THE SPECTATOR: QUESTIONS ABOUT THE JAIL GENERATOR AND JUSTICE CENTER PROJECTS

  

In the continuing saga of the Washington County Commissioners Court and Judge John Durrenberger, I’d like to address the jail generator project.  What began after the Big Freeze of February 2021 when the County Jail lost power and the temperature inside dropped into the 30’s, has turned into one of the biggest boondoggles I’ve ever seen. 

In reading the email trail of what occurred over the past two and a half years I was disgusted at the mismanagement and incompetence by so many of the parties involved.  And “yes”, I know there has been a supply chain problem in getting large generators.  But that doesn’t explain the delays caused by the Judge and Commissioners Court changing their mind numerous times, the delays caused by the engineering company, and now the delays caused by the contractor’s mistakes.  First the contractor failed to apply for a City of Brenham building permit, which shut down work on the project for a couple of weeks.  Then the contractor failed to call to have any underground utilities located before starting to dig the hole for the concrete pad.  Work was halted again when the City inspected the site and found the hole within seven inches of the main gas line serving the jail.  Luckily the City has determined that the gas line doesn’t have to be relocated, so work can continue.  While Judge Durrenberger stands by the contractor’s estimate of a completion date around mid-November, I’ll believe it when I see it.

The final question that I had asked the Judge concerned why there was no video of the emergency County Commissioners meeting in late August to address the walkout in the County Tax Assessor’s office.  The media was also not notified about that meeting.  His answer was that the State doesn’t require for them to notify the media, who would in turn let the public know about it.  He said they only notify the media as an additional courtesy.  As for the missing video, he said “At this time, only regularly scheduled meetings are video recorded.  So, what the Judge is really saying is that whenever the Commissioners need to call an emergency meeting where they might not be fully prepared or might embarrass a County official, they’d rather the media and the public not know about it. 

Now that we’ve completed those questions, I have one more for Judge Durrenberger.  What is the status of the planned County Justice Center to be constructed near the Jail.  The Justice Center was planned long before the Judge took office, and the first step of moving the County Road & Bridge Department somewhere else was completed over 3 years ago.  Once complete, criminal trials would be held in the Justice Center instead of the Courthouse.  So Judge, has that project been put on the back burner since the inception of the Air Ambulance Division?

And that’s the way it looks to this Spectator.