Thank you. Any commissioners. Court for Tuesday, December 9, 2008 is now in session. This morning in our indication will be given by young men named Sam Hatch. He's with the Denton 4-H Club. And our pledges will be led by Maddie Schwind, who is with the Sanger 4-H. Will you please stand? Please bow your heads for the 4-H prayer. we will please stand. Please bow your heads for the 4-H prayer. Help me, O Lord, to live so that the world may be a little better, because thou hast made me, amen. A pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for the words of the United States of America and to the Republic for the words of stance, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. On our the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God, one and indivisible. and an individual. Thank you very much. Item one is for public input for items not listed in the agenda. If there's any member of the public that would like to address the mission's court, we ask that you please complete a public comment form available from the aid to the court. We'd be glad to hear from you. I want to remind everyone at this time also to please turn off your cell phones and pages. I have a couple items of business that I would like to take up first before we hear from our egg extension folks. Let's first go to 14G. 14G is to adopt and approve a resolution and amendment number one to the agreement to participate and the tax increment reinvestment zone number two between the city of Fort Worth and Denton County is recommended by Commissioner Persington for. Commissioner Eidz, did want to start this off? Sure, I would like to introduce Mark Chambers, he's with TMS, and he's here to answer any questions. I believe the legal department did a good job as far as the backup material outlining the revisions that we're making to this reinvestment zone. I want to thank the judge for working with me and TMS on this. We're actually reducing the county's exposure, which is approximately $100,000 a year now, or reducing that through this agreement to a cap of 90,000 or less. I know Marcus here and he'll be happy to entertain any questions that members may have. Thank you for being here this morning, Mr. Chambers. Are there any questions from members of the court? Everybody understand what we're doing? What's the bill? Okay, do we have a motion for approval? So moved. Motion by Commissioner Ease. Seconded by Commissioner Marchant. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to the seat. Motion does carry now, so thank you, Mr. Chambers. One other item of business that we need to take care of right quickly in that is 16A. 16A is to approve and order as the highest elected official of Denton County, Texas for tax exempt financing of the Arga of volunteer motion to be recommended by commissioner. I'm going to ask for a motion to be recommended by commissioner. I'm going to ask for a motion to be recommended by commissioner. I'm going to ask for a motion to be recommended by commissioner. I'm going to ask for a motion to be recommended by commissioner. I'm going to ask for a motion to be recommended by commissioner. I'm going forward to the presentation of the second. Item 3A is presentation of the 2008 text and the report to commissioners court including the two thousand eight including a review of the 2008 programming and 2009 future programming related to priority issues and a presentation of a check for volunteer hours contributing contributed to programming efforts. Eddie Begs with us this morning, good morning, Eddie. Good morning, guys. Honorable Judge Horde, Honorable members of the court, we appreciate the opportunity to come here today and present a quick overview of extensions missions and purposes for 2008 and also the future of 2009. Of course, we just kind of re-integrate the missions that Texas Agriculturalife Extensionist has to solve problems by marketing job skills, lead change by helping clientele adopt leading technology and industry practices and developing communities by building future leaders and engage volunteers by extending outreach to the citizens of the great state of Texas and also impacting the youth by development productivity and contributing to the future citizenship. Of course, that's our 4-H youth program. I thank you. At this time, do we have the point, says? We'd like to present you with the point, said, that we're also grown here in Ditton County, rainy farms, part of the agricultural industry of the county. Mr. Rainey does, he's a local grower, a long time citizen and farmer in the county. Thank you very much. That's excellent job. citizen and farmer in the county. Thank you very much. That's excellent job. I know they're gorgeous, but I can't see anybody. Yeah. But we do what we do in AgriLife Extension is improve the lives of people, business and communities across the state. As you well know, we have extension offices and all 254 counties in the great state, giving us a networking capability that a lot of agencies don't have. Our relevance is research and education, improving the lives of the citizens of the state, and so without the courts assistance and backing that would make our job very, very difficult. So there again we do appreciate your support in our efforts in what we do for the citizens of the state. To start off, our reports all introduce Janet Laminick, our new Horticotulous. She has replaced Mr. John Cooper in that position and she'll visit with us about her updates on her programming efforts. Good morning, Janet. Thanks for having me here. I'm really excited to be a part of Dintin County. I've been here since September so I want to go over some highlights that are going on. I can't take credit for these things yet. Mostly I've been working with master gardeners and master naturalist to groups of volunteers. And we have a lot of representatives here from them today. Collectively, these two groups have contributed 14,860 volunteer hours. And they've reached 23,397 people in 2008. And that's just through October. It's our numbers. Both groups were able to give me some highlights from the year, things that they're particularly proud about, so I was going to talk about those really quickly. The Elmfork chapter of the Texas Master of Naturalists have four programs that really stand out, one being, Bynthic Monitoring. Monitoring, it's a collaboration with the University of North Texas, City of Denton, and the Master of Natural Texas, City of Denton, and the Master Naturalist to monitor water quality. Benthic is a type of macro invertebrate, and it's an indicator of water quality. And I didn't know that. So at Louisville Lake Environmental Learning Area, Alila, the Master Naturalist lead nature hikes for schools and groups, and they lead birding hikes for the public. They're working on prairie restoration. They've even gone and rescued plants from sites that are gonna be bulldozed, other places, and brought them back to Lila. They build trails, wetland boardwalks, and bird houses, and much more there. Tree, or teaching and reaching with environmental education, is a collaboration of the city of Denton and DISD, in which hundreds of students have gone to hike the trails at Clear Creek Natural Heritage Center with a master naturalist leading the tours. And this is not only fun, but it actually helps the students with a science tax test. And Denton City hikes. It's a popular activity offered through Denton Parks in which master naturalists are leading tours for the public. These hikes happen at cross-tempers and Clear Creek natural heritage center. And they raise awareness and educate the public about natural areas, prairie conservation, watershed protection, things like that. The Ditten County Master Gardener Association also picked out four highlights for me. One being the Library Lecture Series, which they expanded this year to be both a fall and spring series, which is held at the North Branch of the Denton Public Library. And they drew speakers from the Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists, and they usually had an average crowd of about 40 people. The spring garden tour, ongoing event, was improved with the addition of digging deeper and educational component in each of the gardens where they talked about lawn care or wildlife habitat. The fall garden infosest was also enhanced with bigger, more educational efforts as far as having educational booths such as rainwater harvesting, good bugs, bad bugs, things like that. So, these were only, oh I think I missed a highlight. Oh, the Speakers Bureau, yeah this is a good one. They reach scout groups, garden clubs, homeowner associations, all types of different groups, and they talk about all different types of horticultural activities, topics, and in 2008, they made 44 presentations reaching 1,000 people. Also the master gardeners will be celebrating their 20th anniversary this year in 2009. So this was only the highlights and the folders that we're going to give you, there's a complete list of all their projects and I would love it if you could look out the projects sometime and if you're interested in any of them, we would love to have you come and visit them and see them in action. We might even get your hands dirty, you know, so I want to help them us out. And so for next year, one of the things I'm working on is, uh, the relationship of the two groups, Master Gardeners and Master Naturalists, specifically in reaching schools. In school children, we're already working with 4H as well. On this, we've got a little teamwork team called SWAT, Science with Attitude. We've got a really nice flyer in your folder as well for that. And then in 2009, a lot of my educational programming will be directed to water issues, water quality and water conservation. So really appreciate this opportunity to talk to you. Is there any questions before I turn it over to Maggie Jover? Any questions? Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. It's always a pleasure to be here to share with you some of the things we're doing in extension service in my area. And as you will, or aware of, it's been a very rough year financially for many residents in Ditton County. And a lot of my program efforts go in this area. I was selected to be one of 12 county agents to pilot a program called Wise Up Financial Management. And so I've piloted this here at Thin County Employees this past year at our office. And of course we evaluated when we pilot things we evaluate every little lesson but we really did find that the program was very successful in helping employees be able to plan spending, reduce credit and things like that. So we're going to continue this next year. Unfortunately, I did it at a lunch and learn at our office conference, which means that the counting employees from Carrollton and Lewisville couldn't come for lunch meetings. So we're going to expand this to those areas this next spring as people are really beginning to think about money after the first of the year and everything. But I've also taken my financial management programs to other parts of the county. I go quite frequently to the Texas Workforce Center where we have people who are either newly laid off or looking for other jobs. And we cover things like how to bounce back when your income drops, how to save money when you don't have a dime to spare, stretching those through dollars, things like that. So we've also taken these programs to other groups. For example, head start parents, coming in children's home where they have single parents. And so I really think as the financial crisis continues, this will be more important educational program in the future. You can't pick up any newspaper nowadays without learning about more home foreclosures and didn't canyons on the increase in this area. So to help work in this area, I took a three day class in Grand Prairie and became a HUD certified home buyer educator. I think we're gonna see in the future as people go into home buying that we're going to expect them to take an eight hour home buyer class banks will expect it. So I'm probably the only HUD certified home buyer educator here in the county now. So I think that will allow us to do some things. Right now I've done this twice, this series of eight hour programs twice with the Ditton House and Authority, where they're trying to get some of their residents into their own homes. I think this is a thing I'll be spending next year to other parts of the county. Another area that I work in is with our most important resources with children and parents. And so many of our children are in daycare centers and home centers. And so I of our children are in daycare centers and home centers. And so I do provide continued education for daycare providers. They are required to have 20 clock hours a year. And I provide those for you charge. And I collaborate with the local libraries here in Denton, Carrollton, Lewisville, Little Am. And we have a very successful program there. And the third area I've concentrated on this last year is with the aging population. We had our third successful elder care conference in Flora Mown this past main. We'll continue this next year in which we help families to learn the skills. Then they need to take care of their older, sometimes parents, sometimes spouses, and cover things as caring for older adults during chronic diseases, how to prevent falls from the home, and having recently had to follow my home. I appreciate this program a whole lot more. But I think as the population continues to grow in age, these will be important programs in the future. Other aging programs we've done is medication management, how to older can save money as they pay for that medication that they are prescribed Other things that we have done and briefly as y'all remember Lexi transferred in in July, but she had ongoing programs the air of health and wellness that we've continued in her absence. The diabetes education program that we've conducted this fall with Presbyterian Hospital to help diabetes be able to more manage this disease and thereby really reduce our financial expenses of this disease. Next year we're going to continue what we are doing with our financial management. New programs that are coming out is one called managing your money during tough times because tough times will be here for another few years and so I feel like the clientele of our county needs to have some other information. We hope to get this on the web, some podcasting done so the people who can't come to our programs could get on the website and learn some of the techniques that we have. It's been a past year, been a good year and I appreciate the support that you give us every year for our programs. Any questions or any concerns? I have a question. Yes. When you're talking to these groups about working with the elderly and whatever, do you get into discussions about medications prescribed for the elderly? What I'm specifically referring to is, and I've seen this where they keep getting prescribed different medicines, different medicines, and they never stop taking the other one when in actuality maybe the doctor intended for them to. The particular person that I'm thinking of ended up on like 15 prescriptions and she really needed to be on one. a big issue and one of the things we cover with elder care conferences is the fact that you know because so many people now go to not only just one health care provider, the go to the service specialist and there's not anyone who kind of manages all these medications and so we are working in that area and we have a gerontologist through anium that's helped us provide educational problems in this area because along the slide is not only the money that they curtain use and do in these 15 prescriptions. And so one of the things we'll be doing this next year since financial specific programs have new with elder, how much of the cost for medication? How can you curb the cost for your medication? How can you make sure that all your doctors know what you're taking and go to one pharmacist so that they will hopefully your pharmacist is trying to they will keep tabs if you have 15 prescriptions that are counterproductive. We are quite productive. I don't think that they can do damage. The particular person I'm thinking of had four different doctors, three of them being specialists and she never let any of them know what other medications she was on that the other doctor prescribed consequently caused some severe problems. Finally got all four doctors together on one conference call if you can believe that and reviewed all the medications, took her off everything except one and son of a gun. She wasn't dizzy anymore. That's one of the things we've been trying to work with. Our people is, what questions do you ask your doctor? Because if your doctor doesn't ask you the questions, or what are you taking, my doctor always says, give me everything you're taking, my primary. It may ask, but they don't always get a complete answer. That's right. And if you don't remember everything you're taking too, so there's, but we are addressing those issues. So thank you for that question. That's a big problem. Much less than dollars involved. Yes, exactly the health involved. Thank you. Thank you very much. Jennifer MacHouse will be coming next to talk about a 4-H program. Morning Jennifer. Morning. I'm so proud to talk about the accomplishments of our 4H members here in Denton County. And so glad that we can share these with you. First, we have our annual gift from our 4Hers. If you'll remember, we have been celebrating our 100th anniversary, August, Mark, the end of that celebration. And so what they have for you is our state created. This is a paperweight for your desk with the logo that was created to celebrate the 100th anniversary. Based off tribal art, it actually represents head, heart, health, and hands, the entire 4-H-pled within the drawing. And so you kind of look at it from the outside in and then the inside out and you can see our whole pledge represented in your paper weight. I always come and talk about technology that's kind of my passion. And one of the things we did this year, we're still trying to figure out what works, what does it work with our big crew, and one of the things we found that has worked in April, we launched a 4-H blog, Gensjoz. And you'll always hear me talk about the emails because I may average 300 or 400 a week, 1300 a month. I'm inundated with email and how do I get this out to all of our leaders? In a fashion so that they're not getting the emails that I'm getting. And so we've started weekly club manager emails, condensed them all down into one, they get one from me, and then everything instantaneously goes on the blog. They can go on there any time and find anything that they need to know about our program instantaneously, and they know that it's always updated. And so that's been one of the biggest successes that we've had this year is instituting our 4H blog. And so that's been a big help in our communication issues. My program area is that I've been focusing on for the last three I have a group of our leaders. We have Column McQuinn, who is with Northwest 4-H and Silver Saddle. Caitlin Roach with 12 Blazers 4-H. Alexa Beatty with Rough Riders 4-H. Matty Schwinn with RGAL 4-H. She is also serving as our county council president and as an officer on our district council as well. And then Sam Hatch, who is a voting delegate for the RGAL 4-H club. And so, we She is also serving as our county council president and as an officer on our district council as well. And then Sam Hatch who is a voting delegate for the RGAL 4H Club. And so these are some of the leaders that we work within our program. This past year, which we're here to talk about, we had Matties Brother Michael served as our county council president and our district council president and as a representative on the state council. And we have been fortunate that Ditton County has been represented on district and state at least three of the four years that I've been here. And so we have a really good group of young leaders that are we are working with. We have this year two representatives on the Food and Nutrition Ambassador team. Jessica from Northwest 4-H and Shelby from Argonne 4-H are serving as representatives on a state committee to share food and nutrition information around the county and they do presentations to general audiences. We also have three scholarship winners this past year. Texas 4-H gives way almost $2 million annually in scholarship monies and we had $25,000 go to Denton County 4H members. We also had a scholarship winner every year since I've been in Denton County. We have really good 4Hers and they look well and so we do well with their scholarship competitions. To enhance our leadership, I've been offering series of leadership classes. We've actually Wednesday will mark the end of my third series of six weeks classes for leadership and those have gone really well. We also have been offering 4-H College. This October marked our second 4-H College. We've had over 200 people attend, the two events that we've offered. We've offered up to 18 projects. We do a full day long event and train them in subject matter related to their 4-H projects. And so as a counterpart to that, we wanted to focus specifically on career prep. I like to tell the four-hers, I graduated from college with my bachelor's, I had 210 hours. I was a four, I was a member who went to college and I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know what I was going to be, what I was going to do. And I don't want them to have to go through that. So my focus for these four-hers is that they can explore everything now and not have to spend five years and so much money trying to figure out what they wanna be when they grow up. So this summer we hosted culinary camp and we spent three days in depth intensive with a very small group. We focused really on a small group so that we could have the intensive hands on. We had business leaders from the community come in and talk. There's a flower that outlines in detail what we covered. We had a panel of local business owners come in. We had chefs come in and teach hands-on skills that they would need. And then we spent a day touring and we went out. We went out to Rancho de la Roca and talked about how do you run a business? How do you cater? We toured. We went all the way to Dallas and we went to the Dallas Institute of Art. We got a private tour of the culinary school, and then while we were there, they also allowed us to tour the fashion department as well. And so we got to tour the school and have a private visit. And then the last day we did competition. We had to apply it all. And so many of you have seen our chef, and we had our day modeled after our chef. They had two challenges. The first challenge was they had to practice the nifing skills that they've learned. And so they were given raw ingredients, and it was foods that could be served raw, and they had to create a salad using the best niping skills that they had been taught. And then from that, then they had to do their best food prep skills. And they were given ingredients, but no instructions. And based on the ingredients and their knowledge of cooking, they had to create a dish with the goal of matching the recipe as closely as possible. And so we had a lot of fun, they learned a lot, we had a huge success, we had seven youth participate, two volunteers go through this class and we'll be doing this again, and we'll be focusing on a different area. We wanna do a different area every summer so that we can expose them to these opportunities. Along the career lines, we launched this year, our vet science program, we had 67 people attend our open house. We had 50 people attend our first registration meeting and we have 33 youth going through our vet science program. The vet science program is the only career oriented for each project that we offer in that when they're done, they will be eligible to take the vet assistant certification course and walk away with a career. And so they do 500 hours of class work and volunteer work at a vet clinic in over five years and when they're done They will be prepared to be career certified and so we're really excited about launching that this year um In looking to next year I'm moving away from leadership a little bit and we're going into health rocks and we're very fortunate that we had two young people Madish one with me and Shelby who could not here today, who were nationally certified to teach health rocks. We received a grant of $5,000 with the charge we have to reach 500 youth. And health rocks is a peer-taught curriculum for teaching self-esteem and the ability to withstand substance abuse. And so they work with youth who are 9 to 11 because the instances of these first use are getting younger and younger. And so we use our older four H members to teach the younger community tools to be successful in being able to say no. And so we will be launching in January, we will be training CUML and Presbyterian Children Home. And we're going to actually train them as a sustainable site. And then we will train them, and then their leaders will actually conduct it on site themselves. We will be working with our 4-H audience as one of our audiences, and then we're always continuously seeking external audiences. So if anybody knows of any other groups that we can take this to, we have a wonderful trained young group of young people who are able to go out and teach these classes and they're fun and interactive and we're going to be doing great things in the next year with that and so I'm always proud to talk about them and I'd be glad to answer any questions. Are there any courses? I think the vet certification course that's wonderful. Are there other ones like that? That's the only specific career that they walk away with the certification. Everything else is pretty much like what I do with culinary camp where we offer a subject matter training for it, but there's not a certified job skill in hand when they're done. They're more marketable when they participate in all of our programs. That's a great idea. Glad to hear it. Thank you. Okay, and I'm going to turn it back over to Eddie for the... Appreciate those reports from the staff. I'm going to turn it back over to Eddie for the. Appreciate those reports from the staff. I'll visit a little bit about my program area, which is agricultural natural resources, and then we'll do a quick closing and one more presentation, and then we'll be done. I'm going to refer you to the Ag Income Report within your folder there, because my program efforts are very much centered around that, and we target those, the programs related to this as far as agricultural impact. Economic impact on Ditton County, as you can see that we still have 61% of the dry land mass within Ditton County, still in agricultural production, so that was still well above that 50% mark that has dropped some as compared to 2007. So we did have quite a bit of agricultural property that was lost to development or for other reasons. But we still work well above that 50% level. Some of the some of the major industries on your first sheet there. I've just kind of summarized that behind that is a lot of the worksheets that we use to come up with these numbers that go into the state's statistical department and also the Texas A&M University Agricultural Economic Department require these numbers on annual basis from every county within the state. And so this is what we're submitting now for in the county. The horse industry is still very, very, we're still tooting that horn. We're the largest horse county in the state of. And we've had a few challenges from that and they couldn't stand up to it. So we're still flying that flag in Austin and where will we get the opportunity to tremendous, tremendous industry in this county. And I think we're very conservative with these numbers that we're presenting here to you today. By the way, y'all are the first ones to see this. They've hadn't gone into the state yet. As the, and now the state is requiring, we used to turn in all the numbers that were related to the horse industry because it's quite different industry. It's not a perishable item. It's kind of a renewable resource, if you will, because it's not a consumable item for one, it's not an annual, it's more like a perennial. So the state, we used to report our complete numbers, which is on your second page, which is that this year is 9.90, 9.5 million just for the horse industry alone. That 37,370,000 is just for the cash receipts generated, just cash receipts generated for horse sales only. That's what the state, they. We don't want all their number for breeding, training, boarding, which is on your second page, which is that $90 million mark because that really puts us way, way up there and I felt like those numbers needed to be incorporated because it was part of it but they just wanted cash receipts only. What agricultural products are produced in Ditton County and sold and what are those cash receipts. So that's where that and we're still at 37 million. No other county can even compete with that. The egg production has dropped off somewhat that's because Mayhard farms their hatching houses are actually in Ditton County. Their offices are in Collin County so actually they're actually produced in Ditton County so we get those numbers. They're in the process of transferring their operation to Vernon for numerous reasons. Development is one of them of course. So that number will gradually replenish as we go through these next few years till they make that teletransition up into the Vernon area. So it's dropped off almost 10 million. Of course the beef industry is still very prevalent. Nursery industry is kind of fluctuating back and forth and you can go down through that list and kind of see where we're at and the percent change. The largest percent change that came, we dropped 27 percent as compared to last year. Of course we were up 28 percent from year before and that's because they're getting agricultural is so relying on not only economic conditions, but environmental conditions. We go through a drought, you know, that things don't grow without water. That's just all ours to it. So we're gonna see that drop. And then we're gonna see, of course, that tremendous rise as it comes back. So that's in the rest of that behind there is those worksheets that they do require verification of these numbers. And so that does that and I send also notes and input as we go along. Of course, in that relates back to the agriculture and natural resources programming. We're getting more and more influx of small acreage farmers farming, which is good. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, the property putting back into some type of environmental stewardship program. They don't derive necessarily their income from that property, but yet they want to be involved and they're getting big good stewards of the land. So our target, some of our education targets are towards those landowners. When I say say small landowners that's 50 acres or less And we help them with Different aspects of agricultural production that they might not be familiar with and just help them do a better job and do a safer job Is related to the environment pesticide training erosion control water quality aspects fertilization, perennial crop planning, pond and dam structures. We do programming, educational programming in those areas for those folks and help them be competitive also in the economic agriculture, economic environment. We do, there again a lot with the horse industry. We kind of build, we kind of keep taking that on and I keep going back to it, that is a tremendous industry. We take it a step further and build on that and that we've created a tourism type of situation where we're bringing in conventioneers from outside the camp raises and we put together these horse tours. We have the relationship with all these large ranch owners. You know, you got a battle of farms, Green Valley, J&E, huge, and very, if you've never been out there, I'd love to take it. I mean, because that's impressive. These places are really impressive. And they're very much attractive to outside audiences. And they will pay money and come in and buy either a restaurant to stay in our motels just to take these host tours. So working with the Chamber to set up and we'll do two to three every month during the summer months and everyone number four will take a bus load two or three times a month to do these tours and everyone number four and most of them are coming from outside the county. We also use that as an attractive there again to bring in outside conventions to the area and meetings. Not to take away from our traditional agricultural practices as you can see in our wheat. Tremendous, we're a very large dry land. Wheat-producing county, we have no irrigation in this county. Very little, 99% of it's just dry land. Soar them corn, corn on the rise because of the ethanol production. So we're working with that. We almost landed an ethanol plant within the county when the go-sheddyed with them for some different aspects. It didn't work out. They went up to Cook County mainly because of the land value. They just couldn't afford the property in this area to do it. So it wound up going up in Cook County, but we were very instrumental in helping him then even come into this area. So we're working with different aspects now, so it gives our producer a different avenue to market their products into that biofuel industry. So we work, those are some of the programming efforts that we will continue to work on and involve as the industry changes within Dettin County. So it's still a very viable part of this county. There's a lot of roots here in this county and it's still very active. We just need to learn and keep our producers on the cutting edge with the technology and the marketing phases as avenues that are out there. I'd like to answer any questions at this point. Leave now, thank you. Great, appreciate that. So we have one other item of business, if I may. First I wanna recognize our volunteers. These are a, of course you know, we're a volunteer organization based. I wanna recognize the volunteers for since you've all been standing up please. These are our leaders of our volunteer groups within the county. Grassroots of our group. We appreciate everyone of their efforts. There's no way we could do reaches the audiences that we do without these volunteers. And that just goes to show what type of citizens we have here in the county. I mean, this is an unbelievable county, it's unbelievable. So we appreciate their efforts. With that, we'd like to present to the court a check of the volunteer hours, which let's see, it comes to, it's 22,981 volunteer, Ms. Williams. She is vice president of Reledorship Advisory Board. So we will present that to the court, 20 represents 22,981 volunteer hours. And at today's rate, that's calculated at $19.51 per hour. So that's these gracious left to bring that in. $48,359.31 and we thank you very much. Yes. I'm sorry to tell James, 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. just here in all y'all's activities throughout the year and keep up with good work and thank y'all. We appreciate that very much and it's truly is a labor of love you have to enjoy what you do and you have to enjoy the people and you sure have to ride the brand for Denton County and we are staunch. This is the Grage County in the States you know that about it. Fastest growing, more diverse, it's very challenging, you know, and that's what makes this job really, really interesting. So we're proud and glad to have the honor to serve it in Canada. What's neat is how y'all's programs have evolved as we get more rooftops and let's throw a land on how the programs evolve and I think that's great. That's a great point. That's the Commissioner Edgier exactly right. And we have to continue to do that. There's no doubt. Thanks again to the Court. We appreciate your support and we look forward to it. Thank you very much. And I want to take just a moment to thank the volunteers too. Y'all not only do a great job, but you are a sterling example for our youth. And there are good things for these children to be learning and doing with their time other than some of the other examples that they see on a daily basis. So we appreciate you not only putting in the time but for being such a great example for our youth and thank you very much. All right. And thank you for the point Zeta's in the gift. I appreciate it. These are the biggest point Zeta's I've ever seen. I think enormous. What do you all feed these things? They're huge. But yeah, they're not a point Zeta plant. They're a point Zeta bush. Thank you very much, y'all. We'll take just a minute here and let them part. If you all have never been to one of the 4-H banquets and heard about all the things that these kids are doing, you need to do that sometime. It will impress you and warm your heart for sure. You're great. Okay, members, let's go to item two, which is the consent agenda. Are there items on the consent agenda that you need to pull for discussion? Or do we have a motion for approval? Before approval. I have a motion by Commissioner Ead, seconded by Commissioner Marchant. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, Sainine? Motion does carry. The consent agenda today consists of 2A, the approval of the order making appointments. We have two new hires in emergency management. We have a new hire at the Courthouse Museum. She's with us today. We have a new hire in the District Attorney's Civil Division. We have a new hire in vehicle maintenance, a new hire in New Hire and Tax Assessor Collector's Office. Two promotions in the Sheriff's Department, one lateral transfer and Constable precinct five, and one New Hire in the County Parks Office. Two B is approval of the Intra Departmental Transfers, two C is approval of the payroll, two D is approval of award of bid for a cold mix asphalt pavement, bid number 10081942 to unique painting. 2E is approval of specifications and authority to advertise for bid number 11081946. This is Veterans Memorial. 2F is approval of specifications and authority to advertise for bid number 11081947 lease of real property for mineral development. Okay, item five, five A is approval of the bill report payments from CSED, Community Corrections, TAI, P shares, training shares, forfeiture, VIT, interest, DA check fee, and DA forfeiture funds are presented for recording purposes only. Good morning, James Wells. Mr. Commissioners, that's the court to prove the bill report is presented with the two deletions that are noted on the separate page. That's all changes I have. Thank you. Are there questions or comments from members of the court? Do we have a motion for approval? Motion by Commissioner E. Seconded by Commissioner White. I'll in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the name? Motion does carry. 7a is approval of budget amendment of quest 100320 to increase the revenues allocating funding and reallocate currently budgeted funds for fiscal year 2008-2009 for various juvenile probation budgets in the amount of $45,446. We have a motion for approval by Commissioner Eads, seconded by Commissioner Mitchell, are there questions? Any none? On favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed to the name? Motion does carry. 7B is approval of budget amendment request 100330 for repairs and maintenance for Charlie Cole building in the amount of $12,232. Motion by Commissioner Marchant, seconded by Commissioner White, other questions? Any none? On the favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, Sainte? Motion does carry. 11A is approval of the PLAT recording fee of $50 per page effective Friday, January 2nd, 2009. We have with us our county clerk. If there's any questions, Cynthia would probably be good if you gave a brief explanation of what's going on here. Thank you for this opportunity, Judge. Happy holidays, county commissioners, county judge. All of you here at the front desk, who are making your home here. I'm very excited to bring this forth. What this means is there is some movement on our plat to make them as efficient as the other operations in the recording department of our property records. We are going to improve our technology. This has been a joint effort with our central appraisal district and Bennett House Office, our planning department. And so we are going to be able to better serve not only Bennett's department and the appraisal district, but all of our consumers as well. The improving of the technology will allow us to scan all plots and capture those images at the time of recording. What this means to our consumers and our customers, those filing and recording these plots, are that they will only bring one versus five plots in. So we will be reducing their production costs significantly, as well as the hassle. We've already notified the cities and the surveyors of the changes that we've worked with as far as changing the plant requirements. This was a big cooperative effort so that we can, like I said, better serve and make it more user friendly right now. Our requirements are at a size that is uncomfortable, if you will, for our filers. And so we're going to enlarge that to a more standard size across the board so that we can make that much easier for them, reduce their costs on the upfront production of the plots, as well as, you know, this to this change will allow us to get the equipment in, which will be in a contractor amendment next Tuesday. But we will get the equipment in before the end of the year so that when we start January 2nd business in 2009, we will be able to capture our own plat's image and not send it off and not delay the process, the recording, as well as making it available to the public. making it available to the public. The slide size, what were you saying about the... Right now it's 18 by 24 inch requirement to be recorded. What, that's not the normal, no normal plat's 24 by 36. What we've done is we did that so that we could send the plat's off site to have them scanned and imag and image what we're finding is the piece of paper may be 18 by 24 but they're shrinking it down to keep all of the stuff in measurement and then we're losing a lot of clarity on our flats so we're not doing anybody a service right now plus we're sending out our original off, I don't like that, I don't ever like our original to go offsite. So with all of these changes, we'll increase the size, which is much more like I said comfortable, if nothing else, for our users and our filers, as well as being able to then keep them in-house to record and only requiring one at the time of recording. Thank you. Do we have a motion for approval? Motion by Commission Marchant, seconded by Commission Mitchell. A lot of questions. Here none. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed to name? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. 13A is approval of disaster declaration and executive order as a mitigation effort to reduce the threat while fires due to drought conditions. Good morning, Jody. Morning, Judge. The commissioners and the seems that it's my pleasure that over time I try to present this. It rains the night before. Question is how much did it rain out? Question is how much did it rain out? Well, in the most areas of the county, we received a brief precipitation. It was 20 to 30 minutes and it was gone. What the issue is is the continuing winds. The winds are going to dry this out. The moisture and vegetation is dead or dormant. It's a winter season. That's what we deal with. That's what I stand up here every winter and say, here we are again this winter and you know we could get a large amount of rain and still not bring back the vegetation that's either dead or dormant from from from the spring and summer months. Here's my question I guess I have two options as you're familiar with the county judge can place an executive order on for seven straight days prior to Commissioner's Court approving it after those seven days. My question is today we can either approve that disaster declaration by the Commissioner's Court and I'm requesting that we right now specifically address the burn ban issue. There is something else we need to be aware of and that is firework season is very quickly approaching. And we are teetering on what's called the Keach-Barram drought index. And we use that index in recommendations from the forest service. And we also look at the number of fires that we're actually having out in the county. Right now we're averaging about two to three grass fires per day. And we get into that, that kind of level of fires that we're having, we look at the intensity of the fires and in the size. The larger the fires mean that we're really getting into more of a drought condition with wind, humidity levels are lower, and that does affect our situation. Now the Keach-Brom drought index measures drought conditions in the depth of the soil from one to eight inches, being 100 to 800. Currently our Keach-Brown drought index is 565. 575 is the mark where we usually do a ban on use of fireworks in the unacquirporated area that count. So we're very close to that teetering spot. And the way that I've written the disaster declaration, including the executive order is that the ban on outdoor, or ban on residential 1.4 G type fireworks, which is retail fireworks, would be that it would not impact fireworks use unless the Keach Barmdrow index reached 575. We're only, for a few points away from that now, so I want to be sure that the court is aware of that in the executive order. We also are required under this executive order if we do any regulation or restrictions on fireworks usage, not to sale. Now we're talking usage only. If we do any fireworks usage regulations that we specifically, after we do that, we have to request the governor's extension after 60 hours. So we'll have the county judge would have to at that point send a letter to the governor requesting an extension on the ban of fireworks use in the unincorporated area of the counties beyond the 60 hours. So that's a very difficult legislation that was put in the previous year. Our previous two years, which put a 60 hour cap on the on the commissioners court or this judge's authority to ban firework specifically. So again, the governor would have to request an extension beyond 60 hours. Right now today, my recommendation is that we look at it. We look at the possibility of a burn ban either enacted by the court or we place it back on for next week and leave it for the judge to decide in the remaining part of this week. Members. Fort Mill. If comments go ahead Commissioner. I would rather wait and have it on next week. In the night that comes not on. In a lot that we just got rain and I don't know the exact rain reports. I don't know if you have them but I prefer to do it next week since we just had. We got a lot of rain in the South part of the county. I mean it was lightning and thunder and everything. I mean we we we we had a quite a lot. I don't know about the north part or the east part of the county but right now our dryest our dryest area of the whole county is north of 380 all away from one end of the other. Sanger to Aubrey to pilot point is our dry. Yeah. That I don't worry. Yeah. That same batch that you got. And that's why I stand up here as a recommendation. I say we do need a burn band, but I think we can go a week. But we need it on the agenda next Tuesday. But we can also, depending on things worsened without throughout the week, because they can very quickly worsen with high winds, can drive this rain we got out within a matter of 24 hours. So we want the judge will still have that authority during this week and this weekend to an active urn ban if we need it so. Okay well let's let's hold off, Judge. And we replace this week. Put it on the agenda again for next week and with the understanding that the situation changes between now and next Tuesday or I can take action on that. I can tell you yes, I got to read up the saying early, but I walk across my grass and still crunches under my feet. So it's just something we have to monitor. It's the winds. It's the winds and we're right there teetering on that spot. So the placement today was to let you guys know where we're at and see what you want to do. On the ragged edge, aren't we? Okay, thank you, Jordan. So, excuse me, be no action on 13A today. 13B is approved to change order number one in the amount of $31,656.66 to the contract with Edbelk and the instruction company for the OED Neil Bridge replacement project. This will bring the total contract amount to $481,542.71. In Berserger, you know, this is one of our county bridges out on the west side of the county out in just west of Crumb and this is our, just one change order here and we'll be complete with this project. So I'm very excited. If you'll recall, this is one of our bridges that was only one way in and one way out. And the residents have had a bypass. They've been living with for a couple of years. And so I'm very glad to get this done and thank you Bennett and for your efforts with this. And Robert Musgrove, doing a great job inspecting the project and Robin Davis. And I'm glad we're putting a bow on this one and getting it completed. So I move approval. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner E. Second. I have a commission Mitchell. Is there further discussion or other questions? Here none on favor. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed to the motion is carried. 14. Judge, excuse me. I'm sorry. I needed to point out for the record and I had told the commissioner about this form for whatever reason after going through the fact that you all passed court order and everything, it doesn't have a place for you to sign. So they have amended it for us and we're gonna substitute page three out of the four-page document. It reads exactly the same except there is a place for your signature. Signature line. Okay, thank you. 14 A is approval of the easement for old Alton Road and the Equestrian Parking Area located at Lysville Lake, didn't kind of Texas from the United States Army Corps of Engineers. This is USAC Frack F-554. This is in Commission in prison for. Members, you may recall that with the future extension of 2499 over Lake Lewisville, we're going to be removing an existing parking lot there that the equestrian community uses to access the over 20 miles of equestrian trails around Lake Lewisville. And so we're going to, the county applied for a grant through Texas Parks and Wildlife last year and we received that if you recall. And so we've been working with the Corps of Engineers and which has been a labor of love. And I'm excited that we're, we've partnered with them on this and we're actually putting this parking lot in an easement down in their property underneath the utility lines. And so we're very excited about getting this done. And actually putting this parking lot in an easement down in their property underneath the utility lines. So we're very excited about getting this done and we're going to start working on that tomorrow. So with approval today, so that I'll move for approval. Thank you. We have a motion by Commissioner Eads, seconded by Commissioner White. Are there questions? Commissioner Mitchell, did you have a question? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? A name? Motion carries. I understand of 14 V that we need to correct a dollar amount for the Justin volunteer fire department ambulance service. Do we need to pull it completely or just correct the dollar? I'm sorry. I believe that we're pulling it. Let me double check on that with my paralegal, but I believe that we're pulling it. Can I come back to it in just a second? Okay, yes. Let's go on to 14C. 14C is approval of fire protection service agreements between Denton County, Texas and one just to volunteer fire department to the city of colony is recommended by the director emergency services. Chair moved for approval. Seconded by Commissioner Eads. Questions here none on favor. Please say aye. I move for approval. Second. Seconded by Commissioner Eads. Questions? Hearing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? An in? Motion is carried. Okay, we're still checking on that one. Let's go on to 14D. 14D is to rescind the 2008-2009 Interlocal Cooperation Agreement for Library Services between Dimk County, Texas and Betty Foster Public Library, City of Ponder approved by Commission's Court on October 21, 2008 under Court Order No. 080817 and approved the corrected 2008-2009 Interlocal Cooperation Agreement for Library Services between Denton County, Texas and Betty Foster Public Library, this is City of Ponder. I'm moved for approval. We have motion for approval by Commissioner Eid's second and by Commissioner Mitchell. Are there questions? Any none? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed say aye. Motion carries. 14E is approval of the 2008-2009 interlocal cooperation agreement for library services between Denton County, Texas. In the colony, public library city of the colony. Motion by Commissioner Mitchell, second by Commissioner Marchin. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, Sinene. Motion does carry. 14F is approval of interlocal cooperation agreement between Denton County Texas and the town of Prosper, Texas for the local project advanced funding agreement between Denton County Texas and the State of Texas acting through the Texas Department of Transportation for good hope road at Doe Branch Trutory Bridge replacement project. This is CSJ091846202 located in Denton County Commissioner Prisink 1. the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is the Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is the Board of Trustees. If we've gotten clarification on 14 B. Yes, ma'am. 14 B, the Justin ambulance service contract needs to be pulled. We have not talked, we've not made them aware of the problem in that. Okay. And the colony can proceed. Sorry. So we want to amend the order to strike the language on Justin. We can proceed with the colonies that fetch the place. All right. So what would we be taking action on is to approve the language on Justin we can proceed with the colonies that that you're planning. So what will be taking action on is to approve the ambulance service agreement between Dan County Texas and the city of Colony Fire Department as recommended by the Director of Emergency Services the chair will move for approval seconded by commission or marching to other questions. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed, Seneen? Motion is carried. We'll repost the Justin contract at another time. And I believe with the exception of the executive session, we take care of our business. So we'll go to item 15, which is executive session. We'll be meeting under Texas Government Code 551.076 deliberation regarding security devices to discuss with Sheriff and Sheriff's Office personnel, the deployment of security devices and they didn't kind of jail. 15V is under Government Code 551.0711A and B, consultation of attorney close meeting for private consultation with attorney in a close meeting when the governmental body seeks the advice of its attorney about contemplated litigation and or settlement offer regarding claim by Charles and cloud aka Charles cloud and wife Rosemary Atkins cloud and 15d is under government code 551.072 deliberation regarding real property closed meeting to liberate the value of real property or deliberation in an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the position of the governmental body. In negotiations with the third party regarding two parts of real property owned by Denton County and located on El Dorado Parkway in Denton County, this isn't commission or precinct one. With that, we're on executive session. Okay. decision. The second item is approval of settlement of disputed claim by Charles in cloud aka Charles cloud in life. Rose Mary atkins cloud in the amount of $1,500 with funds to be paid out of the lawsuit settlement line item. This is in commission or precinct one. The chair will move for approval. Seconded by commission or white. On favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, sen aye. No action. Now we need to go back to 14b just for a moment for some clarification of a calling, Kim. I'll be a pardon, 14A. No. So I'm sorry. It's actually 14A. And we are just substituting the first page of the Eastman Agreement. This document came to us from the Corps of Engineers. And it talks about Louisville Lake, but it lists it as Tarant County. We had seen that but aren't able to change their document but John felt dealt with the court yesterday and today and they have sent us a substitute page one. Everything else is exactly the same but we just wanted to, that's say, didn't county rather than Tarant County but we did not want to hold up this project by waiting on that document and sure enough we were able to get it today. Everything else that's attached is fine you don't need to redo anything. I just wanted to put into the record the substitution of that first page. Okay we don't need any further action on that. Oops careful here. The only thing I wanted to point out is on 17B. Commissioner's Court will not be meeting on the 30th of December. We will be meeting on January 1 to swear in the newly elected and reelected officials. And to pay some bills and consent agenda. I know we may have a limited agenda that day, but we're gonna keep it short. So with that, we are adjourned, everybody have a great day. Thank you.