WASHINGTON CO. COMMISSIONERS REVIEW PROJECTS IN WORKSHOP
Washington County Commissioners received information and updates on various projects during a workshop session on Tuesday.
The court first discussed plans for a helipad at the EMS Station No. 3 in Burton and a sixth EMS station to be located at Lake Somerville.
Commissioner Kirk Hanath said the Burton helipad will provide an improved rendezvous spot from a gravel parking lot. The concrete for the helipad will be paid with Texas Ambulance Supplemental Payment (TASP) dollars, while the electric work will use donation funds.
For the proposed EMS station at the lake, Hanath said a meeting will be held on February 23rd for commissioners to go over the contract presented by Burns Architecture to build the station.
Commissioners then discussed the prospects of a storage facility for county records. Hanath said this project would be important to proceed with first, because files need to be removed from the sheriff’s office in order to expand the jail kitchen. Discussions have begun with the district and county clerks to decide what kind of space is needed. On March 30th, a group of county officials will travel to other counties to see their facilities and explore ideas. The plan would be to use American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to build the storage facility.
After that, the court went over the courthouse exterior and landscape planning. Commissioner Candice Bullock said last summer, commissioners learned that the Texas Historical Commission’s courthouse restoration program would require a $4 million match, so the project was deemphasized for the time being. She said this project could be a good use for ARPA funds, and that it could address some drainage and parking issues.
County Judge John Durrenberger said a landscape plan was put together several years ago to look at those drainage problems. He said he met with committee, and there is a group very interested in the restoration of the grounds. Those talks, he said, are in the “infancy” stages, determining what can and cannot be done and if it should be done in phases. He said the courthouse grounds “will at some point in time be upgraded.”
Further talks concerned the county volunteer fire department interlocal agreements. Commissioner Dustin Majewski said some changes are planned to be made to the agreements to allow the departments more time to meet their requirements for funding, as well as to set up an attention plan to replace aging equipment.
They also brought up the possibility of reimbursing the Chappell Hill Volunteer Fire Department roughly $39,000 after the department had to replace a truck engine that insurance did not cover the cost for. Bullock said major repairs like this place a lot of burden on the volunteers to raise that level of money, and feels the county “should be obliged to pay for those types of expenses.” Hanath said “it’s just the right thing to do”, while Durrenberger said this is “in everyone’s best interest.” The item will come before commissioners for approval at a later date.
The topic of a salary survey for county employees was also broached. Bullock said a survey was performed in 2019 and raises have been implemented since then, but during the budget process last year, conversations came up about moving forward with another survey this year. She said it would be beneficial to have the survey completed sooner rather than later in order to take the results into account when proceeding into the next budget cycle.