This morning's indication of the given by our sheriff will Travis and our pledges will be led by Dylan Shelton, Chief Deputy in the County Clerk's Office. Will you please stand? Good morning, Judge. Good morning, commissioners. Please bow your head. Thank you for the beautiful sunshine you've sowed upon us. Thank you for all the men and women in uniform and for what they've done domestically and internationally. For us, please be with us and forgive us of all our many sins. Thank you once again for everything you do for us and your name we ask it, Amia. I pledge allegiance to be the flag of the United States of America and to be the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor on the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God, one indivisible. Thank you. We have quite a few guests with us this morning because we've got some employees that are going to be retiring and in consideration of everybody's time, we're going to go to those items first. The first retirement that we would like to do a resolution on is item 3a on the agenda, which is Marta, that is the only one. Marta, are you here? Yes, she is. Come on up to microphone please. We like to look at the people that we are honoring, Marta. We have a whole entourage from the County clerk's office here this morning too. He'll come on up to the microphone in the center please. We have a whole entourage from the County clerk's office here this morning too. He'll come on up to the microphone in the center please. My best commissioner Coleman if you would read your right in the center there please to the microphone on the, there you go. We like to look at you in that way we just don't camera too. Okay commissioner if you would please. Martha first of all you on camera too. Okay, Commissioner if you would please. Martha, first of all, congratulations on your retirement. This is a resolution honoring Martha De Leon for 22 years of service to Denton County. The Denton County Commission's Court in Denton County, Texas during the regular session on the 17th day of December 2013 considered the following. Whereas Martha De Leon, senior clerk will be retiring on December 31, 2013, after completing more than 22 years of exceptional services to Denton County as a clerk for the county judge and county clerk's offices. Where Martha intends to enjoy her retirement years by spending more time with her mother, family, traveling, playing with her grandchildren and whatever else she wants. That sounds pretty good to me. Whereas Martha De Leon was hired by Denton County on March 18, 1991 and as an administrative clerk for the County Judges Office, she also transferred to the County Clerk's Office serving first in the criminal miscarmenor department and then due to her abundant experience and knowledge she was promoted to senior court clerk. And whereas Martha was a devoted employee, provided an outstanding level of valuable leadership to the County Clerk's Office with her talent, expertise loyalty and front leadership, where she earned the respect of all that had the opportunity to work with her, whereas she always took pride in her work in the Catholic Department, and whereas during all the times of said service with the County Clerk's office Martha is faithfully and diligently served and carried out her duties and obligations while maintaining a high level of excellence and has conducted herself in a responsible manner and is a representative of the department and whereas her dedication to the Dint and County Clerk's office has been appreciated and respected by all she has been dependable and trustworthy and will be greatly, greatly missed. Now therefore be it resolved that the Ditton County Commissioner's Court does hereby extend to Martha, our sincere and grateful appreciation for her dedicated service to Ditton County. We will, we congratulate her on our well earned retirement and extend our best wishes to her for continued success, happiness and good health in the years to come. So moved by me. Second. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Coleman, seconded by Commissioner Marchand. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to any? Motion does carry unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I understand. Good. Go ahead, Cindy. Finton County's been good to me. You've been good to Ditton County. We appreciate you, Helen. We wish you wonderful, happy and return. See me? I can't tell you how much this means to me to be able to be here with Marta. My very first day in May of 1995 with Ditton County, Marta was right there in the County Judges Office. I sat next to her for a couple of years and she trained me in the County Judges Office and we've worked together ever since and she is certainly much more than a coworker or a colleague, she is family and I truly treasure you. You are absolutely the most fantastic and amazing woman and you taught me so much over the years and I thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, I'm not crying. I'm happy.. I'm happy. I'm so happy for Morda. But we really, in the talk about, irreplaceable. So it's amazing. She has been an amazing example. Thank you. Thank you, Martin. All the retires, if you'll kind of hang around on a little bit, we run the resolutions past to get everybody signature on them and Barbara Luparo, get it frame free and hand it out. Go ahead. Today we are honoring Marta with a reception in the County Clerk's office for anyone who can attend. Please come by 2 to 430 in the main recording department, break room area on the first floor of the courts building. So thank you. Thank you. Let's answer talking about the County Clerk's Office. Let's go to 3D, which is approval of a resolution recognizing Barbara Beltchers' retirement. And Barbara, I believe it's here. Yes, come on up, Barbara. And I've asked Commissioner Mitchell to read the resolution for Barbara, I believe it's here, yes, come on up, Barbara. And I've asked Commissioner Mitchell to read the resolution for Barbara, but wait till she comes on up here so we can get a good look at her. Good morning. Okay. Morning, Barbara. So resolution honor and Barbara Belcher, but 13 years of service to Den County. The Den County Commission is called Den County Texas doing a regular session on the 17th day of December 2013, considered the fall in resolution. Whereas Barbara Belcher began her career with Den County on July 5th 2000 in the County clerk's office and whereas she conducts herself with an allegiance to family and friends that reflects a high degree of character and self worth. And whereas Barbara Belcher possesses a gracious heart, commitment to excellence and ability to make those around her at ease and happy to come to work with her fun disposition, value, work ethic and love of decorating for various holidays and seasons. And whereas she is a highly dedicated employee who has served the citizens of Den County as a deputy clerk for the Den County Clerk's Office and will retire on December 31, 2013 after 13 years of outstanding service. And whereas Barbara Belcher is an active and important part of the County Clarks office and has served the citizens of Dinn County with fairness and dedication. Now therefore be it resolved the Dinn County Commission's call it Dinn County Texas does your by extend to Barbara Belcher our sincere and grateful appreciation for her dedicated service to Dinn County. We congratulate Barbara on her well earned retirement and extend our best wishes to her for continued success, happiness and good health in the years to come. Done and open court this 17th day of December 2013 upon a motion made by myself. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, second and back commissioner Ead. It's all in favor, please say aye aye aye opposed a name motion that's carrying unanimously I'd like to say thank you all very much. I've enjoyed myself at the county and I'd like to thank you all very much. I've enjoyed myself at the county and I'd like to say thank you all very much. I've enjoyed myself at the county and I'd wonderful friends. I'll never forget and still be around. I'm not going away. I'm not going away. I'll still be around. But thank you very much. Thank you very much for your service and we appreciate you and happy retirement. Thank you very much for your service and we appreciate you and happy retirement. Thank you. Okay. Next, let's go to 3B, which is a resolution recognizing Dolores Johnson's retirement. Dolores is here. Oh, I'm sorry Cindy. Did you, I should have done this for a second, please. No, it didn't mean to slat you, I'm sorry. No, Barbara is a true treasure and we were, I was really thrilled to make sure that we had the comment about the decorating because, you know, as much as she contributes every day to the work and getting and fulfilling the department's responsibilities, she does so much by brightening everyone's day and the morale of the office. And so we I just we couldn't let it go. So I just we had to put that in there. But she is truly a treasure and will be missed. She she does great work. She is invaluable. She is a wonderful resource. She takes care of her co-workers. Again the two ladies that we have retiring at the end of this year are absolutely outstanding examples and didn't count. It really should be proud but we are definitely feeling it. Thank you very much. I de la Russ. You're up. Yes, and okay. I have the pleasure of doing the resolution for Dolores. The Denton County Commission's Court Denton County, Texas during the regular session on the 17th day of December 2013 considered the following resolution. Whereas Dolores Johnson is retiring on December 31, 2013 after a 16-year career with Denton County Tax Assets or Collector's Office. And whereas during this time Delores Johnson's served as deputy clerk in those fill in Denton Tax Office locations. Throughout her career Delores has served the Denton County Tax Pairs with Pertacy, Dignity and Professionalism. And whereas Delores has been our go-to person to work with our motor vehicle customers, moving between the vehicle registration and vehicle title service desk, she has been ready to serve wherever asked and has worked very hard to do all she could do to assist our taxpayers. And whereas Dolores has been a favorite of both customers and staff because of her wonderful attitude and kindness. Dolores routinely makes the day of her co-workers by joking, bantering, and bringing snacks. They're going to miss that, Dolores. They're going to miss the snacks. Whereas Dolores plans to spend time relaxing and enjoying being home, whereas the Denton County Tax Office is grateful to Dolores Johnson for commitment to her duties and for her service rendered during her career with Denton County. Now therefore, be resolved the Denton County Commission's Court, Denton County, Texas. Does hereby extend to Laura Johnson our sincere and grateful appreciation for her dedicated service to Denton County. We congratulate Laura's under well earned retirement and extend our best wishes for her continued success, happiness and good health in the years to come. The chair will so move. Seconded by Commissioner Marchand, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, singing. Motionless carried. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We have our tax assessor Michelle French here. Michelle, would you like to? There she is. I would. Dolores was kind of nervous about coming up here. So we wanted to be here to support her. Sure. We don't just we are just so excited for Dolores. We're going to miss her. She really is one of our go to people. She is one of those people that you know every day she's going to be there. No matter what, she is steady and strong and has done everything that we've asked her to do and you know we are really really going to miss her. So we're very very excited for her. Yes. I thought so. Yes. You did. You sure did. So. The choice I made. So we're very excited for her. So thank you. Thank you to Laura. Thank you. Laura, did you wish to say anything, honey? I'm thoroughly enjoyed working at the registration office. Everybody has always been really nice and thoughtful and I've enjoyed those years that I've worked with everyone. Thank you. We appreciate all your work for Den County and the citizens of Den County and Happy Retirement. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate all your work for Denton County and the citizens of Denton County and happy retirement. Thank you. Thank you. Okay we have item 3F which I'm sorry 3E which is a resolution recognizing Donna Bush retirement and Donna I believe is here here she is if if you come up to the microphone and I've asked commissioner Andy Eats to read this resolution. Good morning. This is a resolution honoring Donna Woosh for 17 years of service to Ditton County. The Ditton County Commissioner's Court, Ditton County, Texas during a regular session on the 17th day of December 2013 considering the following resolution. Razz Donna will begin her career with Ditton County on September 11th, 1996 in the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Department. And whereas she served as the right hand of the County Extension Agent for Horticulture, all these years improved herself a trustworthy sounding board and gatekeeper. And whereas there was no question too small or too large, too weird or too obvious or too out of our subject area for Donna Wolf to handle with professionalism. Whereas she has served as a volunteer coordinator for the Ditton County Master Gardener Program and M4C chapter of the Natural Nats, Naturalists as an active member in both groups and as an invaluable resource with her institutional knowledge, subject matter expertise, and keen eye for fairness and objectivity. And whereas Donna Wolf will be greatly missed as a valuable employee, but she promises to return as a volunteer in her retirement when she's not attending dog shows. Now therefore, be resolved the Ditton County Commissioner's Court, Ditton County, Texas does hereby extend to Donna Wiff, our sincere and grateful appreciation for her dedicated service to Ditton County. We congratulate Donna on her well-earned retirement and extend our best wishes for continued success, happiness, and good health in the years to come. Done in an open court the 7th of December 2013 upon a motion by myself. Motion by Commissioner E. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, Cindy? Motion to scary. Thank you. Would you like to? Yes, thank you. Thank you all. I've had a wonderful time. I've learned a lot. It's been a blast. And the county is a wonderful place to work. I'm going to miss it, but not that much. And I will be back. Thank you. We don't take it personally, we understand. Thank you so much. We have one last resolution, Sally Connell. This is Ida Mthresi on the agenda. Sally couldn't be here, but we still want to go through the resolution, of course. It's a resolution honoring Sally Connell for 15 years of service to Dent County, Dent County Commissioner's Court, Dent County, Texas during a regular session on the 17th day, December 2013. Consider the following resolution, whereas Sally Connell began her career, Dent County on November 4th, 1998, and will retire on December 31, 2013. And whereas Sally Connell, our end, has provided 15 years about standing public health nursing services. And where Sally has provided primary care services to thousands of low-income, dent and county residents, always assuring accurate and thorough documentation in the medical record. And where Sally has utilized her nursing education and experience to assist hundreds of dent and county residents in managing their diabetes and hypertension has utilized her nursing education and experience to assist hundreds of them, county residents in managing their diabetes and hypertension and in overcoming infections and other health challenges. And where is prior to joining them, county Sally worked for the Texas Department of State Health Services for six years and as a school nurse in Louisiana for six years and has worked cumulatively as an RN for 40 years. Now therefore be it resolved then kind of commissioners, court, then county, Texas. Does hereby extend to Sally, Connell, our sincere and grateful appreciation for her dedicated service to Denton County. We congratulate Sally on her world earned retirement and extend her best wishes to her for continued success, happiness and good health in the years to come. The chair will so move. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, sene. Motion does carry unanimously. We congratulate Sally on her retirement. And I know being here, you're going to miss her. She couldn't be here with us today, but we do wish her that they're a best on a happy retirement. OK. Item one on the agenda is for public input for items not posted on the agenda. If there's any member of the public that would like to address commissioners court, we ask that you please complete a public comment form and give it to the aid to the court here and also want to remind everybody it turns off your police turn off cell phones and pages. We have some public comment forms that relate to an item that is posted on the agenda. But we have one public comment from our county clerk Cindy Mitchell, where Cindy Goh is. But it's not on the agenda. Go ahead, Cindy. I just wanted to bring this to everybody's attention. Certainly, we had some issue hiccup. I'm not exactly sure how it happened. We're still looking into it. But I just wanted to say the resolution is going to be fantastic. So we are working with the budget department to make sure that every budget is easily acceptable online for the citizens of Denton County. I'm not exactly sure. I think they're buried in Commissioner's Court. We're not exactly sure what has been happening with them. In this extent, far beyond my time as County Clerk. And so we are going back to all of the budgets back to when there was no budget department back when it was just in the auditor's office. So we are scanning those in, there will be files available so that like I said, there will be much more readily accessible, easily accessible, there will be on our website, probably Donna's page link to them as well. And hopefully we'll work with you guys and have a commissioners court link so that anywhere the public goes, they can find them. But we're in the process, we're working Ashley and Tom in my office. So when Donna brought it to my attention, I about how to stroke. So I think that was the exact words in my response. I'm about to stroke out. So I just wanted to make sure that everybody knows that with whatever, however it's happened, it is being resolved and it's definitely going to be much better for the public. So, anyway, thank you very much. Appreciate it. We were also excited to see budgets go back to 1935 in some of the old records. That amazing. It'll be interesting for those who want to look back on the end time and see what the budget was way back then. I'm anxious to look into it myself. Well, I think it'd be a good idea if you could also do stuff with campaign finance reports. Yeah. Frank had told me that he had planned to have that. Is that what you mean? Or the personal financial. I think so too. It sure would be helpful to be helpful on back. Not have to go through paper. No, but anyway, but he told me that he had plans for that. So, okay, thank you. Okay. We have quite a few people here that need to get back to works. If you'd like to. Do that at this time. Thank you for being here to support your co-workers and wish them a happy retirement. While they're doing that, members, item 2 is the consent agenda. Are there items on the consent agenda that you need to have discussion on? Do we have a motion? Motion by Commissioner Marchant. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, Sen. Motion does carry. Consented agenda today consists of 2A, which is approval of the order makers. We have a new hire and the county jail. We have a new hire on the sheriff for the sheriff's department We have a promotion and adult probation and a promotion and juvenile probation. This is juvenile posted adjudication 2b is approval of the interdepartmental transfers and 2c is approval of payroll Okay, let's go now to 3f Which is a presentation from veterans advisory board updating commission Commissioners Court on Veterans Activity's successes and concerns across the county 2013. Good morning. Good morning, Judge Horn. Thank you so much for allowing us to come here today and speak to you. Sure. I have some representatives with me who kind of show the involvement of both community partners and our agency partners. I think you know our first gentleman, Paul Bastich or VSO. We also have Gretchen Lee. Gretchen Lee works for the Texas Veterans Commission. She's a Vietnam Air veteran and she's located in the workforce commission on Teasley Lane. And every day she's helping veterans find jobs. So she's going to chat with you as well. And I also have Bob O'Neill. Bob is service with me on the Veterans Advisory Board. He's the vice chair. And he's been a superb addition. I thank you for him, Commissioner Mitchell. And he's going to talk later on in the presentation. Okay, what I'd like to do if I can is to start with a video and I may need some help to get it where I need it to go. We got to hit the commercial real quick first. Yeah, I can see this. I'm gonna make a big big sign. Passes on, good enough. Skimmy had it. Great. I'm going to have a little rest. I'm going to have a little rest. I'm going to have a little rest. I'm going to have a little rest. I'm going to have a little rest. I'm going to have a little rest. I'm going to have a little rest. I'm going to have a little rest. I'm going to have a little rest. I'm going to have a little rest. I'm going to have a little rest. I'm going to have a Yeah. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to play the piano. I'm going to do a little bit of the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's in pictures. Yeah. I might need one more technical assist from my good friend, Paul. I wanted to share that film with the court because it really reflects both the challenges and promises that veterans bring to the community. And we see that every day in Denton County. So to us who work with veterans on a regular basis, those aren't numbers, they're real stories. And we may share a couple of those stories with you today. I'm going to try to get through this in 20 minutes or less. And these are the things that we want to talk about over the next 15 minutes or so. So we're going to start right now with Paul. I'm good, thank you. Good morning, Court. First and foremost, the first slide shows a lot of demographics about the 41,352 population. Of course, that was 2011, but one of the significant points on that slide is circled. 12,076 or 30% of those veterans are basically of working age or school age, 17 years to 44 years old. So that's a very important, in comparison, to Colin County, Terran County, Dallas County, where they're actually having a reduction in some of their numbers when it comes to. So a lot of young veterans are coming to Denton County. I think that's a very important point. Second, there is also the amount of veterans that we have here as far as 43,568 in 2012. With that many veterans, the total expenditures by VA that is spent in Denton County is $142 million plus. that is spent in Denton County's $142 million plus. In past 24 months alone, my office has seen 10,172 veterans, 1,838 of those veterans were first time visitors. We filed 1,249 initial claims. We have done 189 appeals and 699 powers of attorney for the Texas Veterans Commission. That monetary impact also shows that $142,395 are spent by VA to Denton County for our veterans benefits. The last slide that I want to go over is very important, and this is where I want to thank the commissioners court and the judge for what they have done for Denton County. But this slide shows that basically 0.25% of the general fund, the taxes paid to Denton County, are spent to the Veteran Service Office, whether it's our offices, whether it's our salaries, the number of employees that we have. And that's an important number because 5.69% of Denton County's population is a veteran. And I cannot say enough that I want to thank commissioners court for what they've actually provided to our office, the ability to function and the ability to actually provide those benefits that we have to our veterans. We have a full staff now again and I cannot say it enough as the Veterans County Service Officer Association President of Texas. I'll represent each of you with Good morning, Margin. Thank you, sir. That's cool. Thank you. Thank you. With that, I'd like to go ahead and turn it back over. Gretchen Lee is going to talk a little bit about veterans employment where we are seeing a lot of great movement. Good morning. Texas has great success in helping veterans get employment because we're the only state in the country where they have veterans helping veterans. And being with the state of Texas Veterans Commissions, I am home very truly on only that at the Workforce Center. In 2013, the Workforce Center just in Denton, Denton here alone, assisted more than 3,000 veterans in finding employment. And as of this month, 532 veterans are currently registered in work in Texas. Out of that 532, 35% are disabled and have some kind of physical disability. 107 of those veterans have recently been separated from the military in the past 12 months. And that number, believe me, we see it here is rising more and more every day. Over 50 veterans, over 50 veterans rather this year have received case management. My title is Disabled Veteran Outreach Program Specialist. There is one other here. So we give them intensive services case management. We identify barriers, we overcome those barriers, we actually sign a contract. And because of case management, which is monitored by US Department of Labor and the State of Texas, the success rate for those veterans finding employment is greater than 90%. The average time that a veteran takes for a veteran to get employment if there are no barriers whatsoever is only three to four months. The workforce center here in Denton averages about 900 to 1000 open jobs continually. So we have good success there if there are no barriers. If a veteran has barriers it doubles. It's six months and possibly longer. We can, as you know, because you know how many veterans are in the county, we don't have all the veterans. So one of my responsibilities and my counterparts is to do outreach. And we're out there in the community, whether it's a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter, we're out there. We work with over 50 nonprofits, and in 2013, we put 60 veterans into case management. I do have a success story that I would like to share because it's all not bleak here. When I came here a year ago to the Workforce Center, I started working with the bakery here in town. From that bakery alone, partnering with them, they have hired more veterans than I have seen anyone employer here hire. As of the past four months, thank you. They have given us over almost not quite half a million dollars in wages for Denton County. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Gretchen. And basically, Gretchen was talking about Flowers Bakery. And not only have they hired regular veterans, but they also hired young men, West Point graduate, not too long ago, who kind of got into trouble. He was an investment advisor who kind of, I guess, took some money and he served prison time. I think maybe about five years and he got out of prison and Gretchen was one of the first people that he ran into. And Gretchen worked with Flowers Bakery to get this young man a job. And so he's a brilliant kid. Obviously, if you can embezzle money money you have to know what you're doing. But rather than using you know his skill set you know to do not so good he is now contributing back to society and he's making a wage a good wage I believe he's a supervisor. He's making $55,000 a year and he's helping to roll that money back into Denton County. So, you know, Gretchen's pretty modest, but there are every week, when we're there, we see new success stories where veterans are either placed or giving an opportunity to go back to school based on benefits that they didn't even know they had. So, Gretchen does a great service, the Texas Veterans Commission and the Workforce Commission are really great partners in Denton County and with the Veterans Coalition and Advisory Board. Judge, I want to switch gears a little bit because I know we've got to start out with good stuff, economic positive, economic impact. But I want to bring you back to a slide you may remember from October 18th 2012 and this is the slide that I showed you and Commissioner Eads and some other folks as we launched the Denton County Veterans Coalition and we had some issues that we identified were veterans were falling through the cracks and those issues you, they're still out there, but having a coalition and a lot of viable community partners, individuals, volunteers, and government agencies, whether at the state level or at the Denton County and municipal levels, we're making some pretty good impacts. The biggest impact I think that's been made over the last year has been on homelessness for veterans. Catholic charities has become the go to agency for Denton County to place veterans at risk for homelessness or veterans who are on the street already. They got a $2 million grant just this last fiscal year beginning one October. Today I'm happy to report they can place 25 homeless veterans and they only have 17 veterans right now looking for those services. So I mean that is huge. Think about the drain on services you know that homeless vets can bring. Think about the emotional stress that they undergo if they face homelessness and what follows after that. But I got to say, you know, all of our coalition partners help with that homeless situation because each one of us can, you know, run into somebody with homeless issues or at risk of being homeless. And they now know through the coalition, apparatus, how to get people partnered to the place where they now know through the coalition apparatus how to get people partnered to the place where they can get some help. One other agency pathways to housing also helps us with homeless veterans by basically finding the furniture they need, getting some transportation assets to move furniture to new homes for veterans. And I'd like to say that they're working with local businesses who donate furniture for these vets and paintings and other things to make the veterans feel, you know, useful again, feel like they can make a contribution again. So homelessness has been a pretty big success story for the coalition in Denton County this year. If I'm going to talk about the best, I have to talk about the thing that's still challenging us. And that is transportation shortfalls. We just haven't yet found a way to address that in a comprehensive fashion. So routinely, unfortunately, we see veterans who are selling their plasma so that they can get money to pay for gas. We have veterans who could get great jobs if they had transportation or if they had cards to use dirt. And we're working there. There are grants available and we're trying to break through the bureaucracy to find out how to solve that problem. And we'll continue to work with the commissioners court and other agencies to find a way through that one. You consider talking to Jim Klein over at the DCTA? We have had some indirect discussions with DCTA and Mark Ventura from Pathways to Housing has also had discussions. We're kind of hitting a brick wall and I think part of it is because there's a time and expertise deficit if you will. So that's one of the areas where we can probably use some expert help to steer us in the right direction and to see what we can do. Now they give substantial discounts to seniors. Yes. And we've talked a little bit to span and some other agencies and I think we're going to find some, you know, some relief in the next year, but it's a matter of prioritizing the issues. And then you do some search missions, and then eventually you find somebody who's going to help you solve the problem. Okay, a little bit more real quickly about the Veterans Coalition. We did a lot in having fellow veterans trained to deal with veterans with post-traumatic stress, military sexual trauma. We've had well over two dozen trained, and they are supporting veterans in various ways through veteran peer support groups that meet regularly, and also as mentors on the veterans court. And I'll get that to that in a little bit more detail in a minute. The coalition also has been raising awareness. We had some press in the Dent Record Chronicle in the Flaherman Leader, you know, about some of the things that the coalition is doing. And when we get that, we get volunteers who wanna help more. And so it's a snowball that continues to grow and we're gonna try to continue to build on that over the next year. All right, so now I get to Veterans Court. I think that Paul and Gretchen showed you the promise of the veterans. How much money do veterans bring into Denton County? You know, how well veterans do when they get employment, when they get out of service. But what happens, you know, when, you know, veterans have some difficulty after combat, and you saw in the video that the numbers are pretty startling. You know, you don't see that because veterans usually don't announce those conditions. And so when you do see it, unfortunately, is when there's a run in with the law. But thanks to the Commissioner's Court directly, directly to Judge Horn, and to the Commissioner's Court, we have a viable veterans court up and running now. Judge Garcia has worked hard to kind of set the standards, get the team in place. Although our numbers are kind of small, with only 50 screened and nine accepted, and we've had one graduate, you have to understand that it takes time to figure out how to run a court, how to figure out how to screen for veterans in our jail populations. So I would say that again, we're ready to make a giant leap this coming year, especially because again, the commissioners court has worked with Judge Garcia to fund the coordinator position. And I'm thrilled we have a combat veteran, Major Jeff Gilmore. He served in Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. So he understands what PTSD is. He understands what family separations do. And by the way, he's been a probation officer in his day job. So he is just a super addition to the court, and he is going to help us make some tremendous strides. But we couldn't do it without the support of the court to pay for the things that that court needs. You know, we need to know that a Veterans PTSD was a direct cause of the crime he or she committed. And we know that because the court fees can help us pay for PTSD assessments by psychologists. It also helps some of our that court participants who don't have a lot of money, it helps to defray their costs of participating in the program. I think I'd like to tell you a story right now because stories seem to, you know, get past the numbers and get it home to the heart. We have a participant in Veterans Court and he is suffering from severe PTSD and yet, and yet his mentor who's a Purple Heart recipient and who's the Vice President of the Veterans Coalition, Gil Brown asked this Marine if he would participate in the Toys for Tott Drive. And this kid, who, I mean, he's got a lot on his plate right now, he was there at the Denton Triangle Mall this weekend, resplendent in his marine uniform, and he provided time and energy to get people interested in Toys for Tott. The really striking thing about him being there is not just that he's got PTSD and TBI, but his friend, a platoon friend, committed suicide just a couple of days before. And he was dealing with that as well. And yet he still wanted to give back to the community. So this is what the film that you saw at the beginning represents to me. You know, all we've got to do is just a little bit extra to help identify these vets who need a hand up and then get them in the right place before they hit a spot where they're brushing with the law because they're over meditating because that's the only way they can kind of quiet those symptoms of PTSD. I had the opportunity to talk with Sheriff Travis just before we started. You know, I've always trying to politic a little bit to see how we can do a better job of finding veterans in the jails in the prison, you know, identifying them so that we can get them into Veterans Court. And he gave me an immediate good news story. He said, yeah, we want to work to have them on the Sheriff's Department and not in the jails. So he told me he has a number of veterans We want to work to have them on the Sheriff's Department and not in the jails. So he told me he has a number of veterans in the police academy right now who, you know, we're in Afghanistan and they're soon going to be sheriffs in our system. So again, there's the dichotomy, you know. We've got a choice. We've got a part to play. All right, I'm going to drive you nuts right now with a little model because you know I can't escape the fact that I was an army officer. So basically I just wanted to let you know that we have a concrete action model that we use. We developed it over the last year when we started the coalition and we're refining it every day. And the first part is the entry to assistance. And everybody can help us with that. You know, the VSO, if we can get somebody to his office, he's going to provide expert assistance. He's going to get them every single benefit they deserve. But if they don't know that he's there, if they don't know that they have these benefits, they're not going to get them. And then we're not going to bring that economic, womb fall to Denton County. We're not going to do the moral and ethical thing by getting veterans in the right place instead of the wrong place. So we have a number of areas where they are entering. Part of it is at the Workforce Commission, Gretchen and her folks do a great job of steering folks both to the VSO and to the Coalition and Coalition partners, whether it's for homelessness, financial assistance, legal assistance, etc. Once one of us gets in touch with a veteran through the referral, we can do a full triage because you know usually see somebody for a job, but then if you talk to them for 10 more minutes, all of a sudden they're telling you their story from Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam even or the Gulf War, you know, where they are suffering from PTSD. And once we get them, you know, fixed with employment, with housing, then we can help them start to address the mental health issues. And then, you know, the last piece of that is the right referral. And the referrals work when we have tight coalition interconnections, whether it's with UNT, TWU, Catholic Charities, Community Services Inc. There's a whole host of folks. Hope ink. Hope ink comes in when Catholic Charities can't help a veteran because they can only help Veterans with honorable discharges or other, you know, then dishonorable. So there are veterans who can get no Benefits, but we still feel that we have to help them. So hope, Inc, knows about the Veterans Coalition and they work with us, you know, to address Vets. So that's kind of a quick down and dirty about the model that we've started. You know, we can reach more Vets with more community outreach, with more places to do community outreach. And I'll probably talk to the court, I guess, later on, and privately about what maybe we can do. We still have the ultimate goal of a one-stop shop. We talked about that over a year ago. And the reason why it's important is because not only do we need a place for vets to come to learn about their benefits, but what I've learned particularly over the last few months is we need a safe place where veterans can just come and hang out. If we provide a safe place for them to come and hang out, they start to open up about the issues they're facing because they're proud to tell you they've got mental health issues. But they might come to, you know, a one-stop shop and share some of these things and then we can start to address those. Part of the one-stop shop for me personally and for a lot of our partners is to try to bring a vet center into Denton County. That's a long-term project and I think I'm gonna talk a slide in a little bit to see how the court can help us perhaps get closer to realizing that. But Dallas, whose numbers of veterans are declining, they lost over 10,000 veterans from 2011 to 2012. They have two vet centers.. Tarant county has a vet center. They also have a fully staff veterans medical clinic that has a full entourage of psychiatric counseling services. We don't have any of that here in Denton County. We have a community based outpatient clinic and they do primary care services. It's augmented. They try the best they can, you know, for now, by doing telemedicine, which, you know, veterans with PTSD and other mental health issues, talk on a screen, they Skype to a psychiatrist in Dallas or maybe in Fort Worth. Paul Bastich has also opened up the VSO space so that we have representatives from the vet center come three times a week to provide counseling. But I'll tell you that just in my experience with Veterans Court and talking to some of our other veterans in distress, they are waiting way too long to get that primary mental health assistance. You know, just one quick example. Judge Garcia is intervening now for a veteran who was told, you know, about a month ago, well, you have to wait until February to get mental health assistance before you can be seen. So a vet center can help us short circuit that and reduce the time. So that kind of brings me to an idea that Linda Shadlack from MHMR brought up several months ago. She's aware of what the coalition is doing and we work with her and her people on peer support and other mental health assistance for veterans. But she knows that we can only go so far, you know, as much as we try, we hit a ceiling. And what I think we really need is some kind of county-wide assistance at the executive level. You know, the folks who can bring together, you know, maybe our state legislators, federal reps from the VA and our congressional representatives, along with some community partners who understand the issues, to start moving towards fixes for the fixes that we can't do on our own. And to those primary fixes, I would say, are bringing a vet center to Denton County and bringing some type of transitional housing, which I know that puts people off to say transitional housing. But maybe it's just getting some landlords to work with us to accept veterans. I told you that Catholic Charities is doing a great job getting people place. But they are working hard against the prejudices that they face with some of our apartments throughout Denton County that think okay if it's Catholic Charities we don't want to take a chance on who you're bringing in so our representative hits a bunch of you know walls trying to get veterans placed and it takes longer than it should and you know I just have this crazy idea that the commissioners court and other elected officials can give us some of that bully pulpit that maybe can help us break through. We have a gentleman, he's a CEO of Flower Mound level. He's got good contacts locally. And he would love to be on an executive steering committee to help us start to reach out to other businesses, find corporate partners, reach out to Congress. Whoever we need to reach out to and have a strategy to move forward to address some of these issues and obtain these resources. So I think I need to move a little bit faster, and I'm going to let Bob finish up with the last way that we hope that the commissioners can help us, and that has to do with the Veterans Advisory Board. Thank you. Thank you, Ginger. Did a great job. My name is Bob O'Neill. I was recently elected as Vice Chairman of the Advisory Board for Veterans here in Denton County. I've been here about 14 months now in Lantana. And Bob E. Mitchell was kind enough to appoint me to this position in April 21st. And I really appreciate it. The big thing is I'm so impressed moving from East Texas and living in Dallas County for 31 years in East Texas. How strong Denton County is and how strong the Betsy programs are with the coalition being formed and the advisory board and Paul's work. I think he said in the last 23 months he had over 10,200 visits in his office and that's a huge number. And I'm going to challenge Paul to keep the new visits up above 19% and use 20% as a target from now on. My job today is to talk about the advisory board and the membership. The obvious thing that jumped out at me and Ginger was that we need more members. We need members with a specific skill set in public speaking presentations, fundraising, running meetings, executive skills, and we need more members. And I'm not going to get into the number of people we need but we certainly should have two to three more with some alternatives as such. I'd like to get involved in selection and interviewing during that process to make sure that skill sets there and make sure that we have an understanding there's a certain responsibility here that you have to meet as a member of the advisory board as such. We also need to take a look at where these folks the advisory board members live. When we looked at Lewisville we really didn't have any representation. We looked at the rural areas of the county, West and East and North. We didn't have any representation, so we have to take that in consideration for our new members as such. Currently our board members are from Denton, Flower Mountain, Lantana, Carrollton, Little Elm and Highland Village as such. The other need here is awareness and marketing. One of the things that jumps out at me is the fact that the veterans that I talked to every Friday at the outreach program from 930 to 1230, which Ginger and I work for the last what five months, is the fact that these these poor vets in many cases that are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder don't know what their benefits are. Don't know what their rights are. They don't know that we have a VSO office here on McKinney Avenue and we spend a lot of our time sending the folks over to see Paul and his folks and they do a wonderful job over there. So it's always it's the awareness thing and we need to get the information out to the county itself and I suggest we take a look at some public TV spots here in Denton that's running on a continuous basis to maybe do a little commercial with Paul and talk about the benefits that are out there and the rights and the entitlements to the bets and what they can gain from this as such. So one of the things that also came up to improve our job is to improve Paul's performance and his folks over there, they do an exceptional job. He has implemented a number of, but two and a half months ago, a survey formed to be filled out by the veterans that are counseled by Paul's folks at the VSO office. And it's a voluntary thing. If the vet wants to fill out the form, it basically will give us some direction and information about trends, but how they found out about the VSO office, what their problems, their needs are, did we satisfy those needs on a prompt and effective professional basis, you know, what their name and address is, and so on and so forth. And we asked if we could get back to them and follow up with some specific questions as such. So I pick up the survey forms every Friday at Paul's office. There is a locked box in the lobby that the vet will place the survey in when he leaves and I pick it up every Friday and take it back and we're going to. We are currently filing and digesting the information from the surveys to indicate if there's any issues that have to be addressed or any improvements. And the thing I saw jump out of me right away was most of the comments, in fact all the comments that I saw in the survey form were very positive. The other issue that I'd like to see is how did they find out about the BSL? I mean, how did that come together? And the majority that I saw are referrals, so that means it's word of mouth. The second largest was the website and the social media, the Paul Hess, which he's done an excellent job on. But we need to increase that visibility and that range to get to the population of the veterans and their survivors and the families throughout the county. And so I challenge all of us, and I survivors and the families throughout the county. And so I challenge all of us, and I would challenge the commissioner for some help to get us to get to that visibility aspect. So we can be the best county in the state, which I think we are right now. So that's that that's all I'm going to say. Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here and the Bobby again. Thank you for your help. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Ginger'm honored to be here and the Bobby again. Thank you for your help. I appreciate Thank you so much ginger. Did you want to close? Yeah, ginger's gonna Again, judge we really appreciate having this opportunity to visit with you this morning We've appreciated all the support you've given us and we look forward to any feedback But to help us get better and to see where we can go to the next level. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate your presentation this morning. I say one thing. I want to just, I've worked a lot with Ginger and the group and I just want to say thank you so much because I really want to fine tune something and just put a bullet point on it that it. They are really helping to serve the whole veteran. And because our office, our VSO does a fabulous job, they can only do so much. They can only do so much. And by really leveraging the private sector with the public sector, we're really able to serve the whole veteran. And I think that bringing that, that's leveraging that private sector resources and the nonprofits and our other state agencies, I just really think, I can say it's servicing the whole veteran. And thank you all so much, and ginger, let's visit offline about how the DIT and housing financial corporation can maybe help with some veterans housing, with some of the partner agencies, which we assist. So that might be an opportunity. You and I haven't talked about that topic so. assist. That might be an opportunity we, you and I have been talked about that topic. So. Okay. Thank you very much for your time. Appreciate the presentation. I think we can do this quickly. Let's go to 3G, which is a presentation in the United Way. Live United 2013 campaign. Hold on. I'm not collected through donations and payroll deductions. Go ahead, Kate. Good morning, Court. I can do this very quickly. In 2011, we had the employees donated through payroll deduction and one-time donations just over $9,000 and in 2013 102 employees donated $20,663. So we have continuously gotten more and more. I wanted to particularly thank the members of the committee from Denton County on the Public Sector Committee. That's Amber Hague from the Health department, John Nelson from Human Resources and Houton from what are they called it now? It's not from the adult probation but it's not that anymore, sorry. CSCDES. I also want to say a particular thank you to the Treasurer's Office, Theresa Huerta and Jenna Bullock. They are the ones that have processed everything through the payroll deductions. They're the ones that make sure all the money gets out and in, so anybody who has committed their payroll deduction but then the next year does not make that commitment. So they're able to keep all of that straight and without Dana and Teresa, none of this would get done. And I also want to thank Lydia Rambo and Amber Hague for the pace setter campaigns that they did. They raised a huge amount of money between those two events that were held in August. So thank you, all of Vinton County, and thank you commissioners court for allowing us to do that. Thank you. Okay. We're going to take a five minute 6A on the agenda, which is approval of ranking of P25 radio system providers through the Houston-Gelvison Area Council Government's cooperative purchasing program, HGAC by, is recommended by the ad hoc radio committee authorized negotiations with the number one firm. But first we're going to go to the public comment forms that have been requested here. I'm taking these in the order that I receive them. First one I have is from Mr. Katie. Is that Adley? Thank you. And you've asked to speak. Thank you, Your Honor. Yes, sir. Got a commissioners. My name's Kelly Adley. I'm with Harris Corporation. And I'm just going to read a brief statement, please. Thank you for allowing Harris to respond to the county's P25 radio project. And thank you for allowing Harris to participate in this competitive opportunity. Harris is an international communications and information technology company, serving governmental and commercial markets in more than 125 countries. Harris is the number one supplier of tactical radios, tenato and the U.S. Department of Defense. Headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, the company has approximately $5.5 billion in annual revenue and about 15,000 employees. This includes 6,000 engineers and scientists. Harris solutions address the advanced technology requirements of the following markets. Defense, national intelligence, energy, civilian government, transportation, utilities, maritime, healthcare, and of course public safety and public communications. Our regional presence here in the area is the Diff the airport, Dallis area, Rapid transit, City of Rockwall, Addison, Farmer's branch, Carrollton, Coppell, San Antonio, Abelene, and others. On December 26, Harris responded to the Denton County basic scope of work, do come in and speak about the P25 radio project, including P25 phase 2 TDMA. When Harris responded, Harris fully complied with the scope of work the Denton County published budget for the new radio system. Our proposal did not upgrade existing equipment that may be proprietary and vendor specific, but included a turnkey solution with all new system equipment and user radios. Thank you. Thank you and thank you for your patience and we didn't speak to us today. We appreciate that. The next public comment form that I have is from Mr. Tom LaHolla. If you'd come to the microphone please and thank you also for your patience and waiting to address court this morning. Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you, commissioners. Yes, my name's Tom LaHoda. I'm a property owner here in Denton County. I had the good fortune of going to school in North Texas 30 years ago and always wanted to come inside this courthouse and now I've got the opportunity. So thank you. My reasoning here today is probably more along on the personal side as a property owner. And what I want to speak to is the, I believe there's one more step in this process before this award is made. And that is, I believe the award is going to be made via HGAC, a procurement purchasing vehicle. I truly believe from my experience, from what I've seen nationally and locally, that if it was to go to an RFP that is truly a competitive procurement buying process. The citizens of Denton County would greatly optimize their purchasing on such a large expenditure. You're talking $9 million. And so what you have right now, you've got a purchased budget of $9.2 million. Then there's market discounts off HGAC, so it's listed discounts. I mean, yes, it's a discount, it's competitive, but it's listed. So what's going to happen today, if the award is made today in lieu of RFP, is you're going to go ahead and award the, I guess the number one spot and then start negotiating. Well what happens there is the winners negotiating gets themselves. There's truly no competitive best and final offer for this. For something that's $9 million, I think there's one more step to take that is to open it up to RFP to where you'll probably see another 10, 20, 30, 40, 50% more in realized optimized discounts. And do it again under the constraints of a Baffo. I would point to probably examples of this to where you would have this type of savings in an environment over and above HGAC would be City of Dallas, the airport, the consortium, appear a farmers branch in Coupel, even in Harris County, which they've purchased our radios under a competitive bid process. They could have bought under HGAC, but they optimized their discount by going to RFP. So I really think that there's one more step here to take as part of this procurement process, especially with it being $9 million budgeted. Then the only other thing I have a question I have, I'm not sure who to I called in yesterday again as a citizen, and I was trying to find the called in yesterday again as a citizen. And I was trying to find the, in the budget, the line item for this radio project. And maybe it's not in the budget for this year, maybe it's subsequent years. But I spoke with LaDawn and Johnna. I believe it was also looking at it. I couldn't find the line item. So maybe they could just point that out for me. I'd appreciate that. Basically, that's all that I have to say. Good on. I'd appreciate that. Basically, that's all that I have to say. What company are you with? I'm with EF Johnson. Okay. Just to clarify, the budget standpoint, it's not in our official budget, but it is in our future capital improvement plan. We have not issued debt for the project yet, but it is in our approved capital improvement. Yes, I was able to locate there. Okay. Thank you very much. It's and again thank you for your patience. Okay next I have a public comment form from Mr. Christian Barker. Your honor and court I appreciate the opportunity to address you. I'm going to lend them my support to the two individuals that talked before me about. My request is going to be very easy. I'm going to also request that a project of this size go to competitive bid. I'm also going to request that the county consider separating the system and the radio purchases to further optimize the discounts that are there. My name is Christian Barker. I am a resident of Denton County. I live down in Roanoke. I have a very vested interest in the goals that the county has stated about aggressively pursuing and maintaining the lowest possible tax rates for the system. I also work at EF Johnson. I'm a director at that company. Many of our employees live in Denton County. I've heard earlier in the conversations today that there's an emphasis on bringing money back into Denton County and EF Johnson's uniquely positioned by having its employees living in Denton County to be able to provide that. living in Denton County to be able to provide that. Based off of the 9-11 commissioners report about the failures of the events that happened that tragic day, one of the outcomes of that was the need for interoperability and the P-25 standard was really legitimized in the eyes of the public as well as in governments of being that tool to enable interoperability. So P25 is the correct choice to go to. What I would like to mention is that having been in this industry for 16 plus years, I can unequivocally state that a competitive opportunity over a source, opportunity you will find savings between 30 and 50% on the price of this system. So if you have a $9 million system, and the worst case is, you only save $3 million, based on the presentation I heard earlier today, you can place 37 veterans in a home with that extra money. You could buy 30 fully equipped police cruisers with that $3 million. You could buy five bumper trucks for Denton County with that money. $3 million is a lot of money. I'd also recommend that the system, that the subscribers be put in a separate bid. The purpose of that is because the entire point of P25 is to be able to have radios from different vendors work on different systems. One of the intent of that was to drive down the cost to the end users. That's the number one complaint that's heard in the industry as radios cost too much. And this has been done successfully in many areas. We talked about Harris County, that's a phase two system, the City of Houston. They selected EF Johnson radios as well as Motorola radios and gave a solution to their end customers. The point of that is competition always brings a better price to the end users that have to pay for it. Thank you for your time that's all I have. Thank you and we also thank you for your patience today sir. Last public comment from I have is from Mrs. Becky Smart. I want to thank you also for waiting. Appreciate it. Thank you, Judge Horn, and thank you commissioners. Appreciate the opportunity to stand before you today and visit with you a little bit. I don't have a prepared statement. I guess I'm really just kind of a pair speaking from the heart. I too am a Ditton County resident have lived here for over 40 years. Well, I say over four 40 years. I have been a partner along with Motorola with Ditton County with your first responder public safety communications equipment for 20 years. Yes, I am that old. I go that far back. Have partnered with you on the original installation on the simulcasting of the system you have today when we put sites on Aubrey and Flower Mound through some console upgrades and for some of you that are familiar with the painstaking process of revanding. So we've stood shoulder to shoulder. Motorola appreciates the opportunity to be a partner with Denton County. We take nothing for granted. We work hard every day and hope that we earn your business. We too have multiple public safety systems in the Metroplex which this map if interested identifies all of our radio partners in the Metroplex. We have proven and can prove to the county that compared of RFPs are not necessarily always the best value. I don't argue they serve their purposes. I think the radio committee has done their, to my understanding, has done their due diligence and obtaining proposals. We have over examples of over 20 metroplex P25 systems that elected not to go to RFP where we worked with purchasing and showed them how they got a better value if you will through a negotiated HGAC contract. So I'm going to leave that up to purchasing. That's not my expertise, if you will. But just wanted to make a statement that we've appreciated our partnership. We wanted to make sure that the court, the Sheriff's Office, purchasing those, we want to continue that relationship. And we hope to have an opportunity to further discussions on this project. We're here if you have any questions or need any additional information. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Before we call on Beth, are there any questions from members of court? Okay. Okay. We'll call on Beth Lane. Good morning, judging commissioners. I've given you quite a bit of information in your packet and I would like to go over the procurement issues and what we've done today as a committee and then I'm going to turn it over to the sheriff to make some comments on the technical side and we'll be ready to answer any questions. But as you know, as we've already been mentioned this morning, there is funding budgeted. We expect that to be in the tax notes coming up in the near future. This project is to replace the 18 year old system that is not upgradable to a P25 solution. The committee started meeting last summer and it included besides myself, Scott Arlidge, and from emergency services, both Jody Gonzalez and Mark Wilkins from the Sheriff's Office, Randy Plyman's, Cory Blount and Billy Willis. We first started investigating procurement solutions by other government agencies trying to investigate what they had been doing and getting their documents. In fact, we gathered up quite a few documents. We looked at those that purchased through HJC and those that issued RFP themselves. Specifically, we obtained actually all the documents from MetroCrest, which was a combination of Carrollton, former Sprantch, Kapel, and one other, I'm sorry. Addison. We actually have all their documents and reviewed those. Then we begin to look at what solution we thought was best for us before we came to Commissioner's Court and we felt like looking at the HGAC contract would be in the best interest of the county. All three providers that we have been talking to have HGAC contracts. Those contracts meet our competitive bid requirements and they are also all negotiable past the listed discounts that have already been mentioned this morning. So of course our goal is to find a solution that would provide the best value for DIT and County, which would consider the technical requirements, long-term utilization of the system and cost as well. So for the initial analysis, we contacted the potential vendors and gave them a broad scope of work. It is not detailed. We understand engineering is required to finalize the project. So with that we did meet with each one. Each one was given an opportunity to provide a demo or a presentation to us on their their solution. We gave gave them the information enough ahead of time that they could respond our questions and writing them to the scope of work. After the meetings with each one, each one was given a chance to clarify or you know, answer any additional questions we would have. So with that, we did ask for budgetary estimates received from each and based on the HGAC contracts and we did receive those. We formalized the responses from each in two documents that are attached and to your budget packet. Now, we'll remind court that everything, all the details are still confidential until some kind of decisions made and the contract is signed. But we gave you a cost analysis plus we also gave you a breakdown on the functionality and of the three companies. After that process, the committee met again and unanimously recommends that Commissioner's Court rank the firms and begin negotiating with the number one firm and of course if we don't come to an agreement with number one, we would move to number two and then number three. We're asking for direction from Commissioner's Court on the procurement process. That's where we are today. We feel like we've done our due diligence in the process and have brought you a recommendation that will work for Denton County. In response to some of the comments made this morning, I just want to also say that, you know, I don't disagree that competition is always in the best interest of any government agency. That's what my goal always is in making sure we get the best value. But I do believe, I know for sure it meets competitive statute requirements, what we're recommending, but I also believe it's in the best value that we intend to negotiate a contract with deep discounts over the HGAC listed price. We have contracts such as the City of Fort Worth contract, they negotiated very deep discounts over HGAC and that is our goal as well. If we're not able to reach that we will certainly come back to Commissioner's Court and recommend that we move to number two and start negotiations as well. So while the list process with HCAC is already discounted, it is just a list process that is expected to be negotiated with the volume that you have. And so that is what our goal will be. I will be glad to answer any questions you have on the procurement side. And then I will turn it over to the sheriff to give some comments on the technical side. And at this point are there any questions and members of the corridor we ready to hear from the sheriff? Go ahead ahead. Yeah, put your make sorry sorry about that Is it your opinion that any like emergency or urgent need exist at this point for the system? I don't know that I'm able to answer that as far as Having a system that is 18 years old that is doesn't have parts It's not an emergency today if something happened., I would hate to say that it was not, but we're not asking for an emergency purchase. It's like we talked about earlier. There's very few county emergencies, right? Right. And we're not asking for that. And how was the ad hoc committee formed? Can you tell us what that process was? As far as I guess it was the Sheriff's Office and Emergency Services had prepared some information for the Capitol Improvement Committee and submitted that and as we do with all of our projects we start looking at them ahead of time. I sent an email to them and asked us if we could start meeting with them and Start talking about the procurement side That was last summer. I really appreciate all your hard work on this because I know it was really difficult And we had a conversation about that differently, but do you think it might be a good idea to have a procurement committee That might be composed of people from other parts of the county like somebody from IT and maybe somebody from road and bridge and maybe from somebody from the constables office and parts of the county, like somebody from IT, and maybe somebody from Roten Ridge, and maybe from somebody from the Constables office, and some of the other users that might be involved, and maybe perhaps somebody from a municipality who might be tangentially involved. We've done that on most of our projects, where we do broaden it a little bit. I will leave that up to court. I would think we would have to start over to do that because we've spent so much time and reviewing the materials. You can see here I've got binders of information and we have really studied all that. So we would have started over in my opinion if we did that. I'm not saying it would not be beneficial. I understand, you know, being a former member of staff and having to be involved in a bit of committee and having to be involved in the inmate telephone contract and somebody else, oh, you did a tremendous amount of work and I really appreciate that. And I really appreciate your candor, but I was trying to figure out why, since it's a huge expenditure, roughly $9 to $10 million that we didn't do this in the normal fashion Where we did seek a broader, you know, kind of spectrum of the possible users and people who would be involved in this process because as evidenced by the testimony earlier today, I think we're gonna be extruding over our bid process and It is public funds. It is a large amount of money. It's going to be something that's going to input a large amount of the members of the community. I think it's something that needs to be done. I think it's something we should do fast. But I think if anything's worth doing, we need to do it right. And this is going to be something that's going to impact our feature for a long term to come, long time to come. And it's going to impact a lot of our partners throughout the community. Fire departments, police departments, municipalities. And so I really feel that you've done a great job with what you've been given, but I don't think it would be difficult. I mean, I don't know. You may not be happy about it, but I think it's something we really need to think about, give good thought about whether we should maybe consider a different procurement method. We're actually not a different, but using the usual procurement method. Because one of my concerns, and I expressed that with the sheriff, when I met with him Friday, he did an excellent job of answering my questions. I really appreciate the sheriff's department taking their time to meet with me. But that, I think one of my concerns is that we need to, because it's such an important process, do it the usual way that we've done it in the past. And that would be with the broad committee. So that's my input. That would be with the bride committee. That's my input. And if I could respond to that, I don't know that we've done this one out of order because typically we work with the department and we bring it to court for the procurement decision and that's where we are today. And even though I'm saying we'd have to start over on that part, that is true. But if that's a direction commissioners court wants us to go because typically on these big projects I work with the departments for months and months before I bring a recommended committee to commissioners court and then we you know go forward at that point. So I don't think we've really gone out of order. This one's unusual because we are looking at the HJC contracts, but we utilize those for numerous things in the past. And those have always worked well for us, as long as we negotiate them. I may have overstated my argument, but to me, I think it would be a better idea to have a broader community. So I'm not saying what you did was out of order or anything, I just thought. wasn't one of the normal ways we did it. So forgive me if I'm a. Let me understand what you say. Yeah. I'm okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. Okay. I know that when this first came up to the Capitol Improvement Committee, obviously there's a lot of other departments there including Kevin Carr, so he's had- You were there, and I was there, and we've had some other input there, but I don't know if this is a question for you, Beth, or somebody from the Sheriff's Department or even Jody, but this is such a big issue for the county and all law enforcement, police and fire in the county. Would it be an accurate statement to say that other jurisdictions in the county, police and fire that work for those jurisdictions have had input with either Jody or your office or share if you're office and communicating as to what would best meet the needs and the interoperability and all this sort of stuff. If one of you would come to the microphone and address that. Good morning, Judge. Good morning, commissioners. Since day one, as all of you know, because I told you, I've been my goal to improve this system and prove what we have. As you know, this was done in 96. This came, we bought this system from the Olympics when they got finished out there in Atlanta. So from day one, it has been my goal to improve this system and make it better. Because we're all about public safety. We understand all the concerns on both sides. But we just want to have a better public safety unit out there to keep save lives out there. And that's what we're all about day in and day out. I'm going to let Jodi and I've been working on this pretty much. Yeah, since day one, he's been very instrumental in pretty much, yeah, since day one. He's been very instrumental in getting this, you know, where we need to do to make it happen day in and day out. The technical part's going to be done by Lieutenant Billy Willis on the technical questions. You guys have some. But like I said, since day one, we've been working on this to just improve what we have and do a better job of public safety that we have out there. J have one thing to say about the committees. The judge has asked a question and specifically the sheriff's office has a advisory committee and a law enforcement advisory committee made up of the jurisdictions throughout the county. We just had a meeting last week. They're quarterly meetings so those meetings where all the fire departments come together. It's not the fire chiefs. It's actually the folks in those departments that are utilizing radios and fixing systems and things like that. So it's the technical folks in those agencies that utilize the radio system as well as the folks that coordinate with dispatch in the computer that are in the fire trucks and the computers that are in the cars. They're the ones fire trucks and the computers that are in the cars. They're the ones that come to those meetings to learn about what's new, what needs to be upgraded, and to hear what their comments are from both the fire side and the law enforcement side. So just last week we had the meeting with fire and law enforcement, which Lieutenant was there to present information and everything specifically directed at what we were going and what we were doing. This has been going for over probably a year and a half that we've had those meetings with those different municipal partners to say, this is the direction we've got to go and this is what's happening. There are where what we're doing and they've had input as to what they think we should or should not do in their opinion. Okay. Did you wish to add anything else? I just hear that. He's got that if you guys have any questions, he'd be happy to answer before you. If you'll put on anything. Okay. Well, thank you all for taking time to meet with us. Hey, I mean, y'all were super nice to come talk to me on Friday and I really appreciate you all taking the time out of your busy day to speak to me. One of the things I wanted to ask was You know, we were talking about interoperability. What other Communities in our county have adopted this type system at this point? Travis, you just answered that I'll just make it sure we're on the same wavelength Judge commissioners, the, no city that's in the full county or no city, yes. Frisco is a phase one system right now. They're P25. Fort Worth, they're partially in the county. They're going to a phase two system and we currently have a regional overlay system that's the four counties Dallas, Tarrant, Dint McCollum that's at the Teasley store or Teasley Tower that's a phase one system also. We're going to be the first major one in the county. Yes, a phase two system. A Phase two. But it'll be both phases. Yeah, it's compatible with them. That's one of the concerns I talked y'all about was, you know, being able, because the P25 system, and I'm the first one to say, I don't know much about radios, so, but I did go through and go through and find some trade magazine articles and I was looking through it and I was really neat to see how the P25 system is supposed to be interoperable and it's an open source system and it's supposed to be able to be used with legacy radios and other radios that are from different manufacturers and that's to help you when we talked about that when you're in a emergency situation that all parties are able to communicate with each other regardless of whether they have a Paris or the other one or Motorola and one of the things I was concerned about is when I asked you all about that you with trepidation you said maybe whether that would work and to me you know we're the 800 pound gorilla in regards to communications and we serve a tremendous amount of people its legacy back from the old days from the Sheriff's Department when we took up the mantle because we had a 24-7 communications department like all the other little agencies and we have been servicing them from this point but that's that's really one of my concerns is that We are missing out on some of the value that we might be able to get by the way we currently wrote this out And I've had some discussions with Miss Flemington. I'll tell you she's she does a very good job But I was concerned that we bit it all out as one one statement of work as opposed to whether it should have been two or three statements of work so that we could take advantages of the economic benefits that's provided by the P25 open source platform. Specifically, I thought we should have- Is that going to be in the negotiation? Guys are y'all going to go straight? Exactly what we're going to have. I think that would be the current least for the whole kit and caboodle. Yeah. Infrastructure and mobles and portables. So you're going to negotiate things? I thought we would do is we should have a statement of work that would have all the existing radio work being grouped into a statement that would probably continue with the legacy system we have. And then we do another statement of work that would be for subscriber radios, portables, control stations that would be interoperable within the P25 infrastructure. And that would be regardless of the manufacturer. And then I'd have another statement of work and bid it out all the infrastructure, which would be the base stations, management tools, conspuls, and stuff with his own statement of work. The other thing is I, and you may want to combine two and three I guess, but that's something I guess misfortune. The other thing is, is that having been involved as the attorney for the Sheriff's Department in a previous communication system, we had, and I worked with Jody, we had promises kind of handshake agreements regarding placing towers in various municipalities, but when it came down to it, getting those leases in those tower agreements were very difficult to obtain because while the fire chief or the police chief will say, hey, it's a great idea. let's put the power over there the city council who are elected may have it done their opinion so those are some of the things I have a concern about and you know Sheriff Travis I deeply applaud your concern for public safety and I know you share with me also a deep concern of use of public funds. And I think that we shouldn't use our concern for maybe not spending public funds in the best manner to sacrifice public safety. But I also agree we need to balance that with our concern of spending public funds in a zealous manner to also promote public safety. So I don't think we should do one to the detriment of the other, but we should always do both of them with concern for each other. And I think there's an opportunity on this to save some money if we do it in a different bid process. Commissioner Martin. That's why let me ask you this. We're in the two other companies. If Johnson and Harris, all initially in the discussion, are were they, did they enter the picture in the last two or three months? It was in the last few months after the committee started meeting. The capital improvement program that was presented to that committee more than a year ago, that initial quote, which was a budgetary quote, was from Motorola. Allow, so some of the incentives that Motorola has placed on the table as a today, or basically prepared over the last few months when the other two parties got involved. Is that a fair statement? Is your mic on, Ron? Yes. I've been talking with Kent Harry. But another words, the initial price that was given in discussion with Motorola did it, was it altered at all when E.F. Johnson and Harris became part of that conversation? I believe it was, but also the scope of work was significantly different. You know, we've added a fourth sought and I'm pretty sure that some of the other technical requirements, we didn't have a full scope of work when it was presented to Commissioner's Court. But yes, if one company knows that we're looking at other companies, we're going to get a better prize for sure. I mean, it goes back to our competition. Right. Okay. I just wanted to know the order of that. I'm just skeptical to, or I guess I'm hesitant to say from more than a year ago when we had a budgetary so that we could allocate funding. We need to know how much money to buy. But the difference is between now and then. Yeah, understand that. But if Johnson and Harris were not part of that procurement discussion up until a couple of months ago, and my point, my question is, did the incentives that are reflected by what I'm seeing here occur prior to them being involved or after they were involved? I would say some of them were before. I mean it, which is a good thing. To me, for what I'm wondering, I understand what you're asking. For me, from what I'm understanding, Ron, and just to clarify, correct me up from Ron, is you're saying that Motorola helped us determine on what we needed, right? So there's a good chance that's what's going to be their bid since they know what our CMP amount is and it's public that they would bid that amount and they've only lowered their price or they're bid knowing that other people are now competing was like yeah I was just one of my prime was I don't think I was what she said all right well thank you get it I don't think it's unusual to look to an industry leader to get an estimate for a budgetary purpose, for budgetary purposes. I don't think that's inappropriate or uncustomary. I don't think that is, Andy. I'm just saying human nature is if you know how much money is out there as a business person, you're going to ask for that. But that's part of being a part of process. It's part of being a public process when people see what we adopt as far on our capital. And they all knew I have a question to kind of get to piggyback on what commissioner Coleman had asked about. What municipalities have placed this system in the county? This would be a question for the vendors. Have they and I would like to hear from the vendors, have they installed this system in the similar system, in or around it in County? Carlton. Carlton, Carlton. I'd like to hear. If he come up to the microphone, please. If Johnson's installed many statewide systems. We have many phase one systems that are installed. We have not yet deployed a phase two system because there is no testing defined by the standards for interoperability. EF Johnson follows the standards and when the standard has become resident that there's a standard to test interoperability with radios, EF Johnson, will quickly move to implement that. It is in our engineering process, but that's the reason we haven't done it yet. Do you have a phase one in Ditton County yet? System implemented. We have a phase one in Irving, Texas that we use. We're also the Y system next door, Y's County uses our infrastructure, though it's not a phase one. They're looking at that, but that's what we have. Okay, good. Thank you. Again, phase one systems here locally, Dallas Transit. I also want to make sure that we talk about phase two, which is brand new technology. Motorola obviously has some phase two that's accepted. Harris has phase two that's accepted also. We are implementing phase two today just like Motorola is here with the Carrollton-Anison Farmers Branch Group. It is going through implementation. It will be accepted probably sometime next year. I do have a list of our references for P25 systems in the regions and states that we have today. And I can release those references or those other agencies around. I do want to state one thing too. The overlay cog that was discussed, the towers here in Denton County, that is two working systems, that's a Motorola system and a hair system talking in rough ability through what's called an ISSI, both our systems work on this overlay cog. And that side is here in Denton County. Thank you. Thank you. Judge commissioners, object cross with Motorola. We've got a number of P25 systems throughout the Metroplex. We've got city for Earth, city of Frisco, city of Dallas, city of Forny, city of Tarrol. Johnson County, Parker County, Netco, which is a group of six cities. And those just off top of my head just in the area. We have phase two implemented in the number of those systems as well. And I've got, if you need any detailed information on references, we'd be glad to give those. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Commissioner Mitchell, Thank you. Appreciate it. Commissioner Mitchell, I'm ready to call. I make a motion that we approve the recommendation that the Sheriff Committee and I, probably, and I direct to, has given us a approval of ranking of P25 radio system provides through the Houston Gava scenario. I'm ready to make that motion Take the recommendation of the ad hoc committee. Uh-huh. They have a motion by Commissioner Mitchell So it's second to the motion I'm not ready to decide today. I think you're on our I'd make a motion that we direct the purchasing agent to set this out for bid under the RFP process to separate in to separate statements of work. One statement of work. Well, SEC fits, but I would recommend that we do one for the existing radio group. Two for subscriber radios. It would be P25 compliant in three for the infrastructure, which would be the base stations management tools and consoles. We have a motion by Commissioner Coleman is there a second to motion? Say a second to the motion No second to the motion All right I said just we look at this engine not act is it not act as an act in itself. Let's look at it again. It's been come ready next week to vote on this. Here. You look right. And Friday. Friday. I will be here Friday. Remember I will be gone over the Christmas break. That's what we'll do. Much easier. Excuse me just a minute. Kate did you need something? Oh that's right. That's true. You're right. We also run the risk of an 18 year old system having a problem over the holidays too. Remember that? Well, this won't be implemented over the holidays. No, it won't, but you know, it's that many more weeks ahead of the process. They wish. Yeah, exactly. Can we do it the... I'll be returning from our Christmas vacation January 3rd. Can we do that the week after that? No, we just heard. occasion January 3rd. Can we do that the week after that? Yeah, we've that's correct because we've got a conference the next week. Like I said, there is no really generally no county. We want to do things right. You know, we don't do it right now, but we take our patients and it's a deliberative process. Well, I want to address that for just a second. Right in. Because I have great confidence in our staff. And I don't want any comments that were made this morning to impune the character or the processes of our elected officials or our staff and the conjunction as they move forward It was a legal process. It is a Beth is one of the deans of the Texas Public Procurement Association I mean she truly is and teaches the classes all over the state. I mean she truly I'm winner. She She truly is. I'm gonna truly is. She truly is. I'm not going to say anything bad about her, Andy. Huh? So, so I don't want there to be any insinuation made from this body that anything was done inappropriately because I believe listening to our Fire Marshal and the sheriff talk about the inclusiveness and ongoing dialogue with our municipalities so that they have had dialogue on an ongoing basis for years. It's been a public priority of a sheriff so everyone has known about this. And since he took office and then Beth and her true professionalism for decades with the county. I think that the process has been the gold standard of public procurement. I just want to make that abundantly clear. I agree with you, Andy. I've spoken with Beth. It's not ready to go today. I have a few technical questions that I'd like addressed, but other than that. That's why I'm working on what we're talking about today. And I think those I mean those are great comments I mean I don't I've talked to Beth several times so we're the holidays about this and you know I think she told her what I thought was coming I think she did a good job on it so I don't think we've anybody's impugnt her reputation. And I don't think he's imputing me by calling you Dean. Because that's sometimes a tough thing. Dean, with the compliment. No, I know. I would also just like to say on behalf of the committee, I appreciate those comments. And we certainly understand the questions. We, I believe this whole committee would say, we want you comfortable with whatever decision you may. That's why we tried to be as detailed as possible in the backup information. And this is a big decision and so we're waiting your direction. But also, I mean, Commissioner Eads, as the holders of the first strings, it's our job to do what we think is right. We can take our staff's recommendation and well-coulding. But that doesn't mean we're not supposed to use our own judgment. Oh, absolutely. I don't think we're a disagreement. I'm just saying there was a public procurement process where there is a competitively bit before. That's A, and then the B part of that is that we will continue a dialogue of negotiations with a vendor. And so there's two opportunities for cost reductions to be in place. So that's what I'm just saying. Is that my correct math? Is that what you said earlier? It's correct. There's many ways to scan a cat. Yep, absolutely. And argue or debate it. And I just think it's a big decision. And I would like a wider breadth committee to look into it and if there's an opportunity to save the county money I'd like to take advantage of that. What committee members would you like to see Commissioner Collin? I would like to see probably somebody from IT somebody from probably maybe somebody from Roanbridge West somebody from the Constable's offices. I think that would be a good plus people from the Sheriff's Department That's you had said earlier that we you would need to start over how are you defining over if you were to add those few members to that could you not Do have your existing committee and then bring those members in and give them an overview of that and then let them go over the Submittles and in the vendors visit with them. Could that be achievable? In my opinion, if you are going to bring in the committee members in your making a decision on functionality costs, trying to come to the best value and make up a procurement decision to recommend back, they're going to have to see the systems because it's not a cost issue, it's not a full technical issue, it's a combination, and we spent a lot of time reviewing the technical requirements. It'd be hard for some, I mean, I can tell them what I want them to say. But to actually have them be involved in that process they're going to need to see the systems. It's my opinion. Our thought is on it that if you form a committee, I tease not going to be touching this deal who's not like the vehicle committee whereby drives the cars that we approve and things like that. We, Jody and I run this system and that's the reason, you know, that we had this elect group in Beth has done, you know, standing ovation for her. She's just done a tremendous job on all this. Thank her enough for that. Yeah. Please, miss, whatever you call on. Awards. Yeah. I would say we discussed and reposted after the transportation conference in January. I think we've already posted the agenda for the, oh, on the third, I'm sorry, I've meant the 20th. I'll be gone on the third. I think you know I'm going to vote no if we don't do the RP process. I think it's pretty obvious, but I would like that that opportunity. I will be gone over Christmas and New years. I will not be here on the third. I'll be flying back to that on the third. Oh, my man, there's no doubt in my mind that you scared out this contract up one sign down the other one and know it better than probably the sheriff knows it. I'm going through this stuff. I mean, you know, well, thanks, because I admire Sheriff Travis greatly. He, you know, I think he has a deep concern for public safety. And you've got to really commend him for that. But if you're not ready, I always ask people to work with me when I'm not ready for something. So whatever you want to do, I will work with you guys to do it. Appreciate that, Commissioner. And I'm not Bobby. I've had one conference call discussing the same comments. So more questions, not that you didn't answer those but more questions that popped up in my head that I have to have answered. Yeah, I served on the Capitol Improvement Committee. So I've had a bit of time to me to yeah That's why we're question we don't vote today, too. So we It's not a sales job. It's just an understanding more right just like what you Discussed on on that entire process that I was gonna ask you that very same the question on To explain to us how you got to where you were at. And I would want you to go to the sink. Thought I'd have no problem. You all give it to give me a time and let's. Jody looks like there's something you want to say. Thank you Judge. Mr. Smith. One of the things that you know if we do postpone this thing that's again you know agreed that there's not a significant emergency to this situation, but one of the things that we want to do, then probably bring the committee back with purchasing and discuss this proposal of splitting it up, because there's been a discussion between the committee members and purchasing that, that splitting this up into three different programs actually could create more issues of less discounts because of the subscriber units and then you also have maintenance issues. So we also if that's part of an option we want to be able to sit down with a committee and look to see if that is something that we say you know is this going to help us or is it going to hurt us so we can come back say this is what we found out about you know splitting it or not splitting it so So I think we need to, as a committee, probably need to look at that option. I think bestshaking our heads. So I mean, if that's something that's a proposal, we need to see if that's, we have a recommendation for you for or against that proposal. I think you heard it. Yeah. I mean, to me, you know, like you said, you said it would, I know, but just to say, you said that there's a potential for it costing us more, but I would say it also, there's a potential for us saving money. Absolutely, but again, I'm objective. I would say there's a bit of objective for both opportunities. Yes, sir. Absolutely. I think we need to look at that as an option from the committee. And then we need to look, we have to roll maintenance into that so it was at three years maintenance the four years maintenance is that maintenance go up if we split it does it come down if we split it so we may have different options there so I think we've reached a consensus of opinion here to go back to the committee and study those different things and come back with a recommendation commission's cart and we'll post this after the new year when everybody's back. Thank you. And thank you for everybody from being here today and stay tuned. Thank you, good. Okay, there'll be no action and six a day then. Members, let's look at 5 a while we're here, which is approval of the bill report. Payments from CSCD, community corrections, TAP, shares, train shares, forfeiture, VIP, interest, D.A. Check fee, and the forfeiture funds are presented for recording purposes only. James Wells. I'm not actually not. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Glad for the clarification. I saw that huge number went out For approval. We have a motion for approval commissioner marching. We have a second back commissioner Mitchell Hearing the questions on favor please say aye aye Posting motion does carry 13 a is approval the reappointment of commissioner Ron marchin Tim Trial of itch to the county Teres number one committee Motion by commissioner Eid seconded by Mitchell. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to the motion is carried. 13b is approval of the reappointment of Paul Kramer to the Environmental Advisory Board. This is a Commissioner precinct to appointment. And approval. Motion by Commissioner Marchand. Seconded by Commissioner Mitchell. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the seat. Motion is carried. 13C is approval of local disaster declaration due to severe winter weather conditions as proclaimed by the county judge. The jodys left, but this gives us an ability to apply for some reimbursement for the people that we sheltered during the ice storm. Not that we're going to get it necessarily, not that we're gonna get it necessarily, but at least we can apply for it. I move for approval and I'd like to say that, I mean, I have heard nothing but great reports about the response of road and bridge emergency services. Absolutely. All aspects of our emergency services and public works department and how they responded to this ice storm that caught everybody by somewhat upset. You know, we've had snowstorms before and we've had sleep before, but I don't remember ice this thick. 83. That took so long. I mean, this morning on the north side of my garage, I still have some ice patches. It's crazy. Yeah, it was too much for me. It was bad. It was difficult. Well, yes, we had certainly commissionary needs. A lot of you who were running bridge folks were out there and pleased to express our appreciation for that. I do want to say that we're. We're at the Jody Gonzalez and works so hard with the folks from the city of San here. You know, there were a couple of nights there. We had 300 people in shelters keeping them or in them and feeding them. Well, I do want to say that we are going to be working with our partners at TechSdot to have a post-event evaluation because there's always room for improvement. And there's always ways that we could coordinate better. And so we are going to be working with them on fine tuning our processes, our communication, and their practices as well. And how they respond and how we can assist them better. Because those interstates are the textuts responsibility, but how can Ditton County assist textot? And we had a good process a couple years ago when we first bought the equipment. So we want to be sure that we're coordinating as best as we can to help, really a countywide preparedness. So. Okay, I'm'm sorry go ahead. We'll circle back with the court. We'll circle back with the court on that. Okay. First of all Andy I want to really thank you for having your Roanbridge West people help us with that area of Sanger. That was very nice of you to help us with that. And we've already talked to TechStaught in the next weather event that they think will need this kind of help. We will be pre-positioning county graders and dozers at the Sanger yard, the Sissidio Sanger yard, and on the right away at Milam and Clear Creek Bridges. So if you see a piece of county equipment on the right away, don't call me because we're trying to pre-position it in advance of any weather event. We are exactly right and I think we learned from every occurrence and the level and the amount of precipitation that came down out ahead of a lot of crews. And so it really did. And so I think it just coordinated a more refined coordinated effort, would be appropriate on how do we, you know, because we spent time Commissioner Coleman, I talked Friday and we dispatched more equipment up there and so and we were helping the detour route, you know, and so we need so you know, we say text that you're going to the interstate highways if we identify a problem where immediately dispatched to help with a detour effort, you know, Keith was detours open and so it's just a longer we learn after every process and we don't do this, thank goodness we don't do this routinely. And so it's just we can all mature through it. We're not going to be buying sand trucks because we know you all have them and we don't use that much but when they're when they're needed they're used I really only think we need need one set. But the thing we are going to be buying, and I didn't realize, but we're going to be buying super sized chains, like to be able to put on the tires of the graders and stuff like that, because from what I was told, is rubber tires and ice are even slipperier than a car for a big grader. So we're going to have snow equipment to get those things out once we pre-purposed position them have them chained up and ready to go. I don't think I want to be sitting in a greater sliding sideways. Well, and that did happen to our crews and I think it's it's it goes beyond. It goes beyond the rural parts of the county and just interstates. I mean, I think it really goes to our you know 30 40 11 71 the state roads Across the county through the colony through little lamb through Frisco me and that we have a coordinated effort on how do we address those those state roads and What are the cities doing some cities maybe in the business of it others are not so we're gonna We're gonna have a like say a post say a post mortal meeting and and and we report back to the full court. I know the city is saying you know people help and we had all these people in the in the warning stations along there are the 35 and they're getting people out of the vehicles because they run on our gas and having all kinds of problems but rolling from our own emergency services went over to Walmart distribution center and they gave them cases of water for people. So I mean everybody really helped and I'm very appreciative and I know the people that were in the warming stations were appreciative also. Okay we have a motion in a second doing that. I made the motion. Yeah Commissioner Marchett I made motion. The commissioner, motion. The commissioner, the commissioner, is will say, made the second. On favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, aye. Motion does carry. 14A is approval of 2013, 2014. Ambulance service agreement. It's routine. Denton County, Texas and one. Crown Fire Department Ambulance service to the town of Lillome, Ambulance Service 3, the Sanger Volunteer Fire Department Namos Service and for the City of the Colony Ambulance Service, the chair will so move. Seconded by Commissioner Marchin. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name? Motion is carried. 14b is approved of the 2013, 2014 Fire Protection Services agreement between Dan County, Texas and one, the double oak volunteer fire department two, crime fire department three, the town of Little Unfire department, four, the senior volunteer fire department and five, the city of the Colony fire department. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, second and by Commissioner Eads. All in favor, please say aye. Aye, opposed, senane. Motion is carried 14C as approval of the 2014 Irneal Local Corporation Agreement's ICAs for library services between Denton County, Texas and one the Aubrey area, library, city of Aubrey and two the Betty Foster Public Library Town of Ponder. I move for approval. Motion by Commissioner Coleman, seconded by Commissioner Eads. On favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name. Motion is carried. 14D is approval and adoption of Dent Denk County's tax abing and policy effective January 8, 2014 through January 7, 2016. We have a motion for approval by Commissioner Marchant. I have a comment. I'll second it for discussion purposes. Commissioner Eads. Go ahead. On the deviation to the policy, it requires a supermajority. Has that always been the language? Yes. I consider changing that. Let's see. We revised this in 7 or 8. It was about 2007 or 8, something like that. We revised it just a little bit, but I don't, I think it was just a small change. But, and there's really very limited change to this too. It's just that it hasn't been addressed for a long time. But yes, Commissioner, and it's your question. It's always been a super majority to deviate from the policy. Supermajority vote. Policy that we deviate, we have a supermajority on. If it's a policy or something like that, we don't have a supermajority. I'm not sure. I think it should be a supermajority to deviate from the policy in this instance. That consider a change. This is different. There's no statute that demands a super majority as it relates to economic development. It's just a county policy Yes, that's correct and remember county policy is whatever we say it is that's okay. I Like it the way it's written We have a motion and a second in favor other question further questions are comments Treats would you like to revise that at some point in the future? He's thinking I go on amongst you You're not going. He's thinking out loud, I think. It's okay, go ahead. We'll... All right. Anybody else have questions or comments? We have a motion in a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, Sen. Motion does carry. 14E is approval of the Supp agreement number seven to the engineering sources contract between them, county, Texas and Tignola Perkins incorporated for the Rowan Bridge East project B bridge and cross culvert evaluation and design project in the amount. I'm sorry, the additional sum of $100,200 for a total revised contract amount of $523,900 with funding to come from Commissioner precinct one, Bridgian culverts. Wait a minute we got an email from down on this concerning some changes that she needed to make and my computer's not coming up done or I read it off. It would be the 2010 PI bond fence auditor line item number 85, 7494, 9050. And that's based on some email correspondence I saw yesterday. We want to just make sure this is correct for the record. I'll move for approval and just state that, we're moving, putting more culverts and bridges, fixing them all up in an incorporated area. Thank you, voters who voted for the bonds in 2008. Second. In a motion by Commissioner Collins, seconded by Commissioner Eads. Are the questions or comments for the clarification? Noting the change in the order to line out them all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye opposed to the name? Motion does carry. Okay, let's go to item 21A on the agenda, which is a presentation to consider them kind of participation in the ATS schools on speed safety program. This is simply a presentation. There'll be no action on this item today. It's just a presentation and commissioner March and just let me know that we can put off executive session for our future meeting so we'll hang on to all of this and talk about it another time and we'll take care of item while they're setting that up. Thank you. The next year's card is reconvened under item 21a. We'll call on Jerry Valdez. Jerry, if you'll come on up and get us started. Good morning. Thank you for waiting. You're quite welcome, Judge. Thank you for having me. My name is Jerry Valdes and I'm here on behalf of American traffic solutions, which is the nation's lead in leading entity and photo enforcement. They are throughout the nation and throughout Canada. They're not a new to North Texas. They provide other products and services in communities near here in the LLM, Wattaga, Arlington, and Frisco. But they're here to tell you to talk about a program that we are covering the state's largest and most urban area counties with regarding schools on safety and enhancing safety in the state schools zones. And I must take just a quick moment, if I I may and tell you that I'm happy to be back in this building and I'm I'm well pleased to see old friends and to quote Jeff Mosley it warms the cockles of my heart to hear a commission court agenda item take about 50 minutes something that thought they take 10 minutes to talk about but it's great to be back and it's a it really brought back a lot of good memories And and I'm glad to see you and I want to introduce two persons with me today That will do a great job of answering any questions as they have done in other parts of the state with your colleagues around the state moving forward in this exciting program And one is Greg Parks who is with the American traffic solutions who will be doing the presentation. Many of you have already met with him individually. And then the other is Jim Grace, who is with Baker Bots and Baker Bots Law firm. Not only with Mr. Grace, but with Tom Phillips, the former Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, taking the lead on the legality of this program. And I think each of you have seen a three-page memo that's been put together with regards to that legal opinion. So without further ado, I want to introduce great parks for the American traffic solutions. And thank you, Judge, we'll answer questions and move forward with a plan of action towards a smaller group, which has also been done in other parts of the state. A smaller group moving forward with more answers, negotiating contract language, and then perhaps come back to the court at a later time. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you, Jerry. Thank you, Judge and Commissioner. Some Greg Parks with American Traffic Solutions. It's a pleasure to be here. We appreciate your time. And to that point, we have a very brief demonstration. I say no death by PowerPoint. I think we go this fairly quickly, but please stop me if you need a little more clarity on anything I'm going through. Again, it's a pleasure to be here. Jerry briefly spoke about us. We are the nation's leading photo enforcement provider. And what we want to bring today, speeding is a dangerous problem in your school zones. We hear this, I'm sure you hear it from your constituents. We've been in a number of counties throughout the state, urban counties, and it's a consistent theme. And speaking with your sheriff and other law enforcement, this is a force multiplier. It allows policing resources to be other places. In the large number of school zones you have throughout the county, it just is an impossibility to have human enforce. Thank you, Commissioner. A force multiplier means that police forces, law enforcement agencies only have so many resources and using technology as a force multiplier. It allows a police force to other things, taking advantage of technology to do things that there's not enough manpower to do. It's a police industry term. Thank you for the question. So again, it enables law enforcement to do other things. The program is very fair to the citizens. It's a lower fine than as we propose, again, approved by the judge in the court, that would be cited by mandated enforcement. There are no points or insurance ramifications. It's a civil violation, some are a red light camera citation. Probably most importantly, it's been proven around the country and hundreds of instances to reduce fatalities, crashes, and violations speeding in school zones and other areas. And I know important from an elected officials perspective, there's zero capital expense to the county. ATS provides all the equipment and there's zero capital expenditure or budget needed from the county. ATS provides all the equipment. There's zero capital expenditure or budget needed from the county. A little bit about us. We've got almost 4,000 cameras around the country in forcing public safety, where US company head coordinator is Zona. We do have 22 Texas customers, almost 400 customers, I mentioned around the country. And customers in this area are Frisco, Little Elm, Arlington, Fort Worth, a number of others. Again, as I mentioned, speeding is very dangerous. When we were rolling out this program in the Compile in this presentation, I was stunned that an average of two people a day are killed by speeding in Texas. When you think about that, that's a staggering number and that's what we're here that helps solve. And not as important as the loss in life at all, but there is a staggering loss in financial resources to 735 million according to NITSA and textile is lost annually due to speeding related fatalities and crashes. Something that it probably is obvious to you, but we think it's important to point out. Speeding is, there is tremendous speeding in your school zones, that there is a high rate of noncompliance. A study put together by Texas law enforcement found compliance less than 50 percent, some being 90 percent noncompliance. So there is a tremendous problem statewide and locally. Didn county in 2012 at 370 crashes, 25% serious, 2% fatal. Little overview on how what the... That's county wide. The report from text I did not break that out by school zone. Okay, say that again. I said the report by TechStyle did not break it out by school zone. Okay. That's in Denton County in its entirety. It's not broken out via incorporated versus incorporated versus school zones and non-school zones. That's correct. Incorporated versus Incorporated versus school zones and non-school zone. That's correct. A little overview on what the technology would be. Again, it's important. It takes no picture of the driver for privacy concerns. It is vicarious liability, registered on reliability. So it takes a picture of the license plate of the motorist speeding through the school zone. This is what the evidence will look like. You have a picture of the vehicle clearly in the school zone, speed limit, post speed, miles per hour over date time, location, et cetera. It's wirelessly updated, so you talked to it in the previous presentation at length about IT resources. There are no county IT resources needed for this. It's completely performed by Astrum and IT perspective. It's portable, it's easily set up, but what's been a lot of time on this, but there's basically three options available to you. What most of the counties prefer and as we deal more with your staff, it's a fort escape that can easily move from problem school zone, problem school zone, set up in about five minutes, for areas where there's space concern, if you'll see there's a couple smaller trailer options that also can be deployed. What these look like. Again, important to note, we handle the vast majority of the work for the county to stress the, again, no capital outlay for the county all funded by ATS. Here's a process of what it'll look like. Violations are captured in the field. They're wirelessly uploaded to ATS. We'll do a first quality assurance check on it that the registered owner of information is correct. The picture says black Tahoe, it is a black Tahoe in the picture. Sometimes inlets those who belong enforcement experience will return multiple returns, will clarify those, will make sure it's an eight, not a B, etc. We'll do a quality assurance check on it. We'll send it back to the county and then an important point to stress, it would be county sheriff's personnel that would approve a rejected violation, not a private vendor. So, a sheriff's Deputy would sit down at a computer, verify all the data elements I talked about. The car was in the school zone. Above the speech of post-element, it was within the proper hours. The Inlet's Return was correct, license plate, correct, et cetera. That deputy has full discretion whether it's a Prover Rejective violation. Those that they approve, that's into the county's workload for this go back to ATS at our expense, we'll print a citation which I'll show in a minute, we'll mail it at our expense to the motorist and we'll build a website for the motorist to go online for the county and view their violation and choose whether to request a adjudication which less than 2% do which I'll get to in a minute or pay online Master Guard visa electronic check check goes to a block to count that we don't have access to swept to the county on a weekly basis. Here's an example of what a violation of notice a violation will look like. It's going to have a close-up of the plate the motorist. It's got to show the motorist in the school zone with all those date elements I mentioned a minute ago. It will direct them to a website. It's kind of hard to see on your screen. But by their login, it will direct them to the Denton County Schools Zone safety program. They will log on. They'd have the ability to see the close up of their plate, the photo with them in the school zone. They ask questions. Why is the county doing this for the safety of your children? No points, no insurance ramifications, explain the program. From here they could request a adjudication, as I mentioned, or choose to pay, but electronic check, Master Carter Visa. Here's an example of what the data elements would look like for the Sheriff's Office. Along with this, if you choose to move forward to this, we'll work with the county to develop. It's not a gotcha program. There can be a signage, and there'll be robust public education and awareness program put in place. Explained to motorists that this is coming, PSAs, try-color fire for constituents, meetings, ads, press releases, et cetera. Here's some examples of things that we've done around the country. Oh, sure. Which one, Commissioner? Again, we talked about a lot of specifics and logistics of it. We get down to it where the rubber meets the road. It's a success and improving the safety in your community and school zones. State of Washington was really the first to embrace us and you can see tremendous safety results. Rent in violations are down 65%. In Seattle and their most dangerous school zone, speed is reduced by 60% since the implementation. Somewhere near our headquarters in Mesa, Arizona, prior to photo-enforced at the 85th percentile was 46.6 miles per hour. After photo-enforcement was reduced by 10 miles per hour, which exponentially increases the chance of survival by child being hit by that dramatic reduction in speed. So it is a safety program and these are real world results. A couple of specifics on the fine. A man ticket in Texas ranges in a school zone from $200 to $300. It is up to the judge in the court to set your fine. We've used $150 much lower than the Mandoffsons example. It's important to note that as best practice, we recommend to, again, it's not a got your program. They're signage, those things I talked about, public education, but we'd recommend a speed threshold, possibly when what best practice of other departments, when children are being dropped off, up maybe six miles per hour over. Other hours of the school day where students could be present, 10, 11, or 12 miles per hour over. So these are not tickey tack gotcha citations. This is a greatest speeding through a school zone when children are present. Is the schools set that they have input as to where they went at center. Do we do that? That would be up to the judge in the court. You certainly would encourage including your school's senate, but it is ultimately your discretion under law. And is this cross-mutant municipalities are we limiting this to use within the unincorporated part of the county? And once you answer that first question. Okay, thank you, Commissioner. That's a good question. If you were, there are two types of this and I focused on the mobile. If you did, someone with a red light camera, there's fixed speed. If you were to attach infrastructure, that would have to be in the unincorporated area, but your Sheriff's Department does have concurrent jurisdictions. So in mobile where there's no infrastructure being installed, you have the ability to do this throughout the county, incorporated and incorporated area. You do it throughout the county, do the revenues and the prosecution of that complaint still is maintained within the county itself. Within the county, yes, sir. I certainly would not be in favor of this for municipalities because we have our own police department. And I know the sheriff has jurisdiction and all the police departments But I think that needs to stay within the municipalities now having said that sheriff what are your thoughts on This being in the unincoperated areas So we're certainly in favor of talking with them We did talk with them over over the telephone. They did a great presentation to us, like you're seeing here. We had quite a few questions, but I did not know that they were going to be here today, so we do not have those questions. But we did have quite a few to talk to them about, and we'll take that up another time with them. But a good presentation. Thank you. But those, Sheriff, let me ask you ask you this I mean of the water supply districts the special districts that we have within Denton County that are contracting with you and you have general jurors diction over of those many of those also have schools schools in those water. Right, the belong to other agencies. Right, right. And they have schools as well. So you do enforce to some degree school speed limit signs now, don't you? Right. Yes. And in the like Atlanta and stuff like that. Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. Commissioner Mershon. I think the only one that's promulgated traffic regulations at this point is Lantana because they had the plebiscite, like the other ones I don't know. The other one is for more than, it's Northwest Independent School District. And I think that the Commissioner Eads and I think visions to allow the adoption of traffic regulations within the special districts, but we're still promulgating those. I think Amy was going to push it forward after the new year. We're just waiting to get the final draft back from legal after holidays. We'll get it. I had a bunch of questions. Go figure. Well, I mean, but I mean that is a tool that you can use. I mean, on top of your patrol that you currently do within those water districts. Right. Yes, or anything would be a good help, you know, just to, you know, because we don't have all the personnel. There's possibility we could be answered nothing but calls out there that morning and not able to operate. That's right. That type of deal. But we had questions relative to criminal or civil or to these. I'm'm trying to I can't remember them all that we had off the top or our head but You know definitely you know product That the only the only use of a law enforcement is to make a decision on whether to if for lack of better word prosecute the complaint whether to, for lack of better word, prosecute the complaint. The moving of the vehicle and the equipment is that a county duty? Is that, tell me how that works. Thank you, Commissioner. Yes, it is best practice or recommended for law enforcement to approve a rejected violation, which you just noted. As far as the setting up of the van, it probably is best practice for Sheriff's Office to do. They could calibrate the radar. It is not required in many jurisdictions, even when state law regulating this do not require that. So we could set it up and that would alter the fee structure. Sheriff's Office could do it or road and bridge other personnel could do it. Sheriff's Office could do it or wrote and bridge other personnel could could do it. Okay I have some questions to get kind of I've gone through the contract I've gone through the stuff I did a little legal legal research on my own. The City of Denton has a similar red light camera program but you have an administrative hearing before it can be appealed to municipal court are you proposing that kind of a system or not? Well, again, that's up to the judge in court to decide. I think it's an excellent practice to have administrative hearing first. Very small percentages these nationwide are adjudicated. So less than two probably close sort of one. So they could request administrative hearing of that's what you set up your program. Then they could appeal that up if they chose to. It gives an incredibly rare in this process. Who would conduct the administrative hearing? Again, that would be up to the judge in the court. Well, one of the problems is in county government you can't assign or delegate your judicial authority. That's actually, I think, a J.P. and Dallas lost its ticket because of that. So that would, I think, so you're saying the administrative hearing would possibly have done by the JP? It certainly can be done by the JP's office. I'm sorry, Commissioner, can you repeat that? Would the administrative hearing go to the JP or would it just, would you recommend an administrative proceeding and then the JP here again? Again, that would be up, you know, without being redone at that, that is the decision of the judge in the court. You could go proceeding and then the JP here again. Again that would be up you know without being redone at that that is the decision of the judge in the court you could go straight to the JP or you could have an administrative hearing process prior to that and and what I would defer to that is again we we've received our legal advice from Justice Tom Phillips former Justice Tom Phillips and we'd be happy to put our legal team in touch with you rather than from the podium to go shape. What is little lamb do? How does a little lamb you said that currently your little lamb is using this? Yes I believe little Elm has an administrative hearing process then it would go to the municipal court under the red light ticket. Who does their administrative hearing? I believe the police department does I'll verify that for you but I'm virtually positive that's correct. So there is something in place within our county that we could look at as a model for enforcement within a municipality. That's correct. I think the difference commissioner for Shaunt is that a municipality, if we all remember, can pretty much do what they want, pursuant to their charter. Right. A county is an entity of limited authority and we can't grant administrative judges to our JP just because we went to without stage, without legislative enactment. So that's one of the problems I see. That's why we were able to adjudicate NTTA tickets through a JP court because of legislation. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And then, so that's why that's one of my concerns. The other deal is when I was talking to Mr. Valdez, he was saying that we could enforce some of these through the scofflaw process. And I talked to a good tax professor collector about that. And one of my concerns is that we're fixing to try and get the JPs. It's like how you eat an elephant when you bite at a time. We got the municipalities involved with the scoff law program just to kind of be like our P2Dush and experiment to see how that would work. Now I think we've refined that process. And then now we're meeting with committees to try and see if we can introduce the JPs into the scoff that process. And then now we're meeting with committees to try and see if we can introduce the JPs into the scoff law process. Well, and correct me if I'm wrong Michelle, please, if you feel like you need to give input, she's really done a good job of getting a wealth of knowledge on the scoff law process. But from what I understand, DPS only has one little notch that when you upload the data, it falls into it until the person gets their registration done and every time you upload the data which costs you money, it won't fall into that deal until the person pays it. And I don't know if that's a good effective method and if you do, there's a good possibility we're slapping this into that little notch as opposed to something we could use for an enforcement mechanism for our JP cases. Is that correct Michelle or my off base? I mean I don't want to. Probably in the RTS. Yeah. Right exactly. I made several notes in thinking through this. There are several things. First of all, whatever the commissioners court decides to do with regards to this, we're obviously going to work in whatever capacity we need to. That's not a question whatsoever. Just looking at it from a scoff law point of view, I do have several questions I feel like I would be remiss if I did not bring these up. First of all, yes, to your question, right now the Department of Motor Vehicles in the fields that are available for this golf law, there is two fields from municipalities, one field for the county, and in the spring time, there is supposed to be a field for the toll project authority. For the TPEs. That's not fair yet, but it should be their spring early summer time frame. That's not fair yet, but it should be their spring early summer time frame. So in thinking through this, if this is something that the county decides to do, I would imagine that any scoff lawable item pursuant to this would be sent to the county, utilizing the county database. The one question I have, the transportation code allows for stop-laws of municipalities, of the county, and the transportation code was amended to now allow for the toll project entities. I don't know where this falls into that, as far as it being, and basically, a special district outside of the, well, in an unincorporated area. I don't know yet if there would be any problems with that or not. It may very well that I would think that that's a possibility. If they did, if they had outstanding county that's what field would that go in? Same one. It would go in. It would be a county liability and I think you that go in? Same one. It would go in. It would be a county liability and I think you could go into the county column. Anyway, that's what I would think. But I did want to bring that up just in case because I don't know the answer to that question. As far as just scoffline, obviously if the county decides to do this, as I said, we'll work with it in whatever way we need to. It would be added to the kiosk. We'd have the payment links available there. So that's not a problem whatsoever. If indeed this is something that just gets uploaded to the county with everything else and it falls under the county's golf law, we'll have the vehicle, so to speak, in place to be able to manage that. There are several questions I think that we do need to at least investigate, but that's my two cents for us. OK, well, I really appreciate your input, and we definitely want to keep you involved in the process, I would say. Please do, I would appreciate that. Yes. So is this a criminal or a civil? On the Stary Fises docket, which means it's a civil fine. Civil fine, okay. He's done a criminal offense. Thank you, I mentioned that much. Much like a bail bond. Well, I don't, when we do the, if we were to proceed with this, you know, the school zones may be one area, but I know that on county roads we have significant issues with maintaining speed enforcement on county roads. And people call us all the time about their mailbox getting knocked down again or someone driving through their fence again and we're having a dispatch to share it out. And all of the sheriffs have dealt with have been great about responding. And if we're having a recurring problems and they get some enforcement out there, that's manpower. And so I don't know, I mean, this could be an opportunity to put this in high frequent violation areas where we're having safety. I mean we had a lady, a young lady killed outside of Justin. It was a speed issue from what I understand, just a few months ago, on one of our county roads. And so, and in a person said, we just have an enforcement issue out there. It's tough. Fairly you agree, but this is sort of tongue in cheek handy but I think if the commissioners are willing to you know approve those high density special districts they should be willing to approve the additional law enforcement that they need because those people will be in the outside you know in the uncooperated area. And I've always said that. Commissioner Coleman I wanted to thank you for asking those questions. I think, for gnosticating on what is very important. I did want to make a quick note that we were just discussing, which is worth noting, and that is that given the efficiency and availability of those that need to make a payment, it's very simple from years ago where you would get pulled over by municipal police and you take a day off and you go wait at City Hall and you pull the ticket and you wait in line and you go fight your ticket or you pay your ticket. It's very efficient. The website that is paid for by ATS and put up in conjunction with the judge and the court makes it easy and available for those payments to be made online. And quite frankly, our percentage of those that don't pay, which I know we spent some time referencing is really very, very small. It's a fraction of a percent if not 1 percent, or perhaps barely over 1 percent of those that don't pay. I mean, given the ease and convenience and looking at your documents, seeing your car and seeing your license plate as seen, the speed zone is pretty quick and simple. The repayment rate is very high. If I'm not mistaken, it's even 70 plus percent, about 80 percent repayment rate for those. And then the letter can go into those afterwards. And what about one of the PLOs that ticket that you're giving me? Where do I go if I need to appeal it? Even though I know you may have my license in place, but you know That's not my call sure for him for mr. I know but I mean we can hear what they have to say yeah No, no it's good question. You certainly have the right to face your accuser to adjudicate your case right now As I've been reminded by one of our turnip from Baker vots JPs do have the right to hear appeals I mean this will find so or of the county fines so they can do to the right to hear appeals, I mean, this will find some of that county finds so they can do to the JP. Yes, no, it goes to county court law and didn't. County court law. It goes to our county court. It goes to Judge Barnes. It does not go to a JP. You're talking about you talk about the classy misdemeanors that come out of the JP that are appeal goes to the county court. It doesn't go. You don't hear a mean of appeals, I mean, I think he corrects himself of the county fines. But I mean, but JP court does hear administrative do administrative hearings on behalf of DPS for revocation of driver's license or Turned down of a concealed weapon per bit or whatever. Let me ask you this if I could since it is a civil than any of the portion of the administrative By the fine itself or any administrative fees do not go back into the coffers of the state of Texas They stay and remain within Ditton County. That's correct. And as far as this, you know, there are a number of minutia's the wrong term, number of details to be worked on. And the scoff law is not even necessary. There's typically 80% compliance rate. Jerry probably mentioned it as a way to improve the compliance rate. I think that's the case. But I have to put to find a point on it But there's really no counties yet that as there's only one from what mr That's told me that's in the process of implementing it and No other counties have adopted this in the whole stay We've only been presented for a couple weeks commissioner. It takes a while to work through the system I understand but to me I don't want to be the, you know, the canary in the coal mine, because I have some other concerns. Well, where I was going that was certainly very much a pre-share concerns or well thought out and they make us better for hearing these things. Yeah, I see I'm on the other side of that. I think that it's the same opportunity that we took on of what you did on with legislation that had to do with the regulation of traffic within a special district. We took the lead on that within the state and got pushed back in two different sessions. That's true. We went forward in a form that would never have done if we hadn't pushed that forward. And I have no reluctance at all of being the canary. I don't want to die from it, but to be in the canary and move that forward, I would recommend that if we do have some interest at least from the majority of us that we put some kind of ad hoc committee together to look through it to see the feasibility of it, see exactly what the financial ramifications on it, because I know the next thing's gonna happen, is if we do it through a law enforcement, the sheriff's gonna say, I don't have enough people to do this, you need to give me a person. And so, we'd have to allocate any kind of revenues that we got from that. And I think that if I would like to move forward on it, former Nighthawk Committee, see what the possibilities and come back and see if it's a real estate. Well, the deal is, I understand Ron, I haven't made my, I haven't, I haven't made any decisions, but these are questions, you know, that I'd like to know the answer, and that's why we have a workshop, right? And, well, yeah, that's why I was coming, what I get. I know, okay, good. Same the bill. What's that? I'm sorry, Ron, but I thought you were saying that it was kind of a shameless move on. No, no, I'm just saying what, my two cents worth. I appreciate that. I think it works. I agree with Commissioner Marchandetta. I believe a working group to include a member of the court, the sheriff's office, our tax assessor collector, Mrs. Frinch, I believe that would be a good work group to work through the, in a work, and I'm glad we had this workshop today. I think working through the proposal and some of the final points and bringing it back, I think that'd be great. I appreciate you coming up. No, we're happy to be here. It will certainly make ourself a gamble. I'm not finished with my questions. OK, go right ahead. OK. One of the things I saw was that y'all said we could place in a centimena's impality, right? And a mobile vehicle, yes. Yeah. And if y'all, I mean, are you all saying that we would talk to the municipality first and ask them because that's kind of a touchy subject for us to do. And I would defer that would not be, that would not be our purview to tell you how to work with your municipalities. We're only commenting what the program can do and what our legal opinion states you could do. That would be to the judge and the court on how you'd manage relationship with your cities. Well, I got the illegal opinion just a little while ago, just like about maybe 30 minutes ago, but I was reading through it and there's some things in here that I thought that we need to address and I was going to ask actually who's the legal opinion from? It's from Baker Bots. Yeah. And I'd really like to see, I'd refer this, I would love to see if we could get our own attorney to give us an opinion on this because one of the things that I think would have to do. Yeah, but one of the things that I'm concerned about is the legislature basically said they don't want this, they prohibit this, they're going on in municipalities, right? But they're saying is the county wasn't explicitly prohibited from doing that. And they rightly so list a bunch of statutory legislative interpretive statutes. But there's one they leave out where the legislature is never presumed to have done a useless act, right? You have a deal for it? When you have we interpreting legislation, one of the tenets of that is to in interpreting a law as you have to presume that the legislature is never presumed to have done a useless act, right? And one of the things I would say under that tent is if they say they don't want this to be done within immuniscibility, they're saying they meant that it was supposed to be a, the city's not supposed to do it, but the county can do it within a city. I think that's a real fine point to make. And I think that's kind of a, and to me that's, I agree with Ron. I think we need to, I'm not afraid of being a trendsetter, but in a situation where there's potential risk or liability to the county, I think we should act with trepidation. And to me, having, we all go back to our own roots of what we've done. And to me, I was involved in the illegal fee litigation regarding Amigo Belbons and Sheriff Salmaniego, whereupon the county decided it was okay to do an administrative fee for the issuance of bail bonds. That was held to be an illegal fee because there was no explicit statutory authority for us to do that. And the consequences were very punitive upon the county. And for us to rely on, I would say, a legal contrivance, to me, makes me want to act with trepidation. That's why I would not want to berivance to me makes me want to act the trepidation. That's why I would not want to be the front runner on this. In addition, do y'all remember eight liners? Right? The AG ultimately held that eight liners were improper and violent of the gambling statute. When I was the attorney for the sheriff's department, I was negotiating and talking to the eight-liners, and they had a legion of being a small town lawyer they call them TBLs, tall building lawyers from big offices. They had legions of opinions that said based on the law and based on the fact that it's a lottery in this Nat and the other deal that eight liners were legal. Well they were promoting their client's interest to have eight liners promulgated in the community, right? Baker bots, Judge Phillips, man, you don't get me better than that. I mean Captain Baker started Rice University. It's a long time historical law firm. But as a lawyer, you know, they're there to advocate for their clients' interest. And lawyers have been known to be wrong. So to me, I would like to have our own objective, opinion, as to whether or not not when the legislature said this was not supposed to take place within a municipality does that mean only the municipality not doing in their city or the county's not doing it with any municipality. Right. And I'll tell you what I think the municipality should have the authority to say that they do not want them in their city. Right. But if they want them, you know, that's a different thing. But I don't think we as a county should impose on them in this penalty and say, you know, we're going to put these in your city whether you want to or not. Because that revenue is not going to be going to them when ordinarily with if the if their police in the city they would be getting that revenue. So, yeah. So I think for us to make a well-reasoned decision on whether we wish to proceed with this is I would request an opinion from the DA's office as to whether or not we think this is a legal process. What do you all think? Of course, I'm opinion from the DA's office, but at the same time, what Ron would go on and put together a committee to look at it to see if we even want to do it. That sounds like a reasonable solution. Okay, so I guess Mr. Felt can proceed with that. The other thing is that I want to know a legal could be part of the committee. Right. Legal could be part of the committee. Yeah, but I mean I'm deeply concerned because you know like our standard tenant and having been a lawyer, a county lawyer for 14 years, I'm deeply concerned about people who advocate for us to take actions, particularly with fees, for which we may not have specific, statutory authority. That worries me. That worries me. There's a county until we have all those items on there. Okay, well, so all right. The other thing is is that I Previewed the Gil Bragg fees and fine contract and that from my understanding is an exclusive Do we need to amend that contract to allow us to split fees with these fellas because I think Gil Bragg thinks he gets to collect all the fees and fines for the county And that would probably include this So that's something else we need to look into. One joy. The committee agenda item. That's right. Put it on the table. We'll look at it. Okay. The other thing is I wanted to know, and I briefly talked about this with Mr. Wells, but I'm not sure. Can we legally split fees with somebody for something like this? I know we can hire a person to collect fees, but is there a provision Mr. Wells that you're aware of that allow us to split fees with a private entity in a matter like this? I think I talked to you about that earlier and if you don't know, that's fine too. I don't know if these specific instances are bad. There are lots of instances of splitting fees and splitting fines with those of you and you look at another government such as the school districts on school attendance fines. Right. Right. But I'd like to hear from our friends at the DA's office as to what their opinion is and I really wouldn't mind if Baker Box would chime in and address my concerns. I think that would be absolutely fair. The first commissioner, and I'm worried about it, like I said being in legal fee. The other thing is I'm worried that having worked with JPs and not all of them were as good as Ron, because he was one of the best ones that I had the opportunity to work with. But I remember at one point having to have long talks with a certain JP in the North part of the county and explaining to her that if you use an FKPS profina on an issue and it's a bad check, that most ways of removing an elective official you have to have a writ of quote warrants on all sorts of things but there's a special provision that talks about JPE's issuing KPS profinas on issue and sub-bad checks and it said basically you get removed from office. And so sometimes we have people who have zillously tried to collect these and fines and if this is a truly a fine only offense we need to make sure there's safeguards that nobody tries to use the judicial process to collect a fine like this. Because it is a civil fine, but much like our JPs are not supposed to be over cases that can result in incarceration. Sometimes they have tried to advocate for a son. And that's always kind of a questionable deal. Um, I think, let me address one thing that you said as far as reading in the mind of the legislature. It's hard. It's hard to do that. And if the mind of the legislature, uh the legislature is that at some point in the future that they want to buy legislation outlaw this type of thing, I'm sure that they will do it. And the only reason they probably would do it is of misuse of the system, of the process, of the prosecution of it or whatever would be that or they want a piece of the pie. And so because I mean this basically cuts out the state and getting any piece of the pie. And let's don't forget that the overall reason for a program like this is the safety and well-being of our drivers on our county roads. I mean, you fix a pothole so it doesn't become a liability and it doesn't become a danger to somebody. And so I think this is maybe a pothole that needs to be fixed and that we can work through it because there's too many barricades and we don't feel comfortable through the legal or through the process of an ad hoc committee. And we don't think we can say that. So am I hearing that we want to move forward on this to a workshop with legal opinions? A task, a focus group, a working group. I will tell you, I don't think it's a good idea. I'd rather, given the opportunity, I'd rather hire them or share our stepities. I think it would be more functional. And frankly, I don't think there are, nobody, I've asked different people. And I'm not sure how many. First of all, I don't know if I would be wanting to put these in a municipality where there are school zones. Yeah, and then the second point is I don't know how many school zones there are in the unincorporated area. Most of them are in the special districts and it's questionable whether those are enforceable. So I'm reluctant to vote to move forward with it unless I get some additional information. I don't think we're- You can't get additional information unless we move forward to discuss it. So I think it'd be a good idea if we would move forward and discuss it and then if you want to at that time time, vote it down. We may all find out that there's something in it that we don't like and decide to vote against it, but let's at least move forward to make that decision. Well, the other thing is, is that if you looked at Schedule A, the service fee schedule, it may be that there is no capital expenses upfront, but there are definitely fees associated with it. Okay. That's not the case. Well, what is the schedule A described then? It says $50 per hour, for any deficit below 160 hours, that's the standby fee, additional staffing fee, $50 per hour, additional staffing fee $50 per hour, warning period service fee $2,900 per camera per month, plus $2 per issue notice. Is that all gonna come out of the family? Yeah, we don't want to have any. That's a standard contract that we're asked for a buy. That's not something we're advocating here. Again, I really, with all due respect, because you don't think from the podium, without us having the document, I do think a working group in a more structured environment would be beneficial, but I'll be happy to meet with the individuality of those if that's preferable as well. You're saying today you're not planning on proposing during any work group or contract, that would include such a fee schedule like this? The typical fee schedule. I'm not even looking at it, Commissioner. I'm sorry what? So you're promising that right now? I'm not even looking at it commissioner. Sure what you're asking. I'm not sure a lot of it. It was tongue-in-cheek But you said that you this is not what you're gonna propose. I'm great. Great. You're so you're gonna propose No fees at all, right? I'm not even gonna address that but we'll be happy to come back and working with us. I am just calling for the vote. I'd like to know something. I had one more question. You have no questions. Okay, I'm going to go you too. Come on. All right. I know. We got stuff going on. This Fleming, Miss Fleming. Would something like this be subject to purchasing? Would we need to bid out for somebody to participate like in this like we've done with the real brag in other contracts? This is a revenue contract. If proposed or contracted for the way it's proposed, there are some fees in here, but if there were no expenses, it does not fall under the procurement. However, we have several revenue contracts, commission-shared type contracts that we do, RFPs for those. This one is on the HGAC contract. We received that information from them, and we have verified that. So it is a procurement avenue for the court to look at. Okay. Okay. You okay right now? Yes ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your all's patience. Okay. Okay. You okay right now? Yes ma'am. Thank you. Thank you for your all's patience. I appreciate it. Well, those are good questions. Okay. I move we appoint a special research committee comprised of Commissioner Marchant and our taxes has a collector Michelle French and representative from the Sheriff's Office to do due diligence in research and civil VA to do research and come back to you. I know. Who's the commissioner that's going to be on there? I think Ron has the great background for this Yeah, I think commissioner marching with his his background is being a judge I think would be appropriate and I'd ask commissioner Coleman that you Work with that committee because I think that'd be great to work with that committee and pass those Questions on the commissioner marching so he can work that through the committee process I think that knows a lot of good points that we need to delve into and I think in the committee Environment that would be the best thing and we can and then I represent a different a purchasing department one thing I would like to do is I'd like to just see an you know an opinion from our attorney who's protecting our interest Right do this. I'm gonna probably vote against us proceeding. I just think there's too many questions This is a workshop. I kind of expected guys to have some answers but and I understand you can't come prepared for everything trust me that's that's extremely difficult to do. So this is no different than the work group you asked for for the purchasing this morning. That's true. That's true. I've got a motion on the floor and I'm going to second that any other discussion. Here you have any more discussion. Then I'm going to go vote all in favor. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. We will be in touch with you to let you know what's decided. And we certainly like for you to work with this committee to provide answers to the questions that we may have. Okay. Thank you. Is there any other? Is there any other action of the court today? If not, I move with adjourned. All of y'all have a great day. Thank you.