which please rise. Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. How are you today? Well, the Lord led me to Psalm 91 this morning and I would like to read three verses. He who takes refuge in the shelter of the most high will be safe in the shadow of the Almighty. He will say to the eternal, my shelter, my mighty fortress, my God, I place all of my trust in you. Then verse 11, He will command His heavenly messengers to guard you, to keep you safe in every way. Father, we thank you today that your word says that we can trust you to protect us and that you send angelic guard to do what you, what we can't do in the natural, your angels will protect us and keep us on the path. And as leaders in this county, Father, I ask for this word to go over these leaders in everything that they are doing. And especially with the meeting that they're going to have in Austin next week with the Denton County Days that they will have safe travel, they will have divine appointments with who they are to talk to, they will have a successful trip, and they will make the things that are needed to be communicated to our legislators clear, and they will come back with a victorious report in Jesus' name, amen. One Nation under God is the invisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, I'm going to take it to the right. I'll put my observations to the next one. One, take under God one in the middle. Very good. Thank you, Martha. Members, our first item we're going to go to this morning is a presentation from the City of Aubrey with Mayor Myers here and Commissioner Coleman would you like to introduce our guests? Yes. Okay. Welcome Mayor. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today. Commissioner Coleman, thank you for your time last week. I really appreciate it. I want to introduce to you our new town administrator, new to us. He's been around town for a while. His name is Mark Kaiser. He has opened our eyes to how a city should operate. He's taken over the daily operations and he's made a big difference in our town. So if you would please help me. I'm going to play Vanna for me. I brought some maps today so that when you have a chance you can look at these and you can get a better understanding of the things that I'm talking about. There's a lot of growth in our area and this will help you visualize some of that growth. And so our town today is about four square miles and we're roughly 4,000 individuals. But we have border agreements with all of our neighbors except for crossroads. And as one of the subdivision skills out that border agreement will that border will close also. So we know that in the long run will be 40 square miles and we think will be 150,000 folk. When you think of us we hope that you will think of us as 40 square miles and 150,000 people rather than today the four square miles because I will tell you also that last year we issued roughly a thousand building permits. When you look at our closest neighbor, which is Krugerville, they issued 58 building permits and I will say there was a time in my life when I thought 58 building permits was a big deal. This may be a one time record for us but again we are growing by leaps and bounds and it's interesting at our house. So a few statistics about us and then some quality of life issues and then I'm going to talk to you about how you guys can help us. We borrowed money to work on some of the older streets in town. We borrowed money to build a water. Well we're gonna work on some of the older streets in town. We borrowed money to build a water Well, we're gonna work on with that money. We're also gonna work on hooking up to opportunity regional water district Our sewer plant capacity allows us to expand to 550,000 gallons per day and I'm pushing our water department for a million gallons of a because I think we're going to need it sooner rather than later Our fire department is a big Provider of service for the county. We have an 89 square mile fire district and just as a side note If the county could give us a little more money for those runs that we do in the county. We really appreciate that Police Department Not only serves our town but serves Providence Village, Silverado and Sandbrock which are two large subdivisions in our ETJ. We have a municipal development district that has been offering facade grants to help us spruce up our town and we've also been working hard on code enforcement to clean up some old issues that have been lingering around town. A little bit about quality of life now. We have a core group of volunteers, which I'm sure all towns do, and they are in keep our beautiful. They provide music in the park for you to anybody who shows up and we encourage you guys to come. So it's the third Thursday of May, June and July that's music in the park and it's free, downtown Aubrey. Peanut Festival has been an operation for over 30 years. It is an event that competes with the state fair and is touted by magazines in the last couple of years as a great place to bring your family. We have old-fashioned peanut spitting contest, peanut sandwich eating contest, things like that. So it's lots of fun and it's free. Now some of the activities, the people who bring the activities in do charge, but it's on Main Street, the parade starts at 10 o'clock and we look forward to seeing you all there. Great. Christmas tree lighting. The first Thursday in December, all the kids from around the school district bring in their choirs and their musical instruments and play. And we like the Christmas tree and it's a good old fashioned time again as well in Aubrey. The pilot point to let festival we are grateful for because it brings a lot of folks into our town. They bring, they come into Mom's on main or upper part cafe and have lunch. Go to the to let festival and come back our way. We're about 15 minutes from Lake Ray Roberts or Lake Lewisville and we're about six miles away from the main belt. So we're lots of fun. It's a great place to live. It's a great time to live in Aubrey. How can you help us? We are currently in a quagmire. I might say, the lack of east west thoroughfares in our area. Big or small, none of the roads seem to connect. We are working on that and Mark has led the challenge for some of that. Right now, text.define our east west connectivity corridors as highway 455 and highway 380. And nobody takes 380 unless they absolutely have to The proposed east west outer loop is being designed as a D highway and for those of you don't know Highways are graded from an a to a b c d e or f A being the best f being worse so D is not that great and I'm concerned that we are building another 380 just north of Aubrey and I would love to see us push for something better because again we issued a thousand building permits last year. And if you look at the map along 1385 alone there are roughly 10,000 houses being developed in that area. We also need jobs. And I believe this is kind of off of what you said at the crime lunch the other day. Who do you want to be? I know that we are defined as horse country but we're not going to stay that way. We have some very large landowners who are bringing forward plans that you won't see on that map that are ready to develop. So I believe that our area, if you look at 380 North, has the employees that job, I'm sorry, that employers need. We have medical, we have computer geeks, which my husband is one, so I can say that. We have all kinds of, we have a huge workforce there, and if we could just get some economic development on our area that'd be great. And thank you again for your time. Please come and visit us. We'd love to show you around our town. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much for coming. As you know, we talked about it the other day. We are planning on improving in 2021, 380, to six lanes divided with five overpasses. My concern was there were people who were trying to take that money for that and put it on the other loop. But I think it's. Yeah, no. And you know, and I am deeply sympathetic because you have those huge special districts that are coming into your ETA and there will be free riders on your community and those were placed there. Unfortunately, your predecessor requested that development and that's going to be a huge strain on your infrastructure. And the county with a 25 cent tax rate is not really prepared to care for those folks. And it's going to be a very difficult endeavor and I really think you're up for the task. Thank you. Thank you for coming. All right, next I'd like to go to item 3a. And this is a retirement resolution for Jerome Coleman he could come forward So we can honor you right up here where the mayor was speaking Good morning sir, how are you all right yourself good? I have a resolution here yourself. Good. I have a resolution here. This is a resolution honoring Jerome Coleman for 32 years of service to Ditton County. Wow. Ditton County Commissioners Court Ditton County, Texas during a regular session on the 12th day of February 2019 considered the following resolution. Whereas Jerome Coleman Court Administrator for the probate court, began his career with Ditton County on August 21st, 1986, and retire on February 21st, 2019 after 32 years of dedicated service. And whereas Jerome started as a deputy clerk and through hard work and dedication advanced to the position of court administrator in 1991. And whereas throughout his service to Ditton County, Drowm in a professional manner looked out for the well-being of his fellow men and women, assisted countless attorneys and individuals in crisis by offering procedural guidance, provided timely access to the provate court through scheduling hearings, all the while maintaining the highest level of integrity and ethical conduct required for a court. Whereas Jerome distinguished himself and Ditton County Court Administration through longtime passionate membership in the Texas Association for Court Administration, serving as chair for the TACA membership committee from 2004 to 2018, and also having served on the education nominations and publications committee. Drone was awarded TACA member of the year in 2006, 2009 and 2014, and he received the Honorable Charles Barrow Award in 2014 for his quote, extraordinary contribution in promoting court administration in Texas. Whereas Jerome received further honor in being awarded Ditton County Employee the Year in 2012. And whereas, during his tenure of said service with the probate court of Ditton County, Jerome has faithfully and diligently carried out his duties and obligations to the citizens of Ditton County. Now therefore, it be resolved that Ditton County Commissioner's Court Ditton County, Texas does hereby extended Jerome Coleman, our sincere and grateful appreciation for his dedicated service to Ditton County. We congratulate Jerome on his well-earned retirement and extend our best wishes to him for continued success, happiness and good health in the years to come. Done an open court this 12th day of February 2019 upon a motion by myself. Second. Second by Commissioner Marchett. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're on, which we'd like to give you the mic and introduce any of your guests that you'd like to acknowledge. I think you got a cheering section today. The top provoked staff is here this morning. I appreciate them being here and I have had a wonderful time working and getting to know each and every one of them and each and every judge that I worked for for the last 32 years. Perfect. I would say to you, Jerome, when I was a young pup judge many, many years ago and I called with a legal issue, the immediate response back to me was to call you. Yes. Call you. I don't know. Call Jerome. And so I appreciate your words of wisdom and your direction and appreciate your service for all these years and wish you the best of luck and whatever you decide to do. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. You know, I think it's great. He has been acknowledged by his co-workers here in the county through different acknowledgments and also from your professional associations. So we're not the only one who loves you. So I'd like to have Judge Robus and speak as well. Thank you. We love you. We too. You've held us together. Somehow we'll make it. That you know, Jerome has been a great friend, great support. The globe for our entire department. Ready to go. Positive. Yeah, good. Awesome. You will definitely be missed let's do a picture of members will I'm going to go to the other side. I'm going to go to the other side. I'm going to go to the other side. I'm going to go to the other side. I'm going to go to the other side. I'm going to go to the other side. I'm going to go to the other side. I'm going to go to the other side. I'm going to go to the other side. I'm going to go to the other side. I'm going to go to the Thank you. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to All right. Next. We have one more proclamation. I'm going to read. And this is. Who's coming, Tommy? Are you coming to this is yours, Tommy? If you want to come on up, Tommy, that'd be great or any of your guests with you as well Good morning morning. How are you great? Thank you good all right. This is our Texas food connection day February 12th 2019 Where it is important that Americans have access to and consume healthful foods Containing adequate vitamins fiber, and other nutrients even during challenging economic times. And whereas farmers and ranchers are unmatched in their ability to consistently produce an abundance of safe, nutritious, and affordable food, and whereas producers confront significant uncertainties including inclement weather, damaging insects, and other challenges on a daily basis. And whereas Ditton County farmers, ranchers, and others involved in agriculture industry working together in an environmentally sustainable way, help feed people here in Ditton County, our nation, and in other countries of the world. Now therefore, it will be resolved the Ditton County Commissioner's Court Hereby proclaim February 12, 2019 as Texas Food Connection Day. We call upon all Americans to join us in recognizing and reflecting upon this the strength of our diverse agriculture industry and celebrating the benefits of agriculture with appropriate observances and activities. Done an open court this 12th day of February 2019 upon a motion by myself. Second. Seconded by Commissioner Marchant. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Tell me do you have anything to add to that? Yes. Good morning, Judge and commissioners. It's always a great honor and privilege to get to be here with you all today. Look forward to working with you, Judge Eads today and Commissioner Edminson. Also, I, as y'all most of you know, I'm Tommy Calvert, President of the Denton County Farm Bureau. I serve on the Denton County AgriLife Ag Committee and service chairman of the Denton County AgriLife Leadership Advisory Board. Just to have a couple of points I'd like to share with you about this food connection day to day Texas food connection day was established to connect farmers with their consumers and spark Conversations about agriculture and food related issues including affordability nutrition animal welfare profitability and productivity We work hard every day to provide families with fresh nutritious and affordable food Texas food connection day is about Texas farmers and ranchers sharing what they do to grow our food from those who produce the food with those who consume it. Without farmers, without customers, farmers and ranchers have no markets. Without farmers and ranchers, customers face bare shells. And I appreciate the opportunity today for being able to come and share that with you. And thank you so much. Look forward to working with you throughout the year, Judge. Perfect. Thank you, Tommy. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Judge. Yes. I'd like to thank the farm here for their breakfast that they provided this morning. I didn't have time to eat but we're about to say hello. And that was just a marvelous idea. Hopefully next year I'll be able to stay in the evening. Thank you for doing that. Sorry I couldn't be there. Tommy, we had the special meeting and so forth. Well, I always look forward to that. All right, members, I'd like to go to item one, which is we have two public comment forms. First one submitted was a Frida and Jimmy McBride. Are they still here? I think they passed on their information and then left. Cheryl said that they did leave, but they did have a public comment form. I believe they got, they met up with an appropriate department and handle left. Cheryl said that they did leave, but they did have a public comment form. I believe they got, they met up with an appropriate department and handled that. Our second guest speaker today for our public comment form is Mr. Willie Hatsmith. Mr. Hatsmith, welcome. the My name is Willie Heisbeth, I live at 623 Newton. God's told me to treat you all like I'd like to be treated. That's a work in progress. I'm working on it. Commissioner Marchin, your comment about breaking the chains last time you and I were right here. I know exactly what you're talking about. And then I need to do what you're trying to do. So we're right there together trying to break the chains. I'll explain to you the rest of you what the chains are for me. I could hear my, as I played as a 10 year old and got behind the door. I was behind the door when somebody came to the front to talk to my daddy about something. I could tell by how he switched in his behavior what race the person was and what authority to have. I didn't see them. I just knew that he changed. The change of what has happened to me in the past that now haunt me in the future. It's, yes, I've accomplished a lot and I'm doing a whole lot better. But I still have Yebuts. the chains are the Yebots. What about what they yes, but what about what they in that is what's hard to get rid of. The breaker, what breaks the chains is when God says to me, love everybody. The church says this is what that means. But what God says is, you know, I know you and I know what you've done in the past and I know what you're going to do in the future. I know what you're doing right now. Some of that's not good and you stop it. Then He says, treat everybody like you would like to be treated. Then he got more specific. You know how when you and your wife disagree, which is daily, and I'm usually right, but anyway, he says, you know how you disagree and you're not. You know how you disagree. You are not, you don't treat her like you treat the counter-commissions. You don't feel towards her because she disagree with you, like you feel toward the County Commissioners, and other people, but we're talking about you this morning. So I'm telling you, the work that I have to do is, I've got to treat you like I treat my wife and others that I like. And that's a job, so I'm working on it. Don't get it twisted though. I am still going to talk about changing this agenda to suit you and this past your violin rules. The moving the statue issue. Turning the water on. Turn in the water on on the fountains cleaning up free freed slave cemetery and Zach Rollins I will still be talking about those but I'm going to try to do them talk to you about it in love Thank you, sir All right. We have a lot of guests with us today, so I'm trying to go through this agenda and try to get people in and out to respect their time. Let me of here. Which one, let's Shannon. Yes, let's go ahead and do 13 a and b. I don't think he meant riff raff. By the way, I just want to be, I want to respect some of our people's time. We're paying by the hour. Okay, let's go to 13 a is approval of the Chief Executive Officer CEO, Law Enforcement Certifications and Assurances form for grant 2827005 and any appropriate action. This is for County Criminal Court number three. And then we also have another which is 13b is approval of request to submit a grant application to the Office of Governor criminal justice division for the direct adult drug court, veterans court, and any appropriate action. And we do have Judge Beedle here if he would like to say anything or members will go ahead and entertain both of these items. Take most of proof. With a motion, Judge Beedle, did you have any comments, sir? Yes, please approve it. Yes, please approve. Yes, we approve it. Okay, so we have a motion by Commissioner Marchand. Second by Commissioner Ebbetson. That is for 13A and B. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries, unanimous. Thank you. I will go to 13D at this time. Approval of the schematic design package dated January 2019 for the Ditton County Merchys Services Center is prepared by HDR, authorize HDR to move for the design development phase, acceptance of schematic design as presented to the staff and steering committee in any appropriate action. We have a motion by Commissioner Mitchell, Chair will second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed, motion carries names. Thank you for being here, gentlemen. All right. Do we need to go ahead and take 14 F, which is an approval of amendment number one to agreement for architectural services between Ditten County, Texas and HDR, Inc. for the Ditten County administrative complex, Phase four, Emergency Services Building, RFQ, 03061748, and amount of $2,218,000, $4,991 plus reimbursement expenses, $59,000, $330 with funding to come from fiscal year 2019, capital replacement funding parking lot repairs,75509010 as recommended by the did it by the Ditton County purchasing director. Do we have any questions or motion for approval? So motion by commission or march and second by commission or Mitchell, any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Okay. Do we have Judge Robison with us this morning? Is she still with us? I wanted to go ahead and get the judge out of here. I wanted to get her heard. I wanted to get her heard. But I didn't miss you speaking to the legislative. She was here to speak regarding the legislative, but I don't what number is that? It's 21 a 21. Good shipment is coming over. Oh, she is. Yeah, I told her it was going to be at the end of the meeting. End of the meeting. Okay, we will wait. Let's go ahead. But I mean, I guess we can talk to Judge. What's that? She is. I told her it was going to be at the end of the meeting. End of the meeting? Okay. We will wait. Let's go ahead. I guess we can talk to Judge Robison too. We want to go. Commissioner, what would you say? It's fine. We can do it twice. We can do it here. We can do it twice. We'll hear Judge Robison now and then we can come back and we'll hear just shittin' it. Okay. That's hard. Judge Robinson, welcome. Thank you for coming over this morning. Members, we're going to go ahead and open up 21A. We will do part of our legislative agenda now. We'll do 21A and I believe Judge Robinson has comments. We'd love to hear from her. Thank you. Okay. And Judge Eads, I don't know if I got the right message. The message I got was I was coming to speak about the probate court. You are. The need for a second probate court. Absolutely. Very good. I had written you a letter. Yes. Back in September. And the we I don't have any current numbers for you. Just the numbers that we pulled in September, but you can see that year after year we have average increases of 32%, 37%, 29% in guardianship filings, probate filings, emergency 1102 removal cases. And I've been serving for eight years, and these are annual averages of 20%. So currently I'm doing twice the caseload that I handled when I first took the bench, and I'm moving into triple time. And we've done our best to make everything work and fell up hearing checklists and shortened hearing time. But I don't know that we can timely meet the demands of the increases. And I hate for us to fall behind because these are our most vulnerable citizens. And every day I'm being presented with situations where we don't have enough time to handle the emergencies. And it's which do I take first first and I feel like I sort of hit my finger in the dike But I'm happy to answer any questions you heard my Please before And I'm hopeful that you're going to find some space to make it work Thank you, Judge. I don't necessarily anticipate this, deciding today as we are still going to meet on Friday. We're going to hear from you, hear from Judge Shipman, the Court have a conversation. And we may or may not make a final determination today about what that legislative request is going to be, but if not, we're going to do that Friday to keep things in a timely manner. And we wanted to hear from you today so we could have that conversation. Well, it's the numbers have not declined. Even though I don't have current numbers for the last quarter of the staff, we're getting about three emergency removals a week, which is a big uptick. So we know our six months for now, our numbers will at least show the same increases or more. Okay. Members, do you have a question to Judge Robus and while she is with us this morning? for now our numbers will at least show the same increases or more. Okay. Members, do you have a question of Judge Robison while she is with us this morning? I wanted to. Robison, but I'd like somebody to explain to the court as well as the rest of people here. What this court is recommending that we do a lot of actions that were recommending. I think I looked at the letter from Judge. I have a judge Eads and I've talked to other people. And I think one of our big constraints is really office space, Ron, or where would we place any new judges. That's going to be considerably difficult. If you look at the plan that we have, there are plans in the future to move the probate court or courts over to the Carroll Courts Building. They have special needs where Judge Robison has very eloquently denunciated about her mental health thought kit and other people that need to be separated from other courts. So as a part of that plan we had on the committee, we're working towards that. Part of that is where we steer step things. In other words, when we build the building on the loop, we're going to move everybody out of the loop to 88 built. I mean out of the Carroll Courts building, place them on the loop 288 building and at that point per se to relocate the pro-bait or maybe pro-bait courts over to the Carroll courts building. That's kind of how I figured it and I was on the committee. You know unfortunately we're constrained by space. I've briefly tried to touch base with David Trantum. He has stated that from what I understand when I was talking to touch base with David Trantum. He has stated that from what I understand when I was talking to the county clerk and some other members of our judiciary that he'd be willing to get some sort of computer program like Travis County where they allow to have jurors electronically notified and hopefully we could then re- reuse that space to build the space for the new district court. That's my plan. We have a huge need for CPS to be dealt with. Frankly as a growing county we have a tremendous amount of needs. If you're in district court the priority likely so is supposed to be with CPS cases and criminal cases. So a lot of the civil cases aren't heard. So we need to address those concerns. We just had a new judge come on board with Judge Lianne breeding. That's coming in. That's going to help us with that. But we still have a lot of needs. So we really need to balance all our equities and make sure that we continue with our plan that we have and still address the current needs. So that's our plan is I think we're also going to have a resolution that's going to be addressed by Judge Shipman to request a new district court later today. Mr. Marcher, maybe answer your question. Shannon Jawski can speak about some of the action that's being requested of us. Oh. Yes. Good morning. Just to kind of tee that whole conversation up, there has been request made that we do a resolution for potentially for a new district court for Denton County as well as potentially a county court. Whether it be a probate court or a general county court, that decision has not been made and that's part of the discussion today. So there is a resolution for the district court to be considered today and then the decision for adding a county court can be taken Friday. This Friday is really the end of the week, the end of the filing period or date to submit to the council, yep, legislative council for new bills. Okay. I could mention one more thing. There is legislation pending. It may not pass, but we think are moving in a good direction with legislation where individuals who are being magistrated, for example, by Judge Ramsey. There is going to be legislation passed where in that judge's discretion, if that person is not a criminal and will not be helpful to that person to go to jail, where the magistrate will be able to refer them over to probate court and allow mental health proceeding to be held to protect their rights but also to help them and get them into the treatment that they need. If we, if that legislation passes, we will see a very large uptick in our mental health cases. Okay. Thank you. And with regards to that, I would just add that Judge Ramsey is here today. And I don't know if you can speak now or a little bit later if you want to wait. To speak to that bill regarding just look at the number here quickly. Sorry. SB 628. I'm sorry. SB 628. Yep, SB 628, which is we spoke briefly about it last week, but it is regarding the bail proceedings. So that's part of a bigger discussion. If you want to have that now or later. Was there any other questions that Judge Robison, while we, while she was, was there any other questions for her? Okay. Judge Ramsey, would you have anything to add to the conversation? We'd love to hear from you, sir. I will try to be brief. I don't have that reputation, but I will. Are you settling in well to your new? Yes, I am. Thank you. I'm settling well into the jail. And I have my own work release program going. So yes, I think it's been a good transition as a matter of fact. And again, I promised to be brief. So I did create a little bullet summary. I did create a little bullet summary. They are companion bills. One is proposed by a sponsor by Senator Whitmeyer and the other one from Representative Mure. They are Senate Bill 628 and House Bill 1323 and they're fairly sweeping in scope. You can generally refer them as a bail reform bill. And I guess the good news is this is exactly in line with what we were talking about last year. The things that we had talked about and the reason why you created my office and our magistrate court are exactly in line with what this is proposing. We had talked about a risk assessment instrument or VRAI verified risk assessment instrument or tool. We are, we've looked at several versions, we will have that in place by the end of this year. If not, I actually anticipate by June to have a risk assessment tool done. Both these bills are companion bills, they are word for word or very close to word for word. They have general bipartisan support. Senator Whitmer is a very powerful senator and so I expect that these will go through. Maybe a lot of things can change, but the key provisions are exactly what we talked about. One additional thing that will be subject to a constitutional amendment, Texas constitutional amendment, will be the requirement of a or the ability of a magistrate to deny bail, which is the core of that. In other words, if you have increased reduction in bail amounts or greater conditions, one thing that you'll have to also be able to say there are certain people that are some dangerous that we don't want them out there at all. The other part that I will by comparing these bills to what was proposed in the last legislative session, there was pretty much a presumption that personal bonds would be favored or almost required under the last session. That is not true of this. We will still use traditional bell bonds as a part of it, but we'll increase usage of personal bonds. We're already doing that in place, informally. And so that will increase with additional conditions of bells. In other words, instead of a higher monetary amount, it doesn't really necessarily protect the public or anyone else. You'll place certain conditions. That does mean that we will have to produce some form of enforcement mechanism where we have hearings, but as far as the creation of my office and staffing, as far as your magistrates, I think we have that covered. We're not looking for additional support on that. I probably do need to clerk's, I I guess for lack of a better term. I was kind of hoping that we would mold into the county district court process But looks like we may have to have two people for that But the important part is this I'm hope to develop ties with as you know It used to be a municipal judge and so I still have ties with Denton and Louisville and those other cities One thing that I think is reality, that this bill passes, it will require that prior to the magistrate setting bail at any level, they have considered the results of a risk assessment. Here's the problem, is that in Denton County, we have that new jail, which is really nice. If you haven't been booked in lately, it's a really nice place to go. But it has kind of a freedom concept to it and that's good but it even with a newness it has you know limited capacity and right now in Denton County we rely on city of Louisville city of Denton city of Carrollton city of Frisco all these places maintain their own jails and that takes stress off the sheriff's office. And so I think that we will have to have increased our earlier participation in the district attorney's office. I think you'll have to look at additional staffing for them. But the other part of it is we will, I will try to develop ties with those local municipal jails to ensure that we can continue to use their processes, but we'll, some way that we can incorporate the risk assessment tool at their level. So people who can bail, can bail out from those jails. So they don't, because if we have to have everyone at the county sheriff's office, that will be a problem. There's just simply not enough room. We're not keeping class seats. Those are the, no, no, no, no. No, that from some of that releasing pressure because the cities have the class E's. But they have everything else. The city of Denton, I would arrange maybe 20 people a day. Of that 15 have class being above. And they're sent to the county, right? No, not right away. No, they're magistrated. City of Denton. And I'd say probably 10 out of those 15 bail from city Denton and never go to Denton County. That's also true in Louisville. Charges such as possession marijuana, DWI those are the common ones. If that charges they bail out from the city of Denton, Carroll to Louisville. So I'd say you would up the total number of people hitting the Dink County jail by 50 to 75 people a day if those jails suddenly could not perform registrations. So yeah, they they they have that there are some cities such as little one they only house class C and everyone comes north to the Dink County. That's kind of an anomaly right now because the cities of Carrollton, Denton, Louisville, Frisco. Frisco is getting bigger and bigger on the Dent County side. They are seeing the people are being magistrated by their magistrate and they are posting bail at those facilities. So if that stops, that new facility we have will not be sufficient to hold everyone. There's a good number of people at Bell. And we always have actually in this county that the cities have provided a county function and that is all those DWIs that bail out from Louisville, Carrollton didn't they don't hit us. Well the deal you could take classes but they don't anymore. No and so they no they still doesn't take classes so now I'm talking about class being above county level charges are being seen by magistrates at those local facilities. Okay, I thought you were in firm there being held. Well, they were held there probably up to a day. Okay. So he didn't, it's not unusual to see someone say they're 24 hours or even. You know, Robin, if you look at the cases, and I haven't seen it lately, but we paid a lot of money for that study from HDR, the DA filed the same amount of cases in 2016 as he did in 2006. I'm not saying the total number of cases you're going to have. I kind of, you know, being a statistics person and I on the pocketbook, we rely on facts. You know what I mean? And basically we do staffing. The DA's had a substantial increase in staffing since 2006. So I would suggest you instead of asking for additional staffing that they rearrange the current staffing. Right. And I don't have any ability to adjust what the DA's office has or doesn't have. I'm just saying we've probably really got a lot of them on the office of court administration and looked at the statistics whenever they come out. And what I was trying to point out is not they, I don't think you're going to see an increase in cases. You're going to see an increase in cases get transferred directly to the dental health care office. And so that's a bigger impact. It's not the number of people. It's where those people are going. Judge, again, it's been a while since I've done this, but on JPs, are they managed to straighten out the Class C misdemeanors? They are the most people to come in on class C warrants war in JP ports We have worked out a process where I am releasing them on a on a on a promise to peer many of them in a replay and then they're transferred That plea is sent over to the sheriff's office to the JP so the release for the date to reappear before that JP Okay, so we're not holding date to reappear before that JP. So we're not holding this. They're not registering them up here anymore. I am magistrating them as far as their charge. Yes. Everyone who comes in, I'll magistrate them. But then they are released to go back to that court. Go back to that court. And those are, are you, there was a time when, when the JPs amount, that JPs would ask for different types of class-semester meters be either let out on bail on their PR bond or cash bond. Is that still happening? Or? No, everyone routinely, if it's a classary office from that JP Court, they're given a promise to reappear at that court. Okay. But you think these bills, Senate Bill 628 and House Bill 1322 or 23 will hope with some of the issues you have or you face. You got that. Yes, I'll. In short, there's nothing, these two bills are not a surprise. I'm just the only thing I was trying to raise was the concern of shutting down the municipal jails that are performing a function. Outside of that, everything in these are anticipated. I, I, this is what we talked about last year, and I think that it's just a fruition to that. And I don't see there being greatly modified. There may be some other things. If we could build in a 40-hour window of time where those judges can set bail and those facilities. And then when they come up to the county, if they're unable to make that bail, we review that. That would be optimal. So I think that would resolve any issues that I have. Your main concern with this legislation, and you think it'll shut down municipal? Dales. I think it will place greater strain, the number of people that will be directly booked into the DINC kind of sheriff's office will go up, yes. I always thought that the municipality said Dales, because it was extremely convenient for the officers. It is. That's probably why they would prefer it. But I'm looking at it from a different perspective now. That's just a number of people that are going to... Because every time you book someone in, there's a joy in time, there's a process, there's housing, awesome. So, yeah, it's just a movement of people. It's not the numbers numbers are not going up. It's just where they're going to. Got anything else? No, I thought I was going to be briefer than that, but I wasn't. For me though, this is just lightning speed. So we could put into our format, legislative policy statement regarding Senate Bill 628 and House Bill 1323. We could adopt that Friday as I was just saying, Shannon. I think we've already supported Senate Bill. But we already? Yeah. Bill reformed. What action would we take today? No, we haven't done any support of the bills yet That it had just come out before last week's court session So I had reached out to Judge Ramsey and he didn't have a chance to get here last week So he's here just to give you all more information and and his support of the bills. So if we want to write a statement, then we can do that and I can have that prepared for Friday. Okay, let's do that. Our members are on agreement with that. Okay. I'm sure in there that we support it as long as it doesn't incur any additional cost to the county. I'm staffing that the DA or anything. That's right. Okay, thank you, Judge. Thank you for all you do as well. Well, thank you for the opportunity. I think it's working out well. Why don't you give us a minute overview of how things are going for you? I think when it came in there, I kind of thought we would move a little bit faster on creating some kind of a unified numbering system because right now it's just tracking what we have and accounting for it but it's all there. I just decided to create a system where we can better case manage matters that come in by assigning numbers and maybe that will be part of what I'm going to reach out to the cities to do as well Which is maybe put them on to a where we assign blocks of numbers and they use those numbers so we can account for those numbers faster that way we can dispose of cases faster Perfect good. Thank you. Thank you Judgment would you like to To Talk about the regarding your resolution? Thank you for being here. I kind of moved up the legislative agenda a little bit, although we're going to handle some other items potentially later, but I thought we'd go ahead and. All right, well done. Yes, so I think that I believe the last fall maybe you all had a chance to sit at the Oman Judgment Farling I was out of town and discussed asking for a new district court in this legislative session and the resolution that I think that you all have a copy of we're still referencing back to this 2016 study that was done. And at that point, I think even that study suggested we needed more than nine district courts to continue to handle the caseload that we continue to have. And so now as of January 1, we have the ninth district court that has been added. I did some quick looking at some numbers yesterday. Really, you know, from the 2016-2017 fiscal year to 17-18, we had an increase in about 1,500, 500 more that are being carried per court, which kind of right now with nine courts that resulted in us carrying about a case load of about 2,000 cases per court, which is it's still more than what the statewide average suggests we should be carrying. I think that number should be somewhere around 16, 1700 cases per court. So you know with population continuing to grow of course that's just going to continue to increase. I also found some information on the Office of Court Administration website that says that last year was a record-breaking year for family law cases that were filed all across the state. In 2013 was a high point last year. It just barely missed, there were 281,327 family law matters that were filed in district courts last year in the state of Texas. So, you know, and we feel those numbers here, and I think that, you know, their study suggested that the district courts about half of their, more than half of their civil dockets are the family cases, and then we still continue to see unprecedented numbers of people who represent themselves In family law cases, which of course Makes the administration of justice a little bit more complicated Certainly people are entitled to do that, but it's sometimes It slows things down and we're not able to dispose of cases as quickly as we'd like to So I think in order to stay on top of this and try to keep our disposition rates up where they need to be. And frankly right now we're following behind based on the number of cases that are filed for year in the cases that we're disposing of. I do believe that we need to go ahead and plan to have a new district court added two years so January 2021. And know, and frankly, we need that much time to figure out exactly where a district court's gonna go because as you all know, we're continually battling the problem with not having enough space. But I know there have been some discussions about how that would be dealt with, but anyway, I'm happy to answer any questions as you may have. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm prepared to commit that because I think you know being able to have your dispute adjudicated in a timely manner is extremely important. I've been exploring different options. I was you know helped run the committee that we had in 2016 and explored a lot of very difficult options. You know we have a plan in place like I said earlier with Judge Robison, to where when we move over to the building on Loop 288, we're then going to try and rehab the Carol Courts Building for probate courts or probate court. And then when that happens, that'll free up space in the courthouse on McKinney and allow us to place additional district courts. We have asked that this court be done as legislatively possible so that we will be able to have time to build that court out. I think we have a lot of good options currently if for some reason something happens to where we can't really build out the Carroll Courts' time as we would like but I think it's very important and I I'm sure I don't wanna speak for Judge Hittman, but as a practicing lawyer, you can, the criminal cases and the CPS cases get priority in district court. And if you have a civil dispute that you're trying to get resolved, it is a very slow process because those other cases justifiably sell, deserve priority. We're putting our judiciary in a lot of stress because like everybody they're trying to get everything done, I think they're doing a real good job, but this is one of the things we have as a growing county. And I got to remind y'all, this will be the fifth district court that we've created without creating a civil county court. We had a... Civil County Court. We have it. Is this asking for excuse my ignorance here? Is this asking for a general jurisdiction district court that will handle civil criminal and CPS or is it a district court will? The way it works is there's a there's a state senator down in Austin who's gotten away from having specialized courts we won't get any better like dead robison or Who took judge I think five dead robison and what yeah Yeah, the family specialized courts, right? That are like right so all of the district courts in Norton County are general jurisdiction courts. The only court that has any difference is the 3.93rd and it was created to have a preference for family and civil. Although it's not precluded from having criminal it just never has had just criminal assigned to it. And so the last see the 3.93rd the 4.42nd and the 4.62nd have all come on line only handling family and civil. They could have criminal dockets added to them later, but what we do in order to try to equalize the caseloads is they get a disproportionate number of civil and family filings and those are the other five courts that handle criminal, then we still continue to carry the full criminal caseload, but our family and civil filings are reduced so that those other courts carry a higher case load. So you as district courts then do the allotment for each district court and what they're going to handle, is that correct or so? Correct. We have a judge Doug Grayson is our numbers guru, so he said, he figures out what those percentages ought to be and then we get with Tyler technologies and they, you know, put the algorithm in the system that assigns the cases according to that percentage right now. Could, could just reflecting back to the comments that you said about the 281,000 family. And then it is statewide, by the way, not just in the end. We'd all be running out. And we'd be all. Yeah. Would you say that's based upon societal change? Or would you say that's based upon new legislation that's been put in place to cover a greater jurisdiction of those types of cases. For family law cases, what I will say, this CBS fileings have been up dramatically. And that's an interesting question, whether it's that people report more than they used to. Some people have theorized because we have, the population is dense as it is, that there's more opportunity for people to know about things that should be reported and so we get higher reporting. I don't know if even Texas Department of Family and Protective Services can account for the higher numbers of CPS cases that we've been getting, but I will say that this year compared to last December 2018, compared to December 2017, we have 100 more CPS cases pending than we did before. We had 257 that the end of 2017 and we have 355 now, I think, spread out among our courts. So, you know, I don't know the answer to that. I mean, our population is growing, and so, you know, I don't know the answer to that. I mean, our population is growing, and so, you know, by virtue of the fact that you continue to add population, you're gonna continue to have more of those types of cases, those and divorce cases. That's true. Well, Ron, we would ask, even though this, the judiciary committee down there will not give a specialized court, we would ask, we would only fund this district court for civil and cps and family. We would not provide the for the right and that's what you've done in the last several and it works out because we do you know change the numbers as to what each court gets. One of the things I was looking at was perhaps adding a new changing some jurisdiction with one court, not the probate court, and then adding an additional county courted law to help draw some of the smaller civil cases from the district courts and just provide additional assistance. I've tried to convince Commissioner Cullman we'd be happy to let him have some family law cases too, if he wants to. Oh, you'll have to see a winner at it, isn't that. Well, we're trying to, I like specialty courts. And I think it's a good thing. But there's people in the legislature who just want to give you template civil courts. And so I'm trying to balance the equities and trying to get the best bang for our dollar. And I keep waiting for our legislature to go, hey, wait a second. Oh, you've done is add new district courts which are mainly paid for by the state you need to kind of look at the ratios and only you look at it we probably need to contribute a little after getting five state might want to consider creating another one of our own. Anyway we're still looking at. And judge the reason for the January of 2021 versus 2020 is strictly space constraints. I think so. I mean, because you know, I just trying to, you know, predict where we might put a court, something's going to have to move out probably. And I know that Roger Maris has indicated he'd be willing to even relocate here when she all moved to your new administration building if this were available, which would then free up a courtroom, but we don't know exactly when that would happen. And so realistically, given what are inevitable delays, sometimes in construction, things like that, it seems like to me that 2021 would be the most reasonable date. To do that and then we'd have some time also to maybe see what else could could be worked out. Sure. We really need to try and stick to the plan we paid all that money for. I agree I just wanted to clarify that for the record. We do need to plan for going to use what I what I understand. The best laid plans of Misonman often go astray. Quote, Robert Burns. Any other questions, commissioners? Thank you Judge. All right, thank you. Thank you. We want to proceed with this one today. Absolutely. Motion to approve this. Secretary. Motion by Commissioner Marchett. Second by Commissioner Coleman. Any discussion? I will go ahead and read this resolution. This is a resolution supported an additional district court for Ditton County. The Ditton County Commission's court, Ditton County, Texas during a regular session on the 12th, day of February 2019, consider the following resolutions. Whereas in 2016, Ditton County employed HDR architects to determine the future judicial and court house space needs of Ditton County. And whereas the study was conducted with an objective and accurate methodology over several months and considered the caseload of the district courts of Ditton County in order to provide and evaluate the workload of the district courts in the state of Texas. And whereas the study conducted in 2016, concluded with the finding that at that time, Ditton County had a need for more than nine district courts to handle all the cases coming before the court in a timely manner. Before timely, efficient and fair manner. And as of now, Ditton County has nine district courts as of of January 1st, 2019, when the 460th District Court was established, and whereas the population didn't kind of continue to increase, in case filings related to the population continues to increase. The need for additional district courts continues to exist, and an additional district court is necessary to meet the recommendations of the 2016 study as well, as actual case filing numbers. And whereas the goal of the creation of a new district court is to provide the citizens of Ditton County with an adequate number of judicial officers to manage and resolve court business without delay while also delivering quality service to lit against. And whereas the Ditton County Commissioner's Court is supportive of creating a do district court effective January the first 2021 Suarez-12L for it to budget resources and anticipation of the creation of the court It is therefore resolved that the didn't get any commissions court supports the creation of a new district Court as of January first 2021 To ensure the dispensation of justice without delay and ensure that the rights of all the citizens are protected. It's done in open court. This 12th, they have February 2019 upon a motion by Commissioner Marchant, seconded by Commissioner Mitchell or Commissioner Coleman. Any other questions? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you Judge. Thank you for your efforts. All right. While we have the legislative briefing open, let's go ahead and we'll go ahead and proceed with other items. Shannon. Thank you. Just a couple of things. Really, in summary, I think everyone is very familiar. Last week was all about SB2 for the most part that did come out of the committee yesterday afternoon and they will be sending that to the Senate floor. There were 15 amendments made to the bill throughout their process but the cap at 2.5% did remain. One of the changes that they made or amendments had to do with entities that fell below the 15 million having the ability to cast a vote. And by way of voting if their citizens wanted to be part of SB2 they could be. Additionally, the Senate Finance Committee considered their budget for public education yesterday and the proposed budget includes adding 2.4 billion to cover the projected enrollment growth over the next two years and 6 billion above that to pay for the increased teacher compensation. There is a bill that Senator Nelson submitted regarding a $5,000 a year increase in pay for teachers across public schools. So that is there. Other than that, this morning I did receive and I did put that on all of your stations. A memo from Matt Richardson and he is looking for us to oppose HB 1490. He is here. Don't know if you want to speak to it but we don't have anything yet written on it up to you if you want to actually write a statement to oppose it. Morning, commissioners, judge. This was just a quick memo to put this on your radar, particularly before the Ditton County Days event. I'm working with local health officials across Texas but in light of recent events I think this is very timely. We talk about the measles outbreak in Texas I think I heard yesterday that Harris County is going to be adding 10 measles cases to their number this week that are going to be confirmed. So what we're seeing again is an anti-vaccine movement is creating pockets of unvaccinated children and those pockets are becoming infected. Who would have thought? So in the legislative efforts every year, every two years, by any means we see bills filed. This is a particularly bad bill with regards to weakening the vaccine efforts across Texas. This bill would eliminate the state's ability to track exemptions. Let that sink in for just a minute. This would eliminate the state health department's ability to track the numbers of exemptions and school districts. This would also allow individual school districts and individual campuses to provide an exemption form. Right now, parents have to go to the State Health Department's website, download the form, get it notarized and submit it. This would eliminate those requirements. So this is very much weakening the public health protective intervention of vaccine coverage that we've had since, you know, the 50s. So we're really stepping back in public health and that's a concern for us. So we're in very much opposition of this bill. Matt, Matt, ask a question, Jerry. Yes, Matt, ask a question, Jerry. Yes, Matt. Does this bill address at all the ability of a parent to check on the vaccination rate at individual schools as opposed to school districts as a whole? So my understanding is, and I'm sure that the Attorney General would have to decide about public information, but right now there would not be an easy way for a parent to do that. So if the State Health Department is not tracking exemption rates, then there's no information to give a parent requesting it, right? So I think it might be technically feasible in a public information environment for a parent to try to find that, but I suspect there would be an attorney general challenge for that. Okay. Any other questions? We can move forward with a policy statement. I'm sure Edmonds and Tenson, maybe we talk about elections, which is on here. I thought we were going to revisit that this morning. I do plan to do that. Do we want to move forward with a statement of opposition for Friday so we know to draft one? Yes. I'm trying to figure out here. Yes. Which one for health? For health. Yes, we will do a statement of opposition to HB 1490. Okay. Hang on just a second. Shannon, what other items did we have before we get to the elections. That is really it. I did add a few to our watch list. Commissioner Mitchell sent me some that she would like us to track. Those are toward the bottom of the watch list beginning with HB 1069 all relating to some mental health and childhood services type issues. Did you want to say anything about that? He's a very important student in county and any county, he's mental health bills. And we, the behavioral health video asking that these be sure to be for us to support him. We have our representative, TAN Porkas, Karen 822, HB822 and Jane Nelson is Karen, SB 63, that's relating to the creation of the Texas milk health care association. And so these are bills that we absolutely need and so I would ask for the Commissioners to be in support of them also We could do a statement of support for both Okay, Shannon the caption for the Senate bell 239. That's actually the special district transparency bill post to the district that Reprimine is Adderson Bill. Okay. Opposed to the district that Ripper Munner is Adderson. I'm not proposing. He hadn't followed it yet but for Hillton. Okay. That's the special. That's the bill that asked the district exactly. I know it's a novel concept but to have their meetings in or near the district instead of several counties away. That's Senate Bill 2309. Okay. instead of several counties away. That's Senate Bill 239. So I will prepare statements on HB H22 SB 63 and you want to go ahead and do an HB 1069 as well. Friday's becoming more of a business meeting than this paper that's okay. There's a big deal. And Shannon, we probably need to prepare something for an additional county court. Right. Okay. We will. I will wait to hear. Yeah, I'll talk to you about it. Okay. We can do the county road illumination. We can discuss as well. Okay, we do have Frank. I don't know who all we have here from else that wants to speak in regard to the elections. I would do have our elections administrative Frank Phillips and Commissioner Edmitzer. Would you want to speak regarding the elections? County White Polling for the flexibility for election day. Did you wish to give me the floor? Yes ma'am. Thank you Judge and Frank thanks for coming. As you know I'm fully supportive of the new election system that we have, the new voting system. I think ballot, current on demand is great. I think it eliminates a lot of chance for voter fraud and voter error. However, in this thing, I'm thinking back to what you were discussing with us about going with these countywide polling places. I think one of the things that you mentioned was that there would be approximately 100 of these in the county, is that correct? Depending on the election, but in a large election, yeah, about 100. Which is about the same number of early voting sites that we have now. Correct. So, number one, I see no real advantage then. It's not changing the number of polling sites if we go this way. In fact, normally, I think in a countywide polling system, the number of voting sites is reduced rather than in March. One other thing that you had indicated was that, or maybe some of our commissioners indicated, was they thought it might help the voters who get confused and I hear this all the time. Okay, I voted here last time, now I have to vote here, next time I'll vote there. And that's certainly a valid concern for the voters. But countywide polling is not gonna change that, because for example, please be very aware. It's okay. I had that last week. When the city of Sanger, for example, is gonna hold a city election, unless they've got a countywide voting center up there, they're not gonna be able to go vote in their city. So I think there is maybe some overestimation of the amount of convenience that this would provide to the voters. Secondly, I did check with some various county chairs and election administrators. The first one I checked with was our county chair, Jamie Hell. And she really did not know much about county polling centers. I know she spoke with you very briefly last summer and said she didn't see any reason to object to them, but she really didn't know very much about them. She's had a seminar now with other county chairs from across the state and she's going to kind of find out what their thoughts are. I believe Jenny may also wish to consult the County Executive Committee for her party to see what the precinct chairs think about it. There are several ways that other counties have done precinct conventions. And I'm not opposed to examining and trying to find a good way to do that should we end up with countywide polling centers. But at this point in time, I just think we don't have enough information about that important part of the puzzle to go forward as asking that Denton County be eligible to have one of these countywide polling centers. So, commissioners, I'm gonna ask you to reconsider putting this forward. I don't think it's nearly as important as some of the other things that we're asking our legislative delegation to consider and I'd rather get more information on all aspects of the voting process and the party building process Before we decide whether or not we want to even ask to be considered for this I don't know I kind of see things a different way. I really applaud your effort to try and improve us because to me having worked a lot of campaigns. I think people show up to a specific area and if they're inclined to vote there regardless of the past when we had paper ballots that were set before they were printed out they might incorrectly used a wrong ballot and vote in the wrong precinct. Now if you show up you're going to for sure get the correct ballot. And in the wrong pricing. Now if you show up, you're going to for sure get the correct ballot. And I don't know, do many municipal elections take place at the same time as county elections? I don't think so. It not a lot. It has increased some over the years. We're generally right for municipal right. colony has adopted the November. Yeah, the colony is the only one that has had only no very three cities. We got the call and we usually end up with a handful of no members. I just think it, you know, it's. It will actually help people vote and lead to less people voting in the wrong precinct if we adopt the city. And that was what the whole purpose. I mean, I was originally against voting centers until we adopted the new equipment that allowed people to have their ballots printed out. Now, it's pretty much impossible to vote in the wrong area because you'll for sure get the right ballot. Where beforehand, we were wasting a tremendous amount of money on printed ballots in early voting. And it led to waste and it led to people on election day having to go to specific precinct and if they went to this precinct, you know specific precinct they might vote a provisional ballot or somebody might not catch it. Correct. I think this is going to lead to more voting and more accurate voting. Mr. Marchin. Yeah. All that we did in the adopting the resolution that we adopted was to ask to put language that met the required that would help meet the requirements of the law and the intent of the law to take a consideration new technology that's not only implemented in our county, but in other counties. And the argument or the discussion or the ideology discussion of whether to have voting centers or not within our county should come after the legislation has passed. And then the consideration for those voting seniors then would go for the election commission, go for the Democratic Party Chair, the Republican Party Chair, and then get recommendation from those first of all the election commission which way to go. So as far as reconsidering my support of us being included, our new technology being included in this already existing law. I have no objection to that at all because we may just totally ignore it. But if for some reason there was an overwhelming, overwhelming move to move towards those centers, we would have to go back to the legislature in the next legislative session to get that put in. So we're all in talk about language here. Yes. We're not talking about concept. We're only talking about making not only Denton County, in the other county that uses paper in a manner similar to that we do, that would also wish to be vote centers. At least have the opportunity to discuss it. Absolutely. Because right now, I mean, we can discuss the value of vote centers all we want right now, but back to the matter is, we don't meet the qualification as they stand today. And if legislation doesn't pass, it's a new point. Exactly. Frank, can you share what qualification it is that we lack? Right now. Yes, right now you have to be all electronic and clearly we're not all electronic. We're all paper. So we would change from our print on demand paper ballots to go to electronic? No. No, man. We would have changed a bill to allow our print out to be applied. The resolution was to change for bill to change the statute for countywide voting to allow paper. And I think it's important that we go ahead and go forward with this day in just a little of the way. May I ask why I have the question? Yes, right. Because he's ready with the bill. As you know, state law now requires the parties to run their primaries. Right. Well, this bill changed that because it might impose upon the Democrat or Republican party something that they may not be in favor of. Very good question. And maybe something that kind of escaped discussion last week. Even though we, let's just assume for a moment, we get the statute changed and that didn't count it decides to be a vote center county. What that doesn't do is remove from the parties their ability to decide how they want to do their election on election day during a primary. If they wanted to do traditional style voting precinct base, they could do it. I believe if I'm not mistaken, I stand to be corrected. I believe Colin County did that their first year and then they subsequently turned around and adopted boat centers and primaries also. What doesn't dictate to the party for Election Day it just allows it. Party is in charge of their election on Election Day in a primary. And while we're on the subject of Colin County, you know, last week we decided we were going to check with some other counties who utilized vote centers to see how they hold their precinct convictions on election day or after a primary. I contacted three counties that are roughly our size Williams and Fort Bend and Colin. Williams and I got no response. Fort Bend said they hold their precinct chair conventions on the same days of senatorial convention. And Colin County has pushed their precinct convictions to the Saturday after election day. They all get together at one big church and that's where they hold it. They said it has increased their participation because it's a Saturday and people can show up as opposed to you know trying to get you back there at eight o'clock on a Tuesday and Frank I appreciate those efforts but while that is a that's good information first and I as it relates to the parties and somehow some parties handle it. What we're doing with today does not how people and where they vote on election day is a complete separate issue from parties and how they want to run their precinct conventions. I mean, they're two separate things. They might have a connection, or they might not. Right. How people vote. So for people who are watching, you want to know learn more about it, we've all been through a lot of elections. How do people, what is the flexibility for polling locations for early voting currently? Well, a good point again is, you know, vote centers and countywide voting program. It's fancy terminology for basically what we've been doing for 28 years in early voting. This means you can go to any location in the county and get your ballot. That you're not restricted to one location. I mean- So basically, so for 28 years, Ditton County has allowed people to vote, flexible polling places, anywhere in the county during early voting. So all this bill's allowed us to do is to add one more day which would be election day. So we're already been doing this for 28 years and this is adding election day. And it's not a mandate on the party of when they're going to dictate their, their precinct conventions. That's correct. So I think we go forward. I understand and, um, let me just state that if this goes forward and Denton County is accepted, that I will certainly be very interested to see how we can work out perhaps an unfunded mandate on the part of the county if If the parties have to go find large places that they can hold their SD conventions and their precinct conventions, etc. But given the information that we've discussed today, I am willing to support this going forward Just to know that that doesn't mean we will be adopting what should we be given that opportunity. Thank you. And I do believe, thank you Commissioner, and I do believe that we can work out best practices. Let's get through, we have a time-current here as far as legislative calendar and we adopt this support and this position and then we'll be able to move forward and work with both of our parties on how they want and the elections office and elections commission on how what is the best practices that other counties have done and other parties and let those individual stakeholders get together and figure out what's the best way for going forward. So you're supportive of the resolution moving forward just for the legislative purposes. Yes, perhaps not the final outcome. Final outcome, but for the legislative purposes. Okay, so. So I made the original didn't I? So I would ask to bring back up the resolution and I would ask to approve it. Okay. With a motion by Commissioner Marchant, second by Commissioner Coleman, any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Commissioner Evanson for your thoughtful questions and for Frank. thank you, Frank, for your research and everything. We move forward. I'll say this is not the end of this discussion. I think it's the beginning of a process to see what is the best model we can move forward. Okay, Shannon, is there any other items for legislative agenda? All right. We're going to go through the rest of the agenda. Item 2 is our consent agenda. Move for approval. The motion by Commissioner Marchant. Second by Commissioner Ebbatson. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item two is our order making improvements in any appropriate action. And we have a new hire in technology services and a new hire in public health, jail health. Item two b is approval of inter- departmental transfers in the appropriate action. Item two c is approval of budget amendment 100630 to transfer funds from county lease buildings, miscellaneous building maintenance to the didn't county storage building, gas service, an amount of $1,000 in the appropriate action. Item 2D is approval specifications to authorize the authority to advertise for printing, bid number 192504 any appropriate action. Item 2 is approval of specifications and authority to advertise old, Alton Road Colbert replacement project. Bed number 192505, yes ma'am. I think you said 192504 and it's actually 2505. 2504 is the- I'm sorry, I was in the wrong line, excuse me. Okay, we're good. So item 2e is Old Alton Road, Colbert Replacement Project. The number 192 505, okay, so we're all good. Motion carries on that. Item 5a is approval of the bill report. Payments from CSCD, Community Corrections, TAP, Sheriff's Training, Sheriff's Fortford Turbiy, T-I-T Interest, and DA-Fortford Turf funds are presented for recording purposes only Mr. Wells. Good morning, Judge, commissioners. Again, ask approval of bills as presented with one addition, no, no, separate page. All corrections I have. Okay, thank you, sir. Do you have a motion for approval? I'll move for approval. Motion by Commissioner Coleman. Second by Commissioner Marchett in the discussion. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Item 6A is approval of report on proceeds from surplus on line auction 1, 2, 1, 8, 2, 5, 0, 3 held. In January 2019, any appropriate action? Motion by Commissioner Mitchell. Seconded by Commissioner Edmonton, any discussion? All in favor say aye. I oppose motion carries unanimously. Members, I'd like to pull item 6B for future meetings. I'd like to pull item 6B. Item 7As, approval of budget member request 1-0-0-490 for the county judge to allocate funding from non-departmental and appropriate contingency to the county judge, countywide technology, and telecommunications, and network departments for various salary benefits, operating line items, including increased car allowance for slot number 002, CJ and slot 004, CJ for a total amendment of $95,883. The chair will move for approval. Second by Commissioner Edmondson, any discussion. All in favor say aye. I'm not that's a discussion. I want to be voting against those sour alliances. I think that should be done at budget time and they're out of line like so many other who have that I think we need to pull together and make sure they're all in line. Perfect. I appreciate your comments. I think that'd be part of our budget discussion this spring and summer. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. Four in favor, one opposed. Item 7B is approval of budget member request 100620 for the County Criminal Court number four to transfer $5,000 from contract labor to substitute court reporter. Any appropriate action? Motion by Commissioner Coleman. Second. Second by Commissioner Mitchell. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 7c is approval of Budget Memories request 100640 for juvenile probation services to transfer $540 from computer supplies to software maintenance and any appropriate action. Motion by Commissioner Edminton. Second. Second by Commissioner Mitchell, any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 70 is approval of budget member request 100650 for the Sheriff's Office to transfer $7,280 from Sheriff's Judicial Purchases Unappropriated Contiturcy to operate an equipment in any appropriate action. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, second by Commissioner Ebbetson, any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We will skip item 7E to later in our program. 8A is a report from Human Resource regarding higher in actions of other elected officials presented for recording purposes only. Vistavo. Judge, commissioners, good morning. We have one new hire in the 3.93rd district court. Two new hires in the tax office. Two new hires for the tax office, two new hires for the Sheriff County Jail, one promotion in Northern Bridge East, and one new hire in CSCB. Perfect. Thank you, sir. Item 8B is approval of the 2019 PEC budget. The PBE's approval of the 2019 PEC budget. We had a PBC meeting I guess it was last week and adopted the budget. There's much consideration and discussion. It was unanimously presented and approved by the member entities. The chair will move for approval. That will second. Seconded by Commissioner Coleman. Any discussions? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. I don't have a phone. I don't ten a's or approval of the request to hold a public hearing. On March 19, 2019 at 9 a.m. for the replat of Wagner editions, lot one and two block a 15.120 acres in Commissioner Precinct IV. Motion by Commissioner Ebbetson. Second. Second by Commissioner Mitchell. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 10b is approved with the final road acceptance for the Country Club Road Construction Project and any appropriate action. Motion by Commissioner Ebbetsitzer and the Chair will second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carries names. That's a wonderful road. And I'm glad it's done and accepted for maintenance. We've already done 13 A and B. A and B C. Would the 13 C is approval one to recent previously approved resolution signed on January 15, 2019. And number two to replace that action with approval of manufactured home bill for sale for delinquent taxes three to authorize a county judge to execute any. Deed necessary to convey the parcels of land upon sale in the appropriate action. Motion by Commissioner Coleman, the chair will second in the discussion. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. I believe 14 A, B and C have been pulled for future consideration. Item 14 D is approval of contract agreement between Ditton County, Texas and raid Tech services LLC in the amount of $606,000 and a $51 and 35 cents for Amics Hill Ranch Colvert replacement projects bid number 0 9182489 With funding to come from 2013 P. I bonds County road precinct form Bridges and Colverts, all their line on 787-494-9050 and be transferred to Amics Hill Bridge, all their line item 787-499-9050. Motion by Commissioner Ebbetson, the chair will second. Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Item 14E is approval of the Master Agreement for Professional Services between Smith, Secman Reed, Inc. DBA, SSRCX, Inc. And Ditton County Building Commissioning Services, RFQ 06182476, as I was recommend by the Ditton County Purchasing Director in any appropriate action. Do you have any comments Scott? I do not. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Marchant. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you about Commissioner Mitchell. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We are going to take about a 10 minute recess, and then we are going to reconvene and pick up the rest of the meeting. To go to executive session for items, we have deliberation regarding economic development negotiations, a closed meeting to deliberate the offer of a financial or other incentive to a business prospect regarding commercial or financial information that the government of body has received from a business prospect that the government of body seeks to have locate, stay or expand in or near the territory of a governmental body located in Ditton County Commissioner precinct four. And with which the governmental body is conducting economic development negotiations in an appropriate action. Item 15b is deliberation regarding real property, closed meeting to deliberate the purchase or value of real property located in the County Commissioner precinct for when deliberation and open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the position of the governmental entity and negotiations with a third person. 13C, personal matters closed, meeting to deliberate the evaluation or duties of the position of A to the commissioner's court. In 15D, personal matters closed, meeting to deliver evaluation, or duties of position of elections administrator. And those are in keeping with our practice of hearing from, in evaluating all of our department heads. So we'll go into executive session at, what is that 1054? We'll go ahead and reconvene our meeting. Today there will be no action on items 15A, B, C, or D. At this time we would like to go to our Johnna to speak to us about our budget. She rolls that out and this is going to be our last item on the agenda today. I can use. Just seven, E, this is approval of the organizational goals, budget calendar, Commissioner's Court Philosophy memo, and establishing budget priorities and tax revenue parameters for the budget office to use when preparing a recommended budget for fiscal year 2020. Thank you so much for waiting. Of course, are we all excited to be here and talking about this? Yes. I can't believe it's already time, but it is. So in the agenda today, you'll see that we've included information that reiterates the organizational goals for Dinton County, the Commissioner's Court priorities and a proposed budget calendar as well. So just starting with that proposed calendar, you'll see that the calendar details dates throughout the whole process. And today we are officially kicking off the budget process for fiscal year 2020 and effective March the 6th the departments will be able to start entering their budget request through our online system initial requests will be submitted to us in mid-April and will be presenting a recommended budget to the court on July 16th If there is a proposed tax increase this year, we have reserved August the 20th and August the 27th for two public hearings. An adoption of the budget is scheduled for September the 3rd at 10am. So that kind of just briefly covers the proposed calendar as I have it included. I mean if anybody has any conflicts or anything that we need to clarify, we can do that at the end of this presentation, but just to kind of briefly touch on the calendar. We've also included a draft memorandum for you. Now this memorandum I would like to get permission from the court to make any changes that we may deem not be necessary today during our discussions, but just to start with. It's just a traditional memo we send out every year to departments and basically it's just a guide for the elected officials department heads to use as they prepare their budget request. We're asking departments again to continue to try and streamline their operations and they really do a great job in doing that. We have some wonderful elected officials and department heads and we really work well together with them and we feel very confident that they submit only but they truly feel that their departments need in order to provide the services of a growing county and what we need to provide. This request for departments to continue to streamline is in order to consider raises a priority again this year. You'll see on the memo that we've listed out the challenges that we will be facing for departments to see the impact of those things that are already known. So regarding raises, both human resources and our office have been in discussions regarding a possible 3% slide of the scale and all employees in it and a 2% cost of living on top of that for all eligible employees. This would assist with employee retention as well as getting our pay scales closer to market and even though we've made great strides over the last several years with raises, other entities have continued to provide raises as well so we're not catching up quite as quickly as we'd like to, but this is in a continued effort to get us to that place. We've included an initial estimate for these increases of approximately $6 million and just as a reminder, we have 1765 budgeted positions. So that would be for all of our budgeted positions. Again, this is for all of our budgeted positions. Again, this is an estimate at this time, and we'll be working closely with human resources throughout the process to address any salary recommendations for fiscal year 20, including any reclassifications that may be needed. Any other scenarios that may come up during the process. during the process. We also feel that we may need to include an increase in our health insurance plan and we're looking at approximately an increase of $675 per employee which would cost us approximately $1.2 million. We've also included an estimated impact of $1.3 million for deferred hires in fiscal year 19. And just to clarify for anyone who may not know when we refer to deferred hires what we're referring to, these are positions that started at a deferred date during the current fiscal year which will create an automatic impact for the next fiscal year's budget. So for example, when the new court came on land in January, that was deferred and all the departments that required new staffing for that was deferred. And that just creates required new staffing for that was deferred and that just creates an automatic impact for the next year's budget. Also based on the most recent capital improvement discussions which is pending capital improvement committee recommendations and commissioners court discussions in approval as well, our potential debt issue total $63 million. This would have an impact to our budget for debt service of approximately $5.8 million. And continuing with our practice of building road project funding into the budget, I'm assuming we still want to include an estimated increase of approximately one million. Bigger pardon? Yes. And I've also included reference to an increase to the capital replacement fund for potential capital projects that would be able to fund some projects without the use of long term debt. So that I would be proposing that we increase the capital replacement fund by an additional 3 million this year. No one million would be in addition to what we have for road projects currently budgeted. And so it would bring that up to is it four million, Alejandro? We're adding a million every year with a baseline built into the right and adding a million for the roads and then separate. Three million on top of that. So be a total of four million to capital replacement fund. I understand. Would that be for county roads or? 3 million on top of that. So be a total of 4 million to capital or by some funds. I understand. Would that be for county roads or? Mobility. Just mobility. Mobility? Okay. I think what we could do is. And we just have to talk about it. But in lieu of doing a bond election, we could work with our, we could do a call for projects with our cities and start doing some advance planning with these funds. And use it for engineering and so forth. We could use it for county roads as well. A lot of time. I think we have a good fund balance in there. I think for some big cap of lives, I think we could look to our fund balance in the road and bridge fund. I understand. It's just sometimes I have to make, you know, you know how it is. And you have to make a value judgment of this year I have so many man hours, should I contract it out or should I do it in house? A lot of times if I've talked to our administrator for them and because I have a lot of ideas and he just kind of looks at me glazed over and there's no way and then I said, okay, well let's get together with their engineering department and farm it out this summer instead of doing it in house. But that's kind of what we get to the point of where we kind of, you know, have eyes too big for our stomach is when we usually do that. Well I think a part of my, like the concept, part of my desire to start this a few years ago and working with Donna to do it and that we add a million dollars every year was that we knew we were going to be fading out of the bond program. It was to keep mobility going, even in our urbanized areas. If we had that five million a year, six million a year, seven million dollars a year, adding up, we would become real dollars in that we could start funding some of these projects on my cash basis and then be, and still be doing engineering so that if we do, especially engineering so that we could have, I think while we still have projects that are shovel ready, when some different funding comes available from the cog or the Federal Highway Bill and so forth, so that we could, we're not out of the transportation game, we're still keeping our engineering moving forward. I think it's really smart because while we still have bond million left, which I have some, you know, I have gravel and asphalt money left, I think it's good to build it up for when that time and that money is completely exhausted. Right. And that was part of this. As one was tapering down, this will be ramping up. What year are we in on that? So this new fiscal year would add what, four or five million? This will make four We're not here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. We're here. out commissioner when we did the trail along the lake and the DCT rail line we took about 20 or 30 thousand dollars out of that I think last year so we should have six million we said one and then two and into three we already in that fund. In the capital replacement fund we currently have three million budgeted. Next year I will continue it at three million bell add in additional millions. We able to add a million every year. So you have one plus two plus three. So let's six. I think at the end of the budget, if there's extra funds, we should probably add it in. Yeah, plan for a million. We should have six one and then add the two and then add the three. We're have four this budget. Do you want to take- But it's too much. Are you trying to maintain a constant four? I mean, we're adding a million. Now, every year it's increasing by a million. I mean, do you want to get to a place to where we have a constant like five million and anything above that that we spent? spent you know what I'm saying in another words uh a way me day fun for a while yeah kind of I you know it's like a hesitant to say that you know I have a project I don't have really the funds for, but really, really can be done. And the grant is probably a check on in the call. Yeah, I'll hack Barry. Hack Barry and we need to find money for that. We need to find money for it. And I'm expanding it a little bit to address some grain of issues on that. So we've been pretty fortunate to be able to find the funding and the current road and bridge budgets. I just need to talk with you. Yes, we can definitely work on that. We've been able to reserve this for the most part. But no, that is coming. I've got, I'm just waiting on James Gossi to give me a little bit of a, a little bit of a better estimate of what that's going to be. All right, just let me know and we'll definitely put you on that. And just with the things that our reference today, we're already looking at a potential of 18.2 million increase in our budget, and that's just starting the process. And it's just kind of to bring to the course attention and to the department's attention that this is already a built-in automatic increase that we're anticipating. Just as a reminder, the current tax rate for Ditton County is 0.225574. And while it's too early to give any preliminary information regarding what the tax rate will be this year, if it follows what we had last year, we might be looking at keeping a rate somewhere around the current level. Of course, we'll need to get information from the Paraisal District, but this is based on recent history and in visiting with the county auditor. And based on trends, that's what we anticipate for this year to continue. So you are, I'm sure, keeping in mind, of course, this sounds like it doesn't put us in any danger or does it put us in any danger? In case the legislature comes back and puts a slap to 2.5% cap on this. If the way that we interpret that legislation is that it actually it affects the cap only. It's literally changing from an 8% to 2.5%. It does not affect the way we calculate the rollback rate. If it affected the way it was calculating the rollback tax rate, it would be a much bigger issue. But at this time we don't anticipate that that will be- Anything to- We didn't count it has been very conservative in our tax rate. And we've managed to recommend a very conservative tax rate for years. We haven't even come close to a 2.5% probably in 10 years. And the last time that we even came close to that, it was due to the issuance of debt. Yeah. But eventually, that 2.5% little effect is just on down the road. We keep going to the effect rate. Yes. The little effect rate. And it may be time to consider just a little bit of a slight increase above the effect there. You know, that's something for us to all talk about during the process. Yeah, I just want to make sure that our tails are covered. Right. Based on any kind of new legislation that may come and hit us, which I predict. Based on what they have at this time and what we've read, I reviewed that in detail. I don't see anything in there that is a red flag for us at this point. see anything in there that is a red flag for us at this point. I want to just to place this item on the agenda today to officially kick off the process and I'd like to get your thoughts on what we've included and if there's anything that I've missed that you think that we need to address or if you have any questions or any any direction from me for me or for the departments to get your overall input. I know we have had since our last budget, I guess it was. I want to make sure that you do include monies or at least being contacted on COV or communications director as well as I assume to be economic development director to's one of the things that I was going to have the budget analyst that's assigned to those departments to send them the information that we've had in the past that might relate to what they might want to request for the budget this year just to give them a starting point. Just give them a go and introduce themselves give them a brief overview the same thing with the new judges that have come in to office I'll also be meeting with Commissioner Edmondson and Anyone else that is new to the county or to just feels like that they need a refresher or need some information And would like to talk to us. We're happy to help Yeah, and we've given we've given those those we've given some direction What what we're expecting that probably will be reflected in the budget that they ask for. Okay. Any other any other thoughts, Commissioner Mitchell? Do you have anything to add? No, ma'am. You, anything else? Okay. Thank you for this. We were talking at lunch and you might be revising or refreshing the budget memo and so we'll look for any of the department heads or officials who do receive it. We're going to be, John is going to be sending that out, revising that and sending that out. We are always looking for ways to improve and there's ways that we can improve the budget process, or if there's ways to, this is not said a lot in government. There's ways to reduce the budget or realize some cost savings. We're always welcome to those suggestions as well, so are the real estate those funds and the better use. So thank you so much. First, thank you. Anything else? Thank you for anything else one other thing were you be working with John are some of the issues that we talked about increasing our yes That's our stuff for writing I will be getting with her about that okay, and then Is there any Is there any other I don't know whether there's any other items today? Let's members if you all had any comments from the committee announcements. She knows but she's going to be adding into the budget budget for the two new courts. Right. That's staffing. Hope adding to the budget for two new courts are one this year. No, no, you're right. One new court. Okay. This one. And then the next one for 20. Almost fell down. I know. No, no. I don't. And remind that commissioners, we had agreed that we would find pastors that would come in and do prayer. I got to. Okay. Good. Good. I've to, okay, good. I've already got two that I've sent as well. Not that Matt, I love your prayers, though, buddy. Okay, and then I wanna make an announcement that we are not having commissioners court next Tuesday because we will be in Austin Austin that didn't count days. We will be meeting this Friday at 9 a.m. here at the courthouse on the square. We'll be meeting at 9 a.m. It will be a semi-light agenda. We will pay bills and we've got a hiring action that we need to do. And then we will also be doing the revisions of the legislative policy statements of Shannon be working on that and Crafting those based on the decisions that the court made earlier this morning. Is there any other items that we need to discuss? We set the agenda for non-30 on Friday morning. I'm 30. Perfect. Okay. And I just wanted to let you all know that Tracy has been sending emails out to the pastors and I think that we'll have I know some are going to meet in March and they'll start scheduling after them but we should have some start coming in the next few weeks. Okay did I think it's all for now. Okay thank you we are adjourned. Thank you.