Good morning. Welcome to commissioner's court meeting of tuesday, april 28, 2026. Commissioner calvert, I believe
you have the opening prayer with father jimmy and the
pledge of allegiance, and I believe commissioner calvert, you are present, and I will yield the floor
to you. Thank you so much, judge.
we unfortunately had a little mishap with father jimmy, but we are so fortunate to have
a lifelong friend. Friend, reverend deborah seward, who is our mlk chair
and also the community engagement coordinator for the san antonio african
american archive and museum. Reverend seward is a proud alum of highland university, excuse me, of highlands high
school. She dedicated 13 years
of service as a paraprofessional in the special education department at the san antonio independent
school district. She holds certifications in early childhood education from san antonio college and
lay ministry and pastoral studies from the o'blake
school of theology. Her divine calling led her to becoming licensed
in ministry on january the 15th, 2017, and she is married
to reverend butch seward, mother to one biological daughter, and affectionately known as mom
to many, including myself, because I've known her since I was a... Literally a child.
she looks the same. She hasn't aged a day. Her heart beats for service,
as evidenced by her dedication to community engagement, event coordination,
and volunteer support for the san antonio african american archive and museum.
beyond her work at the museum, she also actively contributes
to our community. As I said, she is our mlk march chair.
reverend seward, if all would rise in the commissioner's court. You have the floor, reverend
seward, for our prayer.
shall we pray? Father god, we thank you, lord, for this day. We thank you for everything that you've done
in our lives, lord, and we don't take it for granted because blessings come
from you, and we're so grateful. Lord, I want
to ask a special blessing on our commissioners today. Lord, I ask that you... Guide them and lead them as
they lead this city and throughout. Lord, I ask for a blessing on
their staffers as they continue to support the leadership. Lord, and I ask a rich blessing
on the city of san antonio and bexar county and the
surrounding cities. Lord, we need you more than anything today and beyond.
lord, our future lay in your hands.
and we cannot. Do anything without you. Lord, we thank you for this very moment.
we thank you for everything that you will continue to do as we work, lord,
to serve this community. Lord, let us do it with truth, honesty, and
with love. Lord, we thank you for everything that will happen
in today's session. Lord, and I pray your richest blessings
on all the proceedings. Thank you so much, lord.
that you continue to love us the way that you do. And it is in jesus' name that I
ask and I pray and I believe. Amen. Thank you, reverend seward.
if everyone would turn towards the flag and repeat the pledge of allegiance. Pledge of allegiance
to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one
nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
thank you, commissioner
calvert. We'll take up agenda item 3,
request of commissioner's court to identify items from consent agenda for additional discussion.
approve remaining consent agenda items. Commissioner clay flores. Can you come back to me,
please? All right. Commissioner rodriguez will shortly be here.
commissioner moody. Commissioner calvert.
no items, judge. I'm back to you, commissioner clay flores.
nothing to call, judge. Okay, is there a motion? Move for approval.
motion by commissioner clay flores, second by commissioner moody.
any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, signal by saying aye. Aye.
any opposed? Motion carries. Let me see, I believe there might be some citizens
to be heard I need in regards to consent. Let me have those right now.
52. Okay.
what's this one?
all right. I'm trying to accommodate those that had signed up for consent.
as you just heard, the entire consent agenda has been approved. All those matters of consent
are now being passed by unanimous vote
of the court. However, in order to accommodate as a professional courtesy,
I want those that signed up, if you still wish to speak, I have agenda item 52.
I have one, two, three, four,
five. Six, seven people. Fifty-two has been passed at this time.
I will call your name out. If you wish to speak, you have three minutes. If you wish to wave,
I certainly understand. First one will be jim burke.
do you wish to speak? This is agenda item 52.
I am representing mr.
burke and the other folks that signed up for item number... 52. So mr. Burke had signed up to make a presentation when item 52 came up.
but if no presentations are... All right. Rob dillon, you have three...
actually, you got six with him yielding. No, no.
I actually signed up for myself as well to speak on this for item 52. But during citizens, again,
mr. Burke and the other speakers on item 52 are really... He's here. Mr.
burke is here to answer questions about the item. But if you'd like me to speak under my sign, if I can do that right now.
proceed. So thank you, judge sakai, commissioners. My name is rob killen.
I'm an attorney with the law firm of killen, griffin, and fairmont. Our address is 10101 union
place in san antonio, here on behalf of mr. Burke. Mr. Burke is here today to make a donation to bexar county
in the amount of $2.175 million.
that donation is to pay for critical infrastructure in southeast san antonio, which
will be considered under item 52 on the agenda. Yeah, a couple items.
one is an agreement for mr. Burke's donation to bexar county, and then an advanced
funding agreement to take mr. Burke's donation and give it to txdot to pay for a ramp at 37 and military.
so, a project that txdot has been working on for a while.
it is similar to an agreement that this court approved back in 2015.
so you had an advanced funding agreement and a donation agreement back in 2015. Parties have changed, so one
of the action items on your agenda today is to... Take the old agreement and get rid of it.
there's an entity called circo that was part of the original agreement. They're gone, so basically bring it up
to speed. And so, mr. Burke has been, and his family have been,
frequent and heavily engaged throughout the years with san
antonio as leaders, as donors. Mr.
burke has made a number of donations of land or money over the years for parks, for books.
hospital and higher education. This donation today will help alleviate some traffic
congestion at that military and I-37 interchange. We started working
on this new version of the agreement about four months ago, working
with txdot, working with the republic works department. We've worked with the city of san antonio.
on march 31st, the district attorney's office sent us the final version of the agreement.
we executed it, and we were agendized for today. So I just really want
to say today, thank you. I want to thank your public works department. I want to thank the da's
office, city of san antonio. In particular, I want to thank charles benavidez, the district engineer with txdot,
who has worked overtime on this. And then commissioner calvert.
I know commissioner calvert is remote, but commissioner calvert, thank you so much for taking the lead on this. But I really just want
to thank the court for their engagement on this important, vital piece of public infrastructure.
so with that, I will conclude my remarks and ask you to accept mr. Burke's donation of $2.175. Rob, would you please...
stay right there. Yes, sir. The court, me, has erred. 52 is not part of consent.
and so the consent agenda items have all been approved by prior vote.
so I am now going to call up, for purpose of the record, item 52, which is a late file.
so I'm asking the court for permission to consider all late files.
so if I could have a motion to consider late file items 50, 51, 52.
53, is there a motion? We've approved to have all late-filed items on the agenda.
second. Motion by commissioner calvert, second by commissioner clay flores. All those in favor,
signify saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carried.
the court will now call up item 52 and have discussion and
appropriate action related to the granting exception to administrative policy 1.2
to authorize the consideration of following late file agenda item 52a. Having approved the
late file, 52a, discussion and appropriate action regarding approval of an indemnity agreement
between bexar county and indian homes for the construction
of the interchange of ih 37. State loop 13 southeast military drive as well as
associated frontage roads. Approval of amendment no. 1 for purpose of terminating
the advance funding agreement executed between txdot and bexar county on november 13,
2015 and approval of a voluntary local government contributions advance funding
agreement for $2,175,000 between bexar county and the
texas department of transportation. Do we need a presentation by mr.
wegman for purpose of the court? We've actually had mr.
killen do that for us. Also, too, then let me go back to the citizens of the earth, mr.
killen. I just want to make sure anybody is here because miranda aguilar, are you here? Miranda, where are you?
miranda aguilar?
and, judge, it would be, I think, very good for the public to get dave wegman's presentation just
because it's such an important infrastructure. Intersection, it helps educate
the community. So hopefully he's close. So noted. But let me go ahead and get the
citizens to be heard. Diego, aldrete, deal. Mr. Rodriguez, we have the
proclamations. Priscilla, shelley, buchman,
buchman, shelley, buchman.
roger williams. Roger williams.
stephen vickers. Stephen vickers.
all right, mr. Wegman, where are you?
the court has called.
is jeff bradley in the room? Jeff, did you sign up? You didn't put what you signed up for.
which item? Jeff bradley?
number five? Okay, got it. Okay. All right.
mr. Smith?
okay. You want to take mark's notes? All right.
who's going to present for how do we? Anyway.
hold on, hold on. We got a motion on the floor.
start it.
judge, david webman couldn't make it here today, so I'm representing him. This item was on consent.
it got pulled. Unfortunately, we don't have a presentation, but I believe the gentleman
over here already presented the item.
so, do you have any questions? All right. Commissioner calvert, this is in your presence.
do you have any questions or further comment? No, I'm appreciative to move this infrastructure forward
to improve the interchange at 37 and southeast military. It's a very congested area,
and this helps us with that congestion. It'll be another triangle, I
believe, configuration similar to what blanco road is
developing. So I'd like to move approval
of the indemnity agreement between bexar county and indian homes ltb
for the construction of the interchange of ih 37 and southeast military drive, loop 13, as well as the associated
frontage roads. Second.
motion by commissioner calvert. I take it we're going to take it in separate motions.
we've got three motions. So second by commissioner rodriguez. Any further discussion?
hearing none. All those in favor, second by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstention? Commissioner calvert, second
motion. Yes, sir. Approval of amendment no. 1 for the purpose of terminating the advance funding
agreement executed between texot and bexar county on november 13, 2015.
motion by commissioner calvert, second by commissioner rodriguez.
all those in favor say an aye. Aye. Any opposed, any abstention? Motion carries. Third motion.
it will be to move to approve a voluntary local government
contributions advance funding agreement for $2.175 million
between bexar county and the texas department of transportation. Motion by commissioner
calvert, second by commissioner rodriguez. All those in favor, second by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, any abstention?
motion carries. I believe that concludes. Mr. Killen, I'll let you have the closing statement.
yeah, thank you so much, judge, commissioners, commissioner calvert, and everyone involved on county staff as well as,
again, our friends at txdot. This is a critically important piece of infrastructure.
the diverging diamond design will significantly reduce wait times at that intersection, 20, 40 minutes
in some cases. So. We're very excited to have it happen and look forward
to seeing it built. Thank you very much. And, mr. Killen, I would like
to express my gratitude to the burke family. They're an integral part of this project.
so, mr. Burke, thank you. And I'd like to just recognize and ask that we give the burke
family a round of applause. And if you have any closing statements. Thank you so much, judge.
I love your brevity, mr. Burke. Thank you very much.
all right. Let us go back then. To ceremonial and get
through that. And I'm going to ask for brevity, please. So that first one will be
presentation proclamation on behalf of commissioner's court recognizing jewish american heritage month by commissioner moody and
commissioner rodriguez. We need your signatures.
all right.
well, it's an honor to be able to recognize may as jewish american heritage month. To receive today's
proclamation, we have the jewish federation of san antonio with us today.
I think I have everybody. Amanda fite, leslie mett, sarah eddington, sarah ram, lisa guerrero, I don't see
craig, but I do see noah, and
ari lasky. So thank you for being here to receive this.
the proclamation reads,
whereas may 2026 is recognized as jewish american heritage
month, honoring the contributions of jewish americans to the united states, texas, and bexar
county, and whereas may was officially first proclaimed jewish american heritage month
by president george w. Bush in 2006, and whereas the american jewish community
traces its roots to 1654, when jewish refugees arrived to
escape religious persecution and to seek religious freedom. Beginning a legacy that has
helped shape our nation. And whereas the jewish families have lived in bexar county since the 1840s, when early
settlers helped build san antonio and founded the first jewish congregation in bexar
county in 1874. And whereas the jewish
community of bexar county has contributed significantly to the cultural richness, economic vitality, charity,
and civic leadership of this region, their contributions and legacy
include the lighthouse for the blind, the tuesday night music club, the san
antonio symphony, the holocaust memorial museum of san antonio, the jewish
community relations council, child advocates san antonio, and jewish family services.
the community's dedication to civic life includes taking
on positions of leadership and helping to dismantle segregation during
the civil rights movement. And whereas the jewish american heritage month
provides an opportunity to reflect on these contributions, recognizing the resilience and
achievements of jewish americans, reaffirms bexar county's commitment
to combating prejudice, standing against anti-semitism and all forms of hate, and promotes unity
among our residents
of this county. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the bexar
county commissioner's court hereby designates may 2026 as jewish heritage month. Signed, your commissioner's court.
if you'd like to say a few words, please. Thank you. It's an honor. Thank you, commissioner moody and judge sakai, commissioner
rodriguez, commissioner clay flores, and commissioner calvert. We're really honored today
to mark the beginning of jewish american heritage month for the month of may, and we're just proud residents of bexar
county and just really happy to be part of the vibrant fabric
of our county.
commissioner calvert, I'm teeing you up. You have the next three. The first one will be the animal day.
the next one will be the masonic lodge, and the third one will be the second chance month.
so we'll take a presentation and proclamation on behalf of the bexar county commissioner's court,
recognizing april 30th as national therapy animal day and the work of volunteers
cynthia happy buttle, it's not butler, it's buttles, and
linda kaiser and their therapy animals serving the bexar county community. So I'll ask for a correction.
of the agenda to say bottles, b-u-t-t-l-e-s. All right, commissioner
cameron. Thank you so much, judge, and all the team that's
down there. We have this proclamation in the name and by the authority of the
commissioner's court of bexar county, and it reads, whereas therapy animal teams serve communities across the united
states, including bexar county, and whereas pet partners has designated april
30th as national therapy animal day, and whereas research shows that interaction
with therapy animals can reduce stress,
improve mental and physical health, and strengthen the human-animal bond.
and whereas therapy animal teams throughout bexar county play a vital role in enhancing
health and well-being by fostering the human-animal bond, serving a wide range of residents including veterans,
seniors, hospital patients, students, and individuals facing serious illness or
end-of-life care. And whereas bexar county
encourages residents to consider volunteering with organizations such as pet partners to expand access
to therapy animal services across our community, now therefore be it resolved that
the bexar county commissioner's court hereby recognizes and celebrates, we've got a typo here, april
30, 2026 as national therapy animal day.
witness our signature in the seal of office this 28th day of april, 2026, signed by your commissioner's court.
happy and team, happy to hear from you. Or is it the honorable judge
boyd? Thank you so much. Good morning, judge boyd.
oh, good morning. It is an honor to be here, and I want to thank judge sakai and thank the commissioners for doing this.
I can tell you that I've had therapy dogs in my court to help with young witnesses,
because we have that a lot in the felony courts. And they do just such excellent work, and so I'm honored
to be here just to celebrate them, because too
often we overlook the therapy dogs and don't realize that they're actually doing work.
so thank you so much for giving them this honor. Thank you, commissioner
calvert, and thank you, happy and piper. And I think commissioner
roth, excuse me. Me, the honorable judge ron ronhill, 379.
good morning, judge sakai. Good morning, commissioner's court.
I've lost my voice, as we all know. There were two parades this past weekend, and I yelled
probably a little more than I should have. Anyway, I want to thank you for having us today. Let me tell you just a few
moments about what therapy dogs can do and what I've seen in the courtroom. We know that the courtroom is a
rigid, structured place, which doesn't feel very human. But when you consider every aspect of what makes...
the courtroom what it is, it's a human endeavor. Be it judge, jury, witnesses,
victims of crime, defendants, anybody that comes
in as a human being with their own emotions, their own feelings,
their own thoughts about things, and you can feel that stress level really come up.
therapy dogs in the courtroom really, really lowers that. It brings compassion.
it brings an opportunity for folks to feel like everything is okay being
in that particular environment. And sort of as an aside, lately
in the courtroom because of the advent of technology we have seen some real serious
crimes take place by way of example. There was a case where a young man shot at a couple of other
young folks. A police officer runs up to a 16 year old child, turns her
around, tries to save her life and she passes away on video on the
on the officer's dashcam. That was very stressful for the witnesses, very stressful for the jurors. I think the therapy dogs coming
in really helped to alleviate that particular stress,
that particular anxiety, and allowed folks to come with a conclusion that was appropriate.
thank you for what you're doing. They are here to stay. Have a great rest
of the day. Thank you. Thank you. Would y'all please come forward
for your proclamation and a picture?
thank you, guys.
commissioner, presentation of proclamation on behalf of bexar county commissioner's
court recognizing the 150th anniversary of san antonio lodge no.
01, the first masonic lodge of african americans in the state of texas. Go, commissioner clay.
floors. Yeah, I'm reading it for commissioner calvert.
if you guys want to come forward, please. We're at san antonio lodge
no. 1 under the most worshipable prince hall grand lodge. Free and accepted masons of
texas and jurisdictions originate from establishments in 1873.
it was one of the first masonic lodges of black men in texas. Later rechartered as san
antonio lodge no. 1 in 1876. And whereas san antonio lodge
no. 1 has played a significant role in the civic, professional, and spiritual life of bexar
county, counting among its members respected leaders including clergy, physicians, civil rights advocates, military veterans,
and public servants. And whereas, as it commemorates its anniversary, san antonio
lodge no. 1 stands as a lasting testament to the enduring legacy of
prince hall masonry and its commitment to service, education, and the betterment
of mankind. Now, therefore, be it resolved that bexar county
commissioner's court thank you. Hereby recognizes the anniversary of san antonio lodge number one.
thank you so much for being here.
first, give an honor to god, the honorable judge sakai, commissioners. Thank you so much
for the recognition. As stated in the proclamation, we're 150-plus years old.
as being the first, the birthplace of prince hall masonry in texas is important
to us. 150 years of making good men better. And not just the men behind me being mason,
but we're all u.s. Veterans as well in the military, various
services. I know my brother marine. There was over at the downtown for the ceremony for the eight
on the rooftop ceremony. That's when I saw you there,
but that was great. But once again, I want to thank you all. We're looking forward
to not just celebrating 150 years, but celebrating another 50 years.
hopefully I'll be around for that time. I don't think so. But we do have a new generation
of masons that are just coming up with this raise. Or had a ceremony
for three just last week. So we're continuing to do the great work, and thank you so much
for allowing us to be here.
all right. Commissioner tina, presentation on proclamation on behalf of the commissioner's court, recognized in april as second
chance month, highlighting the importance of reentry and recovery support services
for individuals transitioning from incarceration. Thank you so much.
and I'll just say, as masons leave, my grandfather was a 32nd degree mason.
congratulations once again. Well, judge and
commissioners, I want to thank you all for your support of our second chance job fair. This year was one of the most
heartwarming and a real sign of progress. As our teams from the reentry
center come to the dais, we had over 1,000 people who pre-registered and came
for jobs. And many of those folks were
just as involved. We had a record number of employers, I believe over 80 this year.
and this was one of the best and I saw renee watson in the shot taking a picture a moment ago.
she was the first organizer for our office in the county and I want
to thank her all the way up to ida and her great team at the reentry center who have
helped to really change the culture in bexar county of our second
chance community. So this proclamation reads, whereas bexar county is
committed to strengthening public safety and community stability by supporting
individuals returning to their communities, from incarceration
with opportunities for employment, recovery, and reintegration. And whereas second chance month is observed each april
to raise awareness of the barriers faced by justice-involved individuals and to promote policies that
support successful reentry. And whereas the bexar county reentry center works
collaboratively with local systems and community partners to provide evidence-based
reentry and recovery support services that improve outcomes, strengthen families,
families and enhance public safety, and whereas the
dedicated efforts of community organizations, such as unity recovery, provide critical peer-led support,
workforce readiness services, and community-based programs that reduce barriers
to long-term stability, as reflected
in their ongoing participation in the second chance job fair.
now, therefore, be it resolved that the bexar county commissioner's court does hereby proclaim the month of april as second chance
month. Witness our signatures and seal of office this 28th day of april 2026 signed
by your commissioner's court. We'd love to hear from you all at the dais.
good morning judge sakai and commissioners. Thank you for having us here today.
my name is aida negron. I serve as the bexar county reentry manager and I believe in second chances and third
chances and fourth chances and 20th chances because one of
those chances might be the one where a justice-involved person decides
to change the trajectory of their lives.
why is second chance month important to me and to all of us here? Because as at the end of
2023, 1.8 million people were incarcerated in the united
states. This makes the united states the country
with the largest number of prisoners in the world. The u.s.
has roughly 5% of the world's population and has more than 25% of the world's prison
population. The u.s.
incarcerates its citizens more than china, russia, and north korea. In 2021, state and local
governments spent $135 billion
on police, $87 billion on corrections, $52 billion
on courts, which totals $274 billion. That's a lot of money, and I
think we can use that money for more beneficial things for our community.
the one thing that everybody who is in jail and prisons has
in common is that 95% of them will return
to their communities. Why does this matter to bexar county? Because approximately 77 to
100 million americans, roughly
one in three adults, have a criminal record. Additionally, this is the
reason why nearly 75% of people who were formerly incarcerated remain unemployed a year
after being released. To address the issue in bexar county, every april since
2015, commissioner calvert has championed the second chance job fair event
for returning citizens. His team and the reentry
center team, standing here in the black polo shirts,
work diligently to provide an annual job fair at the freeman coliseum expo
hall in honor of national second chance month.
uh-oh, can't turn the page. This is the place where preparation meets opportunity for job seekers. This year, 717 justice-impacted
individuals were able
to provide their resumes to 58 second-chance employers and
speak to them face-to-face. We are so grateful to those
employers who attended our job fair. We can't thank you enough for
being open-minded and giving second chances to people who have completed their sentences
and want to live a crime-free life. You are making it possible.
for them to earn a livable wage and become tax-paying citizens.
we are also blessed to have great community-based organizations that are willing to assist job seekers
with resources at the job fair. Thank you always for being
supportive and filling the gaps. To all the people in bexar
county who are struggling with barriers after incarceration,
please call us or stop by our office.
we want to assist you in your journey to change your life.
nyjah brought some packets. She's our employer specialist. And we want to share that
with you. I also want to thank all of you for recognizing april as
second chance month. And commissioner calvert has
been a champion, like I said, and wonderful at getting the word out
about our event. And I kindly request that you share the packet with employers in your
precincts so that way next year in 2027 we have 100 employers at our job fair.
but lastly, before I finish, or I would like to let nisha
say a few words, if that's okay with everybody.
I wanted to call up susie malone. She is probably the only person
that I know of besides commissioner calvert, who has been at all the second chance job fairs since 2015.
and this thursday, come on, this thursday, she is retiring from the county after 15 years
of service at the jail and at the reentry center. Please help me give her a round
of applause for her hard work and helping incarcerated as well as returning citizens
over the past 15 years. I would appreciate it. Yes.
all right. Ms.
malone? Yeah, she's going to, this is a packet that will help employers
understand. The importance of hiring the formerly incarcerated, as well
as giving them information about how to find the incentives.
shrm, which is a national organization that provides hr
managers with information
on how to change policies at your workplace that will allow
an individual to work there and just not cut them off because they have a background.
thank you so much. Hello everyone, my name is nyjah bar-antis. Like aida had said, I serve as the career and
technical education specialist for the bexar county reentry center.
this proclamation is important because it reflects what we do and what we see every day in our office.
we sit with people who are ready to grow, contribute, and work.
they just need that opportunity, right? Right now there's a big gap between those ready to work and those willing to give the second chance.
we're working really close to educate employers on the incentives and benefits around second chance hiring,
right? We have this big talent pool that's untapped into of people who have certifications and
trainings and are ready to contribute in a meaningful way. This work is about creating
spaces where people are not defined by their past, but recognized for their potential, and where employers choose
to lead with opportunity. Our call to action is very simple, to partner with us, open your
doors, and have employers be a part of a stronger,
more inclusive workforce. When we invest in second chances, we strengthen families
all around bexar county. So thank you all for having us here today.
I'm sorry, I believe the unity people are here as well.
okay thank you very much.
mr. Calvert, for your leadership on the reentry program. Thank you for your support.
all right. The next one will be presentation and proclamation on behalf of the commission court, recognizing may 4th
through the 8th, 2026, as bexar county small business week, and highlighted
in partnership and effort to the u.s. Small business administration, sba, san antonio district office.
texas southwest sbdc network, utsa sbdc, and bexar county small business and
entrepreneurship department. Ms. Renee watson, I will read the
proclamation. Whereas, small businesses are the engine of the american economy and the foundation of a
free and prosperous nation built by people of all backgrounds who work hard, take risks, and believe
in the power of the american dream. And whereas in our fields, on our factory floors, or
at the frontiers, of technology, small businesses
are driving the innovation and building the products that keep america strong, competitive, and secure,
whereas this country's 30 million small businesses create nearly two out
of three net new jobs in our economy. We cannot resolve to create
jobs and spur economic growth in america without discussing ways
to support our entrepreneurs, and whereas the president of the united states has
proclaimed national small business week every year since 1963. To highlight the programs and
services available to entrepreneurships through the u.s. Small business
administration, sba, bexar county small business and entrepreneurship department, and other government agencies,
and whereas the sba recognizes small business owners' successes and contributions to our nation, in celebration
of the winners, the san antonio small business awards
luncheon, co-hosted by texas southwest sbdc network, will be held on may 7, 2026.
at the norse conference center.
now, therefore, it be resolved that the bexar county commission's court hereby proclaims may 4th through may
8th, 2026, as bexar county small business week, signed
by the members of the court. Let's give them a round of applause, too.
good morning. Good morning, and thank you. Renee watson and I serve as the director of the small business and entrepreneurship department at bexar county.
today is game day, which impacts... A lot of small businesses
in our community. So we're going to start off by saying, go spurs, go wrap it up tonight so we can continue
to have more activity as we look forward. The spurs are our partners in our celebration, and today
we have and we recognize in our partnership with the
u.s. Small business administration as well as the ut san antonio
small business development center. Several of their representatives are here,
and we will have remarks from our sba deputy district...
director, inessa, and she will give you some remarks on behalf of the sba.
thank you. Thank you, rene.
good morning, commissioners, partners, and community members.
my name is inessa stepanenko. I'm a deputy district director with the san antonio district
office of u.s. Small business administration. As you said, judge sakai, we've
been around since 1953. Almost 80 years of celebrating national small business week, and we're here
today, and it is our privilege to join you celebrating. National small business week and the proclamation
recognizing may 4th through 8th, 2026 as bexar county small business week.
in a city that has just come of
the energy and traditional
fiesta, it is fitting that we carry that spirit forward by recognizing and celebrating
small businesses and entrepreneurs who power our
local economy. As well as all the partners,
community collaborators, small business champions across bexar county who
champion their success. This recognition reflects the impact and resilience of our
small business community. The sba is proud
of the strong partnership between our office, the texas southwest sbdc network, utsbdc
and of course bexar county small business and
entrepreneurship department along with many other city and county partners.
together we're expanding access to capital, technical opportunities and assistance
to federal contracting.
this collaboration represents the success what it looks like between federal, state, city,
county, academic and local partners working together.
to ensure that small businesses not only endure but grow and thrive.
thank you for your leadership, judge sakai, commissioners, in recognizing our small business community.
we look forward to continuing this important work together. Viva national small business
week, bexar county.
I'm going to do the proclamation, presentation proclamation on behalf of the commission of the court recognizing and
celebrating the greater san antonio chapter of the american red cross. Red cross, please step forward
as I read the proclamation. Whereas claire barton founded american red cross more than
140 years ago since the foundation, generation after generation
of volunteers has stepped up to deliver relief and care across our country and
around the world bringing out the best of humanity
in times of crisis. And the greater san antonio chapter of the american red
cross was first charted on february 11, 1916, sprouting an opportunity for greater san
antonio volunteers and supporters to advance the noble mission of
preventing and alleviating human suffering in the face of today's hardships and emergencies.
and whereas in this year alone, the greater san antonio chapter responded to the 400
disaster events assisting 01,700...
impacted residents of bexar county. The chapter also installed 01,500 smoke alarms in 430 area
homes and an initiative that saved over 30 lives and made
01,200 people safer, including 70 individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, 90 veterans,
220 youth, 160 individuals
with disabilities and 400 seniors.
and whereas this april we celebrate the greater san antonio chapter of the
american red cross by recognizing the compassionate acts of the volunteers,
partners, and donors of the chapter renewing our commitment to lend a helping hand
to neighbors in their greatest times of need. Now therefore be it resolved
that the bexar county commissioners hereby recognize and celebrate the greater san antonio chapter of the
american red cross and encourage all residents to reach out and lend their support to the american red cross.
in carrying out its vital humanitarian mission signed by members of the court.
well, let's give them a round of applause.
all right, that concludes ceremony. I, court, I would like
to take up, before we go to time certain, agenda item number 50, number
5050. We have obviously approved by late file.
we will now take up 50a, discussion and appropriate action regarding approval and
extension to the 2023 agreement. Between bexar county and the
law firm of leinberger, gogan, blair, and sampson, llp, and appraisal collection technologies, a company wholly
owned by the law firm for a 60-day period beginning may 9, 2026, to provide delinquent tax collections and
software license, hardware purchase, and maintenance. Mr.
uresti. Judge, commissioners, thank you for allowing us
to be here today. In march of this year, we, upon the advice of the purchasing
department, an rfq was issued for professional services for delinquent collections and
tax collection software. Leinbarger, goggin, blair, and
sampson llc was the sole respondent.
we currently have a contract with leinbarger that will expire on may 9, 2026.
we are working
to finalize... Our new contract along with the purchasing department so that we can not the problem is they
cannot have a gap in the in or lapse in our contracts
with them so we are asking today for this extension of the current term
for a brief period of 60 days so we can bring back
to court an agreement for the new term I'm going to turn over to mr.
galloway and then cliff douglas from line bargain is here if you all have any
questions. Agreed.
your honor, commissioners, good morning. Greg galloway, bexar county purchasing agent.
just as al just stated, we are working through the extension, requesting an extension, so
that we can finalize the new agreement with landbarger.
if you have any specific questions, we'd be glad to address those for you.
move approval of the extension. Commissioner calvert?
I was just moving approval of the extension. I'm sorry. Motion by commissioner calvert?
second. Second by commissioner rodriguez. Any further discussions? Hearing none, all those
in favor of the motion, signal by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions?
motion carries. Mr. Cliff douglas, let me thank you for your services and the
professional services that you provide the county. If you have any words, I will yield the floor
to you. Otherwise, we're moving on to our next agenda item. Judge and commissioners,
thank you very, very much. I'm cliff douglas. I have been with the law firm.
oh my gosh, since 1987, and we've had the privilege to represent bexar county to
collect its delinquent property taxes for the past 46 years, I think, and we want
to continue that, and it's an honor and a privilege for us to do so, so we thank you.
this is, as mr. Uresti said, this is a 60-day extension
to allow us to just finalize the terms of the agreement, so thank you
very, very much. We appreciate it very much. Thank you. All right.
I believe we're at the time certain, so we will now go to agenda item 5a.
presentation, discussion, jail diversion program and
strategies. Thomas guevara, you have the floor.
for purposes for the public, we've estimated that this may take an hour and a half.
and I apologize, but we have this
for time certain. We need to take this up. And I believe we have a
presentation to be made and perhaps we have people, I do believe we have citizens
to be heard. I will call you up after the presentation. But mr.
guevara, I yield the floor to you for the presentation on the issues regarding jail
diversion programs and strategies of bexar county. Thank you, judge,
commissioners, for the record, thomas guevara, office of the county manager. I'm joined today by leticia
moreno, our deputy director for the office of criminal justice. As well as antonio
salazar-rosas, our pre-trial services manager. I'm also joined by dr.
andrea guerrero, our director of public health, as well as many
of your partners here. At the request of commissioner's court, staff was tasked
to bring back a discussion item on various public safety strategies to reduce jail population.
community discussion on jail population and the issue of diversion has been amplified
in recent months. Those conversations continue to highlight that our county jail
serves as the largest de facto mental health hospital for mental illness.
as of monday, yesterday, april
27th, the jail track report indicated the custodial jail population at 4,685 compared
to 4,975 the same day last
year.
so as part of our agenda today, staff will cover the following areas. First, we will cover two concepts that tend to be used synonymously, but
have distinct characteristics, deflection and diversion. We will then provide an
overview and a snapshot. Of both the office of criminal justice and the
public health department's activities in both deflection and diversion.
the presentation will include a progress report on implemented recommendations
from two previously funded commissioner's court studies on our criminal justice system,
and we will conclude with the availability for comments and share other community efforts aimed
at reducing jail population. So as I mentioned earlier, court, the use of deflection
and diversions are sometimes used interchangeably, but for the purposes of this
presentation and using the national association of pretrial services definition,
we want to ensure that we're providing distinct terminology and definitions
for both terms. So we're going
to make this very simple. Deflection programs will be those efforts where that occurs before an individual is
arrested. And diversion programs are those after an arrest occurs,
but prior to conviction. But I want to be clear that both concepts aim to address
underlying issues that offer treatment instead of incarceration.
I would also like to take this opportunity
before we move on to recognize commissioner's court and this county's efforts in diversion.
going back to the mid-90s with the establishment of the adult drug specialty court,
we've been recognized as a leader in those areas. So I'd like
to remind we've been doing this for years. And, in fact, those specialty
courts have expanded. I believe we have 12 now in a variety of specialty areas.
so deflection. The next few slides will cover
the concept of deflection in the criminal justice realm. The emergence of deflection
programs recognizes that justice-involved individuals
could be helped before an arrest occurs. Deflection may allow
for a law enforcement officer to drop off an individual at a treatment center in lieu of an arrest.
charges are either suspended or never filed by the district attorney's office, and no arrest record is created.
eligibility for which charges to pursue is at the discretion
of the district attorney's office, a very key point. Examples of eligible charges
include theft charges under $750, possession
of marijuana. Less than four ounces and criminal justice and mental
health histories are factors taken into consideration whether an individual is
determined eligible for deflection. A deflection location is where
treatment begins immediately and an example of that is the
public sobering unit operated by chcs. Another key criminal deflection
program employed here in
bexar county is cite and release.
and it's used by law enforcement to issue citations instead
of taking someone into custody for certain low-level offenses. Cite and release is used
in cases for non-violent misdemeanors, such as minor theft, trespassing, low-level drug
possession, and traffic violations. Benefits include preventing
low-level offenders from being booked unnecessarily into our adc, and increases efficiencies
in both time and resources for law enforcement. Some of our participating
agencies are listed below, including sapd, our sheriff's office, and a variety
of our suburban cities. The next couple
of slides will cover the concept of diversion and current programs operated by or in partnership with the
office of criminal justice. Again, the eligibility is at the discretion
of the da's office for what charges to pursue. Again, criminal justice and mental health history are
important factors. And when an individual is not eligible for diversion, that
can occur when a pr bond is denied by the judge, a case is dismissed prior to us
finishing our referral process, or if the defendant himself or herself denied the pr bond or
diversion program directly. So the office of criminal
justice participates and oversees a variety of diversion programs,
including gps for pretrial defendants and specialty courts,
as I previously discussed. Earlier today, commissioner's court,
on your consent agenda, approved a memorandum of understanding with the center for healthcare services
for jail-based competency restoration, targeting 80 individuals in an effort
to increase access to restoration services and reducing the inpatient
psychiatric bed wait list. And jillian jameson and her
team are here with us and available for questions.
I would also like to take a little point of recognition of our staff. Obviously, y'all fund...
a variety of these programs through your annual budget, but we're always constantly looking
for partnerships and opportunities to reduce jail efforts. So I'd like to bring antonio up
here to talk about the county court at law 2 pilot program with the nonprofit continuum.
again, that is for outpatient services, and I'd ask antonio to come up and just kind of
highlight what we're doing there.
good morning, judge and commissioners. I've been asked to... Span a little bit on the county court ii pilot program with continuum.
as thomas highlighted, this is one of the programs where the treatment services,
really it's a partnership within providers in the community.
and I want to give you some numbers on that program, right, and a little bit
of information on that program. So judge sines, the presiding judge for county court ii, had reached out to me in 2025
while I was the jail population impact control unit manager. And she was asking me as far
as, what services do we have for individuals that are getting released into the community
for addressing substance use, mental health, homelessness. One of the things that became
apparent is that we have, obviously, those are the three major issues when we look
at jail population. So we started working on the potential of addressing
and identifying individuals with substance use disorders that were being released
into the community. So in august 2024, we started this pilot program,
and I will say at the beginning, it was supported through the gel diversionary process and programs that we have
through ocj. And lifetime recovery was our prime partner for the outpatient services.
and the reason I want to highlight outpatient services is we identified that
individuals releasing to the community, especially with a charge from county
court number 2, are misdemeanor cases. A lot of these individuals we
wanted to, one, ensure that substance use disorder was an issue for them, and two, we wanted to address it in an appropriate way,
right? And that was done through a couple of ways. Public health provided
at the beginning of the program by helping us, right, with the screenings and
identifying the appropriate type of treatment for these individuals.
we wanted to focus on outpatient treatment because we understand that individuals getting released back
into the communities on bond still have jobs. Families and other things that
they still have to be out in the community, right, so that they can be successful.
so with county court 2 and the continuum partnership that we started in december of 2025, I
just want to give you some numbers,
right? So we've been able from pretrial services to continuum 226 referrals.
out of those 226 referrals from individuals being released
into the community, 109. Are currently engaged in programming right now.
fifty-five have successfully completed their outpatient treatment and are still out
in the community. Fifty-nine have been referred to a higher level of care,
which is residential services or medicated assistant treatment.
and also part of that fifty-nine has also had their cases adjudicated or dismissed
and no longer in pretrial supervision. The big key of this program is, like
thomas mentioned, it's not something that is really costing the county money
in the sense of funding for treatment. We've been able to partner up with continuum, and continuum
is providing this treatment as long as we have a pathway and a way to work together.
so these 226 referrals, we've been able to, again, work on those individuals
without any of the diversionary funding.
and again, really what that has done to pretrial services, ocj, the office of criminal
justice, is really identifying... Other partnerships and funding, right, that is
in the community to be able to assist individuals as they're going back into the community, right?
and one of the things, since I'm here, I wanted to highlight from pretrial and as we speak about, you know,
diversion programs, is when we're looking at diversion on our end, right,
office of criminal justice, we're looking at it through a lens of the judicial system,
right? So when I'm looking at the criminal justice system and the jail population, for example, I am taking a look at it
from a population standpoint of what stage are they within the judicial process.
again, a big part of the jail population many times is the
pretrial stage, and it's individuals that have not been
adjudicated and are waiting to go to court for their cases. We have other parts of the jail
population that are part of individuals that have been sentenced and are waiting a
treatment bid. We have individuals, as thomas mentioned. Our partnership with the
center for healthcare services in addressing incompetency that are still remaining at the jail.
but when we're looking at that version, I want to make sure that everybody understands that we are definitely,
public safety is at the forefront of what we do,
and we're always looking at public safety. To ensuring that individuals that are being diverted to
programs are those individuals that are going to benefit from this programming and that are
low-risk offenders going back into the community. When we're looking
at diversion, we're also looking obviously at mental health,
like I mentioned earlier, substance use disorder, and unsheltered individuals.
and again, our support also goes to reentry and post-release
of individuals coming out of the jail. Because our main goal at the office of criminal justice is
to reduce recidivism. And again,
those are the things I wanted to share with you regarding some of the programming and criminal justice diversion programs.
thank you. Thanks, antonio.
and I felt to recognize tony kostadis, our director over at the justice intake and assessment area. Thanks, tony.
so to date, this slide includes a snapshot of this year's fiscal year stats to date for current
criminal justice diversion and deflection programs. For example, as you see here,
in the area of residential treatment, we've served 136 individuals
to date, with a projected 275 individuals to be treated by september of 2026.
in the area of transitional housing, through criminal justice,
we've served over 100 individuals, but they projected 215
individuals to receive assistance by the end of the fiscal year.
so now we'll move into the area of public health and the public health department and their deflection
and diversion programs. So again, programs that you see on this slide here, court,
you've seen on the side of criminal justice as well. But one of the most visible
programs we have in this community in the terms of deflection is our smart
program, a crisis intervention team specialized in de-escalation that provides
on-scene behavioral health support during emergencies.
again, these programs are intended to be preventative. Sorry about that. So now we'll move into some
specific diversion programs
in public health. The bexar county department
of public health oversees the mental health and idd assessment processes that occur in the gia in partnership
with uhs and acog, and I know we have our partners at uh here, uh became the mental health provider
in the gia in october of 2025, and public health is
implementing a pathway for diversions for those released directly
from the gia. That includes multiple providers.
those providers include ut san antonio, true mental health, and others. That will facilitate referrals
to mental health appointments and other services, including transportation. Again, another snapshot
of those strategies in the public health realm. Again, this court, one thing I would like
to highlight in the funding column, this court has invested a lot
of opioid dollars to cover most, if not all, the substance use disorder programs
within the strategies attached. So we've gone over deflection and diversion programs,
both operated by office of criminal justice, our partners,
and the public health department. So what does that mean for our
jail population and our team over there? As you can see, the yellow line graph illustrates jail
population averages with diversion programs since 2023, fiscal year 2023.
the blue line represents that without that county and
community investments and efforts, jail population would have reached over 6100.
individuals last year putting even more strain on detention staff and costing this
community with out-of-county beds.
as I mentioned earlier and as part of the discussion, I would like to highlight certain programs and projects that this court has invested
in based on two important criminal justice-based assessments that we've
conducted, the meadows study and the ut health houston
study. Conducted by dr. Tessa and his team. As you can see from the chart, there's been
significant investments by this commissioner's court through the american rescue plan act, opioid funding,
to facilitate many of the resolutions through those recommendations.
we've also had partnerships like the mou with chcs on gel-based competency in regards to the meadows
study. So kind of this particular chart is just to kind of
highlight where we've completed some of those recommendations. Areas that are still in
progress and those funding sources. One key recommendation
in the ut... The health houston study observation is the issue of dual magistration.
dr. Tess's study recommended assembling a joint county-city
working group to end the dual magistration system to address inefficiencies and challenges
posed by the current system. The working group should work
collaboratively to plan a transition to a unified system where all
detainees are processed at a single centralized facility. It will be important.
should the court direct us to go
down that path that we work with dan curry and his team to do any of our needs assessments
for facilities?
and again, commissioners and staff here, we can't do this alone. There's a lot
of collaborative efforts here. It's not all on the sheriff's office. It's not all on the staff back
here. Our court or some of our other internal partners,
but we have a lot of collaborative efforts that are currently ongoing, are about to kick off.
the first is a chds cosa, city of san antonio, I should say, a university health funded
diversion feasibility study that has kicked off just recently.
and we'll be, our staff will be a part of that as far as those interviews
are concerned. Secondly, commissioner rodriguez and councilwoman
castillo, we'll be kicking off a diversion and recovery committee to work and
commissioner I'll kind of defer to you down the line
to discuss that a bit more. And another area that we wanted
to highlight was our southwest texas crisis collaborative, which we
commonly refer to as the stic. Again, the stic is a
wide-ranging collaboration that has existed over many years that consists of hospital systems, our mental
health providers. The city of san antonio, bexar county, and chcs, with strac
serving as the convener, data partner,
and subject matter expert on resource coordination. Eric epley is also here and
available for questions. So as we start to wind down,
staff recognizes that we must do more and we can do more. It will require strengthening
our partnerships, both internally and externally. Therefore, staff is committed,
and we would recommend that we first start with reviewing our internal policies and
procedures to make sure that we are optimizing all our efficiency opportunities. Again, one area that we've not
addressed to a previous assessment is dual
magistration, so we've identified that as a future strategy.
and we would continue to identify grant funding, both local, state, and federal,
to help try to bridge the gap with some of these areas. So in summary, I just want
to recognize that bexar county, we have invested in many process improvements that
have already been identified in previous assessments. We've put money
into capital programs, projects to expand bed capacity.
one example is the american rescue plan apple white dual diagnosis center that we ribbon
cut back october, november of last year. And we've expanded bed and housing treatment capacity.
but we also recognize that there's further challenges and
opportunities to address. So the first, the big one here, is dual magistration.
again, I've already talked about optimizing our process to improve efficiencies.
we want to look at other ways that we can provide support services
to reduce recidivism. Again, one area I did not go over that this court has heard
previously was the sash reuse study. That dan curry presented back
in november, december of 2024. I know that is more of a
long-term strategy down the line that's going to require legislation and other
collaborative efforts, but we've listed that on here.
and one area, as we were going through this presentation and we were receiving updates from our partners,
we've also been made aware of certain gaps. I mentioned earlier the dual
diagnosis center at applewhite. That the facility facility has
been completed but in our discussions with jarvis anderson who I believe is here as well we've identified some
gaps in particular gaps in uh funding for substance use
uh uh disorders and on that side
of the the coin there so uh we at the moment you're correct so 130 I believe that's 130 beds
if you double up that's about 200.
but jarvis working with the
department of public health, I believe we're going to try to formulate a strategy here. Jarvis and dr. A speak a little bit more
to that, but we've identified possibly using opioid funding
to bridge that gap. But again, that's over 100 individuals currently in the
jail that once we get started, that's a short-term solution that we can address
immediately. So with that, I will turn over the presentation for questions, comments.
and again, we have both staff, various partners, ed banos and his team here as well.
also again, court, we'll turn it back over to you.
the court for direction. We have citizens to be heard. I'd like to call them up, and then we'll get back
to any further discussion, and then I will open up the commissioners to direct
questions or other speakers. All right? So at this time, I'm bringing
up those that signed up for citizens to be heard on this particular agenda item. Oh, commissioner rodriguez.
point of personal privilege. Yeah, thank you, judge.
I guess in sticking with the theme, if I can divert the conversation briefly, we've got
some young students up here from wilson elementary in saisd.
can you guys stand and be recognized?
give them a round of applause. They are here. Madi, thank you for arranging the tour. And they're here learning about
local government and civic engagement. These are all future leaders.
we're very proud. Proud of what you do in representing your school and
your community. So thank you for being here. I know marty's taking great care of you.
marty, thank you for doing that. Again, continue on, study hard, and we look forward to you guys
leading this city and county in the future. Thank you.
thank you. All right.
citizens be heard. Lydia laos, you're first. Lydia laos.
good morning, judge. Good morning, commissioners. Thank you for allowing us to be here. My name is lidia leos.
I have voices behind the cell. It is from grief to justice, from silence
to accountability. My name is lidia leos, and I stand here
before you as the mother of julian denna. My son entered the bexar
county jail alive. He should have come home alive. Instead, I was left with a pain that no parent should...
ever carry with questions no family should ever have
to fight to have answered julian was not a case number he was not a statistic he was my
son he was loved valued and his life mattered I'm sorry what
began as heartbreak became a purpose what began as grief
became a movement through voices behind the cell I now stand for
every family who has been ignored dismissed or left in the dark
after losing a loved one in custody. Too many families in texas
still face the same failures. Delayed notification during emergencies or
hospitalizations. Lack of clear answers when a loved one is in a crisis. Mental health needs ignored or
mishandled. Inadequate medical care.
preventable deaths followed by silence. Families forced to search
for truth on their own. That is why we demand real
reform. What must change now? Immediate family notification
during emergencies, hospitalizations, or death. Independent investigation
in all in-custody deaths. Mental health treatment and
diversion before jail becomes the answer. Accountability for negligent
medical care.
public transparency on death and critical incidents. Consequences
for repeated failures, respect for every human life in custody, message
to elected officials, to sheriff salazar, county commissioner, judges,
lawmakers, the power to correct the system is in your hands.
families should not have to become investigators to learn what happened to their loved ones.
we need action. We need transparency. We need accountability.
we need correction in bexar county jail and across. Texas in loving memory of
julian denna. Julian's name will not be
forgotten. His life now fuels fight for truth and change because custody should never become a
death sentence because silence projects silence protects negligence because every family deserves answers.
I should not have stayed
at home not knowing my son was on life support for 12 hours
because the jail was lazy. Two hours is enough time.
to be busy, put your paperwork together, but not 12, not 10 hours where we don't know that
our loved ones have been transported out of the facility and are
on life support. By the time I got the next of kin call, all I was left to
do was disconnect life support. Thank you so much and have a
good day.
good morning, commissioners. I am jolene jamison, the ceo for chcs. I want to thank you earlier
for your support in the mou with chcs to continue the jail-based competency program
currently being operated at our jail. Chcs has been an innovator and
been involved in jail diversion since 1994, and we stand before you enjoying the investment,
previous investment, by university health in the meadows study and by bexar
county in the ut study. And we've used those studies to communicate
with our community over the past eight months about the importance of a jail diversion center and promoting
therapeutic justice for this community. But we can't do it alone.
the strategy that you're discussing today of limiting access to the
criminal justice system should work hand-in-hand with the expansion of therapeutic justice.
therapeutic justice focuses on the overall well-being, it's a collaborative approach,
and it certainly involves problem-solving courts to address the issues that we're
seeing in our community. While therapeutic justice reforms the experience within the system, we do
believe limiting exposure also aims to keep people out of the system. And so we need investment
in both. Decriminalization, diversion
programs, and community-based programming will work
hand-in-hand in reducing the overall negative collateral consequences that we are
experiencing in our community with individuals who live with mental health and substance use
issues and find themselves staying in jail. I hope you will continue to
support your staff's involvement with chcs in validating the feasibility and
need of a diversion center and coming up with a plan
to recommend to both bexar county and the city of san
antonio, but we need all of bexar county to support this effort.
we need your district attorney's office, we need your judicial departments,
and we need your staff to come to the table with us as we develop this plan.
for this diversion center in this community. Our goal is that it will be a therapeutic alternative
to jail for individuals with low-level offenses and nonviolent offenses who cycle
through the system because of untreated mental illness and idd.
this community needs a jail diversion center to reduce our jail population,
to improve our overall health outcomes and extend the life
expectancy of our citizens in this community. And we need
to lower the long-term cost to our taxpayers, excuse me.
so I come to you today seeking your support for this effort, continued work with your staff,
but the continued support of all of bexar county as we
consider this jail diversion center in the future. I thank you for your support.
goldie van zandt.
good morning, commissioners and judge. My name is goldie van zandt. I am a u.s. Navy veteran and a client
advocate with texas jail project. We are a statewide advocacy
organization working on county jails, contention, and pretrial detention. Our co-founder
in the ed serves on the administrative rules advisory committee of the texas
commission on jail standards and the texas judicial commission on mental health.
we heard judge sikai's presentation at the jail
commission meeting in february on the proposal for a mental health diversion center, and we
read the 72-page report that he submitted to the commission.
what's missing from that report was data on the worst outcomes. Are being held
in your county jail, which is custody death. We ran a quick analysis based
on data from the texas commission on jail standards for the past decade. You can see in the handout,
124 people reportedly died in custody between 2015 and
2025. Most of them were pretrials.
in the past five years, the number of deaths in bexar county have almost matched
harris county. Despite the jail population being roughly half of harris
county. The majority of these deaths seem to be driven
by suicides. What's missing from our analysis of deaths is the connection
with the mental health ccq data and the forensic wait list, data that only the county has
access to. We recommend that before this court invests a lot
of resources into a diversion center, you may consider doing a deep dive.
into your jail psychiatric population. Except for harris county,
diversion centers in all counties are being underutilized because all
diversion is voluntary and only for low-level, non-violent charges.
plus, new legislation such as senate bill 6 from 2021 and
senate bill 9 from 2025 prevent diversion on a wide range
of charges. In our experience, there's a revolving door
between the public mental health thank you. And the county jail system, due to the lack of continuity
of care protocols upon release from jail, and your local mental health authority's
pattern of practice of placing people in appropriate levels of care.
but instead of studying the effectiveness of lnh programs,
counties keep expanding their jails, which doesn't help solve the underlying problem.
the state has advocated its responsibility to create a meaningful continuum I'm sorry.
community-based mental health care and push this crisis into the counties where you are now
paying for a public health issue through your limited public
safety dollars. The idd population is a good example of this issue.
the state-supported living centers or slcs are intolerant for people with idd,
but instead of placing them on the inpatient care wait list, your aacog provides inappropriate placements such
as group hoaxes. Leading to arrests and more criminalizations.
how do we know this? Hhsc's own data. The largest number
of transfers to slcs of people with idd happens
from county jails. So instead of accessing an slc through the silver side,
this population is forced into jail first before they can access slc through the for-requisite
pathway. Yes, we don't have enough slc beds, but hhsc has made no
recommendation to the legislature for expanding those beds.
they seem more than comfortable pushing people into jails and prisons. Our organization helped pass
two riders last session. One mandated the jail commission
to collect and publish ccq data in order for hhsc to create a
community-based option for the high-needs population that
cycles between the jail and streets. We hope this court will take advantage of these riders
to make robust, data-informed decisions. Thank you for your time.
judge, commissioners, and the rest of the people here, ma'am,
I'm very sorry to hear about your loss. I want to compliment the court here today.
several things I've already seen. Is that you have your second
chance program was here, your court therapy animals, which is a huge help,
a lot more than people realize, especially for juveniles. Your diversion speakers,
at some point we'd love to talk to them. That was an excellent
presentation and a very good start for what you're looking to do.
and also the man who just spoke about therapeutic justice, that's also what I'm here
to talk to you about today. Addressing those issues. My name is jeff bradley.
I'm with hok architecture. I'm their national director and
I live here in texas. And the first diversion type
program that addressed mental health I was involved in was dallas county about 14 years ago.
we did 200 mental health beds, 100 medical beds, and it's been a very successful program
for them. Since then, our firm is actually a leader.
and civic and justice design work, but we're not just architects, we're consultants.
we have the health care people inside. We have mental health people. We also work
with other firms such as meadows. Actually, your uhs study,
we did that. We worked for meadows, and we were here involved in that with alta architecture, a local
firm here, on your uhs program. It was about two years ago,
and that was for a new medical facility, a clinic, and an infirmary. A few other things I'd like
to share with you and talked about is what's important is that the people you talk
to are also experts in the operational of the actual justice system, both the system overall and
then also within the jail itself. And that's where the sheriff and those folks really need
to be involved as well. Your mental health people, the sheriff people, the leadership and such
in order to deliver a successful program over the past.
over the last eight or ten years or so, we've done 11 mental health diversion facilities for counties
around the country, a little over 1,900 specialty beds for that.
for states, we've done 12 specialty mental health facilities in state prisons,
totaling over 6,000 beds. So we've done almost 8,000 beds for special mental health
needs. Somebody mentioned earlier
today that... About the number of people who have mental health issues, and over 60% of the people who are
incarcerated around the country do have mental health issues, and the majority of them are
on some sort of psychotropic drugs. It's important that you have people that you have access to.
all the people from our firm that would ever do any work for you,
we actually have a complete judge, commissioners, the time has expired.
I'm sorry, that's three minutes? Okay.
yeah, I've got some things to pass out here to you
to the additional projects I got for the commissioner's court, for dan curry, the county
auditor, and some letters from other county judges around the state for you
to take a look at. So thank you for your time.
all right. Was there anybody else signed up? That's all I had for item number five.
let me then yield to commissioner moody. Oh, can you state your name?
no? Let me yield to you and then,
oh, there's one more.
judge oscar kazin, are you here on agenda item number five? Number five?
yes. Do you have your three minutes?
I know this is only the citizens to be heard part. But I just wish to echo
for everyone that, especially in the 25 plus years that I've
been doing mental health, it is a much bigger process. And I admire what the
commissioner's court in this county is doing by way of the jail and jail diversion
and preventing the deaths and preventing injuries
at the jail, et cetera. But I just wanted to pause in all of the discussion just to surround the community
at large. I know you're aware of it. That that pipeline that we speak
to today is so much bigger. For example, most people are
unaware that we conduct and do over 10,000 emergency detentions.
that's where somebody is dangerous to suffer, others, a police officer has shown up. In days past,
they would have gone to the jail. Can you imagine right now?
if those emergency detentions, if the teams that were devoted to transferring them to
hospitals weren't available. Can you imagine what the
discussion would be today if you had to deal with another 10,000 arrests? Because if there's no place
to go, the bexar county jail is the biggest mental health facility in the county. I urge the community at large
and this commission and the commissioner's court, after they get past this very
important task of jail and jail diversion, to continue the discussion. On the rest
of that pipeline. Those are the court programs and court agendas that keep
people out of jail. Those are the services that we provide, and they'll hand
off afterwards. Those are the things that truly impact, in the end, our jail population.
and lastly, I urge this commission to look at how we can build a bigger
system of providers in this community, a bigger system
of help and utilization. So that we have many voices that we can rely
on when we need their help. With that, like I said, I just wanted it
to be a quick reminder to the public at large, should they be watching, that this pipeline is so much
bigger. Although this is as terribly important as anything else,
the rest of that pipeline shouldn't be forgotten. Your long-standing commitment
to the probate courts as a probate judge and obviously for the mental health system. And I'll just kind
of tie the, connect the dots, so to speak. Your program truly is part of deflection. That's what you just said.
without your system, we would probably have 10,000 people more in our criminal,
and perhaps that's an over-exaggeration, but there would be many,
many more people. So it is a very complicated, complex system.
it is a need of funding and initiative, and the ability of this community
to come together with all the different parts. Of our justice system.
so thank you, judge kayser, for bringing that up to us. I want to thank tomas as well.
he's been very good in talking to us about this. Thank you. All right.
having heard that, let me yield to commissioner moody and open up. And commissioner moody, if we
need the team to come back up, do you want the team to come back up?
please, but there's going to be a lot of players. All right. So thomas and team,
come back. Yes.
okay.
so, first of all, I appreciate the presentation. I'm glad we're here. I think this discussion was
overdue, but at least we're here.
I just want to reiterate, to me, you know, there may be
some things we disagree on here, but this is not a political issue. It starts as a public safety
issue, and then it becomes a management issue and a leadership issue.
and that's why... I think we have to come to the table here.
we have to have serious conversations about all the current problems our criminal
justice system is facing and then how we address them as a
county and with our partners, many of which are here
in the room. So, thank you to all the
partners. I'm definitely looking forward to getting your thoughts here as well. First of all, I'll apologize up
front. I covered a lot of information and there's other things I still have to say.
so I'll try to get through everything here and hopefully get some engagement and conversation going
on where we go from here. Where we stand today. So thomas, you mentioned our
current capacity at the jail, which puts us probably
in what, 93%, 94%, something like that.
no, brandon wood later can talk to us about recommendations from the state
about 90% capacity going beyond 90% can become a strain.
how much of our county budget is currently spent
at the jail? And I don't need the exact
figure here. I'm not trying to put anybody
on the spot. But in terms of all the
detention officers we have. Which is close
to a thousand. Do you have a ballpark figure? At the jail? I think that might include
patrol. 87 million. I was going to say 100 million,
so I was pretty close. We'll throw in overtime costs.
what were our overtime costs last year, tina? 20. So down here, over 100 million.
a million dollars just at the county jail. A huge portion of the county
budget, and that doesn't include the rest of the criminal justice system.
this is the centerpiece of the county's budget and our work. How much did we spend last year housing inmates out
at a cost? About $4 million.
is that what we budgeted this
year? Yeah, $4.5 million, I think.
but based on the change in cost at kerr county, we
increased that $2 million, correct? Correct.
if we use those beds as expected. So you got another $4 to $8 million there, depending
on how many beds you plan to use
at surrounding counties. Going to your presentation,
I know you had some numbers here, but the total amount of investments in criminal
justice strategies. Whether that's an annual number or over the past few years,
if I'm just looking at what's on this... Presentation looks like a couple million dollars I'm
sorry commissioner can you repeat that question which
slide are you looking at just the funding for current criminal justice strategies
those are the ones that you have highlighted here on slide eight yeah that sounds
about right uh commissioner again this is for this current fiscal year so it doesn't incorporate investments that
we've had through arpa that are multi-year, et cetera. So this is fiscal year only. Okay.
I'm sorry, I missed the number, commissioner. Was that $8 million, did you
say, commissioner? Well, I said two based on the numbers I'm seeing
on slide eight. And again, it does not include commissioner calvert. As you know, we've added a lot of residential permanent
supportive housing through arpa. It doesn't include any of those numbers.
what you've invested in for rehabbing, you know, the commons of the st.
peter's trails, et cetera, some of those community-based programs that you could also
incorporate into this dollar amount. So this is just a snapshot.
okay. And then going to the public health strategies, there's even
a lot more than that. It looks like $45 to $50 million. That is correct.
okay. And I'll come back to that to you here in a second. But I think my point up front
is we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the criminal justice system, right?
so that absolutely demands the level of attention and focus and conversation that we're trying to have here today.
spending some time actually diving into this, not to mention the deaths that we heard about earlier and some
of the other concerns that are out there in the jail. So...
let me circle back to a couple
other comments just to make. So I know the the jail
population has bounced around significantly right we're
actually down several hundred from where we were kind of
at a peak however if you look at the expected growth rates
for bexar county over the next 15 years we're
projected to grow 29 percent over the next 35 years 54%. If you just held incarceration
rates constant, that would lead to an additional 1,500 inmates in 15 years or 2,500 inmates
in 35 years.
again, incarceration rates constant.
so I think that begs the question, first of all,
are we planning for that level of growth, or are there some
assumptions underlying here that, you know, incarceration rates are going
to dramatically decrease or, you know, the throughput of our court system is going
to go from 60 days to 30 days or are there some other assumptions that I'm totally missing?
because if we look at the numbers we have today and the current trajectory of growth,
then it begs the question, like what are your assumptions if you don't think we need
additional capacity? I think it's a fair question for everybody in the room.
so I'm, and again,
I didn't want to dive into, you know, this just being a capacity conversation because
there's multiple pieces here. And I am not opposed to exploring diversion.
I've said several times that I think diversion efforts are
necessary but not sufficient to solve the overall problem.
and so there's some short-term solutions.
there's... Diversion efforts, there's things we maybe can clean up
in our court system, but ultimately there's some mid-long-term solutions that
are going to require some serious investments by bexar county.
and I think we can't look past that because we know that these big projects can take years,
and not two or three years,
five, six, seven years by the time we actually see them realized. I'm going to come back to some
of the presentations that have
been referenced and highlighted here. One other thing I wanted
to mention, I see there's three separate discussion items, I think, today. To me, there's this demand part
of the problem that mainly wraps around deflection and
diversion. How are we not creating... How are we reducing the demand
for facilities and bed space? And we can talk about that. And then there's supply side,
and this really has to do with facilities.
this has to do with dan curry.
this has to deal with the sheriff. This has to do with us talking about additional mental health
beds, forensic beds, civil beds, potentially jail beds, medical beds, all
of the above. And then there's a third part
of this, and to be honest, this has come more to me in the last...
couple days, but there is there are issues around coordination and partnership
in this space that we have to address. And, you know, we can't dive
really deep into each one of those here today,
but we got a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but we have to remember we're on the same
team and know that we're trying to move the county forward.
and, you know, based on some of the things I've heard and some of the fights,
the ongoing fights that we have between different organizations
and different partners, we need to work through this for the good of the county.
we can't see contracts lapse. We can't see people not get paid.
we can't allow some of the capacity we do have to disappear.
we're talking about additional capacity we need, and I know
eric epley can speak to the fact that we're losing capacity today. So some serious questions are
going to have to be answered on that front. Let me just go back
to your presentation, and there's a few things here. Let's just go back to the
public health strategies and the criminal justice strategies you mentioned.
you said we've been doing diversion for a long time, correct?
correct. I know a previous version of one of these slides actually
had... Total cases versus eligible.
versus accepted for diversion.
what percent of total inmates today are eligible for diversion?
so total percent and should we not have someone
from the sheriff's office to answer that?
I bring up I doubt he's going to be able to answer that. I do know I do know, in looking
over the last couple of fiscal years, the individuals who go through the doors at the adult
detention center ranges between 37,000 to 38,000 individuals,
unique individuals that go through those doors. About 50% of those individuals
are released within three days, three to four days.
under the current charges that we went over that are allowed
by the da's office that are eligible, we were identifying through a fiscal year more or
less around 1,000 individuals that we deemed eligible, just kind of a round number.
of that 1,000, I believe we were actually diverting maybe
anywhere between 500 to 600 individuals of that number.
so, again, those are over the last few fiscal years,
so just kind of high-level numbers. Again, I just want to get at the ballpark figures so we can
understand. And that percentage was 26%. According
to staff this fiscal year, correct, jennifer? You said 26% were eligible? Yes, for pr bonds only.
so, well, now I'm going to have to try
to reconcile the 26% with the 01,000 versus 40,000 because I thought it was a much smaller
percentage based on those numbers that you first provided.
yes, I think the percentage I gave you was for one set of eligible.
so, I would... I would go off the whole numbers that I just presented. Okay. Well, whether it's a few
percentage points or whether it's 20%, it's still a smaller percentage
of the total, right, who are eligible. If 26% of those were eligible, then you would have a lot more.
I mean, you're talking about thousands
of people potentially. So I'm not sure. Again, we need clarity
on that, exactly who's eligible. I think one of the other
questions I had was just in terms of the funding that is being spent there today for
both public health and criminal justice strategies.
we're highlighting this and we're throwing out numbers. We don't really know what
additional need, additional capacity available.
and how productive, like what are the performance indicators
here? We're showing numbers that have gone through this program, we're spending money
on these, but I don't really see the performance indicators or knowing the capacity. Hey, we actually have another,
you know, 100 residential treatment beds, and there is a demand, and there are eligible
individuals. You know, what's the sticking point? Or is it transitional housing?
well, we're at 100, we're capped out, we have no capacity. So there's no understanding
of what the... The limits are on some of these categories or what the additional costs would be.
and so I think it's hard for us to determine. We had a conversation with
advanos and jimmy haslacher and his team.
I know they showed the triangle of care, right? And at the bottom, we have a lot of these public
health strategies and investments. But how do we think about the performance
of them, where there's additional need? How are the gearing ratios between all these categories?
and the other question I'll just mention before you jump in is, of all these dollars
that are listed here, what's the breakdown between
bexar county dollars, arpa dollars, opioid dollars? Because I think we need to
understand whether those existing investments are going
to be able to continue or whether they're going to have to now come out
of the general fund to continue. If they were arpa-funded or opioid-funded,
and so if you could speak to that as well. Thank you, commissioner's
judge. I'm dr. Andrea guerrero. I'm the director of public
health for bexar county, and I can speak specifically to the public health strategies, but I will reiterate that the reason we're doing this presentation
and presenting public health alongside the office of criminal justice is to demonstrate how we dovetail
these strategies. Public health is focused on primary prevention
to help folks. Limit their exposure to the criminal justice system
before they become, before they have an encounter with law enforcement.
so really preventative and upshot. ...as, whereas office of
criminal justice, all of the programs that they are
operating are once someone has already been arrested, maybe again, and the diversion or
deflection program is a condition of their release, it's a condition
of their bond. So just making that distinction. So to address your question,
commissioner, the investments that you see here for this funding year, they're a mix.
so the inpatient psychiatric beds, that is a contract that we have with strac for almost $8
million. And that was completely arpa funded. And I'll say that it was kind of underspent
until we expanded the scope to include pediatric beds, and then we were able to really
increase those bed days and get that number up so that we're spending all that money.
so that's arpa. For the smart team,
mobile multidisciplinary team, that is a mix of general funds. The expansion to 24-7 was made possible through arpa funds.
for residential treatment, almost entirely all of that is opioid funding.
opioid settlement funding took places like life. Lifetime, alpha home, pay it forward, crosspoint, either
for some construction but mostly residential treatment.
the other arpa funds that support residential treatment would be rise recovery, which
is a school-based high school that focuses on recovery for high school students.
and then the outpatient lower acuity, that is almost entirely arpa, that was made possible
over the last couple of years.
okay. If you could just sum up then on that page with the... Say it was $45 million.
how much of that is bexar county versus arpa versus? For all of these, the entire
thing, it's almost entirely arpa and opioid with the exception of part
of the smart budget. So maybe probably about half of that would be general fund.
so what is the plan
for replacing?
well, I'll address your other question about outcomes and how are we measuring success or not of a lot of these things.
and so we have an entire team, and our focus is on not just formative evaluation,
summative evaluation, but looking at what is the impact
of these programs, however they were funded, whether they were general fund, arpa, or opioid.
and some of the things, especially
with residential treatment, because those are the ones that have a really high risk of becoming rearrested. But we're looking at...
recidivism rates, as is ocj, we are looking at the number of days to re-arrest. We're looking whether or not
that number, number of days to re-arrest, correlates with the number of days they spent
in inpatient. And that type of evaluation will give us better insight
into the things that are more or less a good investment, the ones that come up
with the highest amount of cost avoidance. So of course with public health
it's sometimes hard to measure what didn't happen because it was prevention. But we can tell, like,
for example, with the days, if we're correlating the length of stay to the days to re-arrest, for example,
I'll just call out lifetime, they have over 150 days to re-arrest.
and the people that are in there in recovery voluntarily, it's not a condition
of their bond for the contract under public health. So we're tracking all of these measures for all
of the programs. And similarly, with mental health programs as well, the mental health, the $20
million arpit investment into school-based. And the isds to provide mental health services there.
it's not included in this presentation because it's really upstream to judge kazin's point
about the pipeline, but preventative away upstream. So I'm glad that you're maintaining performance
indicators within programs. I think the challenge is across programs, right, and how
do we compare different programs that maybe have different measurements,
performance indicators? So that will be something like we kind of have
to work on. We've become very prescriptive in how we create our contracts, how we provide standards and
standardizing those metrics across programs so that we're collecting data going forward.
so we're comparing apples to apples. Okay.
but just, again, to clarify, because this is, you know, I did not have the answer
coming in here, but all that funding on slide 11 is arpa funded, and those
are programmatic dollars. Those weren't just... Capital dollars for expansion on facility, correct?
yes. And so just to be clear, thomas, we don't have a plan
right now on how we're going to backfill any of those
programs or which programs will be backfilled. That is correct. That's currently
under evaluation. Okay. And I did want to bring up antonio to discuss the same thing on
our criminal justice strategies in those numbers. And add this into another...
difficult conversation that's upcoming about a long-term
financial forecast, and it's double concerning to me. Go ahead.
thank you, commissioner. I think a lot of the points that you made are definitely in part with...
what dr. Guerrero just mentioned, and really the county manager's office, we're looking at all
our contracts and realigning them to ensure accountability, right, and ensuring that the
dollars are going to a point where we can measure the success in the metrics,
right? So for ocj, we're looking at recidivism as our main factor, right?
to your point, for example, 136 individuals went to residential treatment.
we're aligning all our contracts to ensure that we can report to the court out of the 136,
this is the recidivism rate for those individuals. More importantly, not only just
for residential treatment, but really for all of the services that we're providing, right?
so that way we can come back and say individuals that are benefiting from residential treatment facilities or any of the other programs that we
have, transitional housing, they're not coming back to the jail, right?
because ultimately that, at the end of the day, we can then quantify and put some of the cost that is going
to that, right? But again, we're aligning all our contracts.
the county manager's office has brought... Really the departments and to your point,
collaboration is one of the key things that we've identified. My previous role as overseeing the jail population is one
of the things that working hand in hand with the sheriff's office,
with all the departments, right, to make sure that we're, to your point,
in the same team and going in the same direction, right, and that we can cross collaborate not only internally but also with our providers
out in the community, right, because I think there's a lot of gaps.
missed opportunities that we have to be able to maximize some
of the county funding and some of the stuff that we have. Okay.
I appreciate it. But let me just finish my thought here.
and one thing, commissioner, just to add, just before I forget, when you look
at the funding streams, a lot of that is general fund here across the board here. The majority of these services and
strategies on the ocj site is general funded.
we do have... A couple of grants in here, but for the most part, that is general funds.
which slide are you talking about? Slide 8.
okay. That's the small one. It's the other big one that's
the challenge. So you have $45 million, not a clear funding mechanism today.
we know we're going to talk about our long-range financial forecast, and we know that there's an increasing need.
so I'll go ahead. Yield to colleagues.
first of all, thank you for being here.
I just want to recognize some of the good work we are doing. So I want to recognize dr.
norma greenfield-labordi. I know she was unable
to be here today, but of course her deputy is here,
her staff is here. Also chcs and the work that they have been partnering with us.
I recently met with my appointee regarding some of these issues.
and of course, uhs. The southside hospital is, of course, being built,
but the preventative health, and I'm using preventative health, we're talking
about deflection, we're talking about diversion, but as dr. Andrea was talking about, I use
the word preventative a lot. So the preventative health building is open
for business, y'all. And the third floor, because ed and I, we had a lot
of conversations, and I'm not going to say fight, because we don't
fight, but advocate it very well. And because of that advocacy,
the third floor is solely dedicated to mental health and behavioral health.
because this is about preventatives. So way before I was commissioner,
I was talking about in the state of texas, our jails are the number one providers
of mental health services. And that is a shame. To the parent who spoke earlier, who's still here
in the back, I wrote down something she said. Horrible to say, but it was a
quote that she said, custody shouldn't be a death sentence.
and so in order to avoid that, we need
to make sure we are about preventative health. So the 20 million school-based,
county-wide mental health program is a community deflection program that I have been talking about way
before I became commissioner, was able to implement. And I've been clear
with school districts, this is seed funding, because
these are opera dollars. So use the best practices,
use the success stories to then go and be able to get more money. So we need
to make sure our lobbyists, if you're listening, we passed y'all's contracts last month and I pulled it, but voted
for it. So to our lobbyists, to melissa shannon, we need to make sure that at the state
level that we continue to advocate for... These school mental health programs so that we won't have
these situations. And again, since before I got here, was talking about we need more mental
health beds because people should not be rotting in jail. And so.
I want to ask jarvis if you would come up please. So it's a little confusing
with jarvis so we pushed a lot
of funding I believe it was 25-30 million dollars for applewhite which is in my precinct and it is a beautiful
facility it is open so the facility is the county's facility but jarvis is the
interesting role because I guess part of your funding and your employees although are county employees
but get funded through the state, something like that. It's very confusing.
so can you tell us why the beautiful facility and the beds, why they're not filled yet?
yes. Good morning. And what we can do about
to make that happen. Good morning, county judge, commissioner jarvis anderson,
director of barrett county community division and corrections department. And jarvis, you're tall,
so you're going to need to speak into the mic a little bit. Or that.
thank you. So the beds, beautiful campus.
and I thank the county for their investment,
and it was our per dollar, so I appreciate that. We received the certificate
of advocacy in february. We started moving people over from the old 300 building
to the new wing in march. The issue that we discovered, commissioner, and just for the record,
all the employees are kind of judicial employees, get funded by the state, they work for me. So we're not county employees, but we receive some county benefits.
okay. The issue that we discovered from all of this is psych meds,
right? That's the main holdup for us, right?
I'm working on a long-term plan where the state will actually fund that. But in the interim, the only
way psych meds get funded in the dvrf, if they go through tacoma, which partner with the center for
healthcare services. That's my main issue there, right? I can bring in counselors,
I can absorb the food and security, but that's the one issue I have. I'm working with the county
mental health department to see if we can do something in the interim where I work on
a long-term solution where the state will fund this. The engagement center, the ddrf facility, we have a
code where the state can fund us in the future. So that's my main issue right now, commissioner.
is getting the psych meds
resolved, right? And I have a meeting this
friday with uhss to see if there's something we can do in the interim. So the beds themselves,
there's 130 beds, so I will never double anyone in that space because I don't
want to put people in all this kind of in sardine cans where they're
on top of one another. Right. I welcome all the commissioners
to come out and look at this space because it's truly remarkable what's happening out there.
the facility is a core and current facility, so you can't come out there just
for mental illness. It has to be a substance use disorder as well. We've been out there
in operations since 1987. That particular facility came out in 2005.
we partner with the center to do that. They do the clinical aspect of it. We do the substance use
disorder aspect of it. Security, treatment, food, everything else. So if I can solve the medication,
then I can get those individuals out to jail. About 100 of them at applewhite
within the next three to four months. And I do want to say the work that you guys are doing at
applewhite is really excellent, having been there, having spoken to some of the
people who are getting
treatment there and being served there, but we need
to make sure that the rest of the beds are filled.
so if there's anything that commissioner's court can do or my office specifically, please reach out to me.
and you're my constituent, too, as you know. So please reach out to us. Dr. Andrew, did you have a comment?
and to your point commissioner moody, just about collaboration, right?
jarvis and I, in going over this presentation, making sure that we're telling the right story when we talk
about applewhite and listening to why aren't we filling these beds, the solution that we've come up with
in the short term is that jarvis has said that he has about 105 people that are currently in the jail, that if
we can solve the medication problem over the next three months it will cost us it's about $60,000.
and we can do that through the opioid settlement fund, and then work with uh and have a new conversation.
we're already talking to their jail-based detention folks about coming with a longer-term
solution instead of purchasing not just psych meds, but also like blood pressure medication
meds, because they leave the jail with seven days, but they need a longer-term solution to make
sure that they have medication sufficient for their stay at applewhite. So we'll bring back to this
court as soon as possible, hopefully at the next meeting. A request for at least
$60,000. We'll come up with a more specific budget to purchase those medications
with the intent to work with... Uh on a long-term solution so we can get their pricing
instead of purchasing them outright at full cost. And we know that diversion
centers alone aren't going to solve the jail population
issues. I don't know if someone wants
to speak to that. Thank you, jarvis.
you're correct, commissioner. I mean, the diversion center alone isn't going to reduce jail population, you know, isn't going to empty
out the jail. But it is one. Part of a holistic plan that we do need to dive down because we
know the benefits that it can achieve. And that's first and foremost
the individual themselves becoming stabilized and getting the treatment they deserve
in a facility that isn't, you know, the gel. So that is one aspect that we
do want to go down that pathway. And, you know, I recognize some of our outside
partners earlier, but of course it takes... The whole county, I believe,
I don't know if jenlyn's still here, but she had mentioned this. So it also, oh there,
is that her? Yes, she's talking. Okay.
it's also about all of our departments working together, including our district
attorney's office, our sheriff's department. It takes all of us. So do you want
to speak a little bit? I know commissioner rodriguez can speak more to this
about how harris county da handles their deflection programs. And then I don't know if
commissioner rodriguez wants to chime in from his visit. Yes, commissioner, having the
opportunity to visit harris county along
with the team here and the commissioner. One area that the da's office
is heavily involved with in the area of deflection is having a dedicated intake team
with experienced prosecutors fielding phone calls from law enforcement actually still
in the field.
so in that concept, you have a
law enforcement officer
in the field detaining someone, calling that in to the da. Providing that information, what they have that individual detained for, and at that moment, in real time, the da's intake team can let
that law enforcement officer know, you don't have enough information or enough evidence to bring that individual in. We wouldn't charge. We would dismiss those charges, so don't bring that individual in. Or, hey, you have some,
but you need a little bit more, call back, do your investigation. Or bring them in. We'll go ahead and charge. So before that law enforcement officer from, you know, including suburban cities over there, brings that
individual all the way downtown, that's time, effort. Right then and there, the da's
office is saying yes or no. So that is one concept that we've kind of, they've been doing it
for a while, it appears. So law enforcement officers there, I guess that's what
they're trained to do. It's been around for some time.
that is one area that we kind of saw as an opportunity. We actually were able
to see a call in real time where the da themselves said, you don't have enough, don't
bring this individual in. And I think that credibility of those intake prosecutors with experience
in the courtroom, I think provides some confidence that this is truly a public safety
call. They understand kind of what those dynamics are. That prosecutor would have
to deal with in the courtroom. So that is one area.
commissioner, I don't know, or staff. I just wanted to comment on, based on what you're,
you can come up. Is it antonio?
yes.
so we're talking about, obviously, the budget coming up
and not the great projection of how things are looking nationally and worldwide.
so we can talk about lack of funding, but based on what you just said, there's some things that can be more
efficient. That we already have that we just need to put in place better, correct?
all right, thank you. Correct. Commissioner, I just wanted to add, I know, to thomas'
point, right, that's one of the things we saw can obviously help on both ends, right,
because I think on previous visits to harris county, I got to see an individual essentially being rejected from the field
from bringing them into custody, but I also got to see another situation where an individual, it was a live call,
and they were actually getting more information and building a stronger case from the scene, right? So for public safety aspect,
they were even able to build a stronger case as they're bringing somebody into custody.
in addition to that, I would say one of the other things that I'm always looking at efficiency, right, especially
within the judicial system, is their ability to be able to electronically file cases, right?
so they're able to electronically file cases
in the sense to give you a sense of time frames, misdemeanor cases within 24
hours, same day you're filing a case. When we're talking about efficiencies,
we're talking about how long is it taking bexar county right now without electronic filing
to file cases which misdemeanor cases many times leads to individuals being in custody 15 days plus, right,
just to try to get a case filed. So those are some of the things that,
to your point, commissioner clay flores, right, is we're talking about efficiencies right
into the system.
thank you. Thank you, judge. Yeah, let me start with that discussion on the diversion center because I was
with thomas and my team, I guess, back in march. Visiting harris county, and I
know dr. Testa was there as well. Thank you for doing that, doc.
so, you know, a lot of the discussion focuses, at least publicly, on kind of a bricks-and-mortar diversion
center. As has been pointed out, I think there's been strategies in place for some time where
we've been trying to divert, deflect folks from the system. And so I think...
part of the discussion, and this is great that we're having this discussion. We're not going
to solve it all in 90 minutes today, so hopefully, judge, we
can have an ongoing dialogue as it leads into our budget, into the city's budget, into
university health's budget this year. But the synergies in harris
county, as you mentioned, thomas, were, what I noticed, more related to processes
for proper remember, diversion and deflection, right? It was the different elected
officials, the different
department heads.
harris health was a significant part of their diversion center there.
so I think those are things that we're going to have
to improve on despite the best efforts of a lot of folks here, jolene and chcs.
I know judge kazin talked about a little bit of what he's done, all of the specialty courts that have been
put in place for decades that have worked towards the restorative therapeutic justice
model, I think in an ideal world, we'd have a
smaller bricks and mortar jail and a bigger bricks and mortar diversion center so that we
could help folks rather than lock them up.
and so I think that that is the goal. I don't know what that number
of beds looks like, but I wanted to acknowledge the fact that,
you know, I said I saw david here. You know, from lifetime, I met
the new ceo, john hornsby, recently. Big shoes to fill there at
lifetime. But I've known john for 25 years,
and I know he's committed to being a partner. We can't, as a county, just fully rely
on our partners, and I think that's where we center back the discussion on a diversion-type unit or building.
I wanted to ask, and I was going to put you in the spotlight, eddie,
because I know you just had a recent surgery.
you look great, by the way. But if ed would come up, because I think, again, these
are just my impressions. I hope you're doing well, ed, by the way. You look great.
thank you. Ed did not listen to me and stay home. I know.
you should not be here. You should be at home. I listen to the commissioner on
everything she needs that she says. That's how important this discussion is, ed, and so we
appreciate you being here. You know, going back to... My first budget on
commissioner's court 2019, with the discussion that I had with you and george hernandez
and reed hurley, if you recall, we had a discussion back then about potentially tinkering
with your tax rate, and it would have been back then a de minimis amount to an average homeowner,
but it would have meant $7 million. Or $8 million to your budget,
and the discussion back then was, can we use that instead to bolster what university health is doing
in the mental health space? You remember that, ed, by recollecting that, right? Okay.
so we brought that to court. We eventually got commissioners to agree to that. And so I wanted to highlight
that because we tend
to forget that, you know, everybody thinks of university health as a place you go when you need a surgery, but the reality is there are... Preventative programs that you're working on,
that you're committed to, and increasingly those have been
in the mental health space, and even recently with respect to those that interface
with our justice system at the jail.
so, ed, I wanted to, first of all, thank you for the commitment that the uhs has
made in the past, and I think, again, just me speaking, the court's going to weigh in.
I think that we're going to have to lean in to that partnership even further.
and I'd like to hear your thoughts on how you see that.
in terms of your vision for helping us through what I think is a core function, and not just that, not only is
it a core responsibility of ours, but I think it's what makes the most impact in a lot of areas, quality
of life-wise, on where people choose to work and live. So if you can talk a little bit about maybe what you've done
past budgets with those dollars and how you see the vision for moving forward.
well, um...
first of all, I'm glad
to be here. And I want to thank all of the commissioners and
judge sakai who have reached out. It was very, very nice of you,
and I appreciate that. And I'm one of 13,000 employees at university health that are committed to this county and
to south texas. If somebody needs help, we're going to make sure that
we can provide the care. I want
to recognize a few people. It wouldn't be
without the leadership of mr. Jimmy haslacher as our board chair, all of your appointees.
I can't say enough how wonderful every one of our board members are who take this
seriously, every issue when it comes
to medical and mental health in our community. We have a public health
subcommittee. That met last night. Again, at the urging of
commissioner clay flores, I want to just tell you how we start to, we see the problem,
we address the problem, and we try working together with all the organizations. And I want to recognize also
eric epley, who had the vision when I came here in 2015 about all the health systems working
together. The city, the county, and we wouldn't be where we are today, which is much better
off than a lot of cities across the country, by having
law enforcement navigation, the teams, the pic teams, working with the sheriff and his teams,
and then the staff in the back, dr. Abby lozano, who's
over our mental health, stephanie stiefer, who's over the jail service,
the correctional services, sally taylor, who's retired, but doesn't retire,
so she still works with us. But just
to give you an example,
the commitment we knew needed to be on the south side.
that clinic opened. We saw 554 patients already there, 187 new just
in a few months, 456 therapy visits. Our largest population is
from 18 to 39. We're treating anxiety. Depression, ptsd. We have a domestic violence
address down there. We have a zero suicide program down there. We have licensed chemical
dependency people down there. We're treating this in the outpatient
before they can become part of the system that we've discussed today.
in the jail, we're up to about 370 healthcare providers. In the jail, a growth of over
$30 million in expense for employees.
we have chemical dependency counselors down there, social workers, psychiatrists,
regular, what I would say, regular mental health,
as well as medical providers down there in a very big, large facility that is not a hospital where you can do things as easily. Working together as a group, no one department, county, individual department, we have
to work together as a team. We have lots of opportunities
to look at alternative fundings, as we
mentioned, when it comes to medication management. There's opportunities
to get... Pharmaceuticals funded if they're outpatients
through the 340b program, federal programs, other programs. We have a grants department.
we have, we also have to hold the state accountable, which is the state's responsible for mental health
and making sure that funding is available, the dollars that we make sure that are available
through our budget. It is so important that we all work together and
collaboratively as you mentioned today. And I'd like to just take the
liberty we all put some editorials in the newspaper
over the last couple of months and one of the
editorials that I was lucky enough to be able to put in was talking about how we
could all work together, how we have, as commissioner
moody mentioned, the pyramid. There's multiple layers, the
last parts being that we don't want inpatient hospitalizations or incarceration as our goal
when we know that we can treat on an ambulatory side. And I received a unique letter, and I just want
to read some excerpts to you, and it says, after reading your recent article in the san
antonio news express, I feel excited and quasi-loved knowing that people such as yourself have the heart that beats.
as a current inmate in the bexar county jail and under prescribed mental health
medication, I relate to your mission and support this thinking. I am not under the suboxone or
opioid program here in jail, but many of those in my housing unit do need this treatment, and I have benefited from
fast-realt... And I could have benefited from faster alternative treatments rather than incarceration.
if I may, I'd like to share with you another issue that I myself have experienced. Bexar county has remanded many
inmates, myself included, without bond under mental health 1622. Keeps all the jail population
with many inmates that could benefit from programs mentioned in your article.
I've been inside the jail for over a year. Awaiting a competency restoration program.
I have heard code one blue when inmate is unresponsive. I've heard it announced in the mental health units of
the building more times than I can remember. It goes on, and I just want to say is my appeal to you,
mr.
banas, is to continue to strive with collaborative legislation to improve treatment, timeliness of care, and alternatives to jail in bexar county especially. Thank you for your willingness
to voice your opinion. As an incarcerated veteran, u.s.
army, I am very aware of the problems that arise from being in jail with mental illness. Even with medications, the
problem's condition's worse. And then at the very, very end, it says, p.s.
thank all the medication nurses in the jail. Their smiles make a difference
for those of us with mental illness. I just wanted to put a little
personal story to that, because we're talking about people that their lives are
in jail. We need to make sure that they're taken care of.
I want to make sure that university can be part of the solution, but the
solution is not just universities alone. It's all the people that are
in this room working together. You have my commitment. I don't want mr.
hauslacher's commitment and the board that we are going to do everything we can
to make bexar county the shining star in the state, if not the nation.
on how we can do this right. We know that people don't need to be in the jail. We know that we can keep them
out of the jail with preventative treatment. We know that in the community
we can take care of them. We know if we invest our
dollars for this, these are going to be the least expensive dollars
before we have to do the more expensive dollars. And I'm committed to all of you to making sure that we
can solve this problem together. Ed, thank you for... Sharing that.
I'm going to let you, yeah, let's give him a round of applause. I'm going to let you sit down
because I know you're still getting back on your feet from your surgery.
but, you know, I think people think about you, ed, and jimmy, and, you know, you guys just run a
hospital, but you're really impacting a lot of lives in a lot of different ways.
and I think that we certainly recognize that. And I think that's part
of the reason you know, as I mentioned, we're going
to be even more joined at the hip in terms of figuring this out with the rest of the folks
in this room, jalynn included. I mean, I've worked with jalynn since we were both
at the city. And so there's a lot of folks from county staff to our partners that, you know,
if we're going to the next court in 10 or 20 years is talking about what
we're doing. There's going to be a
different... Footprint for how we get there
and I'm very confident the folks in this room can help make that happen so thank you
ed for that thomas I wanted to ask you a couple things but but I'm gonna let you sit
down ed thank you thank you part of by the way I know ed you're you're part of the
city county committee I know there's a by the way there's a initial planning meeting this
afternoon that commissioner, I mean a councilwoman because you and I are co-chairing,
so I don't know if you're going to be there or somebody from your team will.
some of our team will be there. They're attending, and they're actually going to go to the church. On the field trip to harris
health as well, that she said scheduled. Perfect. Jimmy, do you want to add something?
ed, can you please go home and rest? I echo what ed has said. This is very important.
you've got to have a healthy community, and part of that has
to be that we all work together in order to be able to help
these people that need the help. You look at the laurel ridge
situation right now, judge kazin and I were in the back discussing it.
it's a very difficult situation.
it's going to put a lot of pressure on the ers around town
for all the hospitals, not just the university. And we will probably talk a
little bit about it tonight at our uh board meeting that we're having this evening. But this is a problem that
takes... A lot of partners to be able to make a difference and we all
must work together because there's an awful lot of money that's being spent that we all
if we got together could probably go a little bit
further and thank the commissioners for having this session this morning and we
look forward to working with you thank you jimmy appreciate that um thomas let me just ask
real quick back to the presentation just to clarify
in my head that's slide 11 that is a list of strategies. So I thought you had said,
if I heard you correctly, or someone said that these are all
programmatic dollars. None of this includes the
capital. No, I believe that includes capital in there.
it is. Okay. Dr.
aiken, couldn't hear you. If I'm not mistaken, part of the residential treatment might
have been for crosspoint. I'd have to double check and see if that, but the majority is for direct services.
okay. So, if you guys can get us a breakdown, that would be great.
and this is a forecast for budget team, and it's already going
to be a tough budget, and I know we've already had folks,
different departments ask us, and I think this court in the past has been very supportive, for example,
in adding law enforcement, adding constables. It may not be that we can do that this particular budget,
because we're going to have to prioritize and make some tough decisions on programs that impact people and that
really... And help them turn their lives around.
not to say that law enforcement doesn't, but I think that's going to be part of this discussion
this court's going to have to have on making some of those tough decisions and prioritizing, because as we've
seen, some of the initial revenue numbers from property tax flattened out
a little bit and probably will be for the next couple years, coupled with the fact that
those arpa dollars are on the drawing down. So, um, okay, let me ask one more thing, and I'll let my
colleagues chime in. Actually, you know what?
commissioner clayfoot has asked about the applewhite. And so, jarvis, you don't need
to come back up. Thank you for doing what you
can to get that on track.
I know it seems like we made that allocation, or at least the appropriation,
several years ago. I think the sooner we can get that going, the better.
but we appreciate your work. On doing that. You know, I'll go ahead and
pass my time for now, but I appreciate the work that everybody's done, and I look forward to
continuing the conversation. Thank you, judge. Is it commissioner cowart? I won't forget.
yes. Thank you, judge. Thank you, commissioner moody, for helping to get this, all the staff and
everyone there present. Commissioner moody asked a question about assumptions that
we have that may be missing. I would say that one of the big criminal justice changes we
just heard from ed with respect to the southside
public health development is this increase in therapeutic
justice and the movement of therapy into schools. You all have heard me say
before, this was not something possible 10, excuse me, 12 years ago
when I was on commissioner's court.
it was very taboo for superintendents to do mental health.
so I think one of the things that... We have to look at in terms of assumptions is what is the
texas legislature going to do with respect to adverse childhood experiences. Adverse childhood experiences
are potentially traumatic events occurring
before the age of 18, including abuse and neglect and household dysfunction.
when there's addiction in the house, when there are sometimes divorce or
incarceration. These are very common things that happen in our community,
and about 61% of adults report at least one adverse childhood experience, and that can lead
to long-term toxic stress that negatively impacts brain
development and long-term physical and mental health.
so I think our legislative team needs to perhaps look at some
of the positive tea leaves. And also begin to work around
the state. I don't say this for a partisan reason.
I just say this as a political observer.
it looks like the texas house may end up changing parties.
and that would, I think, be positive for addressing
adverse childhood experiences.
and I think it's up to us as other leaders on the ground looking at this to not forget.
and let the legislature forget that they should be having the burden financially
of supporting the kind of mental health services that the
commissioner's court provided as a result of the american
recovery plan act. That is not something that the county has really all the time
under its statutory mandate, but it's something that the legislature should use as part
of school programming, as part of community school
programming. Something that we can partner with them, and we also need
to expand the amount of counselors that are available in order to meet the
demand. I think that...
is a lot to do with those 10,000 mental health detentions that judge kazin came in and talked about are such a problem.
so I think that we need to look at the fact that in the past when we did projections for jail population, we did not
have mental health counseling in our schools. And what does, somebody needs to do a study on,
what does the inclusion of mental health counseling do in terms of that
school-to-prison pipeline? What does it do to reduce that?
I think nami needs to be in this conversation, the national association for
mental illness. School districts need to be brought.
the state of texas's public health director, or public health commissioner, rather, and probably a
director, too. Our charters, our nonprofits, all of those folks may be
at the table, but they are very important. Now, with respect to this pharmaceutical issue.
we've got university health folks in the room. I'm not exactly sure what the holdup is, but I think that
considering that we have 100 plus unused beds, if we got to get heb, cvs, walmart,
ortiz pharmacy, whoever,
to help us with the licensing and the needs that we have, I think we need to make that a
priority so that the beds are not empty and actually dealing
you with recidivism. We also have not taken into consideration,
commissioner's court, the expansion of mental health that can take place
at the state hospital. We know that that's a regional,
you know, that's not all bexar county. But the addition of $300
million for that campus is important
in some of the severe acute cases that come through the bexar county jail. But moreover, in this...
leading the other elected officials around the state in
an agenda that helps address jail prevention and diversion. There's literally 111 acres of
empty land there where the state hospital is that could be
placed for additional medical and mental health services and
partnerships for a number of organizations. And I would submit that we need
to... Get with the state facilities corporation and others and
begin planning how do we do that treatment in partnership with all the folks that you've
mentioned today.
so I wanted to throw that out there. I'm actually quite optimistic that the political winds in the next five years in
texas are going to be such that there's going to be more investments to stem the school-to-prison pipeline,
and that jail diversion, that jail deflection, whatever the term,
you all know what we're trying to say.
whatever it is, is going to help us not have to necessarily build a billion dollars for expansion
of our jail. So thank you, judge.
thank you, court, for this discussion. Commissioner moody, back to you. Thank you, judge.
appreciate all the engagement here, and I think it's good. It's good
to hear alignment and support. There's a few things I still want to cover and I wanted
to make sure all of our partners had a chance to speak as well.
just one quick thing, thomas, before going on. Slide 12, I was just looking at the jail population snapshot. The diverted numbers, it just didn't look
like they matched up between the two lines there. The numbers
in parentheses right or the gap
between the lines? You're talking about the year to date?
the 560 and the 530? I was just trying to understand those two numbers versus the...
between the lines, it looks like it's more than that.
I don't know where we got them. Yeah, the gap is correct. I mean, the joe pop snapshot,
there's other items, not just... Diversion of the judication
other stuff that people other things okay and this will lead into to the other conversation one
to have but you had a bunch of recommendations here
but I saw that the on-site annex at the jail was not included as an assessment
recommendation were there other like recommendations
from the sash study meadows test that were not included here I think the only things we
kind of left off from those were kind of some
minor policies and some technology.
so I think those are things we're going to be handling, you know, back of the house.
okay. Because I kind of want to pull a couple things together.
I did share with my colleagues here the old studies that we
have seen here in commissioner's court, right, from the jaya evaluation by
dr. Testa, the meadows study, the sash study that was presented
to us by dan curry, and he may want to come out as well. Oh, you're back there.
but one of the highlights here that was part of the sash study
was a new medical behavioral
health facility on the current adc campus that could provide
improved medical facilities for uhs,
as well as mental health beds, forensic beds, and also potentially address the jaya
situation, which is ongoing and another separate story.
but that wasn't included in your slides,
and I just wanted to go back. Is that still one of the recommendations, mr.
curry, from the meadows study? Is that correct? Yeah, the sash reuse piece, or
the, forgive me, the building a medical facility
at the jail campus was a recommendation buried in the
meadows assessment, the phase two of that assessment.
I know they did a regional community-based look and then a detention-based. Look, two phases
of that study. In the detention-based phase of that study, they recommended additional medical and mental
health treatment facility beds on the jail campus or some other location. So our sas presentation was
directly in line with that recommendation from the meadows study to
expand that mental health supply chain. No, appreciate that, because I
think it's an important omission, because that that concept,
that recommendation that came before I was on court, right,
and that study was out there and completed before we were on court,
made that recommendation to this commissioner's court, and I don't think we should
look past it, especially after talking with our partners at uhs and
knowing their concerns, knowing also the impact on staffing over time with all the transportation issues going
back and forth between the jail.
I know commissioner rodriguez highlighted it.
you know, I very much appreciate uhs's commitment to partnering with us.
we've had some great discussions over in the pet tower regarding this. And I think, you know, we need
to start looking at solutions, right?
we're in alignment. We're starting to see alignment
here and some good discussion. But what does that mean, right? In the near term, that communication highlights, you
know, gaps in information. Like, we didn't know some beds were sitting vacant.
we know there needs to be medication.
you know, does uhs help with that? How do we solve that? So I think that's great.
but in the mid to long term, what does that look like in terms
of psychiatric hospital, in terms of a partnership,
a financial partnership, potentially, between uhs and bexar county
on a facility that could, you know, you know. Again, be on the current
grounds of the jail or somewhere else that would provide those mental health
beds, medical facilities close by to facilitate the care that we need in the jail as well.
so I think those are all important things
to highlight. And I did capture your comment, ed, about not a hospital. It isn't a hospital, right?
but we know we have to provide medical care there in the jail, and so we need to make sure that we have the
medical facilities necessary to be able to do that. I wanted to make sure and call
up, we had a couple other
invited guests. Eric epley, would you mind just coming up and speaking
to us briefly from, thank you for your patience. I know it's been a long
discussion here, but from strac's perspective, I know you've done a lot
of work out there in making sure people in crisis get the care they need and have a lot of experience
in this space. We'd love to get your recommendations, your thoughts, and any challenges you're
dealing with with smart teams or anything else at this point. Thank you, commissioner moody.
and, commissioners and judges, it's a great chance to have a... Conversation with you.
it's a tough conversation. I'm glad you're tackling the diversion deflection center.
it's one of the three legs
of the stool. It's one of the three legs. I convened a meeting
of the healthcare principals
about two or three months ago, and we came to consensus on those three legs. Mr.
banas was a key leader in that discussion, but the other healthcare system ceos and other key leaders were
in that room, and those three legs are pretty simple. They're expensive, but they're pretty simple.
diversion deflection center, which you're tackling right now, which we appreciate. Wraparound services, because it
doesn't matter if it's a diversion center or if it's an inpatient, inpatient actual psychiatric hospital or
inpatient bed capacity. That's the third leg. The wraparound services make sure those things stay eligible
for more patients. Transitional housing, permanent supportive housing, multidisciplinary response
teams. Some of those things we're doing pretty well. You mentioned the smart team.
we also have the core team in the city. We are having trouble with that.
the smart team alone did 02,500, almost 2,500 patients last year responded to
in the county, those on the east and west side.
we had no arrests. We had no arrests.
and we almost had no use of force. We had one use of force, but
only because the gentleman took off and ran into a busy interstate, and we had to tase him
to be able to stop him before he was committing suicide. So, honestly, you look at an
effective diversion-deflection effort, the smart team is critical. It's critical
to our success right now. So national association of counties... Best practice award we received
for it. It's in jeopardy. It's in jeopardy right now.
stracc is committed to the smart team, to the smart team mission. Stracc has been committed
to this from day one for that purpose. Right now,
we find ourselves funding our partners, bexar county esd district 2.
great guys are providing paramedics to the smart team.
mr. Flores, I think you know that. Chcs wonderful partner with clinicians to go
on those teams. You're talking about a bexar county deputy, an esd2 paramedic, and a chcs mental
health clinician in that tahoe. They're making these runs every day.
they deserve to be paid. We've been paying them. We're doing that without a contract.
I know some of you are aware of that, but I want to make the court aware of that.
we'd like to resolve the issues with that, but the county attorney will not even meet with us face to face.
we have to give all of our comments, even from our lawyers. We won't even talk
to our lawyers face to face or on the phone, zoom.
I don't know how to resolve issues over red lines that take weeks to come back and forth. That's why we're eight months. I think a face-to-face meeting,
judge, with perhaps one of you, maybe a couple of commissioners. Or you or and mediate some of
these discussions because this is too important a mission.
I have a lot of other things to say.
I'm going to drop that now, but that's my request, judge. Things you may not know
about the laurel ridge treatment center closure. They've lost their cms provider status.
cms has been working with them for months,
so this is not... This didn't happen overnight. I think this is significant to our community.
cms doesn't take this. This is a pretty rash action. Cms takes this action
about seven to ten times a year across the entire united
states.
so lower ridge's commitment to me from their leadership is they're going to stay open with a very small unit, 20 to 40 beds. They're going to reapply.
for their cms status, because they can't bill medicare, medicaid, and many contracts, private contracts,
require you to have your cms status as sort
of a level of capability, right? There will be a waiting period
before they're allowed to reapply. Do you know how long that will
be? They don't know. It could be three months,
it could be six months, it could be a year, it could be a day. It's not going to be a day.
we'll know that hopefully next week. They have 86 patients as
of today, and by friday they will be down to the 20. That is a 330 bed facility.
330 bed loss
to our inpatient capability. 22 of those 330 beds are what we call the unfunded contract
beds that cscs is so generously providing through hhsc funds.
we currently have about 68 contract beds. 22 of those are at laurel
ridge. Earlier it was mentioned we have those arpa beds as well.
thank you for those eight additional contract beds. That's the 60 plus 8.
that's how we get to 68. So we're losing laurel ridge on friday. We're losing those 22 contract
beds that laurel ridge has provided. And we're losing the arpa beds
on friday midnight.
that's going to have impact. The psychiatric centers in this town, that's going to have impact to the ers in this town.
I would encourage our health care partners to remember 2015 and 2016.
that's where we're going back to on friday morning. It's going to impact the police and the sheriff,
there's no doubt. It's going
to impact the jail. We're talking about trying to reduce the jail, but...
as the final destination if
there is no other destination. We've seen it over and over, and that's coming.
it's going to impact the shelters. It's going
to impact every part of our society, and it's coming like a freight train.
you know, crisis mental health
is complex because it has three components. You, of course, have a health care component.
but you also have this justice component and a public safety component.
well, public safety and justice
are used to having geopolitical lines. Health care doesn't deal in... Oh, you're from comel
county? Yeah, we're not going
to see you over here at methodist or baptist. Like, that doesn't exist. It's a catchment area. It's how far can you draw
patients. And those geopolitical lines... Create a great deal of the complexity related
to crisis mental health. So it's where people can be funded and not funded, etc.
we're committed to trying to help navigate that complexity at stic, at the
southwest texas crisis collaborative.
I've said enough. I'm going to pause there. Well, I appreciate your candor and your willingness to... Give us facts. I think, first of all, I mean,
you have my commitment to try to facilitate this going forward with the smart teams. I think there's agreement that
this is something that has been hugely successful and that we would want to see continued,
but obviously we need to sort that out in terms of
the contract. I also think you bring up some
serious points that we need to consider I mean, we want to think about playing offense
on this issue, but, I mean, shoot, we've got to play defense too. I mean, we're losing hundreds of beds,
and what does that look like next week?
so I think that those are some definitely sobering numbers and stats that we need
to consider going forward. But I appreciate your willingness to come here and share all that.
and I don't know if anybody else has any questions or comments.
I wanted to bring brandon wood up as well.
thank you, eric. I think, brandon, if you could join us.
I just wanted to introduce brandon wood, former director of the texas jail commission, I believe, and recently we sat
down for a breakfast. Got to pick his brain on what he's seen
over the years, both in terms of stats with our jail and criminal justice system,
but also across the state. He's watched some of the things that are going
on in harris county, dallas county, travis county, and other big urban areas. So I'm just going to kind
of open it up to you rather than talking anymore. But if you could tell us
about... Your experience and kind of what you've seen and some of the challenges and how other
big urban counties are thinking about this and dealing with these issues.
brandon wood, former executive director of texas commission on jail standards, currently
with gmj. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to an extremely important issue.
to be honest with you, you're asking you're asking the right questions and you're
saying the right things. You understand that there is a need
for deflection and diversion. You've heard that it is one part
of this three-legged stool. It may have more legs than just three because criminal justice
is an extremely complicated program, probably one of the least popular,
unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way you want to look
at it, that counties are required to operate. Your general public normally does not have a general understanding of what these jails consist of.
and the first thing I always tell people is that your county jail is just one part
of a criminal justice system. And if any part of that system
is not working and operating as effectively and as efficiently as possible, your jail
population will go up and you will continue to experience the outcomes that you're trying
to avoid. Deflection and diversion. We hear people talk
about it all the time across the state, all across the nation. And the first thing that I'd
ask is, you want to deflect these people, you want to divert them, where
are you diverting them to? What type of care is being provided? One of the things that is
extremely important is also to ensure that local law enforcement has buy-in and
understands the value of these diversion centers.
because, for example, I've heard time and time again and have seen it as well, if an
individual is picked up and taken to a diversion center and they are able
to check themselves out within three to four hours and that same officer runs
across that individual on his same shift, they have less of an incentive to utilize those facilities.
so that programming is extremely important. Quick math based upon some of
the data that y'all were throwing out there earlier.
your county is projected to be. 3.3 million, I believe, is the
number that I heard previously by 2050 in about 25 years, 24 years now.
even if you were able to drive your incarceration
rate down to 2.0, which is where we see most of the larger urban counties
across the state, you would still probably have an inmate population over 6,500.
so even if you are doing everything that you need
to do, you do have to have a plan at some point in the future to provide that
additional capacity. Can divert and deflect everyone. I'm sorry, what was that?
we can't divert and deflect everyone. No, sir. The providing
of public safety is one of the primary functions of local government and state
government, and ensuring that you have proper space for those individuals that you cannot safely release back out in the
public is something that we are burdened with. But you should still try.
as much as you possibly can, you have to drive down your incarceration rates.
you have to ensure that if that individual can be placed safely back into the community, that
should be your number one goal after the provision of public safety.
so a realistic approach, do you have tripwires in place where if your inmate population
reaches a certain amount, what occurs at that point in time?
or if the programs that you are putting in place are not providing the outcomes that you are expecting.
what is the return on investment in regards to these programs? Reinforce success
on those programs. So I would encourage you to keep having these discussions.
these programs, just like any large organization, having come
from state bureaucracy, I can speak
to this firsthand, we have a tendency to find ourselves operating in a silo.
you have to ensure that you engage your partners, open lines of communication,
holding everybody accountable to what they're supposed to be doing.
that can be difficult at times, I know, but it is imperative that the county continue down the path.
barrett county was traditionally seen as very progressive in this regard.
whenever I first started, I was blown away by the match program, mothers
and their children, that was being operated at the jail. The other programs that were
being provided with the community, community support providing those programs so that you can divert
these individuals. Provision of health care within jails. Every jail that we see coming
online now to include one that
we're currently helping program, large amounts of space are being provided
for additional health care to be provided on site at the county jail. You're not expected to possibly
be operating a level one trauma center at these jails, but you do need the space and the resources available
to provide that level of care. We want to reduce the number of in-custody deaths.
everybody has that goal. Nobody sets out wanting to. Be ranked number one
in the state for death
in custody. We understand that unfortunately some of the individuals that we do interact
with in our criminal justice system have pre-existing health
conditions. They have not had access to
health care that would help them. But reduction of suicides, elimination of homicides,
those are items that have to be done. And ensuring that you have... That seamless type of
transition whenever you're moving these people out can help you accomplish that, but you have to be providing those services
in that county jail. Well, I appreciate all those thoughts. I just have a couple quick
questions, and I wanted to highlight a couple of your points.
first of all, that you said medical on-site is a best practice and is being utilized in all new construction,
basically, at this point. It is. You also highlighted the math says. Based on our growth rate, even
if we drove incarceration rates down, again, we were talking about assumptions earlier, you would still be looking at
06,500 inmates, which we're at 05,000 capacity, so that would be a serious problem. To your point about tripwires
and having a plan, I think that that's something we realized
when we hit the tripwire and we didn't have a plan. And so we did, you know, get these contracts with surrounding counties, but we're still trying
to figure out what that process looks like and how we pull inmates
back when we have that additional capacity and we don't overuse those contracts. But how does that look like statewide
at this point? Because if more and more counties are having to look
to other surrounding counties for additional capacity, are you seeing a lot
of that? And... I mean, we just saw one of our counties increase the cost per
bed per night $20, you know, 30% overnight.
so are you seeing a dwindling supply of those counties that
are willing to do that? We see counties get into bidding wars
against each other for those available beds. That, in turn, has forced some counties
to actually house their inmates out of state. And that is an issue that... We were not able to prevent
because we did not have the authority while I was
with the commission. But we had concerns with that practice because those are citizens of the state of texas
and they were no longer being held within the confines of the state.
and whenever you have over 01,000 of your inmates housed
out of state, and then we had other counties, smaller counties,
simply did not have the ability to compete with some of the larger counties.
consuming these available beds, they were also starting to move their inmates out of state.
so the reduction in excess capacity across the state has finally reached the point that
you cannot simply just pick up the phone and secure 500 beds
without any issue. A county may guarantee you 100 beds, but they may even say
that you're going to pay
for those 100 beds even if you do not fill them. So that is...
the new model that is coming into play and I believe that will continue into the near future.
yeah, there's two parts to that. First of all, if you do find them, there's going to be
enough competition that the price is going to go up, which we just saw with kirk county.
and that's if you're lucky. If not, you can't find those beds and then you've got a
bigger problem. That's correct. Appreciate you sharing that. Now, I don't know what the
answer to this question will be, but I want you to just... Speak to what you know
about the dallas county situation, because I know they are building a new jail there. I'm not suggesting that we
build a new jail, but they are, sometimes partisan politics creeps in here.
dallas county doesn't have a republican
on their commissioner's court. They are building a new dallas county jail.
they're slightly bigger than we are, but can you speak to the details
of that and what compelled them to believe that they needed
to do that at this time? So the dallas county jail system has several similarities to bexar county.
multi-facilities that have been built over the years. They have tried to make them as efficient as possible, but in
the end it was the realization that they did need to move, probably out of downtown, and
address the criminal justice needs of the county
for the next 30 to 50 years. Right out of the bat.
now if that includes doing a phased approach, that may be
one of the things that they do undertake, but they want to make sure that they're
providing the right type of beds along with diversion programmed
into it in order to try to reduce the end number
of beds that they would need at that 50-year period. So the age of the facilities,
maintenance of these facilities can become exorbitant.
you are dealing with systems that age out, vendors no longer produce the
parts, and then whenever you have the responsibility to ensure that all your doors actually lock and stay locked,
but that vendor no longer produces those parts, all of a sudden you're encountering a situation in which thank you.
you are now having to do a complete replacement of doors, security electronics,
computer systems. All those items, whether it's planned obsolescence or whatever you want to call it,
they have to be replaced on an ongoing basis. Then you have all the life safety systems that are
in place. And any time that you're dealing
with these older buildings, they decay. They are used 24-7, 365 days a year.
it is not like your traditional office building, which gets a break.
you the cost of maintenance of these jails, the older they are, the higher it becomes.
and at certain points, you have to realize that you are no longer getting out of that jail what you need
to get out of it. You're spending more on it than it would almost cost
to build a new one. But it is a break-even point. No, I appreciate that,
brandon. I used the example one time
about... You know, your truck, your
chevy pickup truck, right? Like you're good at 150,000 miles.
you know, you start spending more and more on maintenance.
you get to 200,000 miles. I see you, thomas. You get to 250,000 miles.
I mean, at some point, you start, I need a new engine.
I need a new transmission. You start putting so much money out in terms
of maintenance costs that you figure, well, I could actually go out and purchase a new truck and save
money going that way. And eventually, thomas, everybody gets there.
but I think that that brings to your point, right? And I'd like, dan, if you
wouldn't mind coming up just briefly. I'm going to close things down here just shortly.
but if, dan, could you just speak to the different annexes and the dates?
and brandon, I'd like to hear your thoughts, too, on the useful life of a jail
in general. Well, I think you're looking at, you know, our detention
facilities and their age. So, again, the original bexar county detention center
on the comal campus was b&c tower and was constructed around 1986.
a few years later, in 1989, they added a tower. So pretty quickly after that.
that's what we call the main jail. Forty years. Correct.
okay. Yeah. The adult attention center
annex was completed in the early 90s. When those came online,
I think 95 was when the building was renovated, a&b tower, and then c&d tower was
added to that. So a quick progression in that 20-year window
of adding a significant number of beds to that campus. And back in 2015, we added 512
beds to the south tower facility, which includes the ga intake center.
have we seen an increase in escalation in maintenance costs?
I mean, are there any, you know, maintenance costs that are just going
to be an extreme burden in the coming years? Well, I will tell you,
I'm thankful that the court has in the past invested heavily in making sure the jail stays
in compliance and it has all the physical plant attributes that it needs. You allowed us to replace the
detention toilets, which were causing concern, replaced detention lighting.
I don't know, akin to kind of pulling the skeleton out of the body and putting it back in, but it is a significant
investment for the county, as you well noted, and we're doing our best to make sure that we bring you
projects that make sure it stays in compliance with standards.
yeah, and I hope that we can kind of continue this
conversation because I know we could continue on for another couple hours, but I
know we've got other business to attend to as well. So I wanted to kind of...
close things down, but I do think understanding our ongoing maintenance costs
for the jail, like looking at them over the last 10 years and what's expected
over the next 10 years, would be helpful in thinking about this too. Mr.
wood, if you wouldn't mind just answering that question as well
in terms of useful life. So one of the things that we always encourage counties to take into account is that
you want that jail to be able to last 20 years without having to add on to it.
now, even during that 20 years, because 20 years is... Traditionally the length of the bond that is issued,
paid off, so forth and so on. Nobody ever wants to go back out to the voters and say,
yeah, we didn't ask for enough money to build enough jail beds. But even
during that 20-year period, you know, roofs are going to need to be replaced. You can have mechanical roofs.
the systems start going out. So hopefully you get a good five years where you're in really good shape.
but after that, you're probably gonna start incurring preventative maintenance costs
and some replacement costs. You may have a generator go out, generators get hit
by lightning, whatever the case may be. So we always encourage counties to look at that 20 year window
right there. And then counties want to operate that jail and not build anything for 120 years.
I get it, I understand. There are some in the state that are approaching that age,
but they're smaller counties. They should be museums rather than jails,
but they still hang on. So it's just that balancing act that counties have to do, not just with jails, but
everything else that y'all are responsible for. But jails, you're dealing with a very unique situation, and it's very challenging.
and it's also one of the reasons why we encourage
counties to pay attention to the type of jail beds that they build so that the operator.
the sheriff's office has what they need because that design is going to drive operations,
and operations can ensure a safer and more secure facility throughout. Thank you.
yes, sir.
all right. I'm going to final comments here, and we'll let the judge finish this
out. But the medical mental health annex recommendation, I don't think we should be excluding
that from the mix. Because it also touches another
point that isn't included in the recommendation but the jia, right? And we've talked about double
magistration a little bit. I think we need to talk about it more because we know it's a it's an issue.
it's delaying the intake process and we got to solve that.
but a new medical mental health annex would provide the opportunity
to rebuild the jia. With the scale and flow that it needs to be successful for both the city and the county.
so I do still want to keep that in the mix of options as we go forward and
think about things. I know sash, the actual
renovation of the buildings,
we didn't get into the details there. That was something that was
presented by dan curry as well with that sash study. It requires engagement with the state.
I'll be honest, we didn't have the level of engagement I think that we needed or alignment on what our plan was in order
to do that and go to the governor's office. I'm willing to do that,
but we have to be aligned and have a plan that makes sense and that we're committed
to and behind. I talked to the lubbock county judge about what they were doing out
in lubbock county. I talked to the travis county judge.
but we need to go deeper and make sure that this court's aligned if we're going to go
into the legislative session. And make a big ask for renovation dollars,
and more importantly, not just the money to renovate the buildings, but to be able to take control of
those beds so we can utilize those beds, right? If not, they're a state asset,
and we're at the mercy of the state. So we really want
to have control of the beds, too. So it's kind of a dual ask in the state legislature.
so I think those are two things we probably need to talk more about. I know the sheriff has made
some suggestions on the jia, the dual magistration situation that we need to continue
to dive deeper into. But I think we saw today there was a few things.
if there are barriers that partners see, elevate those barriers. I don't think anybody up here
was aware of the situation at applewhite. Right?
I'm sure there's other things maybe that you've talked about in the back of the room here that we need
to be aware of. We can't address things we're
not aware of and that we aren't able
to talk about. So I hope that if anything today we've elevated the
conversation,
we've gained some awareness about what some of the challenges are,
what some
of the opportunities are. Shoot, I mean, I've been very active, clearly, in engaging with a lot of our partners. You know,
the points that were made about all the funding that we have for programmatic funding within behavioral health,
public health, and that none of those dollars are in our current general budget, I mean, that was eye-opening
and and it creates a huge gap as we go forward and have a conversation about our long-term finances.
maybe that's another conversation to have with uhs, right? How can we ask for support
on that front to help fill that gap? On the things that we think are our priorities.
but I hope that as we go forward, again, I want to thank judge and my colleagues for the willingness
to have this conversation. I want to thank all of our partners in the room, especially...
jimmy, ed, eric, brandon coming in from out of town and others, this is going
to take a team effort. And we didn't solve anything today, but at least we started the conversation. I hope we continue that going
forward because I think this is
too big a problem for us to look past it. Thank you.
yeah, just we spent a lot of time on this, and we've talked a lot about a lot of stuff.
and just to remind everyone, it's not just about numbers and stats and budget, but as the
parent is still back there, ed, thank you for reading that
letter.
I mean, I guess as a shout-out, express news is here. But to know that people in jail are reading the
express news and that you're taking time to open your mail, or someone opened it for you,
and you're reading that, and to remember that every mental health program, every school-based program that I
fought for, every diversion program, deflection program, every person in chcs, every person sitting in jail
right now is somebody's child, somebody's father, someone's sister.
these are lives we're talking about.
they're not just stats and numbers. Thank you.
I've been quiet while the
commissioners have articulated their thoughts and positions on this.
obviously, there's some clear takeaways, but I don't want to leave out, there's one
person that I believe is here, dr. Testa.
where are you at? Come up forward. Thomas, stay right there. Thomas, tee up slide 13, 14. Did dr.
testa step out? While y'all are finding dr. Testa, y'all have been standing up for a long time.
if y'all want to sit down, sit down. If we want to call you up, we
can, if you'd like to sit down. So as we hopefully dr.
test didn't leave and I would want his input but the point being made
thomas and did we get the slides up 13, 14 which are the assessment recommendations.
I want to note it for the record that these are studies that didn't get
on a shelf and we forgot about them. The county has been actively
participating and actively
engaged in. Diversion and deflection. As county judge,
I work very closely with thomas and the budget office and the manager's office in order to lend my expertise
for the judicial system, having worked, albeit not in the criminal justice side, but obviously as local
administrative judge and a former prosecutor in the district attorney's office.
so thomas, where I'm going with that is, if you did bring up those slides, it looks like most...
of all recommendations have been completed. Some are still in progress, and we've heard that they're
actively engaged. We got the apple white issue put on the table, and I think that is something that I have
given direction that we need to get those beds open. I expect a proposal so that we
can get that done. The reason why I wanted to talk to dr. Tess, and apparently he's left,
and thomas, I'm going to have to rely on you to let us know from the staff. Study, dr.
testa has identified the dual magistration,
double magistration as an impediment, as an issue as to the process in regards to the diversion deflection. Can you explain that as to why double magistration is such, is a hindrance obstacle? Yes, judge. Again, right now for certain
class c misdemeanors, if you're a san antonio police
officer, you're taking those individuals
to freo street. And those individuals are going through their magistration
process. That can take up to anywhere between six to eight hours before those individuals are
transferred over to the sheriff's office and our intake center. During that time, the reason
that's important and those inefficiencies there is during that time, if an
individual is having a substance use, is suffering from substance use or mental illness, that's time delayed.
before our team can really take a look at those individuals and hopefully divert them
from those areas. So it's really that time gap between receiving those individuals from the city over
to the county where we can really invest in their care.
and that is one of the systematic areas that we really need to improve on.
again, as many of our partners have advocated for, that's the time where we should be. Really focusing
on these individuals, whether it's diversion or deflection
opportunity. So it's really that key area, judge.
it's time, it's those inefficiencies there in getting those certain individuals
treatment. Sometimes people will die as a
result of that lack of attention, correct? Correct.
clearly heard today. So let me put on record what I see as clear takeaways. It is clear that the issues
of the jail population, the diversion and inflection that the county has been committed
to, is indeed complex and multifaceted. The solutions require extensive coordination and communication
between internal and external stakeholders. And we've only touched a few
of them. The da's office and the sheriff are also integrated parts of the puzzle.
today, the county has provided an important definition for diversion.
that was the main thing I wanted this presentation to be, is diversion and deflection or
deflection-diversion is an alternative
to incarceration. Correct, thomas? Correct.
or else? We have started that conversation. Do we need another jail? Do we need a bigger jail?
and I think we've heard that the county has been very effective, and those grass,
let's go to the grass. Is that number 11? But for your efforts,
we see that we have made significant,
and that is a big cost savings, correct? Correct.
but we have ongoing programs that are being funded through the arpa,
through the opioid. And as mr. Rodriguez has pointed out,
we're going to have to figure out what return of investment we have and what we will continue to do.
the commission's court, it is clear, in the last three years has made significant
investments. So I don't want anybody in this community or in this courtroom to feel that
the county has not made a commitment to deflection and diversion strategies.
this shows the significant impact that we've made
diverting eligible people in alternatives to incarceration.
eric epley's statement of the smart program, which I am committed
to make sure we continue, I will bring that back. I'm going to ask the county manager
to get that on the next available agenda so that we can have a discussion there in order to help resolve whatever issues there are.
I am familiar with it, and I am making my position known. We will continue that program
because you heard that program has kept, indeed, people from being arrested. And without that program,
I know for a fact. Those people would have ended up in the criminal justice
system. So we invested in and promoted
programs for deflection, which is diverting people from the jail pre-arrest. Remember, pre-arrest.
a great example is the sider release program
for eligible minor offenses. You heard mr. Wood say, yeah, but you've got
to be careful with sider release because as we know, that became a political issue
of people not being held in the jail. So we have to be careful and
cautious. Especially in regards to public safety. We know that
without these efforts, the county would have been forced housing 1,000-plus people.
our decisive investments in studying and addressing the problem prevented that scenario
by helping more than 1,000 people get diverted to the appropriate alternative
to incarceration. In my experience as county judge, I see that deflection
and diversion are as much about the process of identifying and routing
thank you.
eligible populations, or the portal of diversion, as it's about outlets for diversion increasing capacity.
in court, that's going to cost us money, and we're going to have
to figure out where we put our money for the best return of investment.
these outlets for diversion are community-based supports. That's why it is a private partnership
with our nonprofit community, our faith-based community, and those people that are dedicated to the criminal justice system
and the advocates that... And the people that are most affected.
and we've heard those stories today of people that are most
affected by our criminal justice system. We know that the issues are about substance abuse recovery,
mental health treatment, as well as support systems or wraparound services that mr. Epley has identified,
especially for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, the idd. We have people in our jail that
have severe mental health issues and are mentally ill. And they're in there because of the criminal justice system.
we had a thorough discussion of the applewhite dual diagnosis facility. It's a good example of where we made an investment,
a multimillion-dollar investment.
we invested to expand the capacity for mental health and
substance use diversion. But we understood today it's about process.
and because of the process, we can't get that thing online. And I've ordered the county
manager and budget office to fix it, figure it out. But this conversation is bigger
than a discussion about facilities.
let me repeat, this is bigger than a discussion
on just facilities. There is no one building a building that is not a
building. No one program, there is no one-shot silver bullet
solution. This is a complicated, multifaceted problem. It is going
to take collaboration of policy, programs, facilities, which the county has been steadily investing in,
and a good discussion, commissioner moody, about where do we go. And you have been very involved
in that, so I appreciate your dedication on trying to improve our criminal justice system.
above all, I believe that process... And stakeholder coordination will make the biggest
difference in improving diversion and deflection. If we build without doing this foundational alignment work, we will not get very far.
so with all due respect to your analogy, you know what? We can keep those old vehicles
with 200,000. We just got to change the oil, change the tires to make sure it runs,
and those cars keep running, and so long we don't run them in the ground. And that's what we have to do
because the effect is... How it affects the people that
are in our system.
and that's been made very clear today.
obviously, dual magistration is another perfect example. If we build a new facility,
but we're working under a separate magistration system by the city and the county, we lose key diversion
opportunities, and you've explained why.
the city system is a duplication of services that can be corrected to assist with budget challenges, and I
believe we are starting conversations at this time. And I appreciate sheriff salazar.
in starting those conversations. We must come together to
eliminate double magistration. The county has worked with the experts,
with our community partners, with our studies, and we basically have brought all the experts to the table, so
to speak, and we have much, much more work to do. Near the start of my term, I
started a public safety action committee with the city, which helped coordinate the necessary
stakeholders. I'm going to reconvene that
stakeholder committee in order to have these discussions in regards to where deflection
and diversion and how do we make the process better. In the remainder
of my term as county judge, I am committed to continue to lead the way on reforming
and increasing coordination within our local criminal justice and community health
systems. And I look forward to working with the judicial system. I've always recognized that our
judges, especially on the criminal of justice side have worked very hard to move those cases.
we have worked with the district attorney's office to provide the funding, the staffing, to deal
with the backlog. And quite frankly, commissioner moody, you've always pointed out,
we still have a backlog. So we still have much, much work to do in order to provide an effective assistance.
I want to appreciate the work of uhs because they stepped in to work with the gia there,
the magistration system, and we are continuing to look
at how uhs... Can continue to provide support, and you are a very,
very valuable partner. Thank you. I think we heard a discussion
that we need some medication issues over at the applewhite, so I'm sure, knowing my conversations
with the bannos, we're going to get things fixed over there. So with that, I want to leave
with a note of optimism, with hope, and with the order to this court that we must
continue to fix the system. It needs to be fixed. Thank you for everybody who's
made this. Presentation available. Thank you for all that participated today.
I thank the colleagues on this court for their participation and involvement and their input.
all right. I believe we're at the lunch hour.
I'm declaring a recess at this time. I know we still have citizens to be heard. I know we still have business
to do. Let's take about a 45-minute break, guys.
court, let's take a recess and we'll come back.
there we go. All right.
time is now 1.33 p.m. The court's back in session. We finished the time certain. Commissioner rodriguez, you had
something you wanted to bring up to the court's attention?
just when we get to item seven. Item seven. All right. So the court will take up
agenda item six, filing for the record, the following legal administrative documents, directing the criminal district attorney
to take action if necessary. Subsection a, court takes note. Seven, approval
of commissioner's court minutes for tuesday, april 14th,
2026. Yes, judge, and I'd like to make a motion
to approve the minutes with one amendment. There's a typographical error in the minutes on item number
43. The dollar amount should be
$1,820,000 rather than $1,000,000.
$800,000. So I'd make that amendment and a motion to approve.
motion by commissioner rodriguez. Is there a second?
second by commissioner moody. With that stipulation
of correction, all those in favor, signify
by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstention?
motion carries. We'll now go to agenda item number eight, citizens to be heard. We will start with mr.
keith wilson. I will note for the record that
I have one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight,
additional speakers
now go to agenda item number eight, citizens to be heard. We will start with mr. Keith wilson. I will note for the record that I have one, two. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight additional speakers.
I will call them out. All have indicated on their note that they yield to keith wilson.
so, keith, if you'll just allow me. Kara schneider, just want to make sure. She had to leave, sir. All right, she had to leave,
and she's yielding. She had to leave. Yes, sir. Kristen green, are you yielding
your time? Okay.
damien lovio, are you yielding your time? Got it.
gary lockhart, are you yielding your time? Gary lockhart, okay, you're yielding your time.
eric bowden, you're yielding your time? Okay. Fred alvarado, yielding your time? Okay, well, let him know what I call his name. He's noted he's yielding his time.
george westphair, you're yielding your time? Thank you. And catherine smith-peter. Got it. Mr. Keith wilson, you have the floor. Judge sakai, commissioners, good morning, good afternoon. My name is keith wilson.
I'm a retired soldier. I'm the former director of bexar county's department of
military and veterans services.
I joined the county nearly four years ago, and I never imagined I'd be standing here
like I am today. I'm grateful to have friends,
family, and community partners that join me today in support and solidarity.
to all the employees and the
deputies that made a point today to come to me and say hello and express support,
thank you.
I'm truly humbled by you each and every day, and you are the reason why I am here.
today, I come before you to raise concerns about this government as an institution.
public service only works when the public servants doing the work are valued.
when government employees are treated as expendable or
silenced, the consequences are felt across the community.
services weaken and trust erodes. The very institution meant
to serve the public begins to lose their way. I grew up in san antonio,
graduated from west point. I served a career in the military. I have literally spent my
entire adult life in service to others.
as a retired army officer,
I had the privilege of leading soldiers for nearly three decades
at varying levels of staff, and command responsibilities. That experience reinforced one
core belief. Our people are our greatest resource.
I brought that philosophy to the department and it drove tangible results that directly
benefited our community.
we nearly doubled staffing, expanded services from two locations to 10, and
created new initiatives for surviving spouses. As well as our homeless,
at-risk, and justice-involved veterans. We also added new critical
capabilities, including financial assistance and peer support programs for veterans
and their families. Unfortunately, as of last week, both of those
programs were recommended to not be renewed by the
state's grant review board. This would be a significant
loss of resources to our community thank you. That follows the apparent
recent loss of grant funding for three of our courts, misdemeanor drug, felony drug, and prostitution.
this pattern of lost grant funding and lost capabilities
reflects a broader concern with managerial oversight and institutional continuity that
ultimately harms the veterans and the residents who depend on these services.
but my experience with the county also exposed something
even more troubling. Last summer, a number of my department staff had the trust
and the confidence to bring forward concerns to me directly, an act of
courage that should be recognized and protected.
after elevating those concerns through appropriate county channels, and specifically
requesting an external investigation into them,
I became the subject of a disputed performance
improvement plan. That significantly
mischaracterized both my actions and my performance. The pip asserted I was not
present in my office during core business hours, but failed to account
for the operational reality of a department dependent upon community partnerships and serving the community across
10 locations where most client work occurred in the field, not at a central headquarters. A typical day for me often
involved a commi- attending community events, resource
fairs, meetings like the military transformation task force, co-chaired by
commissioner moody, or the greater chambers military
advisory council. I would routinely meet community partners like broken warriors angels to walk
through homeless encampments in places like live oak, hill country village, alamo ranch, and the far south side just
off roosevelt avenue. Areas that the city of san antonio and organizations like haven for hope and sam
ministries do not regularly visit. There we encountered both
veterans and non-veterans. Our team helped
with connecting our veterans
to critical resources, enrolling them in va health care, and helping
them file va disability claims that in many cases resulted in literally life-changing
benefits. County social services provided additional assistance and
resources to them and to the non-veteran residents. At a time when bexar county is experiencing never-before-seen
growth and an increase in geographically dispersed homeless residents,
particularly in suburban communities and unincorporated areas, the county has a greater responsibility than ever to
address this escalating need. Tragically, the county instead has stopped all homeless
outreach efforts at the moment of greatest need. Leaving vulnerable residents
without the outreach and the
resource connections they once received. My role required regular
presence in the community to deliver expected results. Mandating a constant presence at a single headquarters, where
administrative support functions primarily occurred, would have been inconsistent
with the mission and the expectations given to me. Of note, not one of the individuals on my team
thank you. That raised the initial concerns were based in that headquarters.
the pip also claimed I delegated responsibilities without oversight,
yet neither I nor any of my
leadership team were interviewed during that investigation to
explain the systems that we had in place. When I formally requested
clarification on the disputed pip and raised good faith concerns that it could be
retaliatory, my primary request
was to have it rescinded and removed from my record so I could get back
to serving veterans. Bexar county then placed me on administrative leave and
retained the law firm caldwell, clark, fenucci, and
finlayson at a cost of up to $100,000 of public funds to investigate me. That investigation dramatically
expanded well beyond the original pip. It was likely directed by the
same leadership I had identified in my concerns. What began as a legitimate request
for clarification and concerns about potential retaliation was later reframed in the investigative findings as,
quote, insubordination, end quote.
this is precisely the kind of dynamic the eeoc exists to prevent.
legitimate efforts to address possible retaliation being recast.
as misconduct.
prior to all of this, I had no documented disciplinary actions
or negative performance issues for more than three and a half years of my time
with the county. Yet on march 10, 2026, while I was out of the state
on previously approved pto with just my nine-year-old daughter,
this court made the decision to terminate my employment, apparently based in part
on the findings of that external investigation. I was notified by the county
via voicemail and text of my termination while I was out of the state with my
daughter. I have serious reservations
about how the investigation was conducted and more importantly how its findings were presented to this court.
notably, while versions of this report and its findings have been released to local media,
I have still never received from the county a copy of the full report.
any summary or even the findings. In fact, my open records
request over a month ago for the the complete document
was forwarded to the texas attorney general for ruling on exceptions
with nothing being provided to me while the media received the findings. What I will share today is not
an exhaustive rebuttal, but a snapshot of key omissions and missing context.
first, they claim I disclosed confidential county records
to a third party, quote, without authorization or a valid legal basis,
end quote. What they failed to mention is the third party was my personal
attorney, included on a formal grievance that I made
to the county manager to seek clarification and raise concerns
of potential retaliation. This was a protected legal communication, not an
independent or improper disclosure. The report also seems to admit the fact that the same exact
document with the same exact attachments with no redactments,
was emailed on the same day to the same third party by county attorney larry
roberson, demonstrating inconsistent application of confidentiality standards,
and I was never asked about it. Second, the report claims that
I engaged in inappropriate physical contact with a county employee. First and foremost, I have no
idea what incident this is supposedly referring to. The report relies on
intentionally ambiguous phrase inappropriate contact that
quote could be interpreted as sexual in nature, end quote. Supposedly stemming from some
third party interpretation of my interaction with my date.
what is later described in the report as a public display
of affection. This alleged event supposedly involved a personal
relationship of mine. There is no formal complaint,
no investigation, and no disciplinary action at the time of this alleged
event supposedly involving me with a county employee reported
by some third party. In fact, the allegation seems
to only have surfaced during this external investigation after I raised my concerns
about potential retaliation. And again, I was never asked about it.
the report also references metadata on my county phone associated
with an adult website. The report presents this as, quote, inappropriate use,
end quote. But what it actually refers
to are old internet bookmarks from a personal google account saved years before I ever
joined the county. One nearly 10 years ago that were automatically and
unbeknownst to me. Downloaded
to the phone when I logged into chrome browser simply to access the password manager.
like many county employees and possibly some
of you have done. There is no evidence presented that I ever visited or even
attempted to access these sites.
yet the way it is written states inappropriate use and suggests intentional misconduct and creates a far more serious
and salacious impression. Than the provided facts supported.
and again, I was never asked about it. Another allegation suggested I
violated administrative leave by holding a meeting with community partners
to discuss county business. In reality, I met in a personal capacity
with my friend stephen price and leaders from the american gi forum, both
of who are here today, at their location to discuss their internal initiatives. During my three months
on administrative leave, I volunteered with a number of community organizations.
frankly, I did not want to go crazy sitting in my house wondering what was going on.
I always made it clear I could not and would not discuss county business,
and I never did. The one participant in that meeting who was interviewed
by the law firm, mr. Stephen price, confirmed with the law firm that I was not
speaking. On behalf of the county. Yet still, somehow, that made it into the findings
as substantiated. And again, I was never asked about it.
finally, another item raised in the report regards contracting and gifted spaces.
I regularly touted the fact that we only paid for two of the 10 office locations.
and that the eight locations we occupied rent-free were through memoranda
of understanding with community partners. Many of the same locations were
officially opened with ribbon-cutting ceremonies, in which several of you, as members of this court,
personally participated. Anticipated and publicly supported. The report states that quote
because these entities provided space at no contest the arrangements constitute gifts which must be approved
by the commissioners court under county policy and texas law. Accepting or executing these
arrangements without proper authorization exceeded mr. Wilson's individual authority
and violated county policy. The report goes on to say that at least one,
one mou had been signed solely by me. What the report fails to mention is that our department
properly staffed these mous and we received specific guidance from larry roberson's attorneys
at civil division regarding what required commissioner's court approval and what I could
execute administratively and we followed that guidance. The report clearly omits the
fact that my actions were coordinated with county legal guidance and were not
unilateral decisions. Some of the mous were still in this staffing process when I
was placed on administrative leave. These are only a few examples and yet the same gaps and
contacts appear throughout the report. I was not given the opportunity
to respond to most of the allegations prior to the report being finalized,
presented to you, and released. To the media.
in fact, despite more than five hours that I spent sitting with the lawyers at that law firm, I was only specifically asked about two of the allegations against me.
both of those were ultimately unsubstantiated. Now I ask you this, if any of the information I just provided
is new to you, our elected officials, ask yourself if that is how you want
to make decisions. What seems to be cherry-picked information, presented
in a manipulative manner, to drive someone else's predetermined, desired outcome.
I would suggest this is not how government should function.
what matters most is not any
single allegation,
but whether the process used to identify and evaluate them was fair,
consistent and complete. In the end, what should have been recognized as employees
demonstrating the courage to raise concerns and a leader's active response leveraging county resources focused
on addressing them, instead devolved into a process that shifted focus away from the original concerns and onto
the individual, elevating them higher. This is not even about one
position or one person. It reflects a broader pattern that has been publicly
documented. A recent san antonio observer article attributes a statement to commissioner calvert that
includes, quote, retribution via dragging of feet, denial of resources, character assassination is
standard practice in bexar county, end quote.
that comment is not an outlier. It aligns with a growing body of public reporting involving senior county leadership across multiple offices. These are not isolated headlines.
taken together, they suggest a deeper institutional problem at the highest of levels, one that spans departments,
roles, and years. A county culture that appears to prioritize bureaucracy and administrative process
over the people, treating dedicated public servants as
mere tools. Of implementation, rather than the very resource that makes
effective government possible. Environments where employees feel discouraged
from raising concerns, or where doing so invites retaliation, ultimately undermine the very mission they
are meant to serve. Leaders in turn become reluctant to take appropriate action
for fear of their own professional survival. This is precisely why eeoc
involvement matters. It reinforces the right and the necessity of employees raising
legitimate concerns and leaders addressing them
without fear. Bexar county has an opportunity and a responsibility
to address this. County employees are not just staff, they're members
of the community, they're our neighbors, and they're your constituents.
the county has already demonstrated a willingness to commit significant resources
to external legal investigations. And settlements.
that same willingness should now be applied more broadly to prevent these issues
from happening in the first place. Instead of focusing resources
narrowly, bexar county should invest in an independent system-wide assessment of its workplace culture and
practices. At the same time the role of the county manager must evolve
beyond a traditional administrative function focused primarily
on managing bureaucracy. It should transition into a true leadership position,
one grounded in robust experience actually leading people, strategic thinking and
planning, and the proven ability to drive
cross-functional efforts across
departments and external partners to address key county
priorities. Ultimately, this leadership
must be rooted in the simple but powerful philosophy that our people are our greatest resource. Only then can bexar county
effectively address its most
pressing challenges. Growth, housing instability, homelessness, behavioral health, and infrastructure strain. None of those operate in silos, and neither should we. Through a true
whole-of-government model that aligns strategic priorities, coordinates cross-department initiatives, and delivers measurable outcomes for our community. This is not
about assigning blame, it's about demanding better. Other sectors, including manufacturing,
often highlighted by this very court, have long recognized that investing in people leads
to better outcomes, greater efficiency, and stronger performance.
government should be no different.
bexar county has the talent, the mission, and the resources to lead. What it needs now is a true
shift in leadership mindset, from prioritizing bureaucracy to truly valuing people as its
greatest resource.
because when we take care of those who serve, they are better able to serve us all.
that is what this county needs, and that is what our community
deserves. While my fight is clearly not
over, there remains an opportunity right now for this court to demand more
from the institution that you lead for the benefit of the men and the women who show up every single day committed
to serving others. Thank you for the opportunity to finally...
provide you my.
all right, the next speaker is sergio dickerson, but sergio, you also
have paul bernal and stephen price. Both have indicated on their request to yield your time to
serio.
so let me call paul bernal. Are you here? Are you yielding your time?
stephen price, yielding your time. Mr. Sergio dickerson, the floor is
yours. Thank you, judge. Good afternoon, judge, commissioners, and
distinguished members of the community. My name is serge dickerson. I am the president and ceo
of the american gi forum national veterans outreach program.
I'm here today to discuss a need in the community for a centralized place where veterans transitioning from
service... Are offered resources that result in jobs, wellness,
services, disability, and many other critical resources that
lead to the success and their stability. When mr.
keith wilson was head of the military and veterans service center, we were building that transition center and that
program. Since his sudden departure, that effort has ended.
I've been in the veteran business here in san antonio since 2015.
but just for context and prior my service with this community,
I spent the better part of 30 years in the army, commanding at every level through
brigade command. The nbop was involved with mayor ivey
at the time and the community to try to end veteran homelessness.
achieved functional zero and metric used by hud to describe
a community that has had sufficient resources to deal with veteran homelessness.
and at the time, it was a milestone achievement,
and I felt we had changed the trajectory of veterans serving in our community.
and I don't want to minimize this. It was a huge win, and it set
in motion a movement that continues today with many homeless veteran lives changed
for the better. At the time, veteran suicide was 22 per day,
and two wars were still going on in the middle east. Last year post-combat,
that number was 18, nationally,
according to the va's official website.
I couldn't tell you what it is in san antonio, but I really would like to know.
today, my organization alone houses almost 2,000 veterans a year throughout texas, arguably
one of the most of any single nonprofit organization in
texas. I spent $12 million a year
alone, mainly va funding, but also state and private funding,
putting veterans... Mostly homeless and at risk in homes.
in that 11 years, that number has increased tenfold in my organization.
it started at 500,000. It is now 12 million.
ask me where we've come since then. So why aren't the numbers
coming down significantly? After 11 years
of studying this problem in san antonio, and the bexar
county area, it's due to an utter failure to transition veterans
from military service to civilian service, nationwide, but also here
in the county and in the city. What is the danger of continuing down this path,
let me tell you? For one, these results are an auditor's dream
to argue really for the cutting
of these funds. Eventually that cut is coming. We've seen some of that already.
I'm not suggesting that we ignore the immediate homeless crisis.
I'm making a point that we cannot simply continue to react to homelessness.
we need to prevent it altogether.
we are failing to address the transitioning
of veterans to our communities. Why?
because we don't have a focal point. For them to seek services. They often get lost
in the myriad of literally hundreds of organizations, all
well-intended, including my own, to help them. The result, particularly for
the younger veteran service members, e134, maybe two to four years in service,
when they leave the military, I can tell you what they're considered by us, homeless. They were living
in the barracks, now they're not. They did have a paycheck, now they don't.
and they have no disability, at least six to ten months after they leave.
so they have nothing. That is the veteran that's coming into our communities. I'm not merely suggesting that
this is a problem. I'm telling you it is. I've spoken to those veterans
over the past 11 years. I would ask everyone here to take some time and watch american sons, a pbs documentary we supported that documents the trajectory
of a proud, elite marine unit that lost more of its members after combat than they did in combat. And their losses in combat were
pretty significant. And these are the elites of the military.
many veterans here today, including this soldier before you, have experienced the horrors of
combat and have persevered because we have purpose and connection to this community.
it is not just a va problem alone. Either it's a community problem
because it involves citizens. And families
of this great community. To set these young warriors on the right course serves not only them, but the community itself.
veterans get better jobs, spend less time in expensive state and federal programs,
and I am willing to bet my pension that it decreases suicide rates also. Not only that,
but it's cheaper down the road. Because we're focusing
on the end of the problem, not the beginning of it, before it becomes a problem,
before they take the drugs, before they get in trouble with the law, before they lose
their family and they get a divorce, before they lose their kids, before they commit suicide.
distinguished members, we need
a centralized clearinghouse for veterans in bexar
county. It will pay for itself. And it will be a model
for the national effort to transition veterans. I am not here simply to point
at the problem. My organization, the nvop, is willing to lead that effort with bexar county.
and set the example for the nation, because it starts in a place
like military city, and then it expounds out to the country, and then the nation picks it up
as their program. And that's how we get more funding.
we are already doing this in a smaller extent
with excellent success in lackland air force base. To that point,
no one we have helped at transition, no one, in bexar county has ended up
homeless. Because we prevented it, and we spent far less money than we
are now on those that are already homeless. It is time to lead this effort
in military city, usa. Please help me
to get this done. Thank you.
judge, may I just ask a quick question? Yes, sir. Thank you, judge. Commissioner collins.
thank you for your testimony coming down. Very important.
you've made a request to the court for support of the renovation
of some buildings around san pedro. Can you remind us what that cost request was
to the court? Yes, sir. So we have a facility right now
in san pedro that is three stories. It's 15,000 square feet. It's currently empty.
we do have some folks using it right now because we didn't see
that there was any movement. Bringing the services to that facility but we could
always do that again we own the building we could put those
services in that building we would need some funding to get it started and
to lead that effort but I think we could do that I think we could also use the help of
bexar county to try to engage the local installations because
this is more than a va problem this is a dod issue and if we could get those veterans as
they transition then we could set the condition for those individuals
to get set up in our community. And then we'd spend less money
and time on those individuals, and they would be more successful in our community,
where it really counts, than if we ignored the problem until they became a problem.
but what's that amount that you were requesting? I don't have that number right
now, sir, but we can discuss that at a
later date. I didn't come prepared to talk finances at the time.
but we own the building. So we'd see something less than buying a new building. Thank you.
yes, sir. Okay, thank you. Yes, sir. Arthur reckowitz. Arthur reckowitz.
there you are.
good afternoon, judge sakai. Good afternoon, commissioners flores, moody, commissioners
rodriguez, commissioner calvert. I want to speak briefly
about fraud, waste, and abuse in the bexar county elections.
the state of texas recognizes my address, and I gave a map of showing the address because there's a lot of discussion
about the road. In southeast bexar county does not exist and I would like to
redraw that photo afterwards. In austin, I did not get the
voter registration card, so I went to austin and they
said that my address is valid.
so I came back to bexar county and made my presentation
to one of the clerks there. And she says that it doesn't matter
about the voter registration. The voter registration card does matter because if you have
a texas driver license, you can move and it's invalid or have a
military id, and so it's invalid
to have a cross validation.
with that being made, I finally got my voter registration card
from the bexar county. The physical address of 12831 east pittman road reflects
that. But the mailing address says
12831 pittman road. So they would not honor it or my presentation.
so I gave them, I said, you
keep the voter registration card. I will not be voting this becoming elections because.
I will not participate
in fraud and the violation of usc code and the voter
registration violations. And there's 20 people
on that street. And I'm not only talking about myself. I do have other neighbors that
I stand before the court. So all of those 20 individuals, my neighbors, are involved
in this. Thank you. Judge akai, as you being the
ceo of bexar county, I think it's important.
in following something recently, I filed a report
with bexar county sheriff on that incident.
it reflects 12831 east pittman.
just the day before yesterday, I filed another incident, and the deputy I asked to validate.
to looking at their computer in their cruiser and she said yes
it did. Judge, commissioners, the time has expired.
I'll wrap it up. Go ahead. Anyway, with that,
when she arrived at my home, come to find
out that it reflected east pittman. The difference is the county
has used thousands of dollars to go ahead and facilitate the communications. If you don't use the bexar
county asset, and uses a wireless device that places the
safety of the deputy and the health
of the law enforcement. It's important to recognize
this address because it is for the safety and the health. I thank you
for your time. I would like to speak a little bit more, but a friend of mine
informed me once before, just come and talk in front of the court.
because I tried to address it with the staff, and I haven't.
when the presidents, like commissioner atkinson, I always got an open door
to discuss the matter with them.
thank you for your time. Thank you. All right.
I believe that concludes the citizens to be heard. I believe we got
through consent. There were no items pulled. So, court, I'd like to support.
privilege to take up item 49. It is a matter that we had a listed executive. It's my understanding that we
have an agreement. Please tell me that we need
to take this executive, but is there any objections taking this up at this time?
49, discussion, appropriate action regarding,
and y'all can read subsection a and 1 and 2.
yes, we can read. All right. So at this time, is there a
motion to approve or is there a presentate? David?
I mean, I think randy's here, right? And do you want to just kind of review the things that we asked for and what the commitments
are and then we can push it through quickly? Okay, so we were asked
to explore three options by the court.
is that what you're referring to? Okay.
off the top of my head, one of them was to explore affordable housing opportunities within the
development being proposed and pledged by the developer. The other was to explore the commitment of 100% thank you.
of the in aggregate 15% assessment on properties as opposed to the 10% that was being allocated to repay the county.
and finally was the agreement to pay an interest on the advanced $10 million for which the county would receive
two parcels that could become one or two county parks adjacent to the ballpark. And basically at that point I left it up to your offices and the developer
to discuss your thoughts about each of those.
okay. It is,
I can be corrected if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that the
developer would concur to pay the interest cost on the advanced funds,
which we estimated to be a blend of six different sources that that $10 million would come from, just over 4%
annually. I believe they're amenable to paying that. They can explain that.
they don't believe it's feasible to allocate to the county the entire 15%
of the self assessment but they would continue
to pledge to allocate 10% of the 15% assessment to repay that advance
from the county. And I'll leave it up to them to discuss the affordable housing
component, but I believe they believe that would be challenging
to the business model in the current environment. Commissioner moody.
okay, now I'm on. I mean, first of all, I appreciate their willingness to meet us there on the
interest.
I think that makes a lot of sense.
and also to the other point about the entire 15%, if we're getting paid a reasonable
amount of interest, then having that money paid off
sooner doesn't necessarily. It isn't the same driver it would be if we were not getting interest on that loan.
so, you know, I'm good with that, as is with being able to get the concession on the
interest rate. I appreciate them being able to be a good broker and work with us on this
in good faith. And so I'm supportive of that. Mr.
rodriguez? Yeah, I would just ask.
daniel or randy, please come up. I mean, I know we had a lot of discussion on this in executive session. I am going to be supportive. I think we landed in a place where we can move the project
forward. But I think just important for the public discourse that we
frame the conversation. Obviously, we are here. This is on the northwest corner of.
downtown, my precinct, but obviously downtown belongs to everybody.
but part of the discussion on this transaction was, I guess, a little bit
of restructuring on the finance due
to a little bit
of a shortfall. The county is essentially
loaning some money, but we're also getting a public park space in exchange.
I don't want to mischaracterize this, but I just think it's important that we just...
try to simplify it for the public discussion. Randy, daniel, am I missing
anything on, I guess, just what david laid out or anything else that you wanted
to add? Just again, so we can just put it out in the public. Sure.
thank you, commissioner. Daniel ortiz here on behalf of the team.
randy smith on behalf of the ownership is also here in case there are any follow-up
questions. But in essence, the funding... That the county is allocating is already issued certificates
of obligation which essentially have strings on them they can only be spent on certain uses this will be
one of those uses so with today's amendment friendly amendment the county would be being paid back a hundred
percent
of the principal so the 10 million along with the interest and that money coming back has no strings on it it comes into the general fund so the county it's a smart smart business
deal, if you will, but that's the core of the financial aspect
of what's happening from the county end. I will add that before we even got here to try
to solve for the issue, the team took out about $7 million
of expenses and put them on their side of the ledger, if you will, so increasing
their commitments. And then in addition, they're also adding yet another $5 million on top of that for a
park. That would complement the
stadium itself. Right.
so I just wanted to, again, just as simply as we could put it out there. I know sometimes we get bogged
down in the details on these. It's important. Randy, if you could just come
up. I know part of these long,
ongoing discussions for this vision, part of the ask I know was related
to affordable housing, I know that as it relates
to the footprint of the current development, its market rate, but I know you and your team have done other
affordable housing projects, mixed use, or mixed income, I.e. The continental that we worked
on through our pfc. I know this is kind
of outside the scope of what we're talking
about here, but I know in speaking
with you and your team, you guys are also committed, particularly
in the urban core, at looking for other opportunities, hopefully where there's maybe some mixed income or affordable
units. Is that right? Yes, commissioner, thank you. If I kind of take
off my missions hat and put on my western urban hat, I would just...
take this opportunity to say, working with the court and staff
on the continental to provide mixed income affordable housing in the core of downtown, and my team would echo this, is
the project that we're most proud of. And so you are correct,
within the footprint of the ballpark, the finance mechanism does not allow for that,
but we have ample opportunity around that to continue working with the county
to help deliver more of that. We'd love that. We appreciate that,
and I know... And working with you and your team over the past couple years. You guys are, you stick
to your word, so we appreciate your efforts. So I'm going to go ahead and make the motion, judge.
I know we've got two different items here. One is the, I guess,
the negotiation purchase of the linear park, which is item 49.1.
I'll make a motion to approve. Second. Motion by commissioner
rodriguez, second by commissioner clay flores. Any further discussion? Yeah, just comment.
so I want to thank randy and daniel for being here. Randy, I think another thing
you should be proud of is that beautiful sign on the side of the frostbank center that says, go first
go. I guess y'all stopped in between because of the rain?
yes, ma'am. I told marcus that sign would say, go first go, and I knew it.
so if y'all haven't seen it, you need to go look at it. It's very nice. But thank you for continuing
to work with us. Willing to negotiate back and forth so that we can have even more benefit
for our constituents. Of course, this is a project that passed initially with the three of us voted
in favor of it. So I've been supportive all along, so I'm happy to support it again today.
thank you. Any further comment? Commissioner moody. Sorry, since we brought up the
spurs here. Exciting opportunities right now with the watch parties out at the rock.
I need to get with you, daniel, about parking and availability out there,
because the community is coming out in full force, and I'm sure they will be tonight as well. Okay, let me just say thank you
to daniel and randy and the whole team. This baseball program and
state arena is a new paradigm shift for the downtown.
we've had some hard negotiations, but I think... We have an agreement, at least
from the county perspective, that engages issues of housing and economic development and the ability
to revitalize the downtown. And it's been my pleasure to lead this
with the baseball ownership
along with the city of san antonio.
and I thank my colleagues for giving me the authority to sign off
on all the agreements. Obviously, it will still have to be approved by council. And the county manager's office
to make sure all I's are dotted and t's are crossed. But I express my sincere appreciation
for getting this. Obviously, we still have much more work
to do and look forward to working to the end of the year.
all right, I'll call for the vote. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions?
motion carries. We also need a motion, judge, for 49-2, which is the release of the very county's portion
of the houston street. Turs and the mou and authorization
for the county judge to execute any necessary documents. Second. Motion of commissioner rodriguez, seconded by
commissioner clay flores. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, signal by saying aye.
aye. Any opposed? Any abstention? Is that inclusive online? Is he still here?
hello? Is commissioner calvert still listening? Commissioner calvert? I'm here.
okay. Close question. All right. We're calling for the vote. All those in favor, signal by saying aye.
aye. Any opposed? Any abstention? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you.
alright, should we take up 53?
related to the grant and exception, we already approved the late file of item 53a. Discussion of appropriate action regarding approval and
agreement with west publishing, dba thompson reuters, for a subscription to west proflex, which includes
a co-counsel 400v2 and westlaw all analytical for 26 attorneys at a cost of $2,284.03 per month
with a 5% increase for year 2
and year 3, and clear proflex proprietary law enforcement
investigation solution at a cost of $233.42 per month. With a 5% increase
for year two and three, ms. Mellon.
good afternoon, judge, commissioners. Carrie mellon, chief public
defender. I'm here because we have the money in our budget to...
I paid for this fiscal year, but because the contract as a whole is over $50,000, I need the court's approval. It's the same programs that
were in place before I came on as chief public defender,
same programs that the district attorney's office uses. It's our legal research for westlaw and clears
for our investigators
to help find people. Motion by commissioner mooney, second by
commissioner rodriguez. Any further discussion? I want to make a comment. Yes, commissioner calvert. Thank you very much.
david, I just was kind of caught off guard on the $50,000 threshold since we raised it in policy
8.0 a few months ago. So, ostensibly, this wouldn't have had to come
before as an individual item, correct?
I'm sorry, commissioner, I can't hear you. So it was for david smith.
oh, I'm sorry. I can't see who else is there from the county manager's
office or purchasing. How are you doing? Okay. We had raised the threshold
for what comes before the court in changing policy 8.0 a few months ago.
that's correct, commissioner. We raised the threshold up to $100,000 prior
to needing court approval. Right, so this is under that threshold,
correct? What would the total be?
it was, I'm not sure what the
total was. It was over 50, but less than 100,000 for sure. Yeah, so this might just be an error of the old way that you got caught.
you might have been making the request prior to the change, and it just was kind of...
remnant of that past but in any event I didn't I just wanted to
make sure that you all were aware
of that change thank you jim it's a multi-year agreement yeah it was a late filed item
and it involved more than one
one year purchase so those are two different reasons one that
it would be on the agenda in the first place and the second why it's
on individuals because of the late file okay. Multi-year.
thank you. I just wanted to comment in regards to carrie and the
public defender's office. You were here during the whole diversion discussion this
morning, and it just went on very long. So I didn't acknowledge you,
so I just wanted to acknowledge the work that you and your team
do because you, too, are part of the success. Even though we still have work
to do. So I just wanted to acknowledge you.
so thank you. Thank you, commissioner. I appreciate that. All right.
call for a vote. All those in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions?
motion unanimously carries. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let's go back to the very front
of individual. Item 47, presentation, discussion, appropriate action
regarding the authorization of bexar county judge peter sakai to execute a proposed agreement on behalf
of the commission court related to domestic violence system evaluation. With university of texas
health science center at houston in partnership with a non-profit caminar latino with a two-year term
in amount not to exceed $744,000, subject to the attorney representing the
county approving the agreement's terms and conditions, direction to staff to place the executed agreement
on the next available commission's court agenda following the execution for
acknowledgement and record filing purposes. A budget transfer is included.
dr. Goodell. Hi, good afternoon,
court. I am dr. Andrea guerrero. I'm the director of public health, and we are here to offer or ask
for a recommendation to authorize a county judge to execute a contract.
we can go over the recommended motion at the end.
so a little history on this project. This domestic violence evaluation research study was
originally approved or recommended through arpa funding, so the original amount budgeted
through arpa was $750,000. Back in 2022, and we did have a recommended entity that we were negotiating with,
we were unable to come to terms
with that entity relative to some specifics of an arpa agreement, and so we weren't able
to move forward with that entity. But acknowledging that we still
needed an evaluation of this sort and the value that it will bring to bexar county and
to people who are involved in domestic and family violence. We set out
to find another contractor, another vendor to work with. As we were building the star
program that's been in process for almost two years now in
july, we'll be celebrating it. We worked with a lot of our folks and partners all
over the state. But a lot with harris county, and as we were working with harris county, one
of our biggest questions was, how are you doing evaluation? How are you evaluating not only
just your services, but that of your partners? And in those conversations, we met dr.
lela wood, who has been one of their primary evaluators over the last several years,
and started talking to her once commissioners in december said, you know,
you can negotiate with someone else and find who that is. So.
we identified dr. Leila wood and have been working with the ada and with purchasing to confirm that
an ila would be the most appropriate document because dr.
leila wood and then again we added dr. Alexander testa to the
evaluation team, both our faculty at the ut
health houston school of public health.
so the purpose of the evaluation, after we started working with dr.
wood and dr. Testa, dr. Wood being an expert in domestic violence and dr.
testa being an expert in criminal justice, and especially with the bexar county criminal justice system,
and they have worked together as research partners. And so between the two
of them and then also with the addition of another researcher,
evaluator, dr. Josephine serrata, who works with an organization called
caminar latina, that the addition of dr. Serrata would ensure that we
are focusing on culturally responsive evaluation as well as process evaluation.
her specialty, and she's a nationally renowned evaluator in the area of culturally
responsive evaluation, to ensure linguistic appropriateness, talking to folks
in the appropriate language and with the context of culture and everything else that is
involved to ensure that our results are valid. The goal of the evaluation is to assess the current system
response across... Public health, criminal justice, social service, and community groups.
primarily, we're really focusing on the core services that are provided by bexar
county, which starts with law enforcement, but then also sapd,
because they are responsible for a number of the cases that get brought
into the system. So, beginning with law enforcement, involving our star program,
but also the family justice center, civil and criminal courts, the da's office,
texas legal aid. So a number of stakeholders that are part of the continuum
of care that a survivor has to interact with as they go through the system, but then also programs that are adjacent
to our system that aren't necessarily operated by the county, like family prevention, better women's
shelter, the peace initiative, and other support, usually survivor services.
but if they have an impact on the experience of a person going through our system,
they would also be involved in this evaluation. So the idea is
to identify our needs at gaps. Opportunities, and then develop recommendations, develop
findings and then recommendations for how we can improve systems.
and I really appreciate the discussion we had this morning around meadows and around the gia evaluation study because it
was able to demonstrate that these are evaluations and studies that don't just get put
on a shelf, that they are actionable recommendations that
we can put into process and also create lasting impact. So some of the stakeholders
that we've been... Identified so far, law
enforcement, primarily bcso and sapd. There could be other jurisdictions once we get
into the data collection. If a law enforcement jurisdiction has a significant impact, some
of the larger ones, then they would also be included. Criminal justice system, the da's office, courts, magistration, victim advocates
on the civil side, those that deal with protective orders, courts,
family violence prevention program, family justice center survivor services and all of the programs that are housed
there. The health department programs, which would include our bexar
county star program, but then also metro health violence prevention, which is
similar to our star program, supervision, pretrial services, folks who are adult probation,
and then folks that are in the jail who might be helping us with some data collection.
and then, like I mentioned, nonprofit partners, specifically women's shelter peace initiative, texas legal
aid. So it's a four-phase project over two years.
the first phase primarily... Focused on, and dr. Test is here. He came back in case there's
any questions. And dr. Wood is watching via the live stream.
but the first phase, which is in year one, would be primary data collection, making sure we're
collecting data from odyssey, document and policy review, and site visits. So look at all of the entities
that I just mentioned, looking at their sops, and how are you
observing how the process works. But then based on their policy
review, is it working in the same way that they said that it would.
phase two is going to be primarily focused on survivor focus groups.
at least six, and those would be recruited from any number of organizations and stakeholders,
but those would be people who have either been involved in domestic violence or family violence or are currently
involved in it. So it could be somebody with an existing case or someone who
has previously experienced in the past. And also key informant
interviews, so people who are involved in the system who can provide specific insight about how that
entity or stakeholder entity or organization works. It could be any
of you. Who have insight to offer about the system, or jarvis anderson or patricia castillo
and those folks. So key informant interviews. And because this is an
iterative process, what we learn or what the researchers learn from the first phase will be incorporated into or used to
create the interview questions for those survivor groups and for the key informant
interviews. And then the qualitative data that is collected
during phase two will be used to create thank you. Phase three, survivor surveys, where we significantly increase
our sample size up to at least 400 so that we're
essentially validating what we've learned through the qualitative data collection.
then there will be a secondary data review and analysis. And in phase three, we're also going to incorporate
two other things. One's not on here, but incorporating those who do
harm. So perpetrator focus groups, people who have chosen or the
choices that they've made have resulted in harm to somebody else or has
resulted in a domestic violence case or an intimate partner violence case and to actually have focus groups that collect
their perspectives and that's important because primarily a
lot of survivor services and what our system does right now
is to focus on making sure that a survivor is safe that they are empowered that they receive
resources that they are confident that they can leave a situation with safety.
but unless we understand the perspectives and the choices that are made
by somebody who does harm, then that person is free to move on and harm someone else. And so we really want
to make sure... We incorporate that perspective so that we get at primary prevention and not just from a punitive perspective,
like did they go to jail, what kind of sentence did they, but what does real accountability look
like? And as part of our evaluation questions, how do we hold someone accountable so that it
creates real behavior change so that we're really moving the needle to decrease family violence
in bexar county? And then also in phase three, and it's not on this slide, we've asked the researchers to look at a cost analysis
of the typical case. We've heard from our counterparts in harris county, and I don't know
what their methodology was to calculate this, but it costs $17 million to
prosecute a domestic violence homicide. And that's all of the costs that are associated with
staffing and jail and law enforcement. And we would like to understand what is the real cost
of family violence in bexar county. And so the data collection will be basically a value costing to look at all
of the departments based on some budget data. How much does it cost to run the start program or
to grant a protective order to prosecute a family violence case? And then create some costing
models to actually show what the financial impact of that is, just so that this court can have that insight as
you move forward and make policy about funding. So then after phase three, sometimes what happens
with evaluations is we finish all of these, we do the focus groups, then they have some findings, some conclusions, and then they make recommendations.
but then unless you go back to the folks whose data you have collected and say, does this make sense?
are these conclusions reasonable?
are these recommendations feasible? Then sometimes you will get a study that sits on the shelf. It's not actionable. So phase four would be... Going back
to those who have participated in creating some additional survivor interviews and key informant focus groups to go
back and basically do some member checking and validation to say, does this make sense?
is this a doable plan? Because we all know just because it sort
of seems that way at the end of data collection doesn't necessarily mean it can be
actionable. So that is how we wrap up phase 4.
again, the goals are to evaluate how the criminal justice system identifies, responds to, and holds actors accountable, so those who do harm, how well the system responds and supports survivors
and their families, assessing coordination and collaboration, how are we communicating and working
together between different departments, whether it's public health and the office of criminal justice
or the family justice center or the da's office, but every part of the continuum that's
involved in addressing domestic violence. Assessing those costs,
identifying weaknesses and gaps,
evaluating preventative efforts within support services, not just at bexar county, but within our partner
relationships, and then recommending those improvements. This is the budget, so going
from two years, most of the cost is in personnel and a little bit of travel.
we are including incentives and transcriptions for those who participate
in the form of an h-e-b gift card. For their participation and
transcription services, there's going to be a lot of qualitative data that's collected, and so transcription
services is expensive. Caminar latino, which is the third evaluator, and then other
consultants where we might need some subject matter expertise,
some indirect, and so our total over two years will be $711,462.
and again, this was originally budgeted out of arpa funds that were converted a couple years
ago.
so next steps. So what we're doing right now is briefing key stakeholders.
we've briefed your offices, but what we wanted to avoid was executing a contract with a scope that's set
in stone without speaking to a lot of these stakeholders personally and saying, number
one, are you willing? Do we have buy-in from your organization,
like the da's office and like sapd in the city, to say, here's the type
of data we need from you. Here's how your participation thank you. We'll look and to make sure
that we have all of those things pretty well solid before we execute a contract because I don't want to lock anybody into
participation if it's not possible or if they're not willing. So we're doing that right now.
we've met with many of the entities and the stakeholders that I already described.
so that's going to be, that's happening as we speak. And so the recommendation or recommended motion.
is to authorize the county judge to execute. So as soon as we're able
to wrap up all of that prep work, put the scope into a contract working
with the da's office, and make sure that it comes to court as soon as possible. So this would be to authorize the judge
to execute that, and then we would bring that back as a final step for this court to approve.
second.
question? Question?
commissioner calvert or commissioner moody? Two years.
obviously we know this is an issue that we need
to deal with, but two years and the total cost of the project,
I'm just not sure, maybe county staff can tell me, have we ever had a study
at this price point?
he left again. Not of domestic violence, but I'm pretty sure we've spent that much on consultants
on many of them. The long timeline is because
of the scope of the entities involved.
this is not just one program or just one evaluation of just the gia.
it's a very contained, closed area. This is moving
across multiple systems, across multiple bureaucracies, and we're not aware, and
in talking with dr. Wood and dr. Testa, that this is ever
really, it's very ambitious, but that this has ever been done in texas, or maybe ever. So yes, it is a long timeline,
but I do feel like it will add value, and it will yield improvements to the system that we currently
have. Okay, and so you have two project managers,
is that correct?
two researchers, which are... Well, they're listed as project
managers here in your files. Oh, in the budget, yes. I mean,
there are staff associated with the two research teams, or the two researchers that are part of their team, so yes. So this is us contracting
with dr. Wood and dr. Testa and then telling us this
is what we would need to accomplish these goals. So these are not employees at bexar county.
these are... The research team that we would contract with. And the survey,
how long is the survey? Is that designed yet? Do you have an expected length?
it depends. I mean, we would design the survey in a way that would be
efficient for someone to participate. Obviously, we know the
population that we're working with, and we want to make sure that we have a good return. But the survey would depend on
the data collection that happens during phase I and phase ii. I'm just looking at the budget.
it looks like there's a $50 reimbursement for the survey, which seems really high.
I've done surveys before. Actually, we're working on one with utsa, but it's typically
like $5 or $10. So I didn't know if the survey is extensive and multi-hour or
what's driving the high price point. No, but I mean, we value
people's participation. We want to make sure that incentives match that. But no, we don't have the
survey created yet. Like I said, it's an iterative process that will be developed as we go through phases one and
phase two. Okay. I would just caution
against that kind of reimbursement because you may see the wrong people participate just out of desire for the reimbursement rather
than necessarily caring about the issue. It wouldn't be just a blanket
call for participation. These would be people who we've identified as having had
endured some level of family or domestic violence. So, I mean,
there's already going to be selection bias in that they've had that experience,
but it wouldn't be just an open call to the public to say, would you like to participate in this?
these would be recruited from our partner organizations. And you said this was arpa funds that have been...
reallocated,
but they originally came from arpa, correct?
no further questions. Any other questions or comments?
is there a motion? You had a motion. All right. Is there a motion and a second?
all right. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries.
all right. Thank you. Agenda item 48, presentation,
discussion, appropriate action regarding fy26-27, fy30-31,
long-range financial forecast for the general fund and the debt service fund.
ms. Gaetan. Thank you, judge. Good afternoon.
my name is tanya gaetan, budget and finance director. Today I'll be presenting an update for the court on our
long-range financial forecast specifically for our general fund.
as you may know, we are in the process for the next... Fiscal year.
offices and departments are currently developing their requests for next year which
will be due next week and so what we wanted to do today is to present the financial
stability of the general fund using our long-range financial forecast to give you an update
and some information that we received from the bear appraisal district
on first preliminary reports. Today we're not asking
for any action, this is just simply information for the court and for offices and departments as well as for the public.
so as I mentioned on property taxes, we normally receive our first appraisal
report at the end of april, which we received yesterday,
and then we'll receive our final report in july from the appraisal district. The budget office did receive
it. And below is the information that we received from them. So as you can see here, one
of the first things that I want to point out is all of these, all this data that you're showing in the table are
from all of the april reports, so it's the same time frame as
previous years as the one that we received this week. As you can see, past years,
starting in the first report, we had a growth of about 14% all the way down
to 5%. And this year we're actually
starting much lower than previous years at just under 1%.
and I would like to point out that we still do not know the outcome of protests and how
many people will apply for protests, so that's still an unknown.
so tanya, let me jump in here real quick. So just to reset, what we're
doing here is giving you a quick snapshot look ahead, much earlier than we've normally
done this for previous budget processes. And I want to thank the budget
office staff because we just
yesterday received the first
report from the appraisal district on
next budget's appraised property value.
that was yesterday. Now we've been, we had a heads
up last year that property values were not increasing as
fast as they had been historically. So we were sort of primed
to be ready in case this happened, but if we could pull up that slide
again, what tanya's slide is showing you is that our year-over-year growth
in property assessed values, including new construction,
has declined in a period of a few years from double-digit growth
to barely any growth at all. The last time we have seen
numbers this low, I don't think, judge sakai, you were in the county, but you weren't
on commissioner's court. I was here, it was right after the financial crash of
2008. We are looking at that level of property tax decline slash no
growth.
which is highly unusual. Had it not been for the $6.6
billion in new construction, you'd be looking
at a decline overall of several percent, or at least 1%.
but as tanya pointed out, the appraisal district doesn't even
yet know how much of this value will be protested. Those losses won't be known
in full until july.
if they run anywhere like they have historically run,
you could be looking at something
in the neighborhood of $6 billion, maybe more, of loss to protests. If that happens,
essentially you're looking at a decline in overall assessed values, which we didn't even, I would
say would be greater than what we saw after the housing crash.
so this is not normal. This is a very different budget environment we're about
to walk in, and it's going to require very different measures to stabilize the budget,
which tanya will get into. But again, thanks to tina, tanya, and the budget team
for being able to get this to you as early as we have. So we've got as much time as possible as accounting to try
and make sure that we can mitigate any potential negative impact. Thanks.
so david, is this as a result of the new appraisal elected board? I can't pinpoint it to any one thing. Like I said, a number
of things have changed. We had a board that's largely elected now.
I really don't know if that's
changed the pattern of protest and any of that. We've seen a decline in...
we've seen an increase, I believe, in the amount
of protests and the success of those protests over years.
and, oh, that's right, and as tanya will get into the legislature.
in the last session, passed some new business related exemptions that are impacting this upcoming year.
and finally, I'll just point out that data both locally and nationally suggests a pretty
dramatic slowdown in new housing construction sales that is probably impacting us as
well. I can tell you just anecdotally
from driving through areas where you ought, I can see many new subdivisions
that have been platted, bulldozed, gotten ready, and the rate
of new houses going into those subdivisions is surprisingly
slow. But that's just anecdotal on my part.
moving on to the impacts, as the county manager mentioned, one factor is the result
of lower property values in addition to $9 billion in additional exemptions compared
to last year. This includes new exemptions that were approved
by the legislative board, and the number of properties with those exemptions increased
by 50,000 properties compared to last year. This april, again,
does not include protests. And as the county manager mentioned, in the last couple of years,
protests have increased. As an example, last year, $97 billion was protested initially
in may, which is the due date for protests. And over the last two years,
the county has lost about $6 to $7 billion in those protests by the final report in july.
so we are making the same assumption of that loss.
it could be more, it could be less for this upcoming budget process.
so how does that impact our revenue?
so last proposed budget when we presented our long-range financial forecast
to the court and to the public, we had a growth of 2.7% to 3.4%
on our five-year forecast,
which was through 2030 at the time. Since we received this new information,
we are now assuming with a $6 billion loss based on the april report, we are assuming
that we will actually lose just under 2% in property values, which equates to the revenue
in the general fund. And as you're aware, the general fund, about 80%
of that is carried by property taxes. We then updated very modestly
for the rest of the forecast to flat revenue, 1%, and then 2% thereafter.
real quick, just if you can go back.
that negative 1.7, if that ends up happening, will exceed what
we actually experienced in our worst year
after the housing crash by quite a bit. This would be the worst year for property tax revenue that
we've seen, certainly since I've seen,
and that's going on 30 budgets.
as I mentioned when we presented the long-range finance... Financial forecast, we were projecting that by fiscal year 2029 that we
would be in a deficit of about $28 million in the general fund.
now with those updated percentages and growth percentages for the long-range
financial forecast, we are projecting in the same year to be increased by $245
million. So this is significantly
higher. This is based off our second quarter estimates, as well as, like I mentioned,
our new growth projections. So as david mentioned, initially when we had the
housing crisis, we had to do some pretty quick mitigation actions during that time. And here are some of the
actions that the court took at the time, which includes no cost
of living adjustments, freezing vacant civilian positions. No new program changes or
capital projects. As you know, the tax rate also impacts our debt forecasts and
also adjusting our health insurance plans for employees.
so these are just some ideas. Again, we're not asking for any action, but these are
the things that we'll be looking at for the upcoming process for fiscal year 27. So again, this will not be a
normal budget process. The last couple of years have been...
pretty significant growth based off of our property taxes. So we were able to grow new programs, program
changes, offer cost of living adjustments to employees.
but this year, we will be looking at scaling that back.
mitigation is absolutely necessary this year. Again, we're okay over the next two years,
but what we're trying to prevent is actual cuts to existing programs
by fiscal year 29. So we want to recommend to do mitigation actions right now.
the budget office will continue to monitor we receive those appraisal reports.
on a monthly basis at the end of each month. It's typically the last friday
of each month. And so we'll continue to update the court as we receive those reports to see how our
projections are being impacted by those. And if you have any questions,
I'm available for you. I'm sorry, just one other thing
I wanted to point out. By taking quick action in prior, in a few, we've had a few tough...
budget years over the past few decades.
I mean, covid itself wasn't a great event for property taxes either.
and then post 9-11, there was some decline in property,
ad valorem growth as well. But by taking quick action
in the past, we've been able to avoid more drastic steps such as forced reductions
in force, I.e. Across the board. Percentage staffing cut.
we've never had to do that yet. But if these forecast numbers
hold without any other mitigation, I can't predict what menu
of actions would be needed. Part of what we'll have to do
in the upcoming intervening couple of months is come
to you with assessment of, okay, how much would we save by freezing vacancies?
how much would we save by not having a cost
of living adjustment? So you can begin to see the order of magnitude
of those kind of steps. But we just wanted to get in front of you and the rest of the county and let you know
right now this will not be a steady-as-she-goes kind
of budget this upcoming year. Tanya, if we go back to slide
07, just help me understand the
funds available. I'm thinking about... You know,
we're depleting any kind of reserves for a period
of time. You know, unless we believe that long-term appraisals are going to continue negative,
why does the line continue down, I guess, the orange line, funds available?
so that's due to expenses. So as david mentioned, if we continue at the rate of growth and continue our
recurring costs, our revenues are below our funds available.
so we are, like you said, are depleting our carry forward balance each year.
so a couple of things happen, commissioner.
when we do a forecast, we typically don't assume a
cola, but we know you're going to do it, but we don't
necessarily assume that. But there are certain costs that are just built in,
and you can cut them, but we don't assume you've done that, you haven't given us direction.
so if I'll make something up. If the cost of gasoline has been going up
over the past five years by 2% a year, we would often
assume it continues to go up by 2%.
and so on our baselines, we'll use historical increases to guide our estimate
for the next five. But what this graph really shows is a couple of things.
this court has, in my opinion, wisely built up...
pretty significant operating reserve in the general fund over the past few years.
that is actually what's buying you that 12 to 24 months of cushion.
but if you make no changes, that cushion is gone.
and the real bottom line is this.
our recurring revenues and recurring expenditures are not
in balance. So we're spending... But because we've had this cushion,
that hasn't been a crisis. That hasn't been something that had to be addressed. And it was generally a small,
it was only out of balance by a small enough amount that that could easily be made up by a percent higher
in property tax.
unfortunately, that's not what's happening. So if you don't make corrections on the, there's
very little you can do other than raise taxes. To affect the revenue side.
we don't assume you're increasing the taxes
in this forecast. What you do control to some degree is the cost side.
but again, the forecast just looks at your five-year history.
yeah, I think I understand, right? The funds required incorporates
those continued increases in cost of doing business, cost to serve the county. I think a big question mark
that remains in there is,
again, which of these arpa programs, I mean,
hey, we were talking about this morning, all this stuff, services around mental
health that are going away. Which ones will be funded in the future and how will they be
funded, I think is a big question into the funds required line. But the funds available, I think in my mind, ultimately, there's the buffer that's being
whittled down, but then we can't continue to operate at a deficit, right?
so ultimately, that funds required would have to dramatically shift down or
the funds available would have to come down. So if you think
about your checking account, your home budget, it's really not that different. In scale and complexity,
but yeah, if you make $5,000 a month and you start the month of may with $1,000 in your checking account,
theoretically you could spend up to $6,000 in may and you'd still be okay.
the problem is you only take in $5,000 a month. So that means in june, if you
continue that pattern, you
start with zero in the bank, spend $6,000, now you're
in deficit of $5,000. With a lot more zeros,
that's sort of what we're seeing. And, you know,
this is why we talked a lot about legacy costs, and we also talked about overriding staff
recommendations when it came to cost of living last year and going
above and beyond because those are additive costs and they're cumulative, and they continue to add year after year
after year. So we need to be mindful of that, and I appreciate the presentation.
I think this is great information that needs to be digested and understood as we
kind of go forward with the budget process.
anything else? Commissioner calvert, you still with us? Okay.
thank you, tanya. Thank you.
all right. All good. Commissioner calvert?
good. We're good. Okay. Commissioner moody?
you've asked to put 51 up. That is set for executive. You're just asking that we bring it to the table.
is that all right? It has been approved for late file, so I'm taking up 51a.
discussion appropriate action related to direction of staff.
proceed with preliminary feasibility analysis regarding a potential target for the satellite office project
to include the evaluation of potential location, associated acquisition development costs to include renovation and necessary thank
you. Or advisable development consideration related to the target site located at
salado creek and loop 1604 west area. Commissioner moody. Yeah, and we're going to defer
to dan to present. He said, why should we have a presentation
in executive and open court? We'll just dive into it.
I'm going to let dan present here, but a couple things to
highlight here. A couple things to highlight, and it's not lost on me that we're just talking
about budget constraints, and now we're talking about potential real estate purchase.
I'm sorry, commissioner, just to interrupt you, but just a quick point of inquiry.
normally, we have these in executive session because it's a real estate,
potential real estate transaction, and we don't negotiate these things
publicly. So I just want to make sure we are doing the right thing here by discussing.
a potential real estate transaction in public. Can you opine on that,
larry?
sorry. You're correct, commissioner. Usually the order is reversed. We have the substantive discussions because obviously revealing the property and the
nature of the property causes some issues with downstream purchases. So we talk about the substantive issues
in the executive, and then we come out and the court will direct... Staff accordingly, but that's at the court's discretion.
yeah, I mean, point well taken, but I think this is important that we bring it into open court. The information is already out there anyway, publicly.
and we don't, I mean, it's really building agnostic, right? Well, not until you confirm it.
it's speculation. Well, it is. Okay. Anyway, the...
again, we don't have to get
into specifics of the building other than the square footage and ballpark pricing, right?
it's more around questions about policy and whether something
like this makes sense for the county. And that was kind
of just how I wanted to tee this up. I want to hear from dan. I want to hear from county staff
about whether this makes sense for the county and their opinion based on what I have seen. I think a strong argument can
be made that this makes sense over the mid to long term. County winning space.
we can be penny wise and pound foolish and we can obviously
not incur any additional cost today, but we also still have to continue to build
for the future and be mindful of that. So I have said all along, I don't think this is a precinct
three building. This has to make sense
for the county in terms of the functions. That would be there in terms
of the leases that would be able to be canceled and cost savings for the county.
additional revenue from other government entities that might go into the building because it
is twice the square footage of our current existing facility on inner park.
and I think that that's like an important piece here to note as we're looking for square footage and space
for county employees and for functions and
for new courts, right, judge? We've talked about that,
and no doubt, whether it's this year or next year,
there will be additional needs for court space as well. That being said, I'll let dan dive into it, run
through this, and then have a few questions, and I'd love to get feedback from the court.
so I'm happy to do whatever the court directs.
so again, we've prepared a presentation based on...
okay, let me, yeah, let me,
let me walk you through the presentation if I can remember. Yeah, we have it. You want mine?
so again, this, I apologize, this was intended for an executive session conversation, but...
dan, can you not identify the specific properties, just keep it general? Can I identify the specific
properties? Not identify the specific? Yeah, no, absolutely. Oh. Yeah, we'll keep it sanitized
at your request. So, I want to take a step back and just tell you,
from a global perspective, the county obviously has space constraints, right? So, it's not a mystery that
there's space needed for jail beds, as we heard today.
diversion strategies, courtrooms, office. District attorneys, offices,
prosecutors, all that stuff. So our focus right now is we have a certain amount
of square footage, about 4 million square feet, and we manage that, what we call,
to the highest and best use. That's probably something you've heard david say, and I've used it before.
what is the highest and best use of that space? Sometimes the best use of that space isn't necessarily
for an admin function, but maybe it's a court's function, or it's a court, you know, vice versa.
and what we want to try to do is leverage the existing footprints we have for that highest and best use.
so buildings that already have courts in them, let's add more courts to those
buildings because the security perimeter is already existing, the infrastructure is already
there, and it's the best use of your county space long term. Again, as a reminder, commissioner's court controls space assignment for all county
offices and departments, and we're just the instrument
to help you guys do that. So I want to talk about the interpark property project,
which is the current precinct 3 location for the jp and the constance.
that property was acquired in 2015 for a little under $3 million.
it was an old adp check processing facility, and we renovated that,
and it opened in june 2019 for about $5.86 million. So that was only
for the jp and the costco functions.
the building wasn't big enough to fit the tax office in it, which we did traditionally add
to our precinct satellite buildings, as in precinct 1 and precinct 4. And then planned obviously
for precinct two. In 2023, we did a small community room renovation
project for the commissioner at the time, which was before commissioner moody.
we presented an option a few budget cycles ago to collapse a lease at the
nacogdoches facility for the tax officer collector and move that function, the tax assessor
collector function to interpark to consolidate that
into a... What we call a full precinct 3 satellite facility.
so all of those functions that exist at precinct 1, precinct 04, eventually precinct 2, would
be consistent. After we did the initial design
layout of the addition, there's some constraints that existed.
parking being number one. The tax assessor collector drives a large amount
of people to his lobby and to his function, and that would conflict directly
with the jp's operation. And so rightly so, they brought up some concerns saying, hey, we...
we were concerned about the capacity issue with the current site of interpark.
so we had some alternates developed. Do we lease additional parking
capacity, maybe from the neighboring church or commercial property?
we could expand the interpark physical footprint by acquiring land adjacent
to it. Or we could relocate the entire precinct 3 function to a different site where it can
accommodate all of those functions together. So as far as the expanding
interpark option, let me step back.
leasing parking spaces from a private entity, whether it be a church or commercial property,
is not my recommendation to you guys because those have numerous pitfalls. We like to be in control
of our own fates and relying on a separate business entry and a contract that was written by a previous court is not always a
sustainable model. Expanding interpark site, there are two adjacent parcels that
are vacant at this point next to the current site that the county that was at
interpark. One is both of them have been contacted.
both do not appear to be open to acquisition at this time.
but if we were
to do that project, we would
acquire that property and potentially build a stand-alone tax office on that site or
create enough parking to accommodate the full needs. So we looked
at the relocation option with the help
of the commissioner. Some real estate experts, county, other county staff, and we looked at,
originally if we would just look by property out in what we call the geographic center of precinct 3, which is along
1604, it would be fiscally unreasonable for me to suggest to you to buy a property for a
million dollars an acre and then build another $20 million facility on top of it.
yeah, when we talked about that, what, it was going to be $30 million plus?
around there, I mean, again, these are rough order and magnitude numbers.
I mean, we haven't dialed in any of these, but it would be particularly based on the
conversation we just had, not a wise step for as far as a facility solution.
so then we started to look at existing properties in that corridor, and there is
an existing property. It is a large property. It's three stories, 55,000
square feet, and it is in that. Location where it could fit the
geographic center of the precinct 3 area. And so we compared two
projects. Staying at interpark, acquiring property and finishing the
original intent of that project, creating a tax office addition,
or relocating the entire function to that alternate site.
so if we look at just the interpark expansion, we know that we're going
to have to more than likely condemn one of those properties to acquire it.
those properties can be between $1.5 to $2 million each. And then the construction
of that tax office could be up to $7 million. So again, that could be a $9
million project to complete what the original intent of the addition was. The future relocation option,
again, at this point, we're only asking the court to consider acquisition
of the building, future use of the building, who goes there, who goes where,
assignment of spaces and leases. That's really up to the court. Court and I'm not trying to
recommend anybody be slotted anywhere because it's way too soon for that conversation. The space is more than a
typical precinct building has.
those precinct buildings are around 30 to 35 thousand square feet and so there would be additional capacity
in that building for future county functions. Whatever the court decides those functions are whether
it's collapsing an existing lease, moving another department, moving somebody out of downtown to make way for
court functions or those other spaces. And at this point, I believe,
without getting into too many details, but there are existing money that
exists within the capital project for the tax office addition,
originally in interpark. I think commissioner moody's
identified additional funds
from precinct 3 capital projects that could go towards
potential acquisition of a building. And then we would, again, if we were given direction by the court, do our due
diligence and then bring those discussions back to the court
on specifically. What a fair sales price would be if we want to do an official
appraisal and those kind of discussions.
but I'm trying to be vague at the direction of council without going too detailed.
but we know just to summarize, we know that there are functions in the county that requesting space. A lot of those are around courts, district attorney, elections of purchasing,
all those other functions. So we know that there's a need for space and we're gonna try to help. You guys delivered as
economically as possible. I know I've said many, many times acquiring property is way
cheaper than building at this point. We have various purpose-built facilities we have to build from ground up because they don't have spare animal care
facilities on the market. So some of those things were just pigeonholed into actually delivering from ground up.
but this would be an opportunity to acquire something that's already constructed, fairly new, and then renovate it
in the future for accounting function. And as needed, right?
because as you said, with close to thank you. 55,000, 60,000 square feet,
you wouldn't need that for any of those functions today. You could leave a floor,
floor and a half as is potentially, right? So you could phase some
of those renovations in over time. A couple of quick questions.
david, I know you talk about debt and leases. What's your factor that you use
when we think about cost savings
on a lease? So if you want to, without doing research, just
try and calculate the net present value
of an annual lease over time, assuming no annual increases,
basically times 10. Okay. So, I mean,
the point I'm going with there is you start thinking about leases at
$200,000. There's multiple leases at $200,000.
got some other leases at $100,000. If you were to take two
of those at $200,000, $400,000 times 10, that's $4 million, right, in terms of what would
be considered debt savings, well, additional debt lease savings by canceling those leases.
so the leases would pay the debt service
on the debt you would have to issue is how I would bring it.
yeah, just opposite because
we're no longer paying the leases. No, I'm saying the money you're
not paying in lease would now be shifted to pay the debt service.
on up to $4 million in that case, right? So I'm going to put you on the spot, dan.
I mean, we talked about this, and I highlighted this up front for my colleagues. I only want to,
like... Press forward with this if
there's alignment that this makes sense for the county in terms of buying additional
square footage real estate with the cost savings and everything else.
yes, I think it makes sense geographically for precinct 03, but, you know, it's got
to make sense for the county.
so your thoughts on this, and my follow-up question is going to be on our other options,
because the other options aren't great. Sure.
yeah, so you know they say in real estate, location, this is an excellent location as far
as visibility and traffic counts to provide services
to the constituents of bexar county. Above all things, it is a much
better location than the current location. It is a newer building as far as new construction that comes with, as we know,
we had a jail discussion, newer things break less than older things. Not that interpark is an older
building. But those are factors definitely involved
in that conversation. So, again, there's really three options here.
there's continue forward. I mean, listen, let's take making an action
to go forward and purchase off the table, right?
we can either go forward with additional due diligence today, and this is option one with a new location.
option two, try to do what
every other precinct is doing and consolidate services at interpark, and that requires
condemnation, additional land acquisition, and construction costs that are going
to come close to equaling the cost
of purchasing a new building, and we're still going to be stuck with 30,000 square
feet, not 55,000 square feet. Yes, that's correct. Or do nothing.
and we do not consolidate, unlike the other precincts, and we also maintain certain
problematic leases out there that are going to continue
to hit our general fund year after year. So thoughts on the other
options? Well, listen, you're putting me on the spot here.
I told you, I warned you. Yeah, but again. Judge, the motion today, the
only motion today is whether the staff moves forward with
the preliminary feasibility study. Those other options aren't part
of this caption. Well, clearly, larry, this is exactly what we're talking
about. If we're going to go forward with one, then we're not going to go forward with the other two.
if we're not going to go forward with a new location purchase, then we're going to have
to go forward with the existing status quo. That's not what the court's voting on here.
the only thing it's doing is a feasibility study. That's the only issue that the
court's voting on. It's clearly related. Well, that may be. That's not what the court's
voting on. This is part of a discussion about an item that's
on the court agenda. You set up a motion where the court had to decide between three issues, and that's not what the court's
considering. I'm just making that clear. Well, I completely disagree
with that take because how can
you make a decision about one option that's on the agenda if you're not looking at
the other options facing the county?
may I comment? It's not about disagreement. It's about...
state of texas laws, and this is what we posted. So this doesn't, you know,
talking about consolidating other county resources,
doesn't help my constituents. It's too far away.
the budget team just put this presentation together, and it says no new capital projects.
so that's enough for me. I cannot support this. It doesn't make sense
for the county. Especially with our financial
situation right now? Well, judge, I'm just
clarifying what's on the agenda, what's in the caption, and what's subject
to open meetings, and it is whether the court votes to move forward with a
preliminary feasibility analysis of this location, not the other issues. So I just want
to make sure that that's clear to the court.
they're not voting on what to do after this item. Commissioner, I just had a quick question.
judge, okay, so I believe the numbers are that you have
about $13 million that you've identified could be utilized
for the acquisition. Is that in my numbers right?
yeah, it's around $12 million, yes.
okay, so yeah, you have about $3 million from the lease. Allocation
to the debt service and $9 million from interpark,
basically.
is that right? I believe it's $4.8 from the existing capital project. And then commissioner moody has
identified the supplemental funding to get to the... Again, the purchase price is
undetermined. We put an estimate together, what we think the fair market
value of that property is. But again, nothing's decided until we're allowed
to have those official talks with the property owner. Okay.
so, you know, from my perspective, if a commissioner
finds savings and reappropriations from funds that were previously allocated,
the courts always try to work with the commissioner
in the interest of reciprocity. It's not necessarily even a new expenditure.
it's just a reappropriation of dollars. So, again, it's...
it's a do unto others kind of situation. We have other facilities that
have the services. This one doesn't have the jt.
we do seem to have, I mean, people from all over, you know, people from my precinct may
work around the area that this may be located.
it, you know, people migrate. So, you know,
I think having... The county and population centers for convenience,
no matter where they're at, is a good thing. I lean in favor, particularly
when the commissioner has gotten some numbers together
to try to make it work. So that's where I'm at, and
that's why I'm where I'm at. Well, I appreciate that, commissioner calvert. I have a question to counsel,
and then I have a question to dan as far as due diligence.
so the point of order is,
and I'm trying to make sure we comply with open meetings, is that the agenda item is phrased to
discuss the potential targets, which is the building that is
being looked at for possible purchase, correct?
well, the only decision is whether or not the court
decides to direct staff to proceed with a preliminary analysis. It is not... To direct consolidation
of anything, any other buildings or any
of the other matters. You're right, commissioner, you can have that discussion
related to this, but it's not setting up the court to decide those matters today. Okay.
I mean, maybe we're on the wrong page there. I just thought discussion was being cut off, and I don't know
how we can have a conversation about the item if we didn't. And I get it.
then as a question of due diligence, dan, this involves precinct 3 and other elected officials, which are
necessary stakeholders. One, justice of peace, constable, and then a
possibility of the tax assessor collector.
so do we have support from those electeds for commissioner dino or staff?
do they want to move to this possible? Because if they don't, I need
to know what position they take. So we have solicited feedback
from all of those individuals. We have sat
down a couple times, and dan has addressed some of the concerns in terms of
them. I think that if we go forward with just continued due
diligence, that will give us additional time to continue to explore any remaining concerns. And see if they can be
addressed and mitigated. I don't believe my question was answered, commissioner.
oh, I thought it was. Do the elected officials of the justice peace precinct
03, constable precinct 3, and the tax-assessor collector whose office may be part of this feasibility study, do they support this particular
project yet?
or we don't know? I realize you're, and I respect your agnostic.
I'm trying to be an agnostic judge, right, and I don't want to speak
for the commissioner, but nobody likes change. Everybody's fearful of, hey, I'm going to get boxed
into something that doesn't work for me or do those other kind of things.
we've got initial feedback from those elected officials, and we talked with commissioner moody
about those concerns. Some of them were very specific, like an egress door here or fire escape stairs
there that we believe architecturally we can solve. But there's a much larger
conversation that has to happen to ensure that the documents are comfortable once
we move in. So is it fair to say that they have yet to state an opinion
for or against? I'm not going to speak for an elected official.
obviously, they've expressed concerns to you. Okay. All right.
commissioner? Judge, if it helps, I think, judge, we're just looking at feasibility. This is not a purchase. It's
not a mandate of anybody moving. It's just further due diligence. Yeah, agreed. I think it's late in the day and we've covered this.
what I would like to do is just take the minor step forward to continue due diligence,
to continue
to see if we can gain alignment with likely tenants if the building were to be purchased. And, you know,
continue to sharpen our pencils
on what the financial impact to
the county would be and or any additional savings that could come with said purchase. I will move that as a motion
to continue due diligence on the prospective building. I'll second that. All right.
there's a motion and second.
can I ask for clarification? What is it adopting the
language
of 51a or is it a modification? And then as a point of order, does that satisfy open meetings
requirements? Larry, from? I believe, well, I'll have to let the commissioner answer that,
but I believe that they are making a motion consistent with 51a to continue the
feasibility. Analysis, but I'll let the commissioner confirm that. I would concur with that. Yeah, due diligence,
feasibility analysis. If I can just state on the record, I'd love
to be supportive. I'm not going to support this. I disagree that we should be having these
discussions publicly. These are executive session discussions
when it comes to real estate. So for that reason, I'm going to vote no. Any further
discussion? Call for a vote. Sounds like I need to do a voice vote.
commissioner clay flores? No. Commissioner rodriguez? No. Commissioner moody? Yes.
commissioner calvert? Aye.
judge sakai says no, but at the same time, commissioner
moody, after due diligence, further due diligence, I will be willing to relook at that, especially after the
other elected officials, and I get feedback from them, or I can certainly call them
and ask them. All right? So I'm
willing to relook at this, but for today, let's do more homework, please. All right?
all right. Let's move on. Does
that finish all the matters except for executive? Priscilla, just trying
to check. Judge, I think we might need to do the ffrs. The what then? Which I think is
number six. Okay, which one? Number six. Six? Well, the
ministerial, I took note of the filing for the record. We don't vote on it. We don't
vote. I just took note of it. All right. Is there anything
else that I've missed? So, then let us now, but there are
matters that have been brought to my attention. Let me read into the record. To take up the
executive session item on negotiations of a development agreement between the county, the cab. In the rodeo, we must unanimously vote
in open court that deliberation of business and financial issues in an open meeting would have detrimental effect
on the position of commissioners' court in negotiations
with a third party. We have requested an opinion from larry roberson with the da
civil division and ask that the staff enter that opinion into the record. I'll ask that this letter be made part
from a memo from mr. Gonzalez, from mr. Roberson, to the court. Request pursuant
to section 551.0725 texas government code. Is there a
motion to go to executive session on this specific issue
with a unanimous vote? So moved. Motion by commissioner rodriguez, second by
commissioner clay flores. Any further discussions? Hearing none. I'll ask for a vote. All those in favor, signify
by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion passes unanimously. We'll go
into executive session. We will then go into convening executive session and may be
discussed and acted upon if appropriate. Pursuant to section 551.071 of the
texas government code, executive session will be held
for consultation with the court's attorney for advice regarding the following matters. Pending or
contemplating litigation or settlement offers in the matter of pacheco v.
bexar county, deputy richard calderon. Legal issues pertaining
to the following matters in which the duty of the attorney for bexar county and the texas
disciplinary rules. A professional conduct of state bar, texas clearly conflicts with the open meetings act.
legal issues related to the collective bargain agreement with the deputy sheriff's
association of bexar county entered pursuant to chapter 174 of the local government code. I believe subsection 2
has been waived and has been voted on in open court. Pursuant to section 55107.2
of the texas government code related to deliberations
regarding real property, that matter too has just been discussed. Open court and waived pursuant to section
551.01725. I have already stated that we are going to take up a matter involving
bexar county, a political subdivision, coliseum advisory board, san antonio livestock
exposition, a texas nonprofit in regards to redevelopment, revitalization of the freeman
coliseum complex grounds, and the court has voted unanimously to enter into executive session. Also,
too, I believe the matter of 5510787 of the texas
government code to deliberate matters related to economic development
negotiations in regards to the baseball arena stadium, in regards to the san pedro
creek cultural park, that
matter has also been addressed in open court and the executive session waived. Are there any
other matters that we put on record? If so, we are now in executive session. The time
is 3, 36 p.m. All right. We're
good. All right. The time is 04, 23 p.m. The court is now in an open session. The court is not taking any action
after executive session. Is there a motion to adjourn? So
moved. Second. Motion by commissioner urias, second by commissioner clay flores. Commissioner clay flores, do
you have any memorials? Yes, I'd like to adjourn in memory of manuel berrios saban. Thank you, judge. I would like
to join in adjourning
in the name of dr. Betasabal, who was a pioneer of sorts here
locally and started the utsa prep program. I think he was commissioner calvert's constituent, but I know
impacted the entire community. Also, I would like to adjourn
in the name of reverend manuel garza, dora p. Sanchez, and guadalupe
fisher, who's the mother of... State rep. Trey martinez-fisher passed away
this week. Thank you. Commissioner moody. On behalf of commissioner calvert,
flores, elmer, leslie, may, l. Carolyn peterson, juan
hernandez, olivia ladson, who
was a spurs usher for 59 years. Commissioner calvert. All
right, I'll join in with dr. Emmanuel berrizabal, also joe charles caram, who is a mckellen high school, who is a
member of the pan american university basketball team that won the 1963 national
basketball championship in the nia conference. A dear
family friend. All those in favor of the motion adjourned, signify by saying aye. Aye.
any opposed? Any adjourned? Thank you all.