer positions. There's a president, a vice president, and a secretary treasurer. And those are voted on by the five members of the board. And so the rest of the board has expressed their... support of his leadership by his appointment as the president. The vice president of the board is Jack Creveling, who is an appointee from the city of Bee Cave, and I've been elected as the secretary treasurer.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:53:35
“No, he sold the property as raw property. Okay.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:53:50
“You've got to be more specific because we've got about 30 of them. Now, what I would say is in our overall CIP, it's probably about a $220 million amount. Overall CIP that's currently in operation with projects, probably operating budget, probably about $60 million. It varies from month to month. I mean, it's a large budget.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:54:18
“No, because your CIP, so again, with our CIP budget, it's done very differently. A lot of that is bonded funds. And so right now we've got probably 15 to 20 projects in process. And depending on what day of the month they're on, one of those projects could fluctuate. For example, there was an award for a pipeline this week, or pardon me, last week, two Thursdays ago. That one award was $11.5 million. So those accounts fluctuate with 30 projects going. They fluctuate up and down on a monthly basis by tens of millions of dollars.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:55:07
“SURE. I THINK THE DRIPPING SPRINGS WATER SUPPLY CORP, THEY OPERATE SOLELY ON GROUNDWATER WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A VOLUMETRIC CONTRACT WHICH WAS ESTABLISHED BY THE LCRA PRIOR TO THE FOUNDING OF THE PUA FOR ONE MILLION GALLONS A DAY. Given the fact that we are under such a, we have had a prolonged drought, the groundwater district, the Hays Trinity Groundwater District, has prohibited the drilling of any additional commercial wells within the Hays Trinity for right at two years now. I think the anticipation, and I can't speak for, I would never venture to speak for the Drifting Springs Water…”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:56:27
“Livable unit equivalent basis. So that means that for every one of those LUEs, that customer, that wholesale customer, gets 864 gallons of water a day at peak. Most of them don't use near that. But under state law, that is what we would have to provide. The contract that the Dripping Springs Water Supply Corp has is for a million gallon today. No LUVs associated with it. Over time, since the establishment of the West Travis County PUA, all of those contracts, all of those wholesale contracts have... Anytime there has been additional water requested, all of those, we have to look at what…”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:57:25
“Oh, absolutely. About three years ago, they came and asked for additional water at that time. There was an offer by the PUA to say, look, we will get you more additional water. However, currently the LUE calculation that they use isn't the 864 gallons. For that million gallons, they paid about 500 connection fees, which would equate to about 1,600 gallons a day, so about twice what everyone else in the system would get. So they've paid about half of the connection fees that they would get. the PUA said, look, we will negotiate with you, but you're going to have to pay for those additional…”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:58:32
“No, it's fine. But all those other contracts are operating under a basis unlike theirs. So we said you would need to, all of those contracts are exclusive contracts. If the PUA spends millions of dollars to bring additional water to a wholesale customer, then there has to be a guarantee that you are going to use that water and that infrastructure will be paid for. And so What all of those other users have said is we will cut off any groundwater usage that we have, and the PUA will be the exclusive provider of water for that entity. The Dripping Springs Water Supply Corp has refused to do…”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 1:59:40
“That was part of the equation. There's a lot more of that equation, but yes. The conversion of the contract was really the biggest problem.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:00:03
“In the last year, maybe two. One was for a... line break that we had no control over. And one was for a pressurization issue within the plant whenever they were switching out filtration units in the plant. I think both of those lasted for less than six hours once testing was done. And what happens is the water in a water system like this, the vast majority of that water, when do you think it's used? It's used between 7 o'clock at night and 7 a.m. in the morning, especially in the three highest usage months of the year, which are August, September, October. It's not the middle of the summer.…”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:02:44
“Thank you, Judge. I appreciate it. The other thing is, is from this seat, as it was mentioned earlier, I'm also the commissioner for Precinct 4. And my level of confidence, given the fact that That specific entity has over-pumped their wells. They're the second largest over-pumper.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:04:07
“Well, and I would say those are also dictated because we purchase our water, or the West Travis County purchases its water from the LCRA. And so we have to implement all of the restrictions that they have. And currently, for any additional water that the LCRA is providing, they're asking for permanent stage two restrictions on the entire system.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:05:27
“Could you repeat the number again, please? 30. Thank you. Yes, sir.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:07:52
“Yeah, I'd have to turn to, I just have one question since, since it is coming out of the contract road and bridge, Contract or do we have any additional? Contracts coming forward for that account before the end of the year that was was my only question because I think that's probably money That would be rolled in the next fiscal year for road and bridge contracting We just did all of our contracting for mill and overlay those kind of things last session of court.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:21:21
“My question was, is there a plat note that could say residential only?”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:23:41
“Oh, I was just going to say, I think because the public hearing's closed, maybe it would be great to... We can't ask anyone to come up to the table. Well, we can, but just let me follow the cadence. Well, I was just going to say, it might be good for all y'all to come in together and meet with your commissioner. I know she'd be more than willing to do that. I'm speaking on behalf of her, but I know she's done this. Be more than willing to sit down and speak to all the neighbors about the concerns that you have and review the plan.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:28:25
“Those are some pretty, I got to tell you, those are some pretty impressive resumes. How did we appoint those people and where did they come from?”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:29:11
“I would just say, looking at the changes in policy, there are several in here that I think you've moved to more long-term on most everything we did from two years to three years, from one year to two years. I think that anybody who looks at this would think that this is a good policy change on most of these items. I would say that as you look at those maximum The next time we look at this, those maximum maturities to three years, if there are funds that we know are not going to be used or in place for, because I know we've got some of those that are five, ten, much longer, I would encourage…”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:32:57
“Commissioner Smith. I would just say I appreciate y'all updating these before the end of the budget year, as y'all have in the past. As you're looking at these overall numbers, some of them, it looks like they're doing, and I'm judging by the usage, they're doing a good job they're increasing by 10% or whatever. And I assume we'll see that in the budget. There's a number of them that have cuts of 40% or 35, 40% cuts to those individual programs. Do you see those fluctuating as the need dependent upon those individual cases? Or do you see, and this is a general question, do you see those as,…”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:34:44
“While we've looked at each one of these contracts individually as they've come through, I know we've had to update as we picked up some providers, lost other providers. I know there's, for example, on item 14, there's one, two, three, four. There's eight different providers there. If in the future these come forward, knowing what each one of those providers actually provide would be helpful as well.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:36:20
“I just do I have one other question and this is a conversation we've had in court I think twice now All of the work that y'all do in coordinating with these different vendors to provide mental health services, it'd be great if, because of our work with our behavioral analysis, or pardon me, our behavioral individual in our health department, having them looped in to know what those contracts are I'm not saying having them looped into the negotiation or anything else. I completely understand that as a court, y'all are standing alone and trying to provide those services for those individuals.…”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:44:14
“So I do have one question. You mentioned the substations. I know we've talked about this in the past, fully staffing the substations every day of the week. Where are we at on that? Because we bring this up every year, and I know it's going to come up in budget, but it's just a question.”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:49:23
“Right on. Commissioner Smith, I think it's a good policy. Going through the written policy itself, I think you hit all the points that I would have had questions about specifically on the budget process and the packet that has to go to HR. I think it's perfect. If you remember when District Attorney Higgins got into office, his first item he brought forth was hiring additional attorneys. And I was shocked that he was asking for a salary variance at that point. And I told him at that point I was shocked he was able to get the competent staff that y'all have at the rates that y'all were paying.…”
Commissioners Court · Jul 28, 2026