WASHINGTON CO. TO LEAVE PRECINCT TWO CONSTABLE POST VACANT, TEMPORARILY TRANSFER DEPUTY CONSTABLE DUTIES TO PRECINCT ONE

  

Washington County will not immediately fill the vacancy in the Precinct Two Constable’s office, created by the recent death of longtime Constable Carroll “Butch” Faske.

At this (Tuesday) morning’s meeting of the Washington County Commissioners Court, commissioners voted to leave the post vacant, and put Precinct Two Deputy Constable William Shepherd under the authority of Precinct One Constable Ken Holle.

This was done through a budget amendment approved by commissioners, which took the budget from the Precinct Two Constable’s Office and shifted it to Precinct One.  The Precinct One office will cover Precinct Two until a new constable is in place.

County Judge John Durrenberger said the court did not feel it was appropriate for it to appoint a candidate to the position, so now the Washington County Republican Party will need to select a candidate to put on the ballot for November’s General Election.  Faske was set to run unopposed on the November ballot.

According to Durrenberger, the Washington County Republican Party’s precinct chairs have until August 23^rd to replace Faske on the ballot with a new candidate.  Once that is done, the candidate, being unopposed, would be elected in November and sworn in in January.

Commissioner Kirk Hanath said in this situation, it is best for the people to decide who they want in this position, not the Commissioners Court.  He said this is a “temporary solution for an occurrence that was beyond our control”.

Commissioner Candice Bullock said as long as Precinct Two is attended to, she feels this is the right choice.  Commissioner Joy Fuchs said she believes the county has one of the best sets of constables it has had in a long time, and they will take care of business there.

Also in court today, commissioners:

• Approved authorization to issue requests for proposals for administrative services and requests for qualifications for engineering services related to the Community Development Block Grant – Mitigation grant programs administered by the Texas General Land Office. Durrenberger said any grant funding received must be used to mitigate the disasters of 2015, 2016, and Hurricane Harvey.  The minimum amount the county can apply for is $3 million, and as such has to put a minimum of $30,000 down as a match, but Fuchs said the county would have to put down much more than $30,000 if it were to take on the drainage projects by itself.
• Approved a request to purchase access control equipment for the new Engineering and Development Services building.
• Approved the purchase of security alarm system equipment for the courthouse, courthouse annex, and the Landgraf House. Commissioners also approved the use of courthouse security funds for the purchase of the courthouse security alarm system.
• Tabled the purchase of a tankless hot water system for the Washington County Jail. Commissioners said the two vendors that have bid for the project have not provided the model number of the unit they would use to replace the jail’s existing system, which, according to Jail Captain Eric Hensley, is over 30 years old and has been refurbished numerous times.
• Officially accepted a $3,500 donation from the Chappell Hill Chamber of Commerce. The annual donation was presented to commissioners at their meeting last week to repay the county for EMS service costs in Chappell Hill.
• Approved a subdivision variance request for a land division fronting FM 1371 in Precinct Two.