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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-05-16-9:00AM-WORKSHOPBRAZOSCOUNTY BRYAN, TEXAS NOTICE OF MEETING AND AGENDA BRAZOS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT WORKSHOP SESSION THE COMMISSIONERS COURT OF BRAZOS COUNTY WILL MEET IN A WORKSHOP SESSION ON TUESDAY 16 MAY 2006 AT 9:00 A.M. IN THE COMMISSIONERS COURTROOM OF THE BRAZOS COUNTY COURTHOUSE, 300 E. 26TH STREET, SUITE 115, BRYAN, TEXAS. 1. Call to Order 2. Discussion regarding relocation of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC). 3. Discussion regarding the purchase of a local storage building. 4. Adjourn The Brazos County 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. Office of the County Judge • 300 East 20' St. • Suite 114 • Bryan, Texas 77803 • Fax: (979) 361-4503 VOL 60 'AGE COMMISSIONERS' COURT WORKSHOP SESSION May 16, 2006 The Commissioners' Court of Brazos County, Texas met in a Workshop Session in the Commissioners' Courtroom in the Courthouse in Bryan, Brazos County, Texas, beginning at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 16, 2006, with the following members of the Court present: Randy Sims, County Judge, Presiding; Lloyd Wassermann, Commissioner of Precinct 1; Duane Peters, Commissioner of Precinct 2; Kenny Mallard, 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. Attached is a transcript of the meeting. Vol 0 Page t.34 I of 12 BRAZOS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT Emergency Operations Center Workshop May 16th, 2006 Sims: Ladies and gentlemen thank you for coming today. I will open the workshop session and call it to order in Commissioner's Court of Brazos County at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday the 16`h of May 2006. The first item on the agenda is, `Discussion regarding relocation of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC)' and I think we have basically looked at several locations that we might possibly be able to work with; one of them being the old Woolworth's basement that we went down and looked at. I think Kenny has seen it...have any of yall gone over there to see that? It really is a great location. Now then, let me throw this open to comments because I know we've got Brian who may have some comments. Who else do we have? I don't see Nate. Nate's not here, ok. I will make some comments afterward; let Kenny talk about it because I have talked to the City of Bryan briefly about it. Chuck, if you would tell us about it and give us the up side and down side. Frazier: There are a couple of things we need to kind of talk about with this item on the workshop. And one is that if you want to talk about where we're going to ultimately locate the community EOC but in the more immediate future we had run the hurricane drill out of College Station's EOC just to kind of see how it went. One of the things we want you to consider too is temporarily relocating our EOC. Say we get into a catastrophic situation or another hurricane evacuation of the coast is relocating our EOC for Brazos County to College Station's EOC. I didn't want to make that decision without consulting with you guys. It just seemed to function a little better; that was pretty much the consensus for actual use. We had some break out room, some meeting rooms that we could send people into to keep the noise level down. Also one of the things I like about it is that it has kind of a limited number of seats in there so it kind of lends itself to not having quite as much activity as one big open room. The restroom facilities were a lot more convenient. The in and out, ingress, egress was a lot more convenient and we as a group we all just thought that it worked better for now, for this summer. Then as far as where we permanently locate, we've looked at a couple of places; the COG, Fibertown as they call it, the old Woolworth's building, Brian's got a couple of areas in College Station that College Station already owns that he's talked about that sound like potentially pretty good deals. So that's going to be up to your governmental committee and the individual councils and the court to make that decision at some point. Vol SO Page 05 2of12 Sims: Ok. Brian, I appreciate you offering... Hilton: Yes sir. Sims: ...space out there in College Station. The council offered space out there. You have an idea when you want to look at this temporary move? Frazier: We just kind of want that to be...there will be some minor things involved in doing it. Getting our wireless computer hub to work over there. I don't see a lot of expense involved in it but there are a few things that need to be done. Taking our teleconference unit and putting it there and just swapping those two out, isn't that right? Hilton: Yes sir. Frazier: Some capabilities that it has that the other one doesn't. I just kind of wanted to do that before ...kind of in conjunction with hurricane season starting up and be ready to operate out of there... Sims: If necessary. Frazier: if necessary. Mann: That's all you're talking about is just operating out of there, you're still in your office over here. Frazier: Yeah, operating out of there is really all that's up for catastrophic too. If there was a situation affecting just Brazos County or the City of Bryan we would still operate out of this EOC over here. We're not planning on striping it of all it's equipment or abandoning it or anything like that. We're just talking about if we get into a situation where we're all having to activate together; maybe activating over there may be a better idea that trying to activate in the Verizon building. Sims: Probably would. Probably would. Ok. Mallard: I went over there and I thought it looked like it had a lot more room and set with a kind of amphitheater type atmosphere so it appeared to yield itself a little bit better than the one large table with everybody sitting around it where we are in the Verizon building. So I think that's probably a good idea. Frazier: They've got the kitchen, they've got the break room, and they've got a couple of different conference rooms we'd have access to. They've got Vol 80 Page k34 3of12 some showers, they've got some restrooms; it's not a unisex single stall restroom, it's a men's and ladies restroom, so to me it's just a better situation. For now. Sims: Ok. Hilton: And again, it's very temporary. As we move towards building the Community Operations Center and a true community team to fight the fight, we've kind of worked it that way since the hurricanes and that's why this has all developed. We're just offering up a temporary space to use in training because ultimately that's what we need to do is training. To get a little bit better working together and it gives us an opportunity to come together in one place. Sims: Good. Let me ask you a question while we're on that; as far as permanency is concerned, I haven't heard anything more from what A&M wants to do out there with a fire station that they are fixing to build or even out at the...what's the name of the center out there that's got all the... Hilton: Britton Fire Academy. Sims: Yes. What have we looked at there? Is there a possibility or not a possibility or is that a location, bad location, whatever? Hilton: So far, every EOC we've looked at are possible EOC definitely has pros and cons. The Britton Fire Academy is a training center for emergency operations. When we went out there; it's a beautiful facility, unfortunately it's not hardened so there was a negative there. At the same time that we were there, they were packing up all their equipment to go to San Antonio to conduct an exercise. So what's to say... Sims: They're not off on an exercise. Hilton: ...yes sir, or if it's something like a hurricane coming in, that's also the assembly point for Texas Task Force One. Now we are competing against these national resources. So those are some pretty big stumbling block in my mind that kind of ruled it out. Sims: Let me ask you a question. When you and Chuck talk about hardened... Frazier: Yes sir. Sims: ...and I know the basement down in Woolworths is a bomb shelter. Vol $0 Page t-3 4of12 Frazier: Yes sir. Sims: It was originally build as a bomb shelter. So it is hardened. What constitutes in you mind... Chuck you too...hardened to be able to get through something like a hurricane, like a tornado, who knows in this area. How hardened does it have to be? Frazier: Well you have to have some protection from any kind of wind projected things that breaks out windows. That's one thing for sure. I looked on the National Weather Service from the storm last year and yall had 47 mph gust and I think 36 mph sustained winds here. And that was on a storm that was pretty far away from you so you have some potential, depending on the track of the storm, to have some pretty bad conditions for a thin period of time. Six or seven hours of certainly sustained gale force if not light category one hurricane winds. So you need some protection from the wind for sure. One of the things that they are talking about doing over there is possibly upgrade the AC system which would be a protection from hazardous materials type incident where you had some kind of toxin in the air. Protection from a flammable, you don't have nay there because typically that's going to settle in the low spots and you're lower over there than you are anywhere else. So that wouldn't be a good place at all if you had a flammable leak along that railroad track. But it's kind of like Brian said; everything has had some pros and some cons. From the stand point of being hardened against wind damage, hardened against tornado damage... the type of things that yall can normally expect to see, they can be pretty tough to beat. It's certainly not going to be beat by a shopping center or a strip mall or some kind of facility in a place like that. Not in my opinion. Sims: Like the Social Security office that we were looking at. Frazier: Or some other places. Abandoned grocery stores or something like that with a big large span roof like that. Hilton: Unless you retrofit. Unless you build a shell inside that shell. Which if you went to something like anything other than a Woolworth building that's already built, you would need to do. We would need to do. Frazier: Certainly, break the glass along the front. Sims: Sure. Frazier: Very doable. Storm shutters, roll down storm shutters... Sims: If you have any questions, please ask them. Vol ~0 Page 38 5of12 Mallard: The Intergovernmental Committee had it's full meeting yesterday and the sub-committee talked about the EOC as far as organization and basically James Massey and I worked on it as far as coming up with more of a plan. Right now, we're trying to figure out what we need first and probably think that we need to come up with a good plan for all the governmental entities to somewhat get their arms around and get the attorneys involved in drafting up an agreement that we can all live with and work with that part of it. So that seems to be our thrust that we are trying to do is to make sure we come up with an agreement. We have a pretty good idea as far cost. I think we've gotten a couple suggested cost figures from two organizations and it kinda gives us a pretty good idea of what that might be, so we have that. But before, do we make a decision on a location or do we still need to go ahead... we've got a memorandum from all four entities now that we want to get together but we need to kind of draw it up and formalize it and come up with that information on how we're going to do it. How is the organization going to be done? Is there going to be some commonality? Is one of the entities going to do payroll for certain people? Is everybody still going to be separated out? We're just not sure whether we need to form another common organization where all three of us join that together to enter into the contract? Are all four of us going to enter into the contract with one of the entities? Those areas on the administrative side are kind of where we're trying to attack that. The Intergovernmental Committee wanted us to move forward pretty quickly. They were concerned about the hurricane season today and of course I told them our EOC directors are already way ahead of us on that. That's already been done so you don't have to worry about them having their plan for this hurricane season. And I think yall have worked that process and are working through that. So we obviously don't feel like we'd be able to get all of this done before hurricane season started, but we're hoping to have it done before hurricane season is over so that we'll have a plan and be able to work through that. Either site is going to take several months to be constructed that we have today. There may be some other sites come in to play later on so we're talking at least six months, I would assume, for construction phase. That may be on average ...it may take a little longer or a little less depending on what we're doing with the sites. But anyway, I think that's where we're moving forward and we're, at this point, the Intergovernmental Committee needs to come together and get all the four full bodies together and perhaps get their lawyers involved in some sort of mutual agreement that we can come together on so that we can find a place for everybody to house in and for us to operate from, from any kind of disaster we have. Vol Page 27 6of12 Hilton: Tentatively we have a meeting with the sub-committee and the co- coordinators for a week from this coming Friday. I think it's the 27th. I talked to Mr. Massey yesterday afternoon; he was supposed to email it out to you. Mallard: He was supposed to be planning that. Hilton: Yes sir. I think I guess the rest of us on line. He was going to contact all of yall. Mallard: Ok. Sims: Let me make a comment `cause I, in passing... after I had gone to look at the Woolworth's basement; which is a pretty awesome location for what we're trying to do. Not centrally located, it's a ways from you Brian and a ways from Texas A&M and this type of thing but that's beside the point. In passing I was visiting with the mayor of Bryan and the mayor of Bryan looked me in the eye and said, "Absolutely not." Ah, said, "We want nothing but retail down in downtown Bryan." And I'm paraphrasing what he said. But that kind of threw; I did a double take because I thought everybody had possibly looked at it. I know you guys, my assumption is, are on board with it. Is that correct? I'm a little concerned about the fact that it will be a difficult play; and certainly we are dealing with a private concern over there to lease the building. But if it all gets down to the nifty gritty, the mayor and the council says, "No we're not going to participate." If they're dead set on having retail in that space; which it was retail at one time. So I don't know. That's only my concern and I have not talked to Ernie since then but he was adamant about it. So I think that's one of the things that I visited briefly with Commissioner Mallard about this, since he came in off the council. He said, "Well, maybe they don't have all the information." Hilton: And that's probably it in a nutshell. I think the next step ...please correct me if I'm wrong ...I think the next step; what we had kind of agreed to is to come up with a business plan. Not pick a location yet just kind of get all the facts of what financially we need to; get through that phase and then go shopping. Go looking for... Frazier: An official request for a proposal, I haven't even heard that anything like that has been done. Hilton: No, it hasn't. Frazier: People are kind of giving proposals but they're not really official proposals it seems like to me. Vol ?0 Page `fa 7of12 Sims: And of course one of the things we do need to take a look at as we put a business plan together is if, in fact, the Social Security office is one of the locations we might want to look at, we're going to have determine how we're going to make that hardened. So that's got to be in the business plan also because that's going to cost some money to do it. Frazier: Seems like maybe the councils and the court could do something ...I know like when I use to manage the airport and when we had grant coming up we would have to do a resolution, the court would have to do a resolution, saying, "Ok, our money's going to be there." You know? Well in advance of engineering, property acquisition, and certainly well in advance of construction, they would do this resolution saying, "Our money is going to be here, you know, when it's needed." Maybe just something like that just to make sure everybody's serious, everybody's on board. And then however you can come up with some kind of selection committee and do it... seems to be you do it kind of like you do and engineering consultant selection where you have a committee of people that have people appointed from all of the interested parties and they just look at the different proposals. Not necessarily based on price because there's no way around it being apples and oranges to me. You know, just based on what's best. Sims: That's certainly a good suggestion and I think that's probably what we need to try to do. But as you well know, anytime you are going to something that's going to require some construction and remodeling and this type of thing, the budget gets away from you in a hurry. And I don't know how we can commit. We can't just say, "Hey we'll write you a blank check." And say, "We're going to commit to getting this done.", and as we all know... all government entities, price has escalated. And you can't just write a blank check `cause that's got to be budgeted and this type of thing. So I understand where you're coming from Chuck, I truly do. I mean it would be nice if we could say, hey we've agreed and every one of us will put five hundred thousand dollars into it and we've got two million dollars to go and buy a building and equip it and the whole bit. But that's not necessarily the way it's going to have to work. Frazier: Commit to a certain amount of money over a certain period of time. Work your proposal towards that maybe. Sims: Right. That's true. Mallard: I think we have a pretty good idea. We've gotten the memorandum with the four entities that want to move forward, everybody's unanimously signed off on that. Mayor Wentrcek was in the meeting yesterday; when Vol 80 Page q-i 8of12 we visited he did not voice that same concern today. Anyway we'll work through that process. Obviously everyone is going to have a decision making process that we're going to go through and have to work through that. So I'm sure everybody has different concerns and rightfully so. But I think it's a process we'll work through. I think we need to continue on trying to get out plan together so we can say, "All right, this is what we want to do so let's go forward and find the best location and hopefully maybe even a good price for it as well." And we'll try to get through that. Obviously costs is always a factor in determining a location but it's not the only criteria but we need to look at all the factors together and find the best location for us and hopefully for a good length of time that we can operate out of. You know, we don't want to do something for one or two years and have to do it all over it again. Sims: I agree. Mallard: We want to try to do it so that we can all come together and I think we're good to go for this hurricane season and I think yall have made a good choice in trying to operate out of the College Station location and I think it has good room and it's a good facility to work with today. Hopefully before the end of the year we'll be able to have a good idea on where we want to locate for maybe a longer period of time ...five to ten years that we can operate out of that location that maybe fit our needs even better. Frazier: Is it our plan as Brazos County to budget money for this upcoming fiscal year for this project? Sims: Yes, if we had some parameters that we can get our arms around it as to what we're talking about. Mallard: That was the big rush that we're trying to get going with IGC is because we know the budget years are starting up for everybody and we need to have some sort of number in place that we can at least budget for to get started from. Sims: Any other comments about this? I think yall have done a great job and I think the IGC has done a great job of pulling things together and getting people on board. I, for one, am very excited about us going together and doing this because we're all going to be facing the same battles out there. There's no sense in having it fragmented. I like that; kudos to the IGC...'course we have to carry it on through now. Frazier: Well just so you know, our ultimate plan here is to form some instant management teams, pulling together people from all the entities. Correct? U,-7 Vol 8 - Page I 9of12 Hilton: Correct. Frazier: And operating out of the same facility will help that plan a lot. I think that's the best way to do it, Brian thinks that ...as co:-coordinators, we all think that's the best way to do it. It's gong to be so much easier to pull that one off if we're all operating out of the same site. Sims: I agree. That's good. That's good. Hilton: Saves our resources. Sims: Yeah. Yeah. Anything else on that? Nothing? Frazier: So do I need to do an official agenda item next week to say we're moving to College Station for the temporary or is that just understood that... Sims: No, let's do that. That way we can vote on it, ok? And get everybody on board. I personally... and I'm only just one vote as you know but I would say proceed on with however, whatever it's going to take to get moved that direction. But put it on the next agenda that we have coming up. Frazier: Ok, now I won't be here. You understand that we are going to be in Beaumont for the hurricane conference for coordinators and Michelle is going to be a forest service training so... Sims: Next Tuesday? Frazier: Next Tuesday. So are there any questions now that you would need to ask me that week or... Sims: You got a cell phone, don't you? Mallard: We'll call you. Sims: Love those cell phones. Ok. Thank you. Chuck, Brian, thank you. Michelle, thank you. And I think that's great. Next item on the agenda. Good, I'm glad ...oh, Karen is here. `Discussion regarding the purchase of a local storage building.' Carlos and I and most of the commissioner's individually went with Carlos down to take a look at that is Jim Beard old warehouse down there and it was an ideal spot. I had talked to Jim Beard last Thursday I think it was and he said, "Well, how soon can you let me know?' I said, "Well I will make a tentative decision. We can't get it on next week's agenda right quick but we like it and we'd certainly be interested in taking a look at it and seeing if we can make a deal on the thing." But evidently he needed cash in a hurry and the guy walked in and Vol 20 Page 43 10 of 12 wrote him a check. My assumption is; wrote him a check for $224,000 dollar and bought it right out from under us. And Karen looked long and hard trying to find a place for our voting equipment. McQueen: I'll keep looking. Sims: And also for storage of records here and it was so convenient and this type of thing but I guess older buildings are in demand because it cost so much to build new buildings. And in visiting with Carlos ...thank you for your efforts Carlos to try and determine what we would have to do to that building to make sure it was water tight ...or the two buildings that we looked at which was the Jim Beard little office building over there for his moving and storage and then the big storage facility. But Carlos said there are some things we would have to do; we can see a little light streaming in between the panels. Was that not true? Guitron: Yes sir. Sims: And we would have to do some sealing on it and that type thing. But we're going to look on for a storage building. By the way Commissioners, I have talked to Karen about storage and about the equipment. She's going to go out and take a look at George Boyett's building out there and see if part of that building can be used for storage of the voting machines. It's a little further. Thank you Brian for coming. Hilton: Yes sir. Sims: Appreciate it. Hilton: Yall have a good week. Sims: And see if we can't utilize some of that, we may have to go out and put a roof on that and make sure that's it's air tight. But it will be climate controlled, won't it? Guitron: Yes sir. Cauley: It's kind of inconvenient? Sims: Yeah, it is a little inconvenient, but we're running out of buildings down here. Older buildings. But we'll proceed on with that and see where we can locate ...I know said she was going to need additional space from what she's got back here and that's why she wants to look at the size of that building out there. Because she is in the process of buying additional equipment because we are needing it. Is there any comments Vol 8a Page 44 11 of 12 about ...would you guys; and I know yall have, but would you guys keep an eye out for buildings that look like they could become available around the courthouse that we could use for storage. Mallard: With the voter turnout we're having lately, are you sure we need one? Sims: But yall keep an eye out and see if we've got anything available in and around the courthouse because it would be nice to have it down here... Cauley: Closer. Sims: ...closer to the courthouse that we could also take and combine... Mallard: Is really all that important that it be next to the courthouse? Sims: Well prob-, yeah, probably not but it would be helpful. If somebody has got something that has come up that needs research-maybe it's not on their computer, but they could send somebody down to pull it up. You know, go into a locked space somewhere that has been provided for them. I don't know... get the hard copy. Mallard: You were talking about voting machines and now you're talking about record storage. So that's where I was going with that. Sims: Record storage, I'm sorry. Mallard: Ok, I'm sorry. Cauley: Well the combination of both because it would take some a half a day to go to College Station. Mallard: But that location was just for the voting machines I think. Sims: Yeah, and that's not used all that often. Mallard: Not necessarily record's storage. Cauley: Oh, you're not going to put he records down there? Sims: No. No. No. No, I'm talking about down here somewhere if we can find a spot... Cauley: Ok. Vol 80 Page ~ 5 12 of 12 Sims: ...that we can kind of chain link off inside the building where each one could have a key to their own space and this type of thing. But anyway, that is all I have. Any other discussion on those two items? Mallard: Duane and I need a place just for the paper on top of our desk. Sims: All right, I'm going to adjourn this workshop of the Commissioner's Court. Thank you for coming. Vol go Page 4~ The foregoing minutes of the Commissioners Court Workshop held May 16 2006 , have been examined and approved in open Court this the day of S' 20 in Bryan, Brazos County, Texas.'' 0 Randy S County 'ZuS Duane Peters Commissioner, Precinct No. 2 Carey Ca ey, Jr. r Comm-Is 31 ne r, Precinct 4 Attest: Y lC e-Z ~ K ren McQueen n County Clerk Llo Wassermann Commissioner, Precinct No. 1 Kenny Mall d Commissioner, Precinct No. 3 Vol 90 Page 47 ~ ~ oz BRAZOS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT DAY OF , 20~ AT A lI Name Organization ~G Cc„. os M~- 1/ 40) eel 5.0 , -b "~s ci~ 6 c (i j, g 1~- (scS o l~ ~ L-^ &.el-;Ik V[A.,tl' ,i VOL 90 PAGE-4$ / BRAZOSCOUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT /~(s- DAY OF , 20 D~ AT ~ AM/PM Oa45 Name Organization Loou.a& a~°~ ~u s ~ 02 VOL 90 PAGE 41