2001 399
FEB 2 7 2001
THE COMMISSIONERS COURT OF DALLAS COUNTY, TEXAS TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
Regular Session ----February 13, 2001
MEMBERS IN ATTENDANCE:
JUDGE LEE F. JACKSON, Presiding Official COMMISSIONER JIM JACKSON, District 1
COMMISSIONER JOHN WILEY PRICE, District 3 COMMISSIONER KENNETH A. MAYFIELD, District 4
DEPUTY COUNTY CLERK, CLERK OF THE COMMISSIONERS COURT: MS. PAULA STEPHENS
FEB 272001
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OTHER COUNTY OFFICIALS IN ATTENDANCE:
MR. MIKE GRIFFITHS, Director of Juvenile Services
MS. BETTY CULBREATH-LISTER, Director Health & Human Services MR. DONALD HOLZWARTH, Director of Public Works
MR. DAN SAVAGE, Asst. Court Administrator MR. JOHN CAN'lWELL, Director of Purchasing MS. VIRGINIA PORTER, County Auditor
MR. ALLEN CLEMSON, Commissioners Court Administrator MR. BILL MELTON, County Treasurer
MR. RYAN BROWN, Acting County Budget Officer
MS. MATFYE MAULDIN.TAYLOR, Director of Personnel MR. JOHN DAHILL, Asst. District Attorney
1 (The DALLAS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
2 was convened at 2:09 p.m. this 13th day
3 of February, 2001.)
4
PROCEEDINGS
5 JUDGE JACKSON: (Gavel) The Court will come
6 to order. A quorum is present. Legal notice has been posted
7 and the Court duly called. Do we have a motion to open
8 Court?
9 MR. MAYFIELD: So move.
10 MR. PRICE: Second.
11 JUDGE JACKSON: Is there discussion?
12 (No response)
13 JUDGE JACKSON: All in favor, say "aye."
14 (Response)
15 JUDGE JACKSON: Opposed, "nay."
16 (No response)
17 JUDGE JACKSON: The bailiff will open Court.
18 (Whereupon, Court was called to order by the Bailiff)
19 JUDGE JACKSON: Our invocation today is given
20 by a guest of Commissioner Mayfield.
21 MR. MAYFIELD: Thank you, Judge. We have Rev.
22 Cedric D. Stricklin, if he would come forward, please, who is
23 the pastor of the Graceland Community Baptist Church.
24 Rev. Stricklin has been active in the ministry
25 for 18 years and was ordained in May of 1984. He graduated 26 from David W. Carter High School in 1983 and from Southern
I Bible Institute in 1988.
2 Rev. Stricklin earned his B.A. Degree and his
3 Master of Divinity from Criswell College and is a Doctor of 4 Ministry candidate at Trinity Theological Seminary.
s He has served as the founding pastor of
6 Graceland Community Baptist Church for eight years. He and
i his wife, Beverly, have been married for 11 years and have
8 three sons, Marcus, Kendrick, and Jimmy. Rev. Stricklin?
9 REV. STRICKLIN: (Appearing before the Court)
10 Thank you, Commissioner. Let bow for a word of prayer.
11 (Praying) Dear heavenly Father, most
12 sovereign Lord, and maker of this world and the world that is
13 to come, Lord, we thank You for this, another blessed day, 14 that we have been allowed to see and to experience Your
is goodness one more time by allowing us, Father, to make it to
16 see another day. We thank You.
17 Now, Lord, we lift this gathered assembly
is together up before You, that You would, Lord, endow them with
19 the wisdom and guidance from on high. As they seek to
20 provide leadership for those in our community, Lord, bless
21 them in a mighty special way.
22 Give each man and woman that wisdom and
23 direction to make mature decisions that would bring glory and 24 honor to Your name. Bless their families and all of their 25 careers as they seek to honor You.
I Let there be, Father, bipartisanship in this
2 meeting that these, our leaders, who seek to govern, that
3 they may govern well and that it may be done in a manner and
4 a way that benefits all men.
s We know that You, Father, again have brought
6 us together, and we thank You for this very day and this hour
7 that we may, Father, exhibit the spirit of unity and love to
8 the glory of Your holy and divine name.
9 Now, Father, may Your peace and Your love be
io granted upon this gathered assembly today that, Father, we
ii may give You praises. We thank You now in the glorious and
12 wonderful magnificent and powerful name of Christ our Lord.
13 Amen.
14 JUDGE JACKSON: Thank you, Rev. Stricklin.
15 MR. MAYFIELD: Judge, we want to give special
16 thanks to Rev. Stricklin because as we adjusted our schedule
17 at the last minute, Rev. Stricklin was able to adjust his
is schedule. He was originally supposed to be here this
19 morning, obviously, but he was able to work us in, so thank
20 you, Rev. Stricklin.
21 MR. PRICE: Thank you, Reverend.
22 JUDGE JACKSON: We have a formal agenda this
23 afternoon of items scheduled for action by the Court and,
24 following that, a briefing of those items that are going to
1 At the conclusion of that portion of the
2 meeting, we've advertised an executive session so that the
3 Court may consider in a closed meeting those items that are
4 necessary and are allowed by state law.
5 The first item on the formal agenda, No. 7,
6 resolutions. I don't have resolutions before me. Are there
.7 any additional resolutions?
8 (No response)
9 JUDGE JACKSON: If not, Item 8 is the consent
10 agenda, and there are collateral transactions included. Is
11 there a motion to approve the consent agenda?
12 MR. PRICE: So move.
13 MR. MAYFIELD: Second.
14 JUDGE JACKSON: There's a motion and a second.
15 Is there discussion?
16 (No response)
17 JUDGE JACKSON: All in favor, say "aye."
18 (Response)
19 JUDGE JACKSON: Opposed, "nay."
20 (No response)
21 JUDGE JACKSON: The motion carries.
22 Item 9 is the award of bids for purchases and
23 annual contracts. We have three included in the agenda. Is
24 there a motion to approve the bids?
I MR. JACKSON: Second.
2 JUDGE JACKSON: There's a motion and a second.
3 Is there any discussion?
4
MR. PRICE: I've got discussion on
2001-047-751, Judge. I'm sure we want to go ahead on and probably 6 approve it. I've gotten an E-Mail from Mr. Cantwell. I had
7 inquired about that. The essence of my concern was Terminix
a Commercial. I thought we had had some vendor concerns lodged with regards to that particular provider.
10 MR. CANTWELL: Commissioner, we don't have any
11 documented complaints against Terminix.
12 MR. PRICE: You don't have any documented
13 complaints?
14 MR. CANTWELL: No, sir.
15 MR. PRICE: You're not telling me that we
16 haven't been in receipt of some complaints, because, I mean, I've lodged complaints at least verbally based on
18 departments' concerns.
19 MR. SAVAGE: Let me jump in for just a minute,
20 Commissioner. We revised the specifications and broke the
21 bid down into three sections. The section that will go to
22 Terminix is a section that requires them to place a 40 hour a
23 week man at our disposal to provide the extermination
24 services in the jail facilities themselves.
1 MR. SAVAGE: Right. In the past, they would 2 go over there and they would do what they felt was adequate, 3 and we didn't have any real good control over the amount of 4 time they were spending at any particular location, and the S specs have been revised to take that concern into
6 consideration.
So we're going to take a different approach s under this contract. They are basically going to have a 40
9 hour a week man that'll be at our direct control. He will be
to in all of the jail facilities.
11 We have worked out schedules with the
12 captains, the jail commanders, and we feel this will be a 13 method that will allow us to provide the kind of service that 14 we need in order to address any of the problems that they've
is had in the jails in the past. It'll be a totally different
16 approach.
17 MR. PRICE: What about Medlock. That was
18 another one.
19 MR. SAVAGE: Medlock will be awarded to a
20 different vendor. It's under a different section of the
21 contract.
22 MR. PRICE: Is it going to be under the Prime?
23 MR. CANTWELL: Yes, and we got very good
24 references. The three sections, besides the jail, we've
I MR. PRICE: Judge, I
--2
MR. SAVAGE: There is one other particular in
that contract on Terminix. We can terminate them,
4 exterminate them if you will, with 10 days notice.
s MR. PRICE: Ten days? Okay. Based on that,
6 Judge, that explanation, I will support it. Call for the
7 Question.
8
JUDGE JACKSON: We have a motion and a
9 section. All in favor, say "aye."
10 (Response)
11 JUDGE JACKSON: Opposed, "nay."
12 (No response)
13 JUDGE JACKSON: The motion carries.
14 We have court orders 10 through 29. We have
15 an amendment on court order 11 to the name of the firm
16 involved and that's, I believe, the only change, and on court
17 order 18, we have the contract attached now that was not
18 originally attached. There are no other deletions that I'm
19 aware of, so a motion would be in order to approve court
20 orders 10 through 29.
21 MR. MAYFIELD: Could we pull 18 out and vote
22 on it separately.
23 JUDGE JACKSON: We have a request to consider
24 18 separately.
I motion on court orders 10 through 29 excluding court order 18 2 with the amendments that you
--3 JUDGE JACKSON: On 11.
4 MR. PRICE: On 11.
JUDGE JACKSON: We have a motion. Is there a
6 second?
7 MR. JACKSON: Second.
8 JUDGE JACKSON: And discussion?
9 MR. JACKSON: I have two, Judge. Number one,
io on No. 14, the stale dated checks, I've asked the Treasurer ii for a separate list, and he's given it to me, and I just
12 wanted to tell the other members of the Court I certainly 13 intend to contact the people in my district before some 14 bottom feeder gets ahold of it.
15 MR. MELTON: Commissioner, I provided copies
16 to the four districts.
17 MR. JACKSON: Thank you. And on No. 19, while
18 I'm going to support it and I know we've been through it, I 19 really have a hard time with that. There are some job titles
20 that are listed as non-exempt, I just don't see how the
21 either non-exempt is correct or the title is correct. I just
22 don't see how an administrative assistant is non-exempt.
23 MR. PRICE: I thought they were exempt.
24 MS. MAULDIN-TAYLOR: We looked at that.
I assistants.
2 MR. PRICE: Any administrative assistant.
3 MR. JACKSON: Anybody that's an administrative
4 assistant, in my opinion, ought to be non-exempt. They may not be administrative assistants. They may be Clerk 10's or 6 something else.
7 MR. PRICE: Then we need to, I guess, Dr.
a Taylor, and I agree with the Commissioner, if they're not, if 9 there's not a definition that qualifies somebody as an
10 administrative assistant, then maybe those titles need to be
11 changed.
12 MS. MAULDIN-TAYLOR: We can make that change
13 in title.
14 MR. PRICE: You what?
15 MS. MAULDIN-TAYLOR: We can look at changing
16 the titles. Since it's the title, not necessarily the
17 classification of the position, we can look at doing that.
18 MR. JACKSON: Well, I'm just of the opinion,
19 and there are probably some others in there that I would
20 raise that, that if a person is an administrative assistant,
21 that would indicate to me they have a job title, I mean, a
22 job description that would make them exempt. If they don't,
23 I just have a hard time accepting that job title.
24 JUDGE JACKSON: Well, you're saying for our
1 FLSA, for our own purposes we could tie those jobs that had
2 sufficient independence to be classified as exempt to the 3 title of administrative assistant. Any that didn't reach the
4 level of qualifying for exempt, we would call administrative 5 clerk or some other title to maintain a distinction.
6 MS. MAULDIN-TAYLOR: I could work with the
7 departments to do that, and if it's okay with the Court, look
8 at presenting them to Civil Service.
9 MR. JACKSON: I would appreciate you doing
10 that.
11 MS. MAULDIN-TAYLOR: Okay. We can do that.
12 JUDGE JACKSON: Okay. We have a motion and a
13 second. Is there further discussion?
14 MR. PRICE: Under -- Go ahead on. Were you
15 going to say something?
16 MR. MAYFIELD: I was just going to say on 28,
17 that should be, I assume it should be January the 1st of 2001
18 through December 31st of 2001 even though when they had this,
19 they had it for some time. That's already passed. December
20 of 2000 has already passed.
21 JUDGE JACKSON: We're trying to save you some
22 money.
23 MR. JACKSON: I would assume on that, and I
24 wasn't going to raise this issue, and it's not an issue 25 really, but I would assume the Public Works Director, Mr.
I Holzwarth, that you have reviewed this and it conforms to
2 county policy.
I] MR. HOLZWARTH: On 28?
4 MR. MAYFIELD: Yes. On 28.
s MR. JACKSON: Generally, these things are
6 reviewed by Public Works, and I noticed it had
--i MR. MAYFIELD: That's a standard contract that
a we have, but it was given to them a year and a half ago or 9 something.
10 MR. JACKSON: Sometimes they try to change
11 these contracts, and that's the reason I just assumed it was
12 a standard contract, and I would appreciate when these kinds of things come through that Public Works sign off on them.
14 It has the District Attorney signing off approved as to form,
15 but generally the Public Works Director does sign them.
16 MR. MAYFIELD: Is there any problem in 2001,
17 reflecting January 2001 to December 2001? It should reflect
18 that.
19 JUDGE JACKSON: I thought perhaps since they
20 approved it in June that it was perhaps originally an annual
21 contract for the year 2000.
22 MR. MAYFIELD: It was. They sat on it. They
23 left it in their -- They approved it but then left it in
24 their folder -- file and didn't send it back to us.
1 then in 2000 that need to be reimbursed and this will be the
2 contract for them.
3 MR. MAYFIELD: No.
4 JUDGE JACKSON: You don't need to have the
5 start date still be January of 2000?
6 MR. MAYFIELD: No. Nothing was done pursuant
7 to that, so it should be 2001, January.
8 JUDGE JACKSON: Okay. They'll probably have
9 to reapprove it because we're changing it. Okay. So we will
10 assume that the contract attached is going to be, and the
11 cover description will be appropriately amended to refer to
12 2001. The maker and seconder agree to that amendment?
13 MR. PRICE: That's accepted.
14 JUDGE JACKSON: All right. Other questions?
15 MR. PRICE: Question.
16 JUDGE JACKSON: We have a motion and a second.
17 If there's no further discussion, all in favor, say "aye."
18 (Response)
19 JUDGE JACKSON: Opposed, "nay."
20
(No response)
21 JUDGE JACKSON: The motion carries.
22 Court order 18 is before us.
23 MR. PRICE: I move court order 18.
24 MR. JACKSON: Second.
1 Any discussion?
2 MR. MAYFIELD: Yes. I'm going to vote against
3 court order 18, not because we don't need an attorney to
4 represent us in these matters, but I would have preferred and wanted us to interview more than one law firm and one
6 attorney.
7 I don't like the choice to be a single choice
8 if there are others out there, and nobody even considered
9 another firm or another lawyer. I don't understand why, but
10 as a sort of a protest vote, I guess, I'm going to vote
11 against it.
12 And, had we interviewed at least one other
13 firm, it's very well that this firm would have been picked,
14 but we don't know that. We didn't have the opportunity. I'm
15 going to vote against the contract.
16 JUDGE JACKSON: Any other comment?
17 MR. PRICE: For purposes of the record, I just
18 want to say that there was a presentation that another firm
19 presented to us, and it was collective, with the
20 Commissioner's absence, that the Court would, in fact,
21 interview the one firm based on what the majority of us felt
22 like was the credentials of the firm based on where we 23 thought we needed to go.
24 MR. MAYFIELD: Wait a minute. Just in
0
1 us to consider another firm.
2 JUDGE JACKSON: I think he's referring to two
3 letters of interest that we had. We had a total of three
4 letters of interest in the past year, one from a San Antonio
S firm, one from an Austin firm, two from Austin firms.
6 MR. MAYFIELD: We got one back a long time ago
7 from several firms.
8 JUDGE JACKSON: That's what he's referring to.
S We had written proposals in a specialized field of law to
10 come and talk to us, so we had information. You are correct
11 that we did not interview more than one interested firm.
12 MR. MAYFIELD: Right. Although we did receive
13 letters from those that were interested in providing that
14 service to us, but we didn't interview them to see what they
15 had to provide, their expertise or anything else.
16 JUDGE JACKSON: That's correct. Any other
17 comment?
18 (No response)
19 JUDGE JACKSON: We have a motion and a second
20 to approve court order 18. All in favor, say "aye."
21 (Response)
22 JUDGE JACKSON: Opposed, "nay."
23 MR. MAYFIELD: Nay.
24 JUDGE JACKSON: By a vote of three ayes and
That concludes the formal agenda. We will now recess and reconvene in briefing session.
(Whereupon, the meeting of the DALLAS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
was recessed at 2:24 p.m., this 13th day of February, 2001.)
"&^
Carolyn Brock, CSR, Texas #1362 Dallas County Commissioners Court
Earl Bullock, County Clerk
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