Meeting of January 13, 2026

Good afternoon everyone. If you'll check your cell phones, that may be helpful. Make sure they're turned off. All right. This is the January 13, 2026 Harden County Fiscal Court regular voting meeting. Let's begin and call this meeting to order. A roll call, please. — Squire Clem, — here. — Squire Hicks — here. — Squire Muse — here. — Squire Pennington — here. — Squire Saltzman — here. — Squire Thompson — here. — Squire Whitehead — here. — Squire Yates — here. — Judge Executive Keith Tall — here. Uh, next we'll have Invocation by Magistrate Thompson and Pledge of Allegiance, Magistrate Hicks. I invite you to pray with me. Father God, we take this time just to turn our hearts to you. We pray, Father, that today your Holy Spirit would dwell among us and guide us. Lord, give us wisdom. Guide us to make best decisions as we meet today. Father, we lift up to you a

torn nation, torn community, a torn state. We pray, Father, that your peace would return. Father, we pray for your protection for continued watch Carol for us. Father, we thank you for those that you place in governmental positions, leadership positions. Father, we pray you give them wisdom. We pray, Father, you guide them in every aspect of our lives here locally, that protect us, those that serve us. We pray a blessing on them. And then, Lord God, that for our state and our nation, internationally, those who stepped up to serve, may you bless them. Give them confidence and strength in you. bless us as we continue to do the work that we're charged with here today. It's in Jesus name I pray. Amen. [clears throat] — 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, liberty and justice for all. All right. Uh, thanks again for joining today. It's great to see all of you here. Um, I appreciate those watching on TV and those that are streaming. So, good afternoon to you. Also, we'll review the agenda as as usual. Uh we have uh the minutes that we'll approve next and then we have uh some information uh from our jailer after that and then some presentations and reports that will be provided. After that we'll have a time for any citizens concerns or comments. We will then go into a close session and whenever we return we will uh vote on a couple of items after after that closed session. Um and then we actually have three resolutions to vote on. Uh then we have the consent agenda uh that I'll explain and uh then usually as

usual have some comments at the end before we adjourn. So that's our agenda today. So, I did want to say uh happy new year to everybody. Our first meeting in 2026. I think I've already written 2025 down when I signed something and I had to correct it. So, it may take a little bit longer for me at least. Uh I did want to take uh some time here this this day to uh to look back a little bit on 2025 and look ahead to 2026. I think it's worth uh looking back uh on 2025. There were um a lot of bumps in the road, but we did have a lot of uh really good accomplishments in 2025, and I feel like it would be good to review a few of those. uh one uh let's start with public safety and that's definitely uh has been an area that we have we have focused on the completion of this third-party emergency service study u that that was completed and it was communicated

um and it was explained um and of course this this um it it developed and explained the the county fire service short and midterm improvement plans to and we did that and we uh we reviewed that here in in fiscal court and other places to all the stakeholders. So we completed that earlier uh last year and tied to that we've had some I think significant EMS types of improvements especially around response times. Uh the first one was um a big effort with West Point. Uh we were able to reduce that response time from probably 20 25 minutes or more down to somewhere around five six seven minutes and able to do that really with some relationships with the judge executive in Bullet County uh EMS folks with our EMS folks and emergency management and just a whole bunch of people that communicated. We've developed some good uh partnership there and collaborated with this thing where was able to come up with a really good

agreement with them and um I feel safe in saying that that will uh save some some lives in the northern part of our county at in West Point. So I'm excited about that and that was a big deal. And in addition to that, we um some of you have tracked the uh kind of bumpy road to get to a ninth ambulance in White Mills. And uh at the end of the day, that is uh was expected to cut response times about in half for the western Harden County. And it looks like that is exactly what it's doing. So we we were seeing response times uh out of Sonora and out of Etown of 30 average of 30 minutes but uh 40 35 40 minutes even 45 minutes in the far western parts of Harden County. It's a big county. So, uh, that part of the county for 40 years has needed this type of service, our ambulance service, and now it's there and it's functioning. And, uh, people in that part of the county, I believe, are very, uh, from everything I'm hearing, are very happy about having that service

there. So, that was a a very big deal and I'm appreciative to everybody that had something to do with that and pull that together. Uh we did add three new ambulances uh to our fleet. Uh this was not cheap. It was about $800,000 worth and over $800,000. And we've also along with that we had about a million dollar worth of new devices that we needed to purchase to replace some some uh end of life equipment. [clears throat] So a big investment in equipment in the EMS department. Uh in addition to that and one of the reasons that we could have an ambulance in White Mills were was that there was a merger of two fire departments uh to become West Harden Fire and Rescue. I believe this was the first time that we'd had a merger of fire departments in Harden County. And uh this was a a lot this was a it didn't take a huge amount of time, but it was impressive really how quickly it went and how smoothly it went. Um there were some bumps and there were some difficulties and challenges for sure, but I'm very proud of the

people in that uh part of the county and how they came together to make that happen. It was very very much needed. There may be some uh as we look forward to 2026 and beyond, we uh will probably need to see some other needs for some mergers of some of our volunteer fire departments. But that was a a big one and it it allowed them uh as they um as they worked on uh quarters for u for an EMS for new ambulance uh in their area and for the living quarters and all the things that they put together through that. It's just an amazing um accomplishment by so many people that worked on it. Uh, one one uh key budget impact in that I'd like to speak of briefly here in EMS. Um, I feel like it's something that that is kind of in the background. Haven't talked about it a whole lot, but uh there was really about a two-year improvement initiative uh in our EMS department. um our EMS director U Mark Peterson and and his team. Uh we we all