Morning. >> Are we on? >> So, does it play in here? >> I thought so. >> Okay. Good morning. Welcome to this special call meeting of the Taran Appraisal District. Um to get us started, I've
asked Mike Alfred to lead us an invocation. >> What did he say? >> You're fine. Dear heavenly father, thank you for the opportunity to meet together in a way
that promotes transparency and please give us wisdom and help us to um be thoughtful and deliberate in any actions we take. Please guide us through that decision making process so that we
keep your spirit in your wishes in our heart. Jesus name we pray to the pledges United States pledge. I pledge algiance 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. >> To the Texas flag. >> Honor the Texas flag. I aliance one state one and indivisible.
>> The flag. Yeah. >> Um, >> roll call. >> Sorry. >> Rick Barnes >> here. >> Cali Rney >> here. >> Mike Alfred >> here. >> Alan Blocklock >> here.
>> Eric Morris >> here. >> Gloria Pena >> here. Fred Campos here, >> Wendy Burgess, >> and Matt Bryant is not here. >> We have a quorum. Mike Bryant's absent out of town. Um, first thing on the agenda is public comment. I have no
sheet. >> It's on the board right screen. >> Oh, never mind. I for >> Oh, wow. >> I make it bigger. >> What? >> Yeah. Blow that up pretty big. >> First first speak, George Dodson. Good morning board members. Uh the 2024
error of giving 198 extra votes to the community college and the and those votes were taken away from other entities is another black eye on TAD. I'm not blaming Don Bobett for the error, but the results are exactly
what we saw repeated with the past chief appraiser. Apparently, someone at TAD was able to make the error. No one checked on it, although I've been told the community college questioned the the number and was told by TAD that that the number was correct. My other major
concern is why why do none of the applicants require candidates signature date and notary date? Seems very unusual to me. I don't can't think of another situation where I've notorized something that there was no date on it. We able we
were able to see that because SATA's uh signature was not blacked out. My other question is why are the signatures necessarily blacked out on the applications? If you look on the website, you'll see that the others are
blacked out. Also, uh, Wendy's application is her signature block is smaller. I don't know why. U, just seems unusual. Anyway, if if you checked on the current TAD website, you will not see any
information about the prior years taxing entities votes. If those were shown, uh, anyone would have been able to catch this error before it took place. also uh you know it's limited of what's on
the website. Anyway, the website doesn't show taxing entities election policies and procedures that the board has used or approved. Also recommend that the ballot allocation be brought to the board before they're sent out to the
taxing entities. So the so the board is it's an official uh action. Uh also is there even are there even written uh taxing entity policies and procedures document and has that been reviewed and
approved by the board? I doubt it. Uh does the procedure document everything who's responsible for each step and everything that should be done to do it appropriately? I thank uh Chairman Barnes for taking action on this uh when
he learned of the major error. I'm sure Joe Don will be sure to report any future errors directly to the board as soon as they happen. It's very unfortunate the TAD procedures are so loose. I thank the this board in the
last one for all their efforts to solidify procedures and stop the errors that have happened here in the past. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you. Next person to speak, Daniel Bennett. Not we need it before we get certain.
>> Daniel Bennett, why settlement? This file represents even a lawsuit for all the mishaps on this election dating back from 2015. This isn't the first rodeo first group. That error should have been caught. It
was questioned by Dr. Angland, by the general counsel. I just got a text from Dr. Angland. She can't be here. She needs to be in your executive session. Nobody gets a pass here. Mr. Bobbit, you don't get a pass.
Tax code specific. It is your duty. But I want to talk not about that. I'll let you all sort through all that. I sued 11 taxi entities and had to get a lecture from the city of Arlington back in the day.
Ultimately, I was right, but I didn't win. You could still be right and still lose. Well, I want to talk about conflicts of interest. I want to talk about the 44th annual TA A. Some people went to that. I didn't think we were even members of it.
Some took classes. February 23rd, 2025, TD T AAD annual conference 44th ethics board training. No statutory code of ethics specifically for central appraisal district boards. Mer appearance of impropriety impacts
effectiveness of local public officials. We have a chance in the state of Texas to set a code of ethics and standards today, which we haven't had under Mr. Law. I handed you my documentation out says there are no policy and procedures.
And Mr. Bobbit has had his hands full with all the crap he's had to put up with. And we've not and Mr. And it's on you, Mr. Campos. You're Mr. Rubric. You're Mr. HB. You said when you got on this board, you were going to fix that.
Well, guess what? Fell through the cracks. We're being punished today again. When's it going to end? It ends with changing the staff. Now, I want to talk about the conflicts of interest. Your wife is a teacher. Mr. Kryle's wife
works for a Birdville ISD. Is that not a conflict of interest? You want to fully fund these schools? What? So, your spouses can be fully funded. Mr. Ter 6.03 03 F says common law. These are common law marriages. They have 50%
ownership in those contracts. They should be disqualified from the board. Disqualified to run. My opinion, I'm not a lawyer. You need to rule on that. Mr. Burgess, where do I start?
Those college votes should be disavowed. You need to recalculate who won and get the right person on the board. That was bastardized. You've put Tarant County through this for 12 years and it's time to fix it.
Thank you. Thank you. side. Good evening board. I'm Siad Sayad. I'm a Collville resident. We will not meet today if I do not speak up and talk with Chairman Barnes. his
office contacted me because I talk at TCC and at the same night I talk at Arlington ISD about this uh this issue because of the wrong calculation done by parent appraisal district
commissioner's court lost 22 votes school districts combined all 21 lost 118 votes uh forward city council alone lost 29 votes. City of Arlington lost 11
votes. Well, my very small city Kville lost two votes in the system. You know, these two votes are very crucial for small entities. But here people care about big entities,
not worried about what's going on in the small entities. when when uh this time the calculation said five cities have zero votes because of the two election uh election for two seats. Let's see
what happened. Uh but how can we trust the the system the numbers given to the entities because they are going to vote tonight. Some of the entities are voting tonight. Uh let's see what would be the result. But
uh last year whatever happened at TCC, Miss Pena got 75 votes. Mr. Bllelock got 141 votes. So does Miss Burgess got 289 votes. Uh this is my suggestion. Please
do not consider uh all 505 votes from TCC and then announce the result what happened there because uh mistake has already been done but we can fix it
whatever we can. Some people knew it before but they kept quiet. That's the problem. That's the culture at TAD. I'm not pointing out any of the employee okay they all are human. They make mistake but there there should
be some check and balances on uh on people. Those numbers that they use for calculation, the appraisal district used for calculation should come from tax assessor collector's office not from any of the citizen that they said oh this is
the uh assumption but what happened at that time people get benefited out of the mistake done by because of the copy pasting of the values. Let's see what happened at this time.
And uh I request uh chairman Barnes that please make sure at the end of this meeting that those numbers for this year is correct and accurate. Uh there is no policy and procedure at TAD. So does the
entities. Uh entities are going to vote tonight and onward. Let's see what happen. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Uh, Chandler Crouch. Julie, is that when that goes off, that's the time? Okay. All right. >> Why are you gonna ask that now?
>> I was gonna ask it. Do I have three minutes? Okay. I'm going to start my timer right now. Uh, Chandler Crouch Fort Worth. Appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. I've had um a while to chew on this and to try and put it in
context and uh understand what's happened. I think that it's pretty obvious that the actual error itself was uh effectively a typo and uh it's just uh unfortunate that it was a typo on something so consequential. It's a very
important thing. If you look at a kind of an analogy um I was thinking about I I haven't had a drop to drink of alcohol in over 10 years. I don't know how long. It's because I wasn't making good decisions when I drank. And I decided I needed to stop. And uh I had a friend
that didn't make the same decision. He kept drinking and he the the friend of mine ended up killing somebody in a car accident and uh he served time in prison and he's got a lifelong punishment of having this felony on his record. Uh we made a lot of the same mistakes. It's just that the consequences for one were
devastating and I didn't have any consequences. And so um luck plays a significant factor in how things transpire. I just want to say this. The reason we have evidence that something wrong has happened is because this man's
been honest. I also want to say the reason this is on the table is because this man uh uh Rick Barnes saw the issue, picked up the phone, and went straight towards the issue to try and figure out what's going on.
This dynamic it Yes, it's a black eye. Yes, it's nasty. It's this is another negative headline, but this is way different than the other negative headlines we've seen in the past. In the past, the board did everything they could and the chairman did everything they could to hide issues, avoid the
truth. They did not want to hear the truth. They didn't want to face it. They want to shove it under the rug. And when the chief appraiser was called to account, he would lie about it, hide the facts, connive. And we have a different scenario today. The evidence that we have that you can hold him accountable
is purely because he's been honest about it. Yes, he made a mistake by not telling you guys that shouldn't that it is what it is. Y'all are going to have to deal with that. I'm just saying the scenario is different. Thank you for walking forward into this. Thank you for being honest. I just believe that, you
know, me and all the people on this side of the microphone, we can say wild things. We can um you know, have have political agendas and all that. You guys have to make decisions with level heads, thinking about the the future of the district, making sure everything is uh heading in the right direction. My timer
will not come up at the same time as my note. How much I got left? >> 20 seconds. >> All right. Just want to go over the track record of him. He walked into the the most toxic appraisal district, went from small town to big town, had a public election, the most active board.
We had uh the reappraisal plan was the most politicized policy issue affecting appraisal districts on and on and now he's redoing the entire operating system and there have been some mistakes made. I just want to look at it as a whole and
um you've got a lot to consider. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. >> Thank you. I do not sh uh no I'm sorry. I hear a crow. Good morning. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no
more. It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. You guys should recognize that as McBth uh Shakespeare um
to put this um to credit Julianne Hansen um the the synopsis of that life is a tale. It is also fleeting and individuals spend their brief hour of life full of sound and fury for what? Against whom in
the end none of the fury that consumes so much of life amounts to anything. And I say this not because this meeting is uh and important I think it is. Um but I do think that the final results uh that
the air um concluded wouldn't have changed anything. Um I went and I went through the math and if you take the top eight um vote getters outside of uh TCC, so the top seven, you'd have had 74 votes left. um
you can run through the numbers and uh figure out how it would have all played out most likely. And so that that's all I would say when you consider if you take any action against Mr. Bobbit. Um,
the other thing I'd like to say is I made some public comments at TCC back on uh I think it was June 8th um letting TCC know that there was a reduction in value and at the time I didn't know why.
Um but I do believe that this issue was actually noticed back in September of 2024. Um, there were some comments at a TCC workshop session and uh, so it may have been lingering out there for a while.
And uh, last thing I'm going to say is my wife does work for Birdville. Um the I believe the the correct um the statute that applies says if she appraises property um then
she can then I am disqualified. My wife does not appraise property. So I'd just like to put that on the record. She is a an administrative assistant. So thank you all so much for your time. >> Thank you. I shall no more public comments during the public comment
section. Uh the next issue on the agenda is action item uh number 3A, discussion and possible action of the process for entity appointments to the appraisal district board of directors. This is an interesting meeting because we have one agenda item and we have public speakers that want to speak on the agenda item
also who also just spoke during persons to be heard um and already in public comments and so I'm going to call them back out and see if they want to come back up. Um uh George. Okay. Daniel Bennett.
>> Yeah. Daniel, >> thank you. >> I want to share with you Daniel Bennett, White Settlement. Uh Richard Petri was a vendor who applied and McKenzie Een
won the contract back in October. Richard Petri is 76 years old. He runs three appraisal districts. He put the his bidded for 35,000. He was kicked to the curb. Some people didn't like him, but this is what he told me when it comes to the the the the vote the way he
does it. Okay, first off, he goes, "Mr. Bett, I I get a supplemental report, which is snapshot in time, from my software." Ah, there we go. When we had working software, that's been the issue the whole time.
And I've been standing up here saying those supplemental reports are in error. And there's people in this room. So when you go to recalculate this crap, ask yourself, where are you getting those numbers? Your numbers were $10 million 10 million off of the college, Mr. Barnes.
Why 10 million? That's two votes for this election. None of these numbers can be trusted. Then Mr. Petri said, "Mr. Bennett, I take that supplemental report. I walk over to my Excel spreadsheet and I type it in by hand.
Then he has someone come behind him and check his work. They print it off. And then he picks up and you know Mr. Petri, he likes you, by the way. He thinks you're honest and he's flabbergasted. You didn't tell the board. He's upset, but he still likes you. And Joe, I still
like you. Doesn't change things. You still be likable and make an error. We just got to own our own our crap. This has been off for 12 years. He then takes that report and he walks over to another system where he enters that data, prints your notification, your vote total, your
allocation, and then sends it off to the taxi entities. That's how he does it. And he does it by hand. He owns it. He doesn't allocate it to anyone else. He doesn't delegate it. He does it himself. I could call Mr. Petri right now and he would tell his
board that. And that man was unfairly treated down in Johnson County. Thank you. >> Thank you. Sad. You want to? Yes.
All I would like to say is uh please recalculate the votes for the last year's election and just make sure this year's election uh the values are correct. It should come from your office, Mr. grounds as a tax assessor
collector and based on that entities can trust and can vote and uh all those who benefited uh from TCC's mistake or appraisal district's mistake they should keep an
eye uh on that make a statement something it's been two weeks no one said from this board anything about TCC's his vote. Not a single statement. But I do
appreciate Mr. Bobbit. He is honest. When I ask him a simple question, why all of a sudden TCC had that much votes and this year it's dropped again? He gave me the right answer. Uh the problem
is it was not bring to the board at the right time and when no one stabbed up I stabbed up and bring it to the to the board and to the entities. Uh we all are human we make mistakes
but uh some mistakes if our kid and we as a parent say hey if you make any mistake come to us tell us and we'll fix it. The same thing applies to here. Thank you for time. >> Thank you.
>> Uh, Channel Crouch I didn't even know I signed up twice. This is such a treat. Uh, I I just wanted to say this. I' I've had a lot of conversations and uh and then I I'll have a conversation with somebody and then because I am general public, I
didn't have to wait until the meeting was posted. Y'all have rules that you have to abide by. You couldn't get the same information I could get because I can just pick up the phone and ask somebody. And uh at the end of the day, I I've heard so many rumors and fear-based kind of accusations or
theories about what happened. And uh and I know you would do this anyway, but I just want to say um that facts and evidence are are what we've what what has to to win the day here. And and that's it. I appreciate you for appreciate the second opportunity to talk with you. Have a great day. >> Mr. Crawler, are you good or you coming
back? Okay, that concludes public comment on the action item. The next step with the action item is um Mr. Bobbit is going to present um how the process works in the first place. The way the the current process works,
we we essentially take the September levy out of out of a momentum. So usually normally I would use July, but with minerals and late things being added to the roll, the the September levy is usually a little more correct and that's what gets sent out on tax
bills in October. And so that all the ARB kind of processes kind of settled down at that point. So it gives us a better idea of what what is actual levy for the entities. So we take that number their their taxable value the net taxable value we multiply by their tax
rate that gets applied or or uh approved and so that number then gets used for our next year's budget and for the voting allocation. Um, and in doing so, like normally we we put this in the budget and we we then copy and paste
into the allocation spreadsheet. And when that happened, like we have Tarant County Hospital District, which is on our budget right below Tarant County. And so they had 59,000 total levy. When we grabbed it and copied and pasted all the entities into the vote, we copied
and pasted Tarant County Hospital District into Tarant County College. the hospital district doesn't get to vote in the allocation. I'm not sure why I didn't set the the laws, but they're not entitled to vote, but they are they do participate in our budget. Um, and so the difference entities we copy and
paste and we we didn't drop down and bypass the hospital district. We stuck their levy into the spreadsheet uh for the prior year. When this did get brought to my attention by Mr. Kle, I went through revalidated the current year. I revalidated the prior year and found the issue and why where it
happened. Um the the reason it got to me the reason that it got that it was found is we did have the current year allocation on our website. We had the prior year allocation on the website and they're both still there and they're actually still there now. If you go on our website you see the board allocation
at the very bottom of the page has the historical stuff. There's a smaller section for it but it is still there and it's been there since June um or before. Um, so we we tried to stay transparent and keep all of this stuff out there. Um,
and I do admit that I should have caught it. Uh, I I was involved in other things. I a lot of these processes have kind of already been built and so I didn't check that as closely as I should have. Uh, to me there were more important things that I I needed to deal with at the time. Uh, granted looking
back, this is a a very important issue. Um, as far as using the t the the tax office levy, we can't use their levy their levy specifically because they have a different set of entities than we do. They they collect for different entities. We are bound by the tax
appraisal district is bound by the county line. Taran County Tax Office is not. And so we deal with multiple uh tax assessors and so we would have to take all their different numbers, add them up, and still split them on the county line somehow. And so it's not really feasible to use the numbers from the tax
office. And so that's why they won't align uh typically ever except on some entities that are fully within the county. Um but we have uh we have corrected the process going forward. So on the next entity allocation it'll be based on the
levy uh but that'll still be on a whole another spreadsheet. So we won't have to copy and paste but the numbers will kind of flow across automatically. The system the new system we'll have will actually be able to generate a total levy report. And so for this instance, we can generate a report that will never change
and it'll calculate the numbers for us. We can just build that in the system where it's just automatically there and we can move forward without having to copy and paste from from one system to the next. And so that should make the system and the whole process uh a little cleaner, less less human intervention involved.
I do like Mr. Dodson's uh approach on bring it to the board before we publish it. That way y'all can see kind of what we have calculated. That way there's a second set of eyes before we publish it and make it the official numbers. So we'll probably adopt that. U I think that's a very good idea. But again, you
know, this was my mistake. We should have caught it. I should have brought it to the board. Um I failed to do so at the time. I didn't see a way in the tax code to correct the issue. Um there's a process for recall which didn't seem to apply. But otherwise, to me, the way I
read the tax code, I'm in charge of calculating the the the U allocation, and then we're stuck with it. I didn't see a way to correct it. Um, and so at the time, I when I calculated the difference between what it should have been and what we published, I
didn't see an outcome, a change in outcome. And so to me, it didn't look like an issue. I couldn't have changed it if I wanted to. And so I moved on to the next thing. And so I realize now in hindsight that that was a mistake and I should have brought to the board and and so I I really apologize for that. Uh and
I realize that it impacts the public trust and entities trust in TAD. And that was one of the things I was hired to do when I when I was brought in here. It was to fix the canvas system and restore public trust. And so I have failed in one of those aspects and I
deeply apologize for that that error. >> Thank you. Questions from board. When did you discover the error? >> June 26th. >> Is that when Eric Kryle >> Yes, ma'am. >> told you about it. >> Okay. So, did Tarant County College ever
contact you or any staff to make sure that their votes were correct before they cast their votes? >> Not before they cast their vote. No, ma'am. The the only email I I received that looked like it was related to voting allocation was September 18th, I believe, this year.
So, nobody questioned when they got 200 almost 200 extra votes. Not that why are we getting a higher number this year? >> No, ma'am. I went back and had IT staff pull all emails that had to do with voting, vote, or allocation um from any of the entities specifically and then a separate one just from the public in
general and we found there were only three or four emails uh and the first one was from Mr. Kryle. >> So, no one question at the Tarant County College meeting. Why do we have more votes than we previously? >> Not that I'm aware of. Not that we found
through PI search. >> Okay. >> So, so you met with Mr. Kryle in June. Is that what you're saying? >> He sent an email to the office on June 26th. So, an issue I have is that you're you're having discussions with
others and you're leaving us in the dark and we're the ones with our necks out there and and we're trying to make this a transparent process. I I'm I'm hearing that you're you're telling certain people different timelines and so that's where I'm trying
to figure out what what's accurate. What on >> So you didn't know prior to June of last year? No, >> ma'am. >> Of this year. Is it this year? >> Yes, ma'am. >> Okay. So, no one questioned anything prior to this? >> Not that I'm aware of. >> Prior to June. Okay. >> Any other questions
about this pro part of the process? I my question is that I have a few but so we have the 2025 election numbers and we had the the board I wasn't most of us weren't on the board at the time
had the 2023 election numbers yeah the 2023 election numbers we've determined were incorrect how do we know that the 2025 elections are true >> I've gone back and revalidated them based on the levy.
>> So, who validated them in 2023? >> Yeah, it would have been that year. >> It was for the 24. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Scratch that. Yeah. Well, it's it was in 2023 when it was done. It was >> No, it was done in 24 because I wasn't hired until 24.
>> So, they weren't done till you got here. >> It's not even 2026 yet. We're talking about 2026 election right now. So, I'm looking at the year to date. They would have been done in 2023, correct? And brought to this and and submitted to >> It would have been the 23 levy used for the 24 election.
>> Yeah. So, who did those numbers then to determine what the votes were for the 2024 election? >> It was my job to verify them and I did not validate them correctly. >> I understand that. Who did them? >> I'm not sure exactly which of the staff.
We have a process. >> Okay, that's that's that's a fair enough answer. I think the the so man my uh press release that I put out about this stands stands on itself in that my
biggest concern here is that we have yet another situation where the TAD is not forthcoming with the public. We have another situation where we have an integrity issue and a dramatic lack of in transparency. Um,
and my question today is are we do we have a transparency problem today? And if not, how do we know that? Because I bet you the board would have been told no, we don't in 2023. Also, I mean, at this point, all I can tell you is that I've revalidated the
spreadsheet. I looked at I pulled repulled the the 2023 totals and the 24 totals from September and validated them against the budget and allocation and they they are correct. Okay. Was anybody else not not this isn't a general com question for anybody anybody
else including all of us. Anybody else made aware of this prior to June that you know of at all? >> No. Mr. Kle reached out to me uh Miss Sed uh came into the office and spoke to her and then I on like September 18th I believe and I had an email from TCC.
>> Okay. We'll talk about that further in executive session because I got questions specific to board members who I know new stuff. Uh okay, >> this shows the incorrect numbers that that's in the packet still shows 505 for
Tarant County College. Where's the documentation of what should have been? Because what the thing I have, sorry, the issue I have with the with the copy and paste is if there's only 5,000 votes and that's 100% of the votes, if you give someone
198 extra votes, you're taking from another other entity's votes. >> Yes, ma'am. >> So, where how is the math adding up? Either we have too many votes, we have 5,1 or 5,198, or we changed the math on everybody
else's votes, too. It's a total of 5,000. So the levy is each entity's levy is a percent of the total levy. And so >> I understand that. But if you give someone more pieces of the pie, you've taken from somewhere else. >> Yes, ma'am. And so the correct
allocation, every the other entities would have a larger slice of pie and TCC would have a smaller. And so there still would have been 5,000 total votes. So, if if the bigger entities vote first and they have more, it it just the the copy and paste thing doesn't make sense to me because I'm not even seeing the correct numbers on here. It's still showing the
the incorrect numbers. So, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Um, I just wanted to note that before I forget. >> Let me let me say to that. I think the question that relates to that is to me this isn't about any one entity. It's not about Taran County College and it's not about who got votes and who didn't
and whether it affected the election. It's the fact that the numbers were wrong across the board. >> If Tarant County College got too many votes, that means a lot of other organizations, no, a lot of other entities didn't get enough votes. >> Correct. >> Like the the whole process was screwed up up and down. >> Yes, sir.
>> So, whenever I'm told by people on the phone, don't worry about it. Entities are okay with this. The only person that affected was TAD. I mean, was Taran County College. That's flat out not true. There was multiple entities affected by this. >> I don't know how many were affected by this. I don't know if it would affected
the election. It's impossible to know. Um >> I disagree with that statement, but we need to >> That's okay. >> Well, the larger entities vote first and so a lot of people change how they vote based on where the larger entities put their votes >> for the public to understand why do the
larger entities vote first. >> It's under K1. All right. >> Let me question because >> why why do the largerities vote? >> They can fix the election. You just said that out loud.
>> They can determine the last three candidates of the election if they don't vote first. >> Your first statement was the absolute correct statement. They can fix the election. I will tell you that in my review of this entire process, this is probably the greatest racket in the
history of ter of Texas when it comes to elections across the entire state. >> I would agree with you in this. >> Good. I'm glad we're at least there. Um, all right. Any other questions for you? >> I have a lot to say on this matter, but
I really need to invoke conversations with Mr. Ter and because we're dealing with personnel matters. Need to invoke section 074 because it deals with personnel. And I think that is the right thing to do. As a person of complete
transparency, I have no problem reiterating it. But I have a stack of paper here that we probably need to discuss in executive session. >> I agree with that. We're going to get to executive session in a minute. I'm not going I'm not in favor of us hiding behind closed doors to talk about
something that needs to be transparent to the public. >> This organization is notorious for that. Uh and we're and I don't agree with running behind the closed door whenever it feels uncomfortable to talk in front of the public about the issue. >> Agreed. >> So is there any other questions? Not and
not personnel questions. Well, those don't need to happen out here. But any other questions related to the topic and the issue on hand in hand? Were you about to say something? >> No, it's something I'd like to say in close session as well, but if you would like me to say it out here, I can. >> Oh, I don't care that that Well, I don't want you to say anything about personnel out here.
>> Well, it's not the staff. It's about this board. >> Okay. >> It's still close session. >> I think so, too. >> Okay. Miss Burgess, >> you mentioned or you asked the question why the larger entities have to vote
when they And I would ask Miss Mr. Ter that I believe that there is a legislative section that speaks to that. And so Mr. Ter, could you uh remind the board what that legislative uh section
uh tells us why the larger entities vote when they do? >> Yeah. The basic rule is most entities have to have their ballots cast uh before December 15th of the year, but the largest entities in larger counties like Taran County have to vote at the
first or the second meeting after they uh get the ballot delivered to them from the chief appraiser. And that was a legislative change that was made I guess maybe two or four years ago. And the purpose for it was because as happened
here in Taran County uh in the last election, a lot of entities will wait until the 13th or the 14th of December to cast their votes so that they can see how the other votes were done. And if you've got the largest entities that are doing that, the counties and the big
school districts and the colleges and whoever else might have a large levy, those people could then completely set those entities could completely set the board by casting their votes in a specific way and waiting to do so until December 13th or 14th when they knew how
everybody else had voted. And by doing it the other way, the larger entities have to vote first and then the smaller entities that have not nearly the number of votes, they can kind of wait until the end and it gives them a little bit more voting power as to who can
ultimately sit sit on the board. Um Wendy, you good? That was that >> I that was legal clarification. >> It was very good that and and I knew some of that. But here here's another thing that I'll I do want to say this on the record. It amazes me that this is
the same process that was in place before the public placed people on this board back when this was a fivep person board and they all came directly from the entities. It's clear, beyond clear, that it allows the entities to decide
who are we going to put in there to decide what how much the appraisal should be to decide how much money we're going to get on the back end of this versus let's just have an election and decide who ought to represent who ought to be on this board. Uh the the nonsecrey part of the board is the most
amazing part of this because what happens as we all have seen in these elections is the big ones are forced to vote first. So then all the little ones get stuck having to decide where does our vote even matter much less are we going to have a vote and how are we going to put those votes together to try
to come up with something that's good for us also. So at the end of the day, the entity the entities that have the most protection by state law because the process of how their budgets are done in the first place have have dramatic impact upon what your appraisals are
versus the entities that have to do everything they can to protect their budgets through a process of getting two or three votes in this. And so that that is that issue needs to be understood by the public. uh now that we have public people on this board, it needs to be
totally understood how this works. I also think and I'll say this to in favor of of chief appraisers. You also have a process and the code of con uh uh tax code that allows the chief appraiser to run the process from start
to finish. Does the numbers, decides how many votes you get, sends those out to the entities, pulls it all in, announces the results of the vote. There's absolutely no u process from a board that determines whether or not any of that was done correctly, whether any of those numbers were done correctly. So,
at the end of the day, we have a job as a board. Our number one job is to set the budget. Number two job is to hire and fire a chief appraiser. And yet, the process allows the chief appraiser to pick his bosses in the election. It's just an amazing amazing process and and
and amazing that the state of Texas this is the best they could come up with 35 years ago when they were trying determining how to do appraisal districts across the county. I mean across the state. So I think all of those are issues that we're going to have to look at moving forward and um we'll certainly be involved in
the next session of u of the in in Austin uh because they're the ones that came up with this ingenious process and hand it to all of us and told us to follow it. Any other questions, comments? And if not, we are going to go to executive session
at this time. Then we will break to executive session. Executive session uh related to the Texas Open Meetings Act governing code or government code section uh chapter 551 551.071 551.074. We will go into executive session. We'll
be out with a report whenever we get through. Thank you. getting cold. I mean, it's >> It was hot in there. >> All right, welcome back. Uh or thank you for hanging in there with us. Um we obviously spent a while, what two a
while uh discussing the whole thing, part of it with Mr. Bobbit and a lot of it without Mr. Bobbit. want to clarify a couple of things that were shared in comments earlier. Uh one is that there's no reason to think at least what we have right now, but there's a going to be a motion related to this that any of the
candidates from last round had anything to do with the with the process. Um including the fact that there was comment made that the tax office is the one that submits the numbers for the election process and it's not. We do not have anything to do with it. is it's important to understand that this is a
state agency, the Taran Appraisal District and the county tax tax office is a county agency. We're forced to work together because the well that we're Yeah, we're actually forced to work together. We are actually forced to work together. We're forced to work together because of
the process of how the appraisal district affects the tax process for the entities. uh but we do not work together in um processing numbers. There is a formula for which the t teran appraisal district utilizes to come up with the
number of votes per entity and frankly there was a big mistake made in the last election and we uh are trying to figure out where and how and who uh was a part of that mistake. So we do have some motions to come forth uh from members of the board related to the decisions that were just made and I'll open the floor
for those motions. first. Okay. One of the reasons I ran for this position is really to restore public trust and um I just can't sit by and endorse um some of the actions that have happened and and not take any kind
of action at all. And I I really don't want to do this, but I my gut tells me I need to um there needs to be some accountability here. I think a step in the right direction would be um to have a third-party investigation on you know
how this error occurred. Um but that will be a separate motion. Um but my motion is this is is to terminate Mr. Bobbit effective immediately. >> So I move that we terminate the chief
appraiser immediately. Is our second hearing? None. That motion um dies. Is there any more motion? Any other motions? >> I have a motion. >> Okay. >> I move to authorize the board's attorney to find an independent third party to investigate any irregularities
surrounding the appointment process to this board for the 2004 and the 2005 terms. >> Is there a second? >> There is a second. Is there any discussion? >> Yes, ma'am. Could we say 2024 and 2025
instead of 2004? >> Sure. Thank you. That's a very good correction. >> With that clarification, I second the clarified motion. >> That the motion as corrected is seconded. Is there further discussion?
Hearing none. Um I'm going to do it verbally, Julie. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> I. All oppose. Motion carries. Is there any further discussion or any further action? >> Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion.
>> Okay. Obviously, there's a lots of discussion and clarity that needs to be done for investigation for the public. I recommend that we table this issue until our next board meeting on November the 12th at 9:00 a.m. been moved that we
table the motion till November the 12th, which is next week at our regular scheduled meeting. Is there a second? >> I will second it. been moved and seconded that we table the meet the further discussion um related to the entire process till next week. Is there any further discussion?
>> Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> I. All oppose. Motion carries unanimous. >> Is there any further uh items for the board hearing? None. I'd entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> It's been moved that we adjourn. Uh
second. >> All in favor say I. I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. We are adjourned.