I heard that. I'd like to call the March 19, 2019 meeting of the Ditton County Commissioners Court to order. I'd like to remind everybody to turn off your cell phones or any electronic devices. This morning, I'd like to welcome Pastor Chris Respist with anti- out Christian fellowship in Corinth. Welcome Pastor, he is going to lead us in our invocation. If you'll please stand in. It will followed by Kevin Carr is going to lead us with our pledges. Let's make sure that that red lights on. Good morning and before I pray I just want to express my gratitude to all of you for serving our county and grateful for the opportunity to pray. So let's do that and Miss Pray. God, we love you today and what an awesome privilege this Court has to impact the lives of thousands of people. I've seen the agenda, but in the responsibility is great. And so we ask for wisdom, we ask for your guidance, we ask for discernment, that the meeting not only go well, but that the decisions that are made are made with wisdom and in furtherance of your purposes for our county that didn't county might be the greatest in North Texas and the state. So bless the commissioners and their families, bless all the parties who are involved today. May everything that we do be pleasing in your sight. This I ask in praying Jesus's name, amen. 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. On Earth of Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God, one indivisible. Thank you, Pastor. Thank you, Kevin. Members at this time, I'd like to go to item 13A, and I'd like to welcome Judge Sherry Shipman to the podium. Judge Shipman has a jury trial going on this morning, so we are going to respect her time and that of the court system, So I want to welcome Judge Shipman. All right so as you all know our County auditor James Wells has decided to abandon us after 37 years and so you know usually when in doing this administrative judge job there's always somebody who's done something previously can say how do we so I ask Can ask questions of how we done this before but nobody has remembered how we hired the office Except for Mr. Wells himself. He's been helpful, but we did Go through the proper process and I think I you all have attached the Texas local government code 84.003 Which is the procedure that the district judges have to follow to hire a county auditor. And so just so you know what process we kind of went through, you may or may not be aware, but we have at least three judges who are actually accountants as well as lawyers and judges. And so we had two of those three and another district judge and Mr. Wells himself, who did a preliminary round of interviews. They interviewed six applicants. And then from those six, they chose the two finalists. And then the full panel of district judges, I think we might have been missing one judge out of our total of nine. Then interviewed those last two applicants. And then we had a special meeting on March 5th and voted unanimously to offer the position to Jeff May. Jeff May is the current county auditor for Collin County and I believe all of his most of his career has been spent in the Collin County Auditors Office since 1995 with the exception of one year and that I believe he worked for their budget office. So he has that perspective as well, but he came very highly recommended and it turned out that Mr. Wells, I believe, was his mentor at one time. So they know each other. And we believed that of all the people that we interviewed that he was the most qualified, he seemed to be the one candidate that had relevant county government experience, which we thought was really important since didn't county has grown in so quickly and we have bond issues and all those types of things that we needed an auditor to be familiar with. So we did submit an order, or we signed an order, then that was submitted to the District Clerk. We had Mr. May take the oath of office and then the District Clerk approved the order. Our offer of salary to him was $150,000 a year. It's actually less than he's making in his current position. So we believed that we needed to make an offer at least that much in order to attract somebody who had the experience that we needed. So I am available for any questions that you might have. Thank you, Judge. Sounds like you all had a very thoughtful process. And I appreciate that. Members, do you have any questions of Judge Shipman? Jeff, Jeff. Any any fact he is here? Yes. I don't know how many of you have actually. Come on up and say hi. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you. I'm very excited about coming over to Dicken County and working with y'all. This is going to be a big change for me. I've been at Collin County for 24 years, and I'm really excited about the change. I think I can make the transition as seamless as possible. I know the job. I just need to learn the people in the process. Good. We're glad to have you. Then you're not going to bring any of that Collin County funny math over here. Over here. Maybe the good part of it. The good part. The good part. We're much nicer than there. Sorry. I had key self one time demand $600 million. Not so much. Well, welcome. Thank you very much. We're greatly appreciated. Welcome. Thank you, Judge. And thank you, Jeff. We're excited about having, welcome you aboard. All right, I'm going to go ahead and take a motion to approve this appointment. I already took the action, but just for belt and suspenders purposes. We also have motion by Commissioner Coleman, seconded by Commissioner Marchin, any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you Judge Shipman. Thank you. Appreciate you. Appreciate you. All right. Members, we'll go back to item one for public input from items not listed on the agenda. Do we have one? We have one. We have one person who has registered to speak and is John crew. Mr. Crew are you here? Come forward. Welcome. Good morning. Hello guys, I'm not going to see you all. I can't remember. You're just fine. My name is John Crew. I live in Denton on Spring Tree Street off of East McKinney. And I was actually coming here in regards to Higry Creek Road, as you're familiar with what's happened with that road. Many years ago, Higry Creek was designated to be the future at Loop 288. They were actually going to encircle the city with the loop at one time. It was going to go through Higry Creek. That has since been abandoned. And the city of Denton is only going to take the loop around to 35 W. So it'll be Eastern and Western and Northern loop, but not Southern. What I wanted to bring to your attention and basically ask what would be if the county and the city would work together to extend and connect Hacry Creek to Country Club Road in a direct straight path across that area. I brought a map with me but those of you that are familiar with the area, it does line up with Brush Creek Road. Hey Creek Creek would be a straight east west. I don't want to say connector because you don't want to make a major road, but Denton doesn't have this county, doesn't have good east and west corridors between the east. I mean, when you localize it around southern and South Denton, you've got to wind through all these windy streets. And that area is very dangerous. You know, they've got, you've got it, guard rails and they've done some improvements recently. It's still very curvy. It still connects the country cloud in an odd fashion at Ang. But really, I know I'm just putting input here and I don't want to take too much of your time, but I really would like the county to look at the feasibility of connecting Hickory Creek Road to Brush Creek Road, essentially. It would be a straight line. It would be much better you could have intersection with a signal at Brush Creek. And that's just outside the city of Denton's limits. So that's kind of why I wanted to bring that to the county But maybe work with the city in parts of it Mr. Crew I'm gonna call you this afternoon We met about this yesterday. Oh, okay with the city that's great Oh, James Gossi and City manager, but I'm gonna call you after work. I appreciate that. I think you're putting your phone number down Thank you. Thank you for for advocating for that transportation improvement. I can tell you that the county has commissioners that had those conversations and we are working in coordinated effort on that. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. My pleasure. All right. There was our only public comment item for this morning. Item two is our consent agenda. I'm just do we have a motion for approval or motion by Commissioner Coleman. Second. Second by Commissioner Marchion. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 2A is our order making appointments. There is a new hire in our elections office and a re-hired in our public health medical examiner. Item 2B is approval of the Interim Departmental Transfers in the appropriate action. Item 2C is approval of payroll. Item 2D is award of printing bid number 192504 to dot the biography, incorporated in the appropriate action. Item 2E is approval of budget memory request 100800 for print and mail to transfer $2500 from copy or supplies to equipment rental, $3,000 from off supplies to equipment rental, and $6,667 from postage machine rental to equipment rental for a total amendment of $12,167 in the appropriate action. Item 3A is a presentation by the Office of History and Culture and Kelsey Jistle is going to come and make a presentation this morning. Come on up. Kelsey. Good morning. Good morning, Judge and commissioners. Judge and commissioners. As Judge Ead said, I am Kelsey Jistle, the curator of educational programs for the Office of History and Culture. And we wanted to share with This is a book that we created, the help of our summer intern, Kasey Moffitt. This is a book about the historic Iron Bridges of Denton County and the Relocation Project, and it's designed for fourth grade students. And our goal is to share this with the social studies coordinators for elementary schools in the various school districts across the county. And we've already shared it with a few of them. And they're really excited about it. As far as we know, this is kind of the first in the state, which is exciting. And basically, it this is kind of the first in the state, which is exciting. And basically, it's just kind of to educate children and teachers about the bridge program. And there's a little bit of everything in here from history, geography, economics, science, technology. So we're hoping that this will fit in really well with the students curriculum. So do you want to say a few words about how you kind of pushed on the project? Okay. Well I'm Casey as Kelsey said and I was very fortunate to get to work on this book. I actually have a fourth grader and a second grader so I took them with me to the bridges so I can get their perspective on what they found interesting. And my goal with this book is to help the fourth grade students to understand the value of these bridges and why we want to preserve them. So I can inspire them. The next generation to want to preserve the bridges as well for their historic value, for the design value and for their beauty and what they add to the culture of the county. So I'm really glad that I got to work with this nephew really happy if this actually is used in classes. Great. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for doing this for us and for our students here in the county. With a great publication, I'm so excited that we were able to, if you look through here, not only have we relocated and preserved so many bridges to new locations, but we're able to actually preserve some of our bridges in their original location, which is, which is very meaningful. original location which is which is bringing me to my daughter is a aspiring screenwriter and it would be really something for her to write a movie script called the Bridges of Ditton. Here's been done. It's been done. So much for originality. Look a great idea We Sorry judge, I just want to compliment them on the kind of lesson plans Yeah, they're with us of a tabular discussion questions and activities. I think it's excellent. Thank you so much Great as if you look there as let you know if it makes it way hopefully and it's a little so thank you thank you thank you thank you so much thank you so much members what's great about our our office of history and culture is so many of the programming that we do is around the teak requirements and that are that are required by the state. So we really try to, this is just another example of us trying to build those programs around the curriculum that our students here in the county are having to learn any way so they can come up here. So when they come to the courthouse, they do one of our tours of the historical part. It's really not only a field trip, but it's a real learning opportunity and it ties in and it really brings history to life and what they're learning in the classroom when they come up here to Ditton and actually cross the squares and the county. So, thank you so much for being here for what you did. We used to have a bridge of Ditton County tour. We used to do a tour years ago with Renelle and some of us would do a tour. So maybe we can use this as a backbone of that and do some tours now that the weather is pretty we can do some guided tours as well. Next, so thank you very much ladies. Next I'd like to go to item 3B. This is approval of a proclamation remembering the honorable Shirley Spellerberg former mayor of Corinth and mayor Spellerberg passed away about 10 days ago and it was a great loss to not only Corinth but Ditton County and the Republican Party of Texas and the conservative movement which she spent a lifetime advocating for. And so I would like to read this memorial proclamation on behalf of this court. The honorable Shirley Spellerberg Memorial Proclamation. Whereas the Ditton County Commissioners Court joins the citizens of current and mourning the laws of the honorable Shirley Spellerberg who went home to be with the Lord on March 9th, 2019 at the age of 90. Whereas Shirley Spellaberg was born on October 22nd, 1928 in Waco, Texas. She graduated in 1945 from Waco High School, then went on to study business administration at Baylor University. Whereas Shirley was a Christian conservative activist serving a numerous roles of leadership, President of the Florida Federation of Women from 1972 to 1979, in the successful fight against the Equal Rights Amendment, conservative talk radio host on Speak Out Miami for five years, from 1974 to 1979, and co-hosted the weekly Miami TV show to the point in 1979 to 1979. And whereas after moving back to Texas in 1979, Shirley was elected mayor of current in 1983 where she served for 16 years. She also served as president of Ditton Republican Women's Club, member of State Republican Executive Committee, and Republican Party of Texas Platform Committee from 1998 to 2001. President of the Ditton County Republican Assembly from 2010 to 2016, founding member of Phil Shaftley's Eagle Form in 1972. Shirley received numerous awards for her political activities in Florida and in Texas. She was also awarded the Yellow Rose of Texas in 2018. And where Shirley Spellerberg was beloved by many, will long be remembered with admiration and respect by all who are privileged to share in her life. Now therefore, Beatriz Hall, that the Ditton County Commissioners Court does hear by extend its sincere condolences to the bere family of Shirley Spellaburg, including her two sons and their wives, Craig and Betty Spellaburg of Greenville, South Carolina, and Grant and Karen Spellaburg of my Amy Floyd and granddaughter Samantha Spellaburg. Done an open court that's not tinked, they have marched upon a motion by Commissioner Edminton, seconded by Chair Will Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. All right. Item 4A is a public hearing to consider and discuss and or approve the replat of Wagner editions, lot one and two, block A. This is 15.120 acres and Commissioner precinct four. Do we have a motion to open the public hearing? Motion by Commissioner Coleman. Seconded by Commissioner Edmondson, any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Is there anyone in favor of or opposed to the replat of Wagner edition, lots one and two? Anyone in attendance to speak in favor of or opposed to the replat? For the record, we had no opposition that was received at the Public Works Office. Thank you motion to close public hearing. Motion by Commissioner Marchus, second by Commissioner Coleman, a close the public hearing any discussion all in favor say aye any opposed motion carries unanimously. We have a motion for the approval of the replat. Motion by Commissioner Ebbittson, seconded by Commissioner Mitchell any discussion all in favor say aye any opposed motion carries unanimously. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 5A is approval of the bill report. Payments from CSCD, Community Corrections, T-A-I-P, Sheriff's Training, Sheriff's Forfeiture, V-I-T, Interest, and DA-4 for which are presented for recording purposes only. Mr. Wells. I would ask approval of bills as presented with the three additions that are noted on the separate page. I would point out that the first addition for $893 of census is actually to increase the change funds for the district clerk and so by the action or approval of the bill, this needs commission for approval. So by approving the payment, I see y see all approving they're setting up raising their change fund. This brings their change fund up to $400 for each cash collection point, which is adequate to do for daily business, but not definitely not excessive. That's all the corrections I have with those other two. Thank you for that clarification and explanation. We have a motion by Commissioner Coleman. Seconded by Commissioner Marchin, any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Going to item sevens, which is the budget. Seven A's are approval of budget, and request 100790 for opposite history and culture to transfer $100 from postage to computer equipment and any appropriate action. The chair will move for approval. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell in discussion. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 7b is approval of budget member request 100810 for veterans court grant to transfer $6,034 from counseling and SA family studies to counseling SA outpatient treatment in any appropriate action. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, second by Commissioner Edmondson. Paul, do you need to add anything? Okay. I just need to be able to see the move back so we can actually. Perfect. Perfect. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 7c's are approval of Budget Memor request 100820 for public health, environmental division to transfer $382 from public health, environmentalating Supplies to Telecommunications and Network new instruments in any appropriate action. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell. Seconded by Commissioner Edmondson in any discussion. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 70 is approval of Budget Memories request 100830 for construction management to transfer $2,956 from cars and small trucks to vehicle equipment. Motion by Commissioner Marchant. Second by Commissioner Edminton, any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 7E is Approval of Budget Memor request 100840 for emergency services to increase revenues for the emergency service response reimbursement and allocate expenditures for body armor, vehicle repairs, radio repair, operating equipment and wireless services in the amount of $68,052. Motion by commission Commissioner Mitchell. Chair will second, any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 8A is a report from Human Resources regarding hiring actions of elected officials. This is presented for recording purposes only, Mr. Hernandez. The committee is adjourned. Good morning. I have the following new employees. You already approved the new hire for the County Auditor's Office. We have three promotions in the Sheriff's County jail, 15 new hires in the County jail. One new, rehired at the Sheriff's County jail. And one new hire in juvenile provision post adjudication. This is what we have for this week. Okay. Thank you, sir. We are going to pull item 12a that's gonna be reposted next week, so we are gonna pull item 12a. going to be reposted next week, so we are going to pool item 12a. The party done 13a. 13d is approval of the Ditton County Office of History and Culture. Grant proposal application for the City of Ditton's hotel occupancy tax funds for the county or 2020 in the amount of $243,000 in any appropriate action to Chair or move for approval. Second, by Commissioner Ebbenson in any discussion. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 13c is approval of waiver of penalty and interest on various accounts. This is 23195. 231569DN and any appropriate action? Any questions? Yeah, any questions? In the past haven't we done these individually? Just one. Is just one. Okay. Okay. Got it. For this. For approval. For this one item the two three one five six night. All right. We have a motion by Commissioner Marchant. Yes ma'am. I don't know exactly what this is. Why we're granting a waiver of penalty an interest? Thank you. Do we have some of the tax office here? Tom, are you representing the tax office? Tom Commissioner Edmonton had a question about us waiving the penalty and interest at the background of that. Any give us a circle of stances on this please? There are set legal requirements. So I have not read that particular one, but if they meet it, we do it. If they do not meet it, we say no. 99.8 of them are unknown. So if they got here then it needs the the strict legal requirement. In the back up he said you tried to call in using the system could not get in. We did have our third party vendors there was a problem with the system for for short my new amount of time. One of the legal requirements is if it's our fault that they can't pay. Yeah, thank you. So the taxpayer made an attempt and could not for technological glitch. So we're waving that penalty because they operated in good faith under the state statute. Okay? We have a motion by Commissioner Marchion. Do we have a second? The chair will second. Any further discussion? That's a good question, Commissioner. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 13D is approval and adoption of the revised Ditton County Records Management Program resolution as recommended by Kevin Carr, Chief Information Officer. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell. Second by Commissioner Edmondson. Any discussion? Kevin, do you have anything to add? Okay. Motion to the second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed. Motion carries. Namely item 13E is a discussion of redistricting in Ditton County. I'd like to have Frank Phillips, our elections administrator. Come forward if he could. Good morning, Frank. Thank you for being here. Can you briefly take a moment to brief the core on the compliance requirements that the Commissioner's Court has to operate within and we're curious to see are we in compliance with our population of each one of the Commissioner precincts and and and let's walk through the time schedule. Well, you know, normally we're used to redistricting after a census, but that's when it's required. Commissioner's Court can regrow their commission of precincts anytime they so choose to make sure that population is equally distributed. As fast as Dink County is growing, we're nowhere near equal distribution right now. I do have some numbers for you. Fuckin' pass them out to you. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. You'll see based on the numbers I just provided you that are. Now, keep in mind this is an estimate. And these numbers come from the Census Bureau. There's different ways to go through the data that the Census Bureau provides. Our GIS Department used four different programs, four different estimates and they averaged those estimates. As long as you're working from the same set of data, even if you're not 100% on your population, you're still working percentage wise at the same rate. So we're estimating the county population's 833,593. what we estimate each commissioner precinct currently sits at, Commissioner 1 at 246,944, Commissioner 2,200,631, Commissioner 3,170,699, Commissioner 4,215,319. nineteen. The mean or average of a population would mean each precinct needs to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 208,000. Clearly where Commissioner one is way over that. Commissioner three is way under that. So I do think. Correct. We already knew it. It's just looking at the numbers and confirms it. So from our smallest to our greatest, there's a disparity of 76,000 I'm 50% bigger than Bobby and more than one way right now. 80,000 people. You have almost 30% of the county's population. So Frank, we're required to do this after a census which we did. And so are we allowed to do this in, in between senses is that the true statement? You are commissioner's court can do it at their program. Okay. Is there a time frame that we need to work with in for a best practice or to meet a legal requirement? Well, you know, from my perspective, always the sooner the better, because it will take us weeks after week. The court comes to a final determination of I'm not going to be able to take the decision. I'm not going to be able to take the decision. I'm not going to be able to take the decision. I'm not going to be able to take the decision. I'm not going to be able to take the decision. I'm not going to be able to take the decision. better because candidates will be running on those new precincts for 2020. Okay? Members? Commissioner Edmondson. Is there any variance that's allowed? I know when they're doing the district and the legislature they have a zero amount of variance on congressional and I think it's a percentage on the others. Do we have a percentage of variance at this level? It does not give us a percentage. It just says equal population. Now, you know, we both know you can't get 100% equal. So it's close as we possibly can. I did some city attorney work. Generally, you want to be a 5% or 5% or so. Yeah. You're going to have percent percent more less each way. I think last time we were 5 percent. We did it. We did it. We brought it up. We had it roughly in the 170s. Right. This is a good problem to have because it shows that we're growing county and welcoming new new residents to our county and different parts of the county are less populated and because they are built out and there's other parts of the county that are growing because they have available land and space and so they're growing and it's evidenced by this chart that we're looking at just since we did this and the last time you can see the growth that we've had especially in precinct one so members do I have any further comments as far as moving forward with the process. I think we need to move forward. I'm going to move forward with the process. I think we need to move forward. I'm good. Okay, so we will commence the process effective today. And we will work with Frank on revising these jurisdictional boundaries. And Frank, if you could come back in a few weeks and present a series of maps, I believe it's important to have a public process as we do this and have a public hearing and engage the public in the process here that we'll be making. The commission's court will make the final decision. Obviously, so we'll work as a committee of the whole to redraw these appropriate lines to meet the growing demands of populations we can be in compliance. But you just want to commission your last commission of March it. Sorry, the last statement you did make the ultimate decision of redistricting and where those lines are in relation to commissioners, horse lines, JP lines, constable lines, lies within our purview. And there may be suggestions and may be recommendations of the ultimate decision as in the last time we get redistricting lives with this body. Right. Well, man, I have all I have to do this. Okay. All right, Frank, if you will go ahead and start, I will send an email out today to the other office holders and seeking their input as well. And so that we can get those and get those into Frank and so that we can start to get their input And again, we want to be a public process and receive input from other people. We will have a Postage in the item so we can receive input before the commissioner's court makes a final decision Okay, all right. Thank you Frank Commissioner Edminton. Sorry Frank, we also redistrict the Constables and JP's Frank, we also redistrict the constables and JPs. Yes. Can you send us data on where each of those is now population-wise and perhaps also geography more? The only thing we have to look at. Absolutely. I can see the same kind of data. I'll give about it for your commission. Thank you. Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Frank. commission. Thank you. Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Frank. Thank you, Chair. All right, 13 F is approval and acceptance of the certificate of completion certifying that the continuing education provisions of Texas local government code article 8102025 The 025 have been satisfied by Commissioner Bobby J. Mitchell for the county or 2018 and in the appropriate action the chair will move for approval. Second. Seconded by Commissioner Coleman in the discussion. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Unamis. All right. 14A is approval of interlocal cooperation agreement between Ditton County, Texas and the town of Hickory Creek, Texas for the purpose of providing drainage maintenance, performing surface road and parking lot repair and providing boat launch ramp and multiple roads located entirely within the town of Hickory Creek and Ditton County Commissioner precinct three. I will move approval motion by Commissioner Mitchell second by Commissioner Edminton any discussion? I don't know That's ten yeah, and sounds like a I've never built a boat launch ramp before All right, we have a motion of the second. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed motion carries unanimously. In the 14 B's approval of access agreement between Sally, beauty supply LLC and Ditton County, Texas for access to property at 3,900 more street for inspection and investigation. Chair will move for approval. Second. Second by Commissioner Mitchell. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. I'd like to go to item 21a. Ms. Jawski will come forward. She went to Austin last week with Commissioner Mitchell and representative of our Council of Urban Counties and got us a great update and kept us surprised of some developments. I would like to add while she's getting ready I had a great conversation with Chairman of the Texas House, Ways and Means Commission. I mean committee last week with our wonderful state representative Lynn Stucky appreciate representative Stucky coordinating that and we spoke about House Bill 2 and impacts to Ditton County and had a very thoughtful dialogue about ways to improve that bill and so I believe he was very receptive to some of our comments and concerns as well. So it's Jawski. Good morning. Okay. So last week, well last week and actually as of yesterday. So Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, reserve the 30 lowest bill numbers as his priority legislation this year. And one of those bills is SB 21, which would raise the minimum legal age to possess or use tobacco products from 18 to 21. We spoke about that a couple weeks ago and I was asked to put together a policy statement in support of that bill which is also part of this particular agenda item and the judge can read that after. But that did go to public hearing yesterday, and it remains pending before the committee today. So our policy statement is very timely on that one. There is a lot of support in the Senate for that bill, and including Senator Nelson, who is supporting it as well. who is supporting it as well. There were three bills that came up last week. Haven't really been on our radar previously, but I think it was important for me to mention today, this Senate state affairs heard three bills on eminent domain and all three of them have now moved from committee or out of committee, I should say to the floor. SB 552, SB 553 and SB 554. I think that they are actually very important for us to watch and I will continue to monitor them. There is some information here on what they are looking for. Additionally, on the last page, I put a summary of some of the senate, some other senate activity for the last week. And yes, last week I was down in Austin with Commissioner Mitchell. We had a very lively dialogue regarding SB2 and HB2 and the urban counties as well as TAC and reaching out probably with the mayor's committee and putting together something that we can all live with that would support, you know, that we could all live with for support of these two bills. So I think that that will be forthcoming in the next month. There'll be a meeting in Austin for the different groups to come together on that. Shannon, we have an eight o'clock Monday morning meeting and we discussed also, us coming up with the number that the counties in cities can live with other than the 2.5 and in that when we come up with that number and five, six, wherever it is that we list the all the unfunded mandates that we're having to pay for and we discussed it, my name, my name is Board of Directors, the Board did. So I see you see representatives going to be going to the council other, down to the legislative, letting them know that, you know, we're going to negotiate because we're going to get something, we know we're going to get something, they're going to come up with an 8%, and we don't want 2%, or we need to come up with at 8% and we don't want 2% or we need to come up with the numbers that we can get with. I already have a vote. And I do our legislative contingency. I can hear you. I said I wrote a letter to our legislators saying that I was okay with 4% but that they needed no unfunded mandates. I think we get a copy of that. Yeah, but I'll send a letter. I'll send that to you. Yeah, I think we need to. I didn't want to speak for you all when I did that, but I kind of when I did a back of that I thought we can survive on that pretty easy. I'd like to let us know that so we won't go fight the fight. No, I know. No, I know. I'll send that to you. I think that it's important for the public to know that our court supports reforms, but we also want to be sure that any reforms also translate into property tax relief. And so I think that's important to us as a body is that we are providing any actions that are taking our providing true property tax relief to our citizens. And many, and I explained to the chairman on the phone the other day, many of these measures that are in this bill would not impact it in county directly, because we're in some of our other larger counties. But we need to immediately, immediately in this current growth environment, like we saw, we talked about this more of our redistricting, but it would impact our sister counties as well, and potentially, didn't count in the future. But in our current economic environment and the desirability of the county for people to relocate here, it wouldn't, but it, but it, but it's a future measure that we're looking to protect. When people say, what's going to do to the Ditton County today? Well, it will impact us today, but it's, it's about the future and having a system in place that we could live within in the days and years to come. So Commissioner Edmitzer. Judge, if I remember correctly in the last legislative session, the House came up with a 4% and the Senate came up with a 6% cap. And it seems to me that they ought to have been able to get together and come up with 5% and that may be a good number for us to look at now. But it's good and a half percent is just untenable for many of our counties. So one of the things that has been discussed at the CUC and across the state actually and that phone call was carve outs and exceptions to this revenue cap. And so looking at public safety as a carve out and other for first responders and a lot of that's in how you define those definitions. Judicial items. Judicial items. The health department. Health department is, I would say, is the first responder in many regards. If you think about Ebola and other things that we, our other counties, our sister counties have faced, they're on the front line. And so responding, so how do you define a first responder? And so, in public safety. So that might be a process is going through exceptions or carve outs to that bill, and then how do you define those carve outs? So that might be a way to reach a compromise and provide some tax relief. Of course, the more complicated you make a bill like that, unless you're under the public, you just understand it. Correct. Correct. And that's one of our, that's a great point, Commissioner Edmondson, and we want to keep it as simple. That would be art as art, to keep it as simple as possible for transparency and just for the public. And so that we do not have to come back into a future session as one of the things they want to understand is they do not want to come back in a future session and have to do a clean up bill. And we meet every Monday morning at 8 o'clock and it's called. Okay. And so if you have anything that you would like to see you see the carry food Is let me know right the email so it's a Shannon and she'll send it to me and we'll absolutely So part of what we talked about last week was that the there's 24 mayors, I believe 2427 that have gone off and Begun to negotiate their own separate deal and their own separate carveouts. And it ultimately for the cities. Correct. Not for counties, but for the cities. And so what it really leads to is the appearance of a 2.5% cap, but it ultimately works in a way that they still have 8%. So it really doesn't get the taxpayer any relief in any way. So that is part of the reason why we talked about, let's get everyone together and figure out how can we really provide tax relief. It's not so much about these caps as it is some restructure. I think everyone really agreed. The first thing we need to do is figure out the public school funding. That becomes the biggest elephant in the room, if you will, that is standing in the way. So everyone agrees- Biggest part of the tax bill. Right. That needs to happen before we can talk about the caps and everything else. Okay. One other thing that was brought to my attention this morning from Scott, our Director of Purchasing. He has asked us to support HB1229 and this is a bill. It's not yet on our briefing packet, but it would allow the county to be able to post on the Internet, as well as or eliminate having to post in newspapers for bids. So currently we are only allowed to do newspapers. And this really moves us to today's technology and being able to post on internet websites, social media sites, et cetera, and would save us money ultimately. So I'll send more information to all of you, but he's asked us to support that. And if you agree, we can do a policy statement on that. Okay, we can talk about the Commissioner Marchin. Yeah. Sorry, I have a minute. This House Bill 2142, Frank, is that your bill that you're interested in? It is not. It's not. What bill, House Bill number is that that board include our type of voting system within the language of why not that one did not go through it was not submitted it was not submitted no it was that was not going to make that out of committee that's correct unfortunately committee. That's correct. Unfortunately. I'd like us to take action from the legislative policy statement regarding the 7121. So I'm going ahead and so move. If a motion for from Commissioner Coleman regarding support of the Senate bill 21 at HB7, do we have a second? Thank you. With a second by Commissioner Edmonds and any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed, motion carries, and honestly this is a legislative policy statement by the Ditton County Commissioners Court, the subject of support for Senate Bill 21 and House Bill 749 relating to the distribution, possession, purchase, consumption, and receipt of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and tobacco products. Whereas about 95% of smokers start before the age of 21. In Texas, 10,400 kids become daily smokers every year. And one third of them will die prematurely as a result. Raising the tobacco cell age from 18 to 21 is an effective strategy to fight tobacco use. Senate Bill 21 and HB749 seek to raise the minimum legal age to purchase cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and tobacco products from 18 to 21. Raising the MLA to 21 for this offense would help keep cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and tobacco products out of Texas schools by creating more of a distance between younger high school students and of age purchasers. By raising the age, these bills seek to reduce early addiction to tobacco and nicotine products. The commissioners Court of Ditton County strongly supports SB21 and HB749 to raise the minimum legal age from 18 to 21 to purchase cigarettes, e-cigarettes and tobacco products done at Open Court. This is the 19th of March 2019 upon a motion by Commissioner Coleman and seconded by Commissioner Edmitzer and passing unanimously. Okay? Shannon, any other items regarding the legislature? I'm going to say guys, we need to, since we can't come to an agreement with the judges regarding the new county court, I don't think we need to, mainly because of the staffing and we wouldn't be able to, you know, we don't have the room for that court here at the courthouse. So I request that we, real simply just to know, state that to them, we're drawing our request for a county court. Okay. Also moved. The motion by Commissioner Coleman, seconded by Commissioner Marchant. Any discussion? Commissioner Mitchell? What are you going to say something? Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Commissioner Marchion. Members, we received the email and I cannot Remember who it was from was it from the CUC? asking us to make a list of Improvement who it was tacked Yes, because of that grant of improvement, who it was tacked. Yes. Because of that grant. Uh-huh, and I'm working on that. Yep, I have received the data from Frank with all the invoices, et cetera, for the voting equipment. And I also want to look into, because there's a number of things, including capital improvements, things for emergency services, that kind of stuff. So I wanted to see if there were other things that we could include in that letter for our grant. So I will have an update on that next week. Will you give us that tech email did not give us, it was too broad of parameters that was giving us rather than holding down on a specific needs like, yes, like drainage or whatever. Right, yes, absolutely. Okay, anything else regarding our legislative session? If any members at this time, let's go to item 17, which is our community updates. Do we have any items we'd like to mention? I do know we have a ribbon cutting this coming Friday. Commissioner, would you like to call me? Would you like to mention that? I remember I declined to speak the last time we had a ribbon cutting for 2450 saying that I'd wait till we finished it the north part so I'm going to get to speak this time Commissioner Mitchell. But we finally got it done. It's all finally complete. The cones are up so we're going to have a little ribbon cutting. It's a great way to get down to Highland Village and that area to go shop if you live in Den. I used it often, bring it on there, huh? So that is at 10.30 this Friday, the 24.99 section 5 ribbon cutting. So ceremoniously open that and it's not supposed to rain till that night. Is that a bright dawn? Dawn knows the weather. I think it's Friday night. Any other updates? Commissioner Marchin. I want to add, we have mentioned to you about the, the, the, the Dantin County Grove that's behind, behind my building. And I want to make sure that I announce that there is a work day for any of you, arborist or green thumb people out there are going to be working on that grove, as well as some education programs that the master gardeners are gonna be putting on in my building on that Saturday morning. One of those to get that out. Last time they had it about a month or so ago, they had about 20 or so people that showed up from the community that for educational, educational program as well as working on the Grove itself. Perfect. And... I forgot last week we opened up a new fire station, actually in Ron's precinct, but on Lake Wood for Castle Hill, beautiful building, and the neighborhood and it was very nice. Yeah, in fact there's another one that is going up on the corner of Plano Parkway, Plano Parkway, and the communication way right in Grandscape and the city of colony is with the brand new fire station there too. And that fire station is beautiful. It is, isn't it? Yeah. It's not able to be at the ribbon cutting, but I represent it. You will. Thank you. Joe, I asked Jody to come in. Jody, we're going to be, have a presence at Congressman Burgess's event this weekend. Is that true? Can you tell the public about that upcoming event? Yes, sir. So the Congressman has his annual emergency prepared in the summit and fair in trophy club this year. I believe it's at Byron Nelson Hospital. And it's a good event with a lot of vendors. We invite a lot of utility providers and different home depot and loads and different providers of material and goods and services to the community that can find out what type of equipment and things that they can buy to help them be more prepared, especially during severe weather awareness and things like that is right on our forefront of March, April and May and spring severe weather time and that's really what we're trying to get out to the public and the congressman is trying to get out with information and our local government agencies will be there in a lot of their cities and the county and us will be there providing materials and information to the citizens that attend the fair and the summit to let them know that what they can do to help them self-prepare. We also have our cert booth citizen emergency response team. They'll have a lot of giveaways and different materials related to how citizens can prepare themselves for any type of emergency and things like that. Yes sir? That's the timing on that. I believe it starts at eight to nine is the general walking around and looking at the vendors and then nine o'clock at the different sessions starts. So there will be different sessions and from leaders throughout the county we have a specific section on communication emergency communications and then there's a weather section on how to be weather aware and what kind of clouds to look for. There's a lot of different things throughout the day. So I believe it is at one o'clock, so eight to one with session starting at nine. And Don may have already done a Facebook post, but if not, she can do one kind of, especially mentioning our attendance there and how that we're going to continue our partnership with that. So it'd be great. This is for our Ditton County employees. This is just a reminder that tomorrow, over at the elections department, our Ditton County purchasing is going to be hosting our employee fair. And that's from 11 to 2, to 11 to 2. And so the theme this year is March Madness. And so everyone is encouraged to wear their spirit wear. So I hope the court can be there and have as much of a turnout from our employees as possible. So did you? I'm sure you probably have seen it out on the Facebook page for the county as well as the coalition page, the veteran service office page, but we have been refurbishing. Building 406 on South Carol Boulevard, that's in preparation to bring more behavior of health providers to the Denton County area via the VA. The coalition was out there, people from low's community, people were out there starting Saturday at nine o'clock. We will be painting the entire interior of that building in preparation. So we asked for any volunteers that's out there on the web as well. I can't say enough the 25 people that were out there this weekend, we did a lot of work preparing to do that. They're putting the walls in tomorrow and then we'll start doing the painting this weekend. So in preparation to serve more of our veterans. Very good. Yes ma'am Commissioner Edmitzer. First of all I'd like to make everyone aware that there is a public hearing Thursday night. Tech stop is holding a public hearing regarding the improvements to the farm market 407 which is of course one of our problem areas over on the western side of the county. This will be held at Justin Elementary School and it will be from 6 to 8. There will be input from the public as well as from text on. Not encouraging anyone who uses 407 in their east-west travels to come and see what's going to be happening. The plan is to make 407 and much straighter more convenient road from Highway 156 in Justin, clear over to 35. It'll be a massive project that will start in several years with their taking public input now, and I call of you to know about that. Also, I want to give a shout out and thanks to TAC, the Texas Association of Counties. I was asked to speak on a panel that would be Thursday morning at Northwest High School along with the Lies County Judge and one of the Parent County Commissioners to speak to the Student Council on politics, especially as it has to be with ethics. And I found a wonderful pamphlet that was prepared by TAC that explains county government so I can hand this to each of them I don't have to try to define what these rules do. It's all taking care of for me So I'll all have to do is talk about ethics and politics. Oh good Do you have plenty of those brochures? Do you have plenty of those brochures to hand out because we may have some Okay, Cheryl usually keeps some in stock for the court Do you have any of those brochures to hand out? Absolutely. We'll be here. We'll check if we haven't locked in. Cheryl usually keeps them in stock for the court. And if any of y'all need those, Commissioner Marchin. Yeah. I mentioned that Gardiner deal is on Saturday. It's on Friday morning of the 22nd. And this is in precinct three in your area, but the MHMR office that's been located on corporate and the one-twenty-one business, one-twenty-one for so many years, it's moving to Flower Mountain, is it Flower Mountain? It's Flower Mountain starting to think the first of April. A lot of people utilize that facility. They're going to be consolidating a lot of nonprofits to that part. Jody. I wanted to make a brief correction on the Burgess emergency preparedness fair. It is at Trophy Club Town Hall, one Trophy Club Drive. Trophy Club Town Hall. All right. Okay. Any other edits to our previous comments? Yeah, we will. I think I've got to print it up. Did we get to print it on here? Future meetings? Cheryl, what time is our future meeting for this Thursday? We have a, I will say, under future meetings we will have a one item agenda. This Thursday at 2.15 here in the courthouse on the square for the commissioners court to take care of some time since the business. All right. I will go ahead and go to executive session. 15A is Texas government code 551074. Personnel matters, closed meeting to deliberate the evaluation and duties of position of health department director. This is part of our ongoing process with our department heads. 15Bs under local, Texas local government code 5510711A, consultation with attorney in a closed meeting with the governmental body seeks the advice of its attorney about pending litigation calls number four 19cv134 style Gerald de of the Eastern Division of Texas, Sherman Division. And any appropriate action, item 15c is the Texas Local Government Code 55107118 consultation with attorney in the closed meeting. When the government body seeks advice of its attorney about pending litigation and it calls number 419-CV-0-6-2 styled Roger Leverman versus didn't county Texas at all Which is currently pending the United States District Court of the Western District of Texas Midland division and 15D is the Texas local government code 5510-7-2 Deliberation regarding real property, closed meeting to deliberate the purchase or value of real property located in Ditton County Commissioner precinct four when deliberation and open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the position of the governmental body and negotiations with the third party in any appropriate action. We will go into close session. I'm going to go to the executive session. Hello. It is. What is it? 11 o'clock. 11. 11. 11. That clock is not working up there. 11, it's about 1147. We are going to go to item 15B. And this is an order to assign the Ditton County District Attorney's Office Civil Division to represent Judge Crouch in Civil Action. Number 419-CV134 styled, Gerald de Marsh versus State of Texas district judge, Crouch, Ditton County Texas, which is currently pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division and any appropriate action. Do we have a motion for approval? Motion by Commissioner Marchant, second by Commissioner Mitchell. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 15c is an order one to assign legal representation on behalf of Ditton County, Texas, to the law firm of Matthews, Shields, Not, Eden, Davis, and Beanland, LLP. And it calls number 419-CV-062, style Roger Leverman versus Ditton County, Texas, Paul Johnson, Rick Daniel, Laura Tomlin, Lindsay, Shay Good, Matt Shevelyn, Rex George, Larry Kish, and Ronald Pettigrew, which is currently pending in the United States District Court for the Western Division of Texas, Midland Division, number two, exempt contract of employment with the law firm of Matthew Shields, not Eden Davis and Beeland LLP for the requirement, from the requirement established by the Texas local government code section 262023, if applicable. And number three, authorize the didn't Kenny Judge to sign a contract of employment with the law firm of Matthew Shields, not Eden Davis and Beeland LLP. And any appropriate action to have a motion for approval. Motion by Commissioner Marche, second by Commissioner Evans and any discussion. All in favor say aye. Any opposed, motion carries unanimously. We are adjourned.