The minister's court. We'll have the pledges to both flags and then we'll proceed. I
pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which
it stands. One nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the
texas flag by texas. One state under god, one and indivisible. Started this morning. First of
all, we do have a public hearing scheduled at 9 a.m. So we need to go to that and we'll
proceed to the agenda from there. Public hearing to allow public comments regarding
proposed fiscal year 2026 budget. The budget will raise more revenue from property
taxes and last year's budget by the amount of $13,820, which is a 2/10 percent increase from
last year's budget. The property tax revenue to be raised from new property tax
added to the tax roll this year is $3,887,089. So with that, I will go ahead and recess the
commissioners court at 9:01 a.m. Open public hearing, mr. Kucinich. All right. Yes, sir.
so what we have here today is the public hearing for the proposed fiscal year 26 budget
for the county. And so, just to kind of quick overview, what we're proposing to be adopted
or possibly adopted later. Just a quick overview for the maintenance and operation for
the operating funds. Proposed tax rates for the road and bridge specialist .080411 cents
per $100 valuation. The general rate is 0.29210 $0.05 per hundred dollar valuation. And
then the debt rate, and that's a total of 0.37251 $0.06 for the maintenance operations. And
then a debt rate of 0.3724 $0.05. And that would be a total county rate of 0.409761
cents. As judge mentioned, will be. Raising property tax revenue by $13,820, which is
0.0 2% from compared to last year. There is a 4% cola for all employees. This elected
officials, elected officials salaries are raised either by supplemental by state mandate
for supplements and also grievance. So there's the constables have that increase
in salary there. Other than that that's what I have for right now. Any public comment,
any public questions. This is what it's for for the public to ask questions. What we're doing
with the budget. Any public comment. Last chance, any public comment okay. Hearing no
public comment. We will go ahead and adjourn the public hearing. 9:03 a.m. Reconvene
commissioners court going on to item 1.3, which is citizens to be heard. And I do have a few
cards this morning. First of all, I have sonja witherspoon. So if you if when your name is
called, come up to the podium, give your name and address and we will give you three minutes
to talk. Good morning, judge and commissioners. My name is sonja witherspoon with
witherspoon construction and I live in precinct three. I'm here today to give an update on
the epoxy flake flooring system that we installed in civic center. We did complete that by
noon on saturday, and we're going to be installing the cove base tomorrow. And the reason
why I'm coming here as a citizen, because I just wanted to let you all know that we're very blessed as a county to have miss rosa and kelly as the staff there. And we've worked
with three of the four staff members there. Charlie and frank are awesome, but ricky
went above and beyond. On thursday, whenever the rains came, the waters entered the
building and we were afraid that it had damaged our prime base. And he actually stayed
after and got sandbags and helped me put them down to help keep the water from penetrating
worse. So I just want to let you all know that we're very blessed to have those employees.
I can't believe that only four staff, four crew and two staff work out there, but they take
pride in the fairgrounds and it's a blessing to have them there. Thank you, thank you.
okay, next card I have is from charles fox. Good morning everybody. My name is charles
fox. I live at 5413 county road 1675, outside of odum. My public comment today is
basically on the evangeline water project. I'm sure everybody here has heard about it at some point or another. And I'm here trying to express my concerns about drilling
water wells, that much water being pulled out of our aquifers and near sinton, and
how it's going to affect my family, ranchers, farmers, everybody else that requires
that groundwater. You know, we I understand we have right of capture laws, but the right of
capture for the landowners, not for a city that's going to be pulling it out that much. And
I've listened to some people that say it's not going to be detrimental to to us. Well,
pull out 25 to 30 million gallons a day from however many wells that's going to
eventually hurt us. And then how am I going to or how is anybody else going to complete
their wells to get down to that section of water that we can continue to live where we live?
pardon me. So I ask you all to please whatever in your power to, you know, stop the
permitting process from it, from happening, from them being able to transport our water. I
understand we have a conservation district here in the in san patricio county.
let's conserve that water for our area. For san patricio county, promote desalination,
which is a better long term solution. Even though it costs more, everything costs more
nowadays. It doesn't. And that's all I have. Thank you, mr. Fogg. Thank you. Next card
I have is anthony nedic. I'm anthony nedic, live on at 5800 county road 1360. I've been
here multiple times with several concerns. Always cut off short and don't have a
chance to voice them. So I've gotten a little perturbed. I guess I forgot about it. Three
minutes is not long enough when I drive to drive 30 minutes, so I talked to some legal people
and they told me you have to try a different route. They ain't going to give you a
chance to voice your your concerns, to take some pictures of what your concerns are right
on the pictures. Short little description of what's what. And they said pictures are worth a
thousand words. We've heard that. So I want to make sure I don't take too much time. And
I'm going to leave these pictures. But with. The court clerk and I want them filed for
record. And with that, I'll wish you all a good morning. Thank you. Mr. Next card I have
is from james dodson. Good morning, commissioners county judge. My name is james dodson.
I reside at 410 north vine street, victoria, texas. I'm a consultant working with the
laguna water project. I've been working on that project for approximately 12 years now to
gather information about the hydrogeologic resources that are within that project's area.
the project area comprises the properties owned by one of the families here within the the
county. They have been exemplary members of this community, and we are not
trying to promote anything but a great water project that serves this region. I do have
some handouts which I will leave today, but my main point is to talk about the science
that underlies this project. This project area has been extensively studied, monitored,
evaluated. Personally, I've spent weeks and weeks and weeks going around to check every
water well on the property, the livestock, irrigation wells, anything that was there. We
gathered information on those wells. We also drilled two large wells to measure the
hydrogeologic properties of that area. And we have all of that information then fed into
the evaluation by a licensed professional geologist, one of the best in the business, who
has been advising us all along the way. And we have also worked with the local
groundwater conservation district, attended almost every meeting they've ever held, and
have kept them apprized of what this project is about, and they have been very supportive. We
believe that their rules are honest, effective, and they they apply very well in this
particular case. So I have some information handouts. I will leave them here or if you
prefer them with you now I can leave copies and then I'll have a few extra copies. But I'd be
happy at any time that's appropriate to answer any questions. Okay. Any questions?
thank you sir.
okay. Now I'm going to deviate a little bit here from our original agenda.
we're going to going down to item 2.4 b on your agenda. Which is consideration and
action on a request by david krebs, county judge, for a resolution in support of the
sentence and the sumter county citizens water rights. And this is a resolution. Usually we
don't read a resolution, but I think the importance of this resolution, I think I do need
to read it this morning, and then we'll proceed from there. A resolution declaring
commitment to the city of sinton and sumter county residents water rights. Whereas
the coastal bend region is experiencing severe drought conditions, with water levels
critically low and future water supply projects still years from completion. And whereas
access to reliable water supplies is essential for the economic stability, industrial
growth, public health and overall prosperity of the coastal bend region. And
whereas, cities, counties, industries and economic leaders throughout the coastal bend
have historically pursued individual water solutions, which has resulted in
fragmentation and a failure to secure a level of state and federal funding necessary. The
waters growing water needs. And whereas the city of corpus christi on august the 12th,
2025 approved a plan to buy water rights from the evangeline underground project
in san patricio county in the amount of 25.4 million gallons per day. And whereas the city
of corpus christi decision to tap into groundwater resources in hampshire county poses
significant risk to local farmers and residents of sinton by threatening the water supply.
now, therefore, be it resolved that number one, hampshire county formally joins the city
of sydney to express concerns that the 25.5 million gallon project poses significant risks
to local farmers and residents of sinton by threatening the local water supply. Number two,
the county is formally opposed to any misuse of the water out of the evangeline ground
project that would result in the loss of water supply, including the use of 25.5
million gallons of water out of the evangeline aquifer and three. San patricio county
publicly supports a unified strategy to identify the adequate advocate for and
implementation of long term water solutions, including desalinization, groundwater
development and aquifer development, inter-basin, water transfers, and infrastructure
investment. Okay, did I have a motion to accept the motion to approve? Second, got a motion
by commissioner sikorski. Second by commissioner gillespie to approve any questions or comments on the resolution? Judge. Yes. I think there's a lot of information
here that we need to be considering. And if our goal is to protect sinton, I don't
think this resolution is really doing that. So if that's what we're trying to achieve, I
don't think we're doing that. And there's a whole host of other issues that were kind of
contradicting ourselves on. So for many years we've been asking the city of corpus christi, who supplies the other eight cities in our county, to pursue other water sources, and
now they're finally looking at other water sources in. The very first thing we do is turn
around and pass a resolution opposing that. That seems like that's contradictory to what
we've been trying to achieve. Some of the the wording in this resolution, I don't I don't
have facts that support that. I would need to see something that. That backs up what we're
saying. You know, I've been involved with looking at the evangeline water system for
many years and. I've, I have a hard time lining up what I've seen with what we're saying in
this resolution. I think that there's ways we can do this. I think that there's if if the
concern is for the existing wells, I think that issue can be addressed as well. I don't
think this resolution does that. We do have a san patricio county. Groundwater
conservation district. Those are elected officials whose job it is to oversee this type of
thing. They should be monitoring this. They should be reviewing these things. They're the ones who should be the experts on this. And I think that's where this really should
be falling, and not on the commissioners court of san francisco county. Comments.
well, judge, I got a couple things to say. Number one city in texas is only city in the
coastal bend I know of in our area that draws water from the water wells. The rest of the
cities pay the city of corpus christi, whether it be through spec or through not spec, but
sanpete county municipal water district or other. There's another entity out to rincon
that buys water through them and gets them in. Corpus actually gets the water to them
and they pay for them with a surcharge, I guess. But. I've been on this court now for
eight months, and this this is the first time that I've heard about the evangelina in the
last month here, and it would be safe to say that if you're going to do something this
massive, you come to court and you explain to what you're doing. Now, I don't know a
whole lot about the evangelina, but I'm learning. I'm learning as best I can through a lot of
resources that are online and so forth. But if you're going to do a project when you're
talking between 2012 and 24 million gallons a day out of our groundwater, and you would
come to court and explain to it now, we do have a groundwater district was created in 2005,
and charlie ring is president of that. He's bringing in cotton. He wasn't in church yesterday. I was going to talk to him yesterday, but he wasn't there. But these are local
people. You know, the experts need to come talk to us before they start doing these projects.
and I understand you say you've worked on it for years. Like I said, this last eight months, I
started hearing about this a month ago. And I'm an old retired navy sailor now. I've
lived off of desalination water for 24 years of my life out there. I know everyone on the
ships I was on and that won't hurt you. I'm here to say, and I believe in desal and in salt
water. It may be more expensive, but there's a lot more water out there in the gulf than
there is over here under our ground. That's all I got to say. So, judge, I want to add a
couple things. So I do sympathize with the city of sinton. I know we have the mayor and the city manager and some other folks here from sinton, because I'm going to go
out on a limb and guess that the city of corpus christi probably has not been
communicating well with you and and discussing what the plans are, and shame on them for not
getting out ahead of this and being more, you know. It seems like every time I deal with
corpus, I say the same thing. So we'll just let that sit. I understand that I do sympathize
with you. I understand the situation you're in, but I have to look at this from a county
level, and I will say this. The water rights for evangeline belong to those are privately
held water rights. Those people can sell that water to whoever they choose to sell it to. And
if it doesn't go to the city, corpus christi, that water will be sold to somebody else,
whether that's future industry, whether that's a, you know, private equity group that just
comes in and buys it up, who knows? City of san antonio is always looking for water. They
could easily purchase that water and pipe it up to san antonio. That water eventually
will be sold. There's only so much water. People are going to buy the water. The advantage of
having corpus christi purchase that water is it stays in our local regional water system.
right now, I believe we get 40 million gallons a day from corpus christi water back to
san francisco municipal water, which is then distributed to our eight other cities. This
would help offset that. Obviously, we're in a long term drought in our region. Like I
said, we've asked corpus christi to pursue every drop of water they can possibly find
that is financially viable to pursue. Desalination is one of those options. Groundwater is
another option, so I have a hard time. Passing a resolution opposing that when that's what
we've been asking them to do for a very long time. And I was actually pleased that they're
finally taking some steps to to help alleviate our water issues in the region. And this is just
one step. They've been doing some other things as well. So I think, judge, this is a very
complicated issue. I think it goes far beyond what we have in this resolution. I do not think
this resolution does really anything to protect sinton, if that's what our goal is. I
think there's other ways we could be going about this. Your honor, can I say a few things?
just some thoughts now, when did corpus christi come over here and present to us that
they were going to take groundwater out of san patricio county? I don't remember seeing
them here. The other thing is, is they start pulling this much water out of the ground. What
happens if the they're wrong and the groundwater drops where the wells that our farmers have
and the city has can't reach that water, they're going to do deeper wells. What about the recharging of the evangeline water system? How fast it going to refresh? I don't know, I've
heard no one from anyone talk about the science of it. I hate to say that word science, but I
would hate to have corpus christi take this water and then charge us to get it back
with no discount on what we pay now. Plus the fact not knowing what will happen if they take
this much water out. There was a gentleman here, talked about it. Maybe he can tell us, I
don't know, but I fully support the resolution. To call for a person that wants to talk.
stephen. Yes, sir. Thank you. Judge. Commissioners. My name is stephen thomas. I served on
the board of the san patricio county groundwater conservation district for over a decade. I
also was appointed by governor perry to serve on the board of the nueces river authority.
prior to my service on the water district board, I understand the water issues in
our area, the groundwater rules and regulations. I also have an understanding of aquifers and
fluids in the subsurface, developed through my career as a geologist in south texas. My
education consists of a bachelor of science in geophysics and mathematics from smu, a master of science in geophysics and petroleum seismology with texas a&m in
college station, and I graduated from sinton high school in 1988. I am also one
of the many residents of south texas that are descendants of rob welder, and I have a
personal interest in the evangeline project. I've resided with my wife and children in portland, texas for over 20 years. In addition to drilling many oil and gas wells
along the texas coast, we have built a family real estate business almost exclusively in south texas. Is our hope that the san patricio county and sinton will continue to prosper
in the future. And to do that, we need water supplies that are affordable and reliable. So
that's just just background on me. So you know where I'm coming from. I'm here today to
ask you to look at the data. And and I agree with mr. Zagorsky, commissioner zagorsky,
that's what you need to do. You need to study the data. And I would ask that you wait to make
any sort of resolution until you've studied the data. If you study the data in science, I
think you will reject the resolution that you have in front of you. And I think that you will adopt a resolution endorsing the evangeline project as the ideal alternate,
the ideal source of additional water for our area. No one wants to hurt sin. The data and
the groundwater system, the groundwater district system protects. The data shows that
that the project will not hurt sinton, and the system protects sinton and the rest of the
county. And there's been a lot of fear and hysterics from people who haven't studied science, who haven't been involved in the process. That got evangeline the permits that
it has in order to do the project that is proposing to do so. Everyone wants to try. But
what does it do? What good does it do for sinton to have unlimited water and the rest of
the county to die of thirst? You represent the county. 90% of the county relies on corpus
christi water. Portland, ingleside, aransas pass. Taft. Odem. Gregory. Ingleside on the
bay. The rincon water system, the seaboard water system are all taking water from corpus
christi. That's 90% of the county population. Mathis is on the lake. Mathis is is is. If
corpus christi drains the lake. Mathis doesn't have their water either. The jobs in san
patricio county are dependent upon corpus christi water, steel dynamics, kiewit, gulf
coast growth ventures. Flint. Hills. Bay, cheniere, oxy, enbridge, arcelormittal and all
the jobs that rely on those people to sell, you know, their restaurants, their, the school
districts, everything is is except for sinton and saint paul are reliant on on. Corpus
christi water. The the groundwater district has. A system to permit the water and
the the process started where the groundwater district takes what they expect to pumpage to
be, and they go to the texas water development board. And the texas water development
board has a model for what can be produced in the groundwaters, in the in the aquifers and what
this how those aquifers will be sustained with the evangeline pumpage in the approved by the
groundwater conservation district. The desired future condition that was this is you
can go to the website and go to san francisco groundwater conservation district website.
and you pull up the district management plan, which was which was filed in 2022. And it
tells you what the desired future condition that was approved by by the region 16
groundwater management area that includes san francisco county all the way to the
valley. And and it tells you based upon the punches that that include evangeline.
evangeline is included in that along with all the other expected county usage. And in
20, 80, 50 years, more than 50 years from now, the desired future condition for san
francisco county is 69ft of drawdown for the gulf coast aquifer. That means in your
wells, the level of water 55 years from now will be 69ft lower. That's the that's the
that's not evangeline science. That is the texas water development board. Science,
including the evangeline project, 69ft of impact so that 90% of the county can have a
more reliable water supply, not just sinton. Nobody wants to hurt sinton. This is in the
groundwater district's numbers. The groundwater district has permitted this. They've studied this the texas water development board, to study this. And you can use in the
gulf coast. The gulf coast aquifer extends all the way from the valley to the
louisiana border. The city of houston has pumped since the 1920s. Higher levels than what
we're talking about pumping for the next 60 years. They've gone up to 12 times per year. What
we've pumped, what we're talking about pumping. And it was it's been sustained. It's still they're still pumping large volumes of groundwater in houston. And they've pumped
huge volumes that they're talking about. The modeled available groundwater for san
patricio county is is approximately 50 million gallons a day. Houston
sustained pumping over 450 million gallons for year after year after year from the same
aquifer. So the hydrologists understand these things. It may be a foreign idea and it may
shock the people in sinton who are who have a monopoly on the water. But it's not just water,
it's this is a chance for the whole county to be served and the area to be served by that.
so the jobs at steel dynamics, those are that's the city of corpus christi. What that means
this water is now available to help them. The jobs in ingleside, in portland. This
water is now available to help them. The water is still available to help the 14 farmers to irrigate. We have 14 farmers to irrigate in this county, and we want them to
thrive. But there's there's a lot more jobs in san patricio county than that, and there's a
lot more economic importance in the county. We want to thrive and we want the whole county to
thrive. So I'd ask you to look at the data. All this this is on the it's on our groundwater
conservation district web page. You can go out there and you can you can see that these
numbers are in the project. These these numbers are in the plan, the project the project
is in the plan. And if you study that and you look at the crisis that we're in for water,
and you consider what, what a curtailment of water would look like, if you want it, you have
it. You have your budget approval earlier. If we don't have water, all the property that's taxed in order to pay for that budget is going to the crater and value all across the
county. Ingleside is dependent upon this on corpus water. Mathis is dependent upon corpus
water. Portland's dependent on corpus water. Make let's make the water available to
everybody in the county, not just sitting in 14 years. Thank you for. And if you have a
question for me, I'd be happy to answer. Are you in the currently on the board? I'm not. Okay. I haven't seen I haven't talked to anybody who's on the board. Okay. There's been no
presentations whatsoever ahead of this. And you know, I'm I am not until you. I don't work for
evangeline. Yeah. I am a member of the family that made a deal with evangeline. Okay. To.
because they they came out and they took a risk to spend a bunch of money to to test rule
test wells. Right. And now this resource is proven up and available for this area, and
it's time of crisis. So the I can't speak for them. I don't know why they didn't come
before I before I become a believer I need to have somebody else. I mean I get
that before the because the science is so strong. I don't think they thought there would be a backlash there. Look at what houston's park. They've pumped huge amounts relative to.
and we've not our region has not done that. So I think that there may have been a a
misplaced confidence that there wasn't going to be a bunch of concern. I mean, we haven't
been contacted by anybody from corpus christi either. Well, I don't know if the I don't think,
I don't think the corpus christi had decided to, you know, they wanted there there there's a big push, as you know, to do inner harbor. So I don't think they until they saw the,
the cost of inner harbor desal was going to be twice what evangeline is going to be. The
evangeline numbers are half of what the inner harbor is going to be. So that's that's half as
expensive water for portland and mathis and ingleside. And that's over the first 30 years
after they pay off the project. That water is even cheaper because they they own that
resource. And and there was a comment from, from a speaker earlier saying that the city
shouldn't have the right to use right of capture. Sinton uses right of capture. That's how sinton gets their water. They're using the right of capture, just like the
irrigators using right of capture. Right. In order to to have a better crop, make more
money off the crops. We want them to do that. And someday they may want to if, if the if
once you see that evangeline is doing well, those irrigators may want to turn around and
make a deal to provide water. And mayor judge krebs, you know, you don't have to irrigate in
san patricio county to make good crops. And they may say, you know what? We'd rather sell
our water to ingleside then then irrigate, because that's a that's a more economic
advantage, a better economic advantage for us to do that for, for for both ingleside and for
irrigators. It could be great. So I don't I don't disagree with you. I'm serious. I mean,
it's just and I and I understand you want to look at more data and that's why that's
why I would urge you not to act, not to act today and give a headline to channel three so
they can say fight, fight, fight in san patricio county. If you pass this resolution
today, you're going to just stir the pot and create a bigger barrier to the corpus,
trying to add a water supply, that is critical for our area. So I'd ask you to to to put it
off until you study the data more, because all that data is out there, and I know that the
guys can get you more data, and they'd be happy to do that. So judge, again, I say this is a
very complicated issue. I do not think we have a clear picture of what is really going
on here. Yeah, I wonder why and wonder why we're we're about ready to contradict our own
groundwater conservation district, and we're about ready to contradict ourselves in what
we've been pushing corpus christi to do for years. So. Well, this is another one of
those ones where, you know, we've been given no information whatsoever to act on, and all
of a sudden it shows up in the agenda. We haven't heard from corpus, we haven't heard from
the groundwater people, you know, we haven't heard from anybody. We're getting out. Let
me ask a question. Has anyone out here heard anything about evangeline from these people
that want the water? To come up on? Will you come up, please? The mayor is out there
somewhere too, right? She's there. Okay. All right. John hopkins, city of sinton. Yes,
commissioner. I was approached by the evangeline group, probably three years, maybe a
little more. Yes, I did express my concern about pumping groundwater. You know, we talk
about the science and the data. We have over 20 years of science and data on desal, but
we don't believe it because we don't want to believe it because it's expensive. It's not easy. We have science and data on evangeline, but it's easy. It's cheaper. We talk
about risk to the bays and estuaries, and we believe the science that we're going to
harm everything over there. And so we can't do it. And and we talk about science and data
here. And we're willing to risk the potential of one city for the benefit of everyone else.
and that's okay, commissioner, you understand if that's that's how you feel. But desal is a
permanent solution. I'm not here to to support the desal one way or the other. But when
there's another solution, rather than pumping groundwater and we talk about houston
pumping all the groundwater, they did. I, I grew up in houston. I'm fully aware of
what happens there. Houston sinks every year. We don't know what 25 million gallons a day
is going to do. This is about the resolution is not trying to stop anything. Commissioner
yarley. All it's saying is we're supporting what sinton's doing. We're we're going to
fight, fight, fight, because that is the right thing for us to do. We're at risk. We don't
know this. We we can talk about the science all day long, but we do not know what 25 million
gallons a day out of the aquifer is going to do to the wells in this area. Call the
question. I have one more comment about the question. You made a comment about the
question. What can I make one more comment about the subsidence in houston? He said
houston sinks. He said, we do know. We do know. We called for the question already. So we got
a vote. Thomas, sorry about that question, carl. I got a motion. I mean, in a second
approval of the resolution. Well, I, I made the motion and I made the second. I'm calling
the question. Okay. I made a second before you ready to vote? Yeah. I mean, anything we can
do that. If it turns around, things change or are different. We can always rescind the
resolution later. So that's, you know, but we need to support the city of sinton as well. Exactly. That's what I'd like to make it very clear. I am not been called. Had a
question? Okay. Call for the vote. Judge, please. All those in favor of the motion say I, I
all those opposed same sign. Okay. Resolution passes 4 to 1. Okay. I think we just passed a
resolution that does not have factual information in it. So congratulations. And we can always change it later if we get more factual information that supports something other
than this. So let it go. Move on. At this point. Okay. Let's go back on up to 1.4, which is
our report from judge, commissioners and department heads. Mr. Sikorski. Okay.
we're payment in 1432. I've got two grass cutting teams out. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be
closing on the two new buildings for not new buildings, but purchased buildings in taft
for the precinct. Okay. Early morning judge. Thank you. Good morning everybody. Alright.
let's see. Last week several of us attended the state of the industry in portland. On
thursday, congressman cloud was the guest speaker. And so was that a board with paul fritsch
from gulf coast growth ventures and michael spitz from australia? Mattel, always
interesting to hear from our local industries, their take on how things are going. And not
surprisingly, water is one of their top concerns. Congressman cloud is speaking again this
afternoon at del mar college. If anybody's interested on the economic trends of our area.
friday, you know, I've hired a lot of new personnel in my road crew. So friday we went out for
our quarterly lunch. It was kind of good to get the crew and staff together again with
all our new folks. And this week we have the the texas association of counties
legislative conference in austin. I know several of us will be heading up there to
austin to get up to speed on the legislative year this year, and obviously they're still in
special session. So we will take the opportunity to once again bend our legislative ears
on the issues that we have. That's all I have, judge. An old sand pit area. We're paving
our county road, 1740 mclaren road. We're prepped for the first course on that, and we're
also on market street and mcmullen street in old san pat. We're processing the road prep
and county road 1510 and odom, we're doing road repair and 502 in saint paul, and we're doing
patching work and county road 798 and 2047 and odom and lakeshore gardens in mathis.
we're doing brush pickup in the lakeside hidden acres area. We're installing reflector
delineators in county road 350 and 285 in mathis. And we're also putting up street signs in
county road 1677, county road 325, county road 340, county road 307, and county road 360
in the area. And we're finishing the prepping of the road for county road 1839, in
edroy. And we installed culverts in the 1849. And odom, thank you, mr. Gillespie. Yes,
sir. I have to depart at 10:00. Just so you know, nothing else to report, judge. I want to
also bring up one other thing. Is senate passed the bill to split our county again into two
congressional districts and some way up to the governor to sign. So again, we're going to
be part with congressman cloud, and we're going to get a new congressman on this end of the
county. Okay. Department heads, any department heads. I just have a reminder. We've been
getting some phone calls I mentioned txdot will be here, our retirement system. We'll be
here september 3rd and september 4th on the presentation on the september
3rd at 9:00. And at 130 there are you do not need an appointment. We're going to be
meeting here. They're just doing some overview on the program and what's going on now the september 3rd afternoon and september 4th. Those are the one on ones. Those are the
employees that are close to retirement. Having those changes coming into effect in
january 1st, those we do have about three slots open to fill, but on the ones for the
presentation on the third, you do not have to have an appointment. It's open to all
employees. What time is the one on the third? On the third, 9:00 and then 130 and it'll be
in this courtroom. We have court that day at nine the september 3rd. Sorry, it's a
wednesday, wednesday, wednesday. We have court on the second. We're off that monday we have
court on the second. Right. And then wednesday is when we start. Okay okay, okay. Any other
department heads? Okay. Then we'll go ahead and move on to 2.1, which is approval of
minutes of our august 18th meeting. Move to approve second. Second. Any questions?
corrections to the minutes hearing. None. All those in favor of the motion say aye.
aye. Those opposed same sign. Motion carries. 2.2 a examination consideration.
action of all claims against. Move to pay the bills. Second motion by gillespie, seconded
by gorski. Any question on any of the bills presented this morning? Hearing none. All
those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Same sign. Motion carries.
budget line item transfers. I do have a few this morning. First of all, I got one out
from gary davis, airport manager sent an airport transferring funds from
building repairs and maintenance into workers compensation, insurance and miscellaneous services and charges. Second one's out of gary davis from the ingleside
regional airport, transferring funds from construction services into building
maintenance, repair materials, fuel oil and lubricants, nco furniture and equipment,
equipment, vehicles and furniture. Next one's out of court at law number two,
transferring funds from jury experience into travel and visiting judges. Next one is on
the department of county clerk transferring funds from furniture, equipment and
vehicles into nco furniture and equipment excellence out of the sheriff's department.
transferring funds from travel into vehicle, equipment and rental, and then another one
transferring funds, fuel oil and lubricants into ncl furniture and equipment.
another one out of sheriff's department transferring funds from miscellaneous services and
charges in the software license and support. Next one is out of jp number two, transferring
funds from printing and overtime insurance, bonds and premiums, miscellaneous
services and charges. Next one is out of road and bridge. Two transferring funds from travel
into pre-employment physicals. Move to approved budget line item transfers as presented.
second motion seconded by gillespie. Approved budget line item transfers. All those in
favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Opposed. Same sign. Motion carries. 2.2 c is consideration.
action on bank reconciliation. Treasurer's report. Good morning judge. Good morning
commissioners. This week's health transfer is $101,100. Our section 122 total is
$2,424.61. We have one asserted claim for $200, and our escrow total is $2,920.55. Would you
accept treasurer's report? Second motion by gillespie, seconded by the treasurer's
report. Any questions? Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Those
opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. Now we're going to go into some
budget related matter items. 2.2 d is fiscal year 2026 budget and related matters 2.2
d one is presentation, description, discussion, consideration and action on
revisions to the proposed fiscal year 2026 budget and the commissioners court considers
warrant by the law and record by the interest of the taxpayers. Patrick, you want to
go on into this? Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. All right. All right. So we did submit the proposed
budget to the county clerk, and it was listed on the on the county website on september,
the september august 15th. And we had a few departments reach out, and there were some
revisions that we did that we have in in front of you here to approve or disapprove. I'm just
going to run down the list real quick on the intoxilyzer program. Basically what we did,
we matched the revenue to the expenditures for that one. So we're adding revenue of about
$4,229 a year. Approximate intoxilyzer program. I'm going to skip this the transfer for a
minute. The expenditures in the var department, basically 2025 numbers were moved over to 2026.
and so we adjusted those in those five line items there for court costs, visiting judges,
other professional services, software license. It totaled about maybe $35,000 for that
that we added on there elections. There was with the rate increase on the temporary
employees from $12 to 14 and $15. And plus, with the new bills coming out that were
passed by the legislature, she's going to have more time for those employees, which also
would include more overtime as well. And so that was that increase for her department and
the county treasurer. It was a net of zero. She does not have a temporary employee anymore.
she has a regular part time regular employee. So we moved that money to increase overtime
and also to adjust her regular employee line item for that animal control. There was a
phone allowance missing on one of the employees that was going to be going to be housed at the
animal shelter. So that's that. And then we added 15,000 for utilities. The transfers in and
out. What that is, is should the court decide to hire a road supervisor or engineer,
whatever the what the title is right now? Road superintendent. Superintendent. Thank you sir.
we're transferring out 50,000 from each of the department, each of the precincts into what
was fund 25. And that's what recover that that salary and benefits, plus any other small
expenditures that they may need at that time. So that's what we have at as of friday afternoon
at about 430. No, I have any questions. Anybody for a motion, your honor? Yeah, I'm waiting
for. I'll move to approve. Second motion by gillespie second. Thank you, mr.
commissioner. Yes, sir. Thank you. Any questions? Hearing all those in favor of the motion
say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Same sign. Okay. Motion carried 2.2 d is consideration and
action on order adopted by elected official salaries. Compensation allowances for
fiscal year 2026. Okay. Those are the salaries of the elected officials. Let me just note
that when you look on that agenda, salaries, you'll see a big addition to my salary
that's at stake. Oh yeah. That's from the state. So I didn't pay too much already.
motion to approve. Second. Okay. Just letting you all know. Okay. Okay. Who else did you make?
motion. Yes I did, and I seconded. Very loudly. Motion seconded all those. Oh any
questions. Let me ask that. All those in favor of the motion say aye. All those opposed.
same sign. Motion carries. 2.2 d three is consideration. Action on order. Adopting
budget for the fiscal year 2026. Move to approve. Second. Motion. Seconded by the gorski. And I
think this is the one you have to read. Correct. Oh, I have to read it. Yeah okay. This is the
one. We've all read this one, right, patrick. Okay. Order adopting budget for fiscal year.
okay. You want me to? I'll read it first or you want to read it. Well, let me read it while we
got it. We got a motion a second. Let me read it that way. Then we can vote on it. Order.
adopting budget for fiscal year 2026. On this, the 25th day of august 2025, at a regular
scheduled meeting of san patricio county commissioners court came to be considered the budget for estimated revenues and proposed county expenditures for the period
beginning january 1st, 2026 and ending december 31st, 2026, and it appearing to the court that
said budget is in accordance with the law and has been duly prepared by the county judge,
assisted by the county auditor, on a modified accrual basis consistent with general,
generally accepted accounting principles and duly filed for inspection. That notice has
been given in accordance with law for public hearings on the adoption of said budget and the
said budget having been duly considered by the court, inclusive of modifications
agreed to in court. August 25th, 2025. On motion made, seconded and carried by the majority of
the commissioners court, it is ordered that the court that the said budget be and is, is, and
it is hereby approved and adopted. It is further ordered by the court that the legal
level of control for each legally adopted annual operating budget is the fund, and that amounts shown for individual items included in such totals be considered
supplementary supplementary information, got a motion, and second, all those in favor of
the motion say aye. Aye, aye. Those opposed same sign. Motion carries. Okay 2.2 d four is
consideration and action on an order adopting the 2025 tax year property tax rate.
supporting fiscal year 2026 budget. All right. Motion. Wait a minute. Okay, I'm going to
make a motion that we go ahead and approve this. And I believe I have to read this whole one
too, right? Marcy, you just need to say maintenance and operation, okay? You don't have
to read all maintenance and operations tax rate. Let me get a second for you. Oh, second.
all right. Of course. Okay. Alright, alright. Just a total. It's good enough for everything.
line by line. Yeah, line by line. I thought you were going to say that. Maintenance,
operating tax, general fund and maintenance and operations tax rate is 0.292105. Road and
bridge maintenance and operations tax rate is 0.080411. Total maintenance and
operations tax rate is 0.372516. Debt service tax rate. Debt service tax rate is 0.037245.
total debt service rate is 0.037245. Total ad valorem tax rate is 0.40761. This tax rate
will raise less taxes for maintenance and operations than last year's tax rate. The tax
rate will effectively be lowered by 9.46%, and will lower taxes for maintenance and
operations on a $100,000 home by approximately $28.93. Okay, a motion in a second. Any
discussion question. Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye, I opposed
same sign. Motion carried. Okay. 2.4. I mean 2.25. Consideration and action on order ratifying
the property tax increase reflected in the budget for fiscal year 2026. And let me
get there. You want me to read it? Okay. Order ratifying property tax rate increase for
fiscal year 2026. On this 25th day of august 2025, at a regular scheduled meeting of
the san patricio county commissioners court came to be considered, the property tax
rate increase reflected in the duly adopted budget. The fiscal year beginning january 1st,
2026 and ending december 31st, 2026, having been duly considered by the court on
august 25th, 2025. On motion made, seconded and carried by the majority of the
commissioners court, it is hereby ordered that the court ratifies the property tax rate
increase reflected in the budget. I make that motion. Thank you. A motion by
gillespie, second by gorski. Any questions? Comments? Hearing none. All those in
favor of the motion say aye. Aye, aye. Opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. Okay. And that
concludes all of those budget items under financial agenda. So we'll go into consent agenda.
we do have two this morning. 2.3 a is accept and record invitation of optional fee for
the calendar year 2026 for the texas department of motor vehicles and 2.3 be, accept and
record county auditors monthly unaudited financial report for the month of july 31st, 2025.
motion to approve 2.3 a and 2.3 b motion by zagorsky, seconded by gonzalez. Any questions on
either one of them? Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. Opposed?
same sign. Motion carries. Individual action items. We got 2.4. A presentation by kristin
stenzel e d with the coastal bend bays and estuaries program on county funded goal mesa
projects. Yeah, I hate sitting that long too. It's no y'all. Thank you all for for letting
us come today. I have a lot of important business going on, so we appreciate the opportunity.
kirsten stancil I'm the executive director for the coastal bend bays and estuaries program. Also have mary kramer, a project manager for us, and she's managing a lot of the
projects that we're working on with the county with this mesa fund. So we just wanted to give
you an update on where some of the projects stand right now, and then maybe talk a bit with
you about what we're looking at for the additional funds that have recently come into the
county. So just a reminder, these funds are a contribution that comes every year. You get
a certain allocation and pretty consistent and a good pot of money, but it does does have
some specified authorized uses and how it can be used. So it's all related to kind of coastal
projects related to the revenues are coming from offshore oil and gas
development coming back to the coastal counties. So it's a it's a great source for the county to be able to put to different projects. And so we're really excited to be able
to work with with you all on these. So we've currently got seven projects that we're
working on under an moa with the county. And so I'll go through these try to be
relatively quick because I know you all have a lot going on, but if you could scroll down to
the next one. Thanks. So one of the one of the projects we're working on, we call it the
ingleside on the bay pocket park. So working with iob over there, this this project has
has a couple different phases. The first, the first part of the project involved just the acquisition of that shoreline property that you see kind of up in the rendering up there.
so that was completed almost a year and a half ago. The iob was able to to purchase that
property, and that the significance of this project is really you know, although iob has a lot of shoreline, there's not a lot that is open to the public. It's all restricted to
private docks and piers and things to the beach club. And so this will provide a great
opportunity for the public and visitors to come and utilize the shoreline here in iob. And so the property was purchased. We did put in some bollards along the shoreline just to
keep people out. The property is pretty much all wetlands along there, so we want to make
sure that we're protecting it. And then we also put a fence line next to one of the
property owners there at the the woman that we actually bought the property from or that I bought the property from, requested that there be kind of an access barrier there. So
that's all complete. We're working with lj engineering and ferris designs to develop a master plan for the site. So you're seeing kind of one of the renderings up there of what
this could potentially look like. So we gathered feedback from the the community members, and we talked about things like a boardwalk, maybe a kayak launch, an area on the end
where you could sit and just kind of watch the boats go by, watch the sunset, you know,
educational signage, all those kind of good things that would, would help, that help the site.
there's also some shoreline protection options in there that you see. So obviously this
is open right now to ship wakes and ongoing kind of wind and wave erosion. So as much as we
can trying to preserve that that habitat that's left because obviously that's also going to protect the road behind that. So that that that habitat, there is a great
buffer between that and and seabreeze drive there. So the one of the issues with this
site is that you can't because of it being wetlands, it's very difficult to do any on, on, on
site parking on the actual park itself. So we were able to there's actually was a vacant
lot just across the street that was for sale. Cheniere gave us some funding to buy that lot,
and so now we're going to be able to turn that into a parking area and won't have to
worry about any of the wetland mitigation for that. We put in a coastal management program grant application to help fund the actual construction of the parking area. We're waiting to
hear about that. We'll use the property as as match for that grant, as well as maybe an
additional contribution from this year's funds. Yes. Thanks. Commissioner gillespie, I know you have to go. Okay. Next. Next project. This is actually working with the county and one
of the properties you own. So this is a property owned by the county, san patricio de
hibernia park. The coastal bend bays and estuaries program has an easement on this project or
on this site. And so we've been working with the county on this for for many years now. But we
allocated some funds to go in and kind of rehab the site. We've been working with
commissioner a lot on this, and so we've hired a hired bas services at a sentence to clear
some of the vegetation along the fence lines and the existing trails that were out there. There was a water well out there. We did some testing on that just recently, and that
confirmed that that water well is still in good shape and can produce some water that we
would like to use it as a water feature out there. We're working to get bids right now
to convert that from a wind powered well to a solar powered well to make it more consistent.
and then I think we've we just recently went out last week and identified some additional
areas. I think there's an area known as rachel's pond in westover pond, where we're going to do some invasive brush removal to try to make those ponds a little bit better
habitat for for wildlife and things. We're also working on updating and installing some
new signage and creating a habitat map that would be used in some of that signage. Go to
the next one. Also working with the city of aransas pass over the aquatic center. So there's
an existing boardwalk that's been out there for for many years. It suffered some significant damage during hurricane harvey and just over the years. And so we're going
in and actually refurbishing pretty much the whole boardwalk. We did a hired lga engineering
on this one again, and they did a thorough inspection and kind of provided us guidance on on
what we needed to do in order to, to fix this up. And it ended up being pretty much a
full, a full refurbishment of the project. We put it out to bid earlier this summer.
unfortunately, all the bids came back over our budget for the project, so we've been
working. We've already identified some additional funds for the project, about 48,000, $48,000 that we'll be able to put towards it, but we are going to rebid it soon. It
had to. It called for pretty much the whole structure to be made of plastic timbers, which
drove the price up quite significantly when we looked at the bids. So we went back with the engineers and they're going to rebid it with treated lumber instead. We'll still use some
some different kind of decking material, some of that surestep decking, if you've seen any of it over in port aransas where it's got holes in it and it's it'll hopefully have a longer
life than some of the traditional wood decking. But the timbers and all those things are going back to, to traditional treated lumber and hopefully that'll bring the
price down. We also got some additional money from the coastal bend community foundation to do new signage out there as well, $15,000 for that. Sunset lake. So we have
two projects with the city of portland. One is the sunset lake hike and bike trail
project, so this was some funding just to help them move forward on this project through
the engineering and design phase. So they hire hanson professional services for this
one. So they've just hanson has been out there collecting data that they need in order to do
the the design and permitting work for that project. So that's all underway. And I
think they're working through some of the initial parts of the permit with the corps of
engineers right now. The next one also working with the city over at violet andrews park.
this is another engineering and design project. The estuary program funded a master plan for the park a couple of years ago with some other funds outside of this, and one of the
the big needs that was identified was significant shoreline improvements, as well
as some other access improvements in there. So the master plan is already there, and this phase is really just working with the city. Hired hdr engineering for this one to
complete some of the additional engineering and design phase for for some of those identified improvements in there. And so the idea is to hopefully better manage some of
the the the key uses out there, which includes a lot of kiteboarding, but also just
general public access. So then we're also working with the sand pit navigation district to
help them with a pier replacement project. So this was again another, you know,
just infrastructure that's kind of had a lot of wear and tear over the years from from high
water levels, hurricanes, things like that. And so that that pier in the middle, they
call it the pier. We working with them to completely go in and replace that. The I don't
think we had to replace all the the timbers did we. There's just a about a third, about a
third of the timbers had to be replaced. But all the decking material. So that went to bid
in early may as well. That one we were able to award the contract to shirley and sons,
and we gave them a notice to proceed just a few days ago, and I think they were going to
hopefully start today or tomorrow. On the construction of that, we had to give the
tenants all some time to move their boats and things like that. So that's that's proceeding here very, very soon. And then the next one, the fred jones nature sanctuary. So this
is another site that's owned by the county. Again, it had kind of just kind of wasn't wasn't
necessarily being utilized at its at its greatest extent. And so working with the county to
kind of bring this park back to life. So the the idea for the project is to try to develop
some kind of maintenance and operations plan for the site. I know some some folks went out
there from the county. I think commissioner lee was there, and some other folks from the county staff went out there to do a site visit, kind of see what what what are some of the
initial improvements that we could do. So the first thing was to try to identify kind of a how to control and monitor public access. So we've talked with flock safety, which is, I
think, a security company that does some some camera work for the county already looking at
trying to install some cameras out there to monitor that, better monitor the traffic that comes in and out. We also need to identify potentially a gate option that could be used to to
keep people out at certain after hours. And so we're we're still working through some of
that. And then I think some of my staff are right now are working on a request for
proposals for some of the trail maintenance to get out there and do some of the the clearing
of some of the grasses and things like that that have taken over. So. What about the
bridge? Well, there's some structures out there that we looked at on that site. Visit.
the bridge is needing of repair. Yeah. And then the the building structure itself, we need to
kind of determine what it is we want to do with that. So my yeah my next slide is we're
trying to allocate. So I think with the additional funding of this coming year, we'd like to
do kind of a fred jones phase two, which would be including identifying those like next stages of improvement. So I think we've talked about a parking area potentially. Yeah.
do we, do we get rid of that old building and do some demolition as well as the the
bridge structure out there. So yeah, I think there's there's a few things that we need to
tackle still as well. We're trying to control the access first and then kind of go in
and do some of those, those improvements. So so for this coming year, our understanding is that the county has about 512, just over $512,000 in these funds. So we've talked
about doing three projects, continuing on the I'll call it the pocket park phase two. So
I'd like to kind of set aside $100,000 potentially. This would be an additional match
that could be used for the cmp proposal that we have and would help fund that, that parking
area improvements that we talked about before phase two of the fred jones that we just
discussed. And then I think commissioner gillespie proposed a project to do a septic to sewer conversion over at the agape fellowship and training center. So I need to learn a
little bit more about that one. But we wanted to put that in there because I know that was
of interest to them. I think they were having some issues with overflows in there, obviously right there on a creek and so need to to address that issue. So total we only
have about $293,500 worth of projects proposed for this coming year. I my understanding is maybe the county is talking about using some of those other funds as well. Happy to to help
with that in any way we can, or if we want to find additional projects, that's open for
discussion, I think. I don't I don't know when that comes up if it's in the agenda today or
not. But that's where we stand. We'll come back. This is not like asking for formal approval
of this or anything. This is just to show you our ideas, hopefully get some feedback
from you, and then we can come back and amend that moa and add some of this additional money
back in so we can keep working with the county. You know that I think it was either 2008 or 9
somewhere in that time frame. As parks director, we had the riparian area taken all the way
to the dam on the north river. So that will help you in the future. It's a nice thing. I
was just looking up and they do have the cap program up there for 2025. The state plan stuff.
it just came out in january. Okay. It's coastal impact assistance program, which is
also oil and gas revenues that go to the department of interior. Yeah, it's passed
down through mhms and walmart. Yeah, I use a lot of those funds to build those funds.
yeah, yeah. I mean nothing's really if there's additional needs in that area, let us know.
I think that's we haven't done anything because I think people felt like that area was in pretty good shape and had, you know, good habitat and things of that money to buy equipment
and stuff for them and everything else, and also to build the rv section. But we
never had enough money to finish it. Okay. When we put in 13 spaces, we actually designed
it for 100. Okay, okay. I don't know that if gomesa funds would be necessarily a good fit for
for that particular use. Like I said, you have these kind of five authorized uses that we
have to fit them into. We use a lot. Yeah. Yeah, we use a lot of there's there's one
particular authorized use that allows us to anything that supports a the coastal bend
base plan, which is a plan that our organization puts together, you know, can can be utilized
for those funds. So that captures a lot of these public access projects. But yeah, so
we have to kind of make sure we're just sticking sticking with those authorized uses. So
appreciate it. Thank you. All good questions. Yeah. Maybe next week if you get some time
I'd like for miss norma and grants people to get together, talk about some of these
projects and stuff that are in my precinct. Okay. So we'll get some time. We'll we'll have mr.
norman reach out and see if we can't get a good time for everybody to meet. Sure. Sounds
great. Thank you. Lots of great projects. Thank you. Okay. Let's see, 2.4 b has been taken
care of. 2.4 c is accepted. Record pretrial diversion supplement for miriam rodriguez
in the amount of $5,263 beginning september 1st, 2025 to december 31st, 2025. The
motion to accept. Okay, got a motion. I'll second. Seconded by gonzalez. Any questions?
hearing none. All in favor of the motion, say aye. Aye. Those opposed same sign. Motion
carries 2.4 d is consideration. Action on a request from scott marion, emc fire marshal, for
an order prohibiting and restricting outdoor burning. And patricia county for 90 days.
is that based on the gave you the. Yes it is motion to approve. Yep. Second first
second and all those in favor of the motion say aye. Aye. All those opposed same sign. Okay.
those agenda items, we'll go down into 3.1 which is our action employee salary. First
of all we have 3.1 a kathleen farrell retirement agent, county extension office full
time regular exempt at $2,970.33 per month, with a $50 per month allowance, effective
august 31st, 2025. Judge, if we vote against it, does that mean she can't leave? I asked her if
she would be ready to leave, I think for almost 44 years. Motion to approve 3.1 a
reluctantly. Reluctantly, yeah, motion is, of course, seconded by yardley. All those in favor
of the motion say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. Okay. Under 3.2.
accept and record salaries. Status changes. We do have one, kathleen. Cynthia. List.
employment court recorder. District court. Full time regular nonexempt at $10,068.48
per month, effective october 1st, 2025. I'll go ahead and make a motion that we accept. A
motion seconded by yardley. Any questions? Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion
say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. Okay. Item four. We will have an
executive session this morning. We got two items. First of all, we'll have 4.1 a consultation
with attorney pursuant to government code section 551 .071 regarding litigations with
re and el alto wind farm, llc, which is consideration for a settlement proposal. And four
point b will be discussion and consideration. Possible action regarding a single case agreement for current county employee with university of texas md anderson cancer center,
houston, texas, effective august 12th, 2025 through august 31st, 2026. Executive
session pursuant to county government local government code sections five, five, 1.071
and five five, 1.0785. Okay, with that I will go ahead and recess. Mr. Court at in 14. And
we will return to the room.