Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-08-23-0900AM-PublicHearingFILED 1W1 AUG I b A & 25 BRAZOS COUNTY ' „ftr.'c{}UE1:N.C0uNTYCJERK BRA2GS COUNTY. RYAN.TEXAS BRYAN. TEXAS NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING ON THE BRAZOS COUNTY BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 2003 BRAZOS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT AUGUST 23, 2002 Notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held in the 361St District Courtroom of the Brazos County Courthouse, 300 East 26`h Street, Suite 309, Bryan, Texas on Friday, August 23, 2002 at 9:00 a.m. for the purpose of discussing the proposed budget for fiscal year ending September 30, 2003. Taxpayers and other interested parties are invited to attend and be heard at this time. Said budget is filed with the County Clerk and will remain on file in the office of the County Clerk in accordance with existing State Statutes. Taxpayers and others interested are urged to acquaint themselves with the said budget during the time it remains on file with the County Clerk before the hearing. The Courthouse is wheelchair accessible. Handicap parking spaces are available. Any request for sign interpretive services must be made two business days before the meeting. To make arrangements, call (979) 3614102. C7 COMMISSIONERS' COURT PUBLIC HEARING AUGUST 23, 2002 The Commissioners' Court of Brazos County, Texas held a is Public Hearing to consider the proposed budget for fiscal year ending September 30, 2003. The meeting was held in the 36190 District Courtroom in the Courthouse in Bryan, Brazos County, Texas, beginning at 9:00 a.m. on Friday, August 23, 2002, with the following members of the Court present: Alvin W. Jones, County Judge, Presiding; Tony Jones, Commissioner of Precinct 1; Wm. S. Thornton, Commissioner of Precinct 2; C.B. Jones, Commissioner of Precinct 3; Carey Cauley, Jr., Commissioner of Precinct 4; Karen McQueen, County Clerk. Attached is a list of the citizens and officials in attendance. The County Judge asked elected officials to please limit u their remarks to 5 minutes and all others to limit remarks to 3 minutes. The County Judge also asked the elected officials requesting an increase to their budget to identify how they feel the increase should be funded, after which he opened the floor for comments. Vol aq- Page i9 0 2 The following citizens spoke in support of an increase to the budget for the Sheriff's Department: Jack Teague Weldon Jordan Ramona Hibbetts Dr. Michael Gimaila Bruce Pugh Jeanette Roman Glen Pruitt Karen Hall Robert Lamond Shirley Kraemer Emil Ogden Linsey Oates Tommy Lyons Demetrios Basdekas stated the County's top priorities should be granting the Sheriff's requests, giving a 10 percent salary increase to all county employees and granting a civil attorney position to the County Attorney. Glenn Pruitt also spoke in support of the Constables offices. Tommy Lyons objected to the increase in salary for the position of County Judge. Sharon Anderson spoke in support of the budget presented by Judge Jones. Tim Bryan spoke on behalf of the Economic Development Corporation and asked that the line items for both operations and incentives be given great consideration so that the community could move forward with growth. Charles Ellis, Justice of the Peace, Precinct 1 - requested amounts in his operational budget be reinstated to his original request. The proposed budget shows a cut of approximately 9 percent. He is only asking for the same budget as fiscal year 2002. Vol 34 Page )S-0 • • • Wayne Thompson, Constable, Precinct 3 - requested increases in his budget for overtime, firearms readiness, pagers, telephone, cell phones utilities, and gasoline. He also made a request for a copier. 3 James Marrow, Constable, Precinct 1 - requested salary increases for the Chief Deputy and Senior Deputy, and a new position of Deputy Constable Clerk. Increases in the budget for uniforms, firearms readiness, office supplies, conference fees, miscellaneous, travel, and telephone were requested. He is requesting $10,000 for gasoline rather than $16,000 as originally submitted. Also requested funding for video equipment, radios, chairs and a desk. Phil Sikes, Constable, Precinct 6 - informed the Court that he had visited with all of the Commissioners previously and in order to save time would not repeat himself, unless there were questions from the Court. Ernie Laney, Interim Director of Information Technology - stated that he had supplied the Commissioners with memos concerning his budget requests and in the interest of time would not repeat himself unless there were questions. Requested in the memo was $13,200 for training (616800) to provide funding to contract with Blinn College to support MicroSoft Product training for the County. Jim Kuboviak, County Attorney - requested a civil attorney for Brazos County. He stated Brazos County is the only county of 20 around us that does not have a civil attorney. The salary requested for this position ($61,000) is in the bottom 1/3 of the salaries for civil attorneys in surrounding counties. Chris Kirk, Sheriff - supported the County Attorney's request for a civil attorney. He requested additional staff and a 15 percent salary increase for all sworn deputies. Equipment requests included video cameras, various vehicle equipment and mobile work stations. Vol 34 Page 181 0 4 Carlos Guitron, Director of Building Maintenance - requested funding for radios and a 5 percent increase in his salary. Naomi Fackler spoke on behalf of the Dispute Resolution Center and urged the Court to keep the center funded at $5,000 for fiscal year 2003. Duane Peters, Constable, Precinct 2 - requested that the Court reinstate the position of deputy constable that was cut in the proposed budget. Isaac Butler, Constable, Precinct 4 - requested reclassification of the clerk position in his department to administrative secretary. He also requested attention be given to accounts cut in his operational budget. C. Jack Hunter, Agriculture Extension Agent - asked the court to reconsider the amount in his budget for travel. He would like to request that travel remain at the level originally requested, he is fine with all of the other accounts. The County Judge then asked Candy Gallego, Executive Assistant to the Commissioners Court, to read written comments submitted in support of increasing the Sheriff's budget from the following citizens: Bill Haddock Beverly, Jimmy and Gladys Brown Rosemary Vollmar James Benedict Maurice Green, Sr. There being no further comments, the County Judge declared the Public hearing closed. Vol 34 Page l ga. • 5 The foregoing minutes of the Commissioners Court Public • • Hearing held August 23, 2002 have been examined and are approved in open Court this the 2g'- day of d~c.•.~ , 20Q2..t in Bryan, Brazos County, Texas. ae-LIL~- Alvin W. Jones County Judge m. S. Thornton Commissioner, Precinct No. 2 00 arey C ley, Jr. Commiss'oner, Precinct No. 4 Vol 3~ - XA~~ To Ay JQ~W Commissioner, Precinct No. 1 C.B. Jo Commissi ner, Precinct No. 3 K ren McQueen County Clerk Page I S3 U BRAZOS COUNTY-COMMISSIONER COURT MEETING ON oY_23--o.2_ 2006 ---AT .'d NAME ORGANIZATION/DEPARTMENT ~(J a~ U Sfi~4 *4 E t,.c.v ves Qc. o A'S4 -P G/ s.© 17 1 GJ I- vr/ c< < S ka (G, 9.C Z_ • • • BRAZOS COUNTY -COMMISSIONERS COURT MEETING ON a 200 4 AT 9'00( NAMF. ORGANIZATION/DEPARTMENT Gf T7 ZCY r co OAdzt" &zia o &-l If 0 la""°\ BRAZOS COUNTY'COMMISSIONERS COURT MEETING ON Qt 200 AT _9'ov _ • • • BRAZOS COUNTY'COMMISSIONERS COURT MEETING ON )3200 A AT 9;oo Milt NAME ORGANIZATION/DEPARTMENT a J2 X-Q~ bti o a'A w c"_ geez /32Ca-~P-~ c n U BR.AZOS CO TY :COMMISSIONER COURT MEETING ON 2000?--AT . ` 0 c) . NAMR ORCTANIZATION/DEPARTMENT 1 D G✓c~.~ f~ G . 5 "t Q~ S c cs~-` OTY . o ~Z Y\ci i s~ • • • Bill Haddock, 10:34 AM 8/22/200, Budget request - Sherriff's De X-From : drbillBB@yahoo.com Thu Aug 22 12:15:57 2002 Return-Path: <drbill88@yahoo.com> Delivered-To: sgandy@co.brazos.tx.us Delivered-To: al)ones@co.brazos.tx.us Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 10:34:05 -0700 (PDT) From: Bill Haddock <drbi118B@yahoo.com> Reply-To: bill@bilihaddock.com Subject: Budget request - Sherriff's Department To: aljones@co.brazos.tx.us Cc: cferrell@theeagle.com X-Security: MIME headers sanitized on post.co.brazcs.tx.us See http://www.impsec.oro/email-tools/sanitizer-intro.html for details. $Revision: 1.135 $Date; 2002-05-26 21:19:33-07 Date: Thursday, August 22, 2002 Open letter to the Commissioner's Court, Brazos County: Re: Budget requests - Sheriff's Department Gentleman: From fall, 1998 through summer, 2001, I worked as a training consultant with the Law Enforcement Management Institute at Sam Houston State University providing leadership education for police department chiefs. During that time I began following national trends in an attempt to help trainees realize the important role that law enforcement leadership will play in our future. It is with this background plus almost 30 years of experience in providing psychological services in counseling, consulting and criminal justice rehabilitation that I provide you with some of my past and current observations. Please use this information in your considerations regarding the budget requests for the Sheriff's Department: 1) Over the past decade, there has been a trend in law enforcement toward federal intervention of local police agencies being forced into consent decrees (to avoid a lawsuit like the Texas prison system had in the late 1701s) by the Justice Department/US Attorney General's office when police misconduct and civil rights violations became a systematic problem. 2) This happened in the small city of Steubenville, Ohio. It happened in the entire state of New Jersey. it also happened in Los Angeles, California, Cincinnati, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The city of New York narrowly avoided a similar situation. 3) In 1999, separate drug busts in Hearne and Tulia, Texas (panhandle area) made national headlines (in the New York Times). The general themes of each Iarticle centered on racial profiling, possible police misconduct, and general civil rights violations. At the time, one might have wondered what the interest was in a drug bust in Hearne or Tulia, Texas, both small towns. 4) This summer (3 years later) - July 29, 2002, August 1, 2002, August 5, 2002, August 8, 2002, and August 12, 2002, Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote al series of editorials regarding the injustices of arrests, trials, and convictions of people involved in the drug bust in Tulia, Texas. You may wonder why the focus has stayed on Texas 5) Early this summer, I was informed that the Justice Department, in conjunction with the NAACP and LULAC were investigating another small city in the Brazos Valley area. It Printed for Susan Gandy <sgandy@co.brazos.tx.us> 1 is Bill Haddock, 10:34 AM 8/22/200, Budget request - Sherriff's De appears that small law enforcement agencies are being monitored. This affects most sheriff departments and the majority of municipal police agencies in the entire state. 6) Last week, CNN aired a taped forum on police misconduct that was held in Inglewood, California. Among the many reasons for misconduct offered by expert law enforcement testimony, were problems with recruitment, training, and police culture. Salaries of personnel and general budget issues directly relate to these problems. 7) In that forum, a pioneering political move was discussed: the state attorney general of California has taken a similar position to the federal attorney general's office by forcing small law enforcement agencies into agreements of outside oversight to correct systematic civil rights violations. This could happen in Texas if the Justice Department and/or federal courts do not force the issue first. Either way, the local government (and the taxpayer) foots the bill. In light of this and other information you have available, please make a wise decision in the matter of this budget. A wise decision will consider the big picture and involve a balance between the conservative tendency to emphasize facilities and equipment over a more liberal attitude toward increasing personnel salaries. Thank you, Bill Haddock 979-260-3049 Dr. Bill Haddock, LPC, LCDC 1005 University Dr. E, #100 - PO Box 9459 College Station, Texas 77840 Web site: www.billhaddock.com Note: This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender by email, delete and destroy this message and its attachments. Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs, a Yahoo! service - Search Thousands of New Jobs Printed for Susan Gandy <sgandy@co.brazos.tx.us> 2 /""Ik, • Beverly Brown August 20, 2002 County Judge A] Jones Commissioner Tony Jones Brazos County Courthouse Dear Judge Jones and Commissioner Jones: Please add our voices to the chorus of those calling for better pay and support for our Brazos County sheriff's deputies. Our deputies are hard-working, dedicated law enforcement professionals who deserve to be compensated as well as their counterparts in local police departments. They have the • same amount of training, and their jobs are every bit as dangerous, yet their pay is often many thousands of dollars a year less than that of their police colleagues. This is simply not right. Our deputies patrol many miles of our county - alone, in most cases - and perform a myriad of essential tasks every day. When trouble arises, backup is often many miles and many precious minutes away. Their equipment is often not up-to-date or, worse, even non-existent, as in the case of video cameras in squad cars. In short, our deputies are not paid fairly.and are poorly equipped to do their jobs. Yet they suit up every day and put their lives on the line for all of us in Brazos County. We believe it is time for the commissioners court to provide funding that will take care of these problems. We know how much pride the court has taken in not raising our taxes for several years, and we appreciate your hard work. However, we would rather pay more in taxes and know that the officers who are out there protecting us are being paid fairly and equipped well. We urge you to vote accordingly when you consider the county budget for next year. • Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, The Reagan Brown Family, Beverly Brown Jimmy Brown Gladys Brown fly 1407 Stonebndge Cc • College Station. TX 77845 • 979 696 60T3 • 979 220.2486 • buifgtri@cox-tntemet com ROSEMARY VOLLMAR, 07:05 AM 8/16/200, County Budget Hearing X-From: r-vollmar@msn.com Fri. Aug 16 06:47:03 2002 Return-Path: <r-vollmar@msn.com> Delivered-To: sgandy@co.brazos.tx.us Delivered-To: aljones@co.brazos.tx.us X-Originating-IP: (67.209.134.252] From: "ROSEMARY VOLLMAR" <R-vollmar@msn.com> To: <aljones@co.brazos.tx.us> Subject: County Budget Hearing Date: Fri., 16 Aug 2002 07:05:31 -0500 X-Security: MIME headers sanitized on post.co.brazos.tx.us See http://www.impsec.org/email-tools/sanitizer-intro.html for details. $Revision: 1.135 $Date: 2002-05-26 21:19:33-07 X-OriginalArrivalTime: 16 Aug 2002 12:04:25.0578 (UTC) FILETIME=[10AA9CA0:0lC2451D] Sir. My name is Rosemary Vollmar. I live at 211 B W. William Joel Bryan Parkway, Bryan, Texas. I am not entirely pleased that you did not choose to have such an important hearing at a time when more of the public COULD attend. Many of the county residents are at their jobs and cannot be here at these hours. Thank you for at least providing this unique method of getting our ideas into public record. You cited "overtime would have to be paid to your staff" as the reason for not meeting in the evening. You met in the evening for the EXPO public hearings--did you pay overtime then"? No I work for the State of Texas and do not get overtime pay very often. But, we do get offered 'comp time' for work over 40 hours. Your staff might be DELIGHTED to have a few hours off during the day to get some errands done and be willing to cover an evening hearing--if that 'overtime pay' reason is truly valid. Some of the things that I value (and am willing to pay my fair share for), are education and security. You have the Sheriff's Department in your budget and I would support an increase in that area. The 'cost of living' is increasing all across the country as well as in our County. I feel that an increase in the salaries for our Sheriff and our Deputies is a reasonable expense. We need to have competitive salaries to draw, and to keep, qualified officers in Brazos County. Thank you. Printed for Susan Gandy <sgandy@co.brazos.tx.us> 1 #O~ Z+--- lq • james benedict, 06:00 PM 8/22/200, budget X-From : )amesbenedict@msn.com Thu Aug 22 17:42:01 2002 Return-Path: <]amesbenedict@msn.com> Delivered-To: sgandy@co.brazos.tx.us Delivered-To: al]ones@co.brazos.tx.us X-Originating-IP: {63.24.179.13] From: ")ames benedict" <)amesbenedict@msn.com> To: <al)ones@co.brazos.tx.us> Sub)ect: budget Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 18:00:10 -0500 X-Security: MIME headers sanitized on post.co.brazos.tx.us See http://www.impsec.org/email-tools/sanitizer-intro.html for details. $Revision: 1.135 $Date: 2002-05-26 21:19:33-07 X-OriginalArrivalTime: 22 Aug 2002 23:00:11.0058 (UTC) FILETIME=CAAEOE920:O1C24A2F] Judge Al Jones I think the Sheriff need the 158 raises, they work just has hard as the local police departments, and more responsive in they duty. Sheriff Chris Kirk is one the best Sheriff Brazos County has had in a long time • • Printed for Susan Gandy <sgandy@co.brazos.tx.us> MR- A 34 James Benedict 6670 Wooded Drive CollegeStation,Texas 1 • ~3, o2 U jo A ~,Il ao) Ink, • • ~,n h~4n- J~-, • • y'~ x 1 a, (~j &L-VII