Bastrop, Tx–Myrtle Long of Bastrop, 97, died at a local nursing home yesterday. She was a long time time Spanish teacher at Bastrop High School.
A service is slated at 11 a.m. Saturday at Calvary Episcopal Church with the Rev. Matt Zimmerman and Rev. Bob Long presiding. Relations and friends will gather following the service at the family home at 1106 Pecan St. in Bastrop.
Survivors include her son and long time caretaker, Ben Long of Bastrop.
Bastrop, Tx–After some sharp discussion Jan. 27, the Bastrop City Council agreed to tackle how the new Bastrop City Hall on Chestnut Street will finally look at a meeting Feb. 2. In effect the council, led by Council Member Julie Hart, rejected a prior suggestion to name a citizen panel to review and recommend design ideas for the new municipal building.
Hart, who previously urged a citizen panel, argued Tuesday that the council should take direct responsibility for the looks of the new city hall and the civic/convention center which will be erected facing each other on Chestnut Street. Public input will be welcome during the upcoming planning sessions, said Hart and other council members.
Architect Mervin Fatter will be on hand when the council convenes at 6:45 p.m. Monday, said Bastrop City Manager Mike Talbot.
Fatter faced criticism earlier this month when he presented preliminary site and building design concepts for the new city hall/civic center complex just east of the Union Pacific Railroad line on
Chestnut Street. Council members said the buildings should be more reflective of Bastrop’s historic 19th century building traditions.Some called the suggested building design “stark.”
Talbot suggested in an interview today with Bastrop Community Access Television that one concern may be the cost involved with making the buildings more attractive.
Current plans call for soliciting bids and beginning construction of the new city buildings by this summer. Work should begin this year.
Bastrop,Tx–Worried by threatened water shortages in 2008, the Bastrop City Council gave clear instructions this week–for the second time–to staff and professional consultants to get a new water well in production in time for the upcoming summer season when water demand typically soars.
Earlier tests have identified a likely well site in Bob Bryant Park on the west bank of the Colorado River near the Riverside Grove subdivision. No detailed construction cost has been determined, but engineering costs proposed by K. Fries & Associates were approved at $279,000. When completed, the well will be the city’s first on the west bank of the river.
All the city’s present water wells are near the river on the east bank in shallow alluvial sand and gravel deposits less than 100 feet deep. The new well on the west bank will be in the same shallow formation.
Development of the new well will also require construction of additional treatment and storage facilities, as well as connections to Bastrop’s current water distribution system.
Pressure on the city’s water production capacity was tested in the dry summer of 2008, when the first stage of water conservation measures were announced. Council members insisted Tuesday that additional production capacity is urgent in the approach to another summer season, which may also be dry. Rainfall during 2008 was far below average, and forecasters are predicting a continuation of current drought conditions.
By most measure, Bastrop County is currently the most drought-stricken in Texas, local officials report.
Bastrop, Tx–Former 423rd District Court Judge Charlotte Hinds of Bastrop will be sworn in Jan. 27 as municipal court judge for the City of Bastrop, only the second lawyer to hold the post.
Altogether, it has been an odd journey both for Hinds and for the city.
After a short closed-door session Jan. 20, the Bastrop City Council voted to name Hinds to the city post which has been held on an interim basis for about six months by a former city judge, Don Calvert. Before that the city judge slot had been held provisionally by Phyllis Mathison, the long-time clerk of the municipal court.
The latest changes in the city’s court system began in May 2008 when Terry Orr was elected mayor to succeed Tom Scott who was barred from seeking re-election by a provision of the city’s home rule charter. Soon after taking office, Orr decided that Mathison could not continue to act both as court clerk and judge. Given the choice, Mathison decided to keep her full-time city job as court clerk. The judge’s post is part-time or a contract professional service job.
At Orr’s urging, Calvert agreed to resume his former duties as judge until a permanent replacement could be selected.
Hinds has been a Bastrop lawyer for many years now, one with a hankering for the robes of a judge. A decade ago she ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the County Court at Law bench held, then as now, by Judge Benton Eskew. After the 2007 Texas Legislature created a new state district court for Bastrop County, Hinds sought and won the initial appointment from Texas Governor Rick Perry, pending the 2008 general election. Last year she sought the GOP nomination for the new 423rd District Court bench but lost to another Bastrop lawyer, Derick VanGilder, who in turn was defeated in November by the Democratic nominee, Chris Duggan. Duggan was sworn into office on Jan. 2.
The municipal court is chiefly responsible for Class C misdemeanor offenses, including traffic cases and some juvenile matters, including school truancy and juvenile curfew violations arising in the city.
Bastrop, Tx–The city council listened intently Tuesday while architect Mervin Fatter reviewed plans for a new city hall and convention center on Chestnut St. Then some council members unloaded unflattering criticism on the building designs, suggesting they are too harsh, stark and unrepresentative of the city’s historical building fabric and character.
Fatter defended his preliminary designs, saying in their present stage they are chiefly meant to suggest the “massing” of the new structures which will virtually face each other on either side of Chestnut Street/Loop 150 between the Union Pacific railroad line and Gills Branch. The architect said the current plan calls for using materials such as native sandstone, brick and stucco and features including “porches” at the civic center to reflect the town’s historic building materials and architectural features.
Fatter also noted that the city’s Main Street Design Committee–which is also the Historic Landmark Commission–noted that the area along Chestnut St. has a history of industrial buildings since the 19th century, including the former MKT Railroad train depot. Council members, led by Mayor Terry Orr, said the convention center and city hall designs need more work to suggest and reflect Bastrop’s architectural heritage. Orr suggested that the city hall design, especially, needs more softening, perhaps with “porches” or other friendly-to-people features.
Outside Tuesday’s council critics circle session, a former council member said the proposed city hall design looks too much like a 1950s-era Modernist intrusion into a 19th century setting. “There’s a reason (the city) bought and bulldozed Ray’s Place,” the critic said, referring to a former bait shop, beer joint and catfish restaurant which once occupied part of the convention center site.
Another critic said, outside the meeting, that the civic center design is reminiscent of any number of recent metal-sheathed steel buildings erected to house Protestant mega-church congregations.
Without getting insistent, Fatter also reminded the council that both building projects face significant cost constraints. The convention center structure as presently planned will cover some 26,000 square feet. The city hall plan includes up to 15,000 square feet. Total costs for both, including planned improvements to Chestnut St., could approach $10 million.
Fatter is not new to Bastrop’s building history. He designed the city’s Adell Powell Police and Court Building in the late 1990s.
Bastrop, Tx–A downtown alley which is also a busy traffic artery got a major facelift this week for the first time in decades. Alley A, as the block-long route is known, handles an average of 7,000 vehicles a day between Loop 150 or Chestnut St. and Spring St. between Main Street and the Colorado River.
The makeover involved taking off the top few inches of asphalt, smoothing the underlying surface and a new asphalt topping. The underlying road base turned out to be in surprisingly sound condition, acting public works director Jim Rebecek said today.
The new surface treatment and the upcoming new striping to mark parking spaces and other traffic information is also a prelude to an upcoming experiment on traffic management in Alley A. On Tuesday the Bastrop City Council, with some trepedation, reaffirmed a prior decision to make the route a one-way artery beginning Feb. 1. The new rules will direct traffic south from Spring St. to Chestnut and disallow drivers heading north between Chestnut and Spring in the heart of downtown.
The new routing will be an experiment to see if it eases the movement of traffic into, through and out of the downtown area, according to city officials. The traffic law, as presently drafted, will expire after 60 days to insure a review of results by the city council.
During Tuesday’s council meeting, members agreed on a mechanism to abort the new traffic regulations even earlier if unexpected problems surface. City Manager Mike Talbot suggested it may take drivers some time to grasp the new traffic patterns and learn to adjust their behavior to get where they are going in an expeditious manner.
Rebecek said the Texas Department of Transportation, which controls Loop 150/Chestnut St., has agreed to extend the time during which the traffic signal at Chestnut St. and Main provides a protected left turn for drivers headed east on Loop 150 who want to turn north on Main St., thus easing traffic heading into town across the Colorado River.
Traffic is routinely most congested at the intersection, including the connection with Alley A, in the hour or so in the afternoon when school pupils are freed for the day, said Rebecek.
Austin, Tx–The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals this week denied another appeal for a new trial by Bastrop’s Rodney Reed, convicted and sentenced to death in 1998 for the 1996 rape and strangulation of 19-year-old Stacy Stites, a Smithville High School graduate who was employed at the H-E-B food store in Bastrop.
Essentially the state’s highest court for criminal matters said even if purported new evidence about another suspect in Stites’ death had been available at the time of Reed’s trial, the jury would not likely have reached a different verdict.
From the beginning Reed’s defense lawyers have argued that Jimmy Fennell Jr., to whom Stites was engaged to be married at the time of her death, is more likely her killer than Reed. Fennell, a Giddings police officer in 1996. has since been embroiled in a series of accusations, which culminated last year in a conviction for sexual misconduct with a woman in his custody while he was a police officer in Georgetown. Fennell pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in that case.
Reed’s lawyers vowed to continue their appeals seeking a new trial. The next phase of appeals is likely to be in the Federal court system, since appeals in state courts appear largely exhausted.
Bastrop, TX–Bastrop County commissioners today took the first steps toward granting a property tax break for a quaisi-state agency which is considering building a $65 million data center and control center next to McKinney Roughs west of Bastrop for most of the Texas electric power transmission grid.
Commissioners said a final vote could come Jan. 26 on a tax abatement which could amount to a few million dollars over the next 10 years. The county presently collects no tax revenue on the property in question because it belongs to the tax exempt Lower Colorado River Authority.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), a non-profit corporation which is governed by the Public Utilities Commission of Texas, a state agency, has a contract to buy roughly 40 acres on Texas 71 next to McKinney Roughs from the Lower Colorado River Authority. An application for the tax break put before county commissioners today says ERCOT plans to spend some $30 million for building and utilities, including fiber optic electronic data cable lines, plus $35 million for other equipment, to develop the site. The facility would employ about 15 people with an average salary of more than $85,000 a year, ERCOT says.
The commissioners also agreed to notify other affected jurisdictions of their “intent” to grant the tax abatement. The county’s action apparently would not affect the tax base of the Bastrop school district or the fire protection district whose territory also includes the proposed site.
ERCOT currently works from two centers, an executive and administrative building off Ben White Blvd. in east Austin and a control center in Taylor. A recent Bastrop-News.com post said the East Austin executive offices were slated for a move to Bastrop County, but a response from Dottie R
Bastrop, Tx–The quaisi-government agency which controls the flow of electric power to roughly 85 percent of the state’s power production is considering a new executive and administrative headquarters near Texas 71 west of Bastrop, but officials want tax breaks from Bastrop County.
Bastrop County commissioners will consider the issue Monday when they meet at 9 a.m. on the second floor of the Bastrop County Courthouse Annex at 804 Pecan St.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) currently has its executive headquarters in east Austin near Ben White Blvd. The agency has its operations center in Taylor. ERCOT ultimately answers to the Public Utilities Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature, though it is organized as a 501 (C) (4) corporation under the US Internal Revenue Code. As such it is not automatically exempt from local property taxes.
According to County Judge Ronnie McDonald, the new headquarters site under consideration is near the Lower Colorado River Authority’s McKinney Roughs nature preserve west of Bastrop.
Details about the proposed tax abatement agreement and the possible jobs and related economic benefit to Bastrop County were not available Friday.
Commissioners will take up two related items Monday. One is to review a proposed tax abatement agreement. Another is possible action to notify other affected taxing bodies of the county’s “intent to enter into” such an agreement.
ERCOT manages the electric grid for some 75 percent of the geographical area of Texas. The task is to facilitate and manage the flow of power between and among power generators and retailers in that area, especially in times of high demand and when some producers may face difficulty from unusual weather conditions or other unexpected circumstances. Some parts of deep East Texas and the Texas Panhandle are not part of the ERCOT system.
OT
Bastrop, Tx–When Bastrop County commissioners meet Monday they will once again consider scheduling at least some evening meetings, perhaps once each quarter. The topic will come up when commissioners meet at 9 a.m. Monday on the second floor of the Bastrop County Courthouse Annex, 804 Pecan St.
The lack of evening meetings has been a complaint of some county residents for years. They work during the day, when commissioners typically meet, and they say the dislike the inability to attend meetings of interest because of the meeting time. The complaint surfaced again in 2008 during the campaigns for county offices. And commissioners will take up the issue again.
In the past, commissioners have on occasion scheduled evening sessions, but so far the experiments have occasioned little boost in voter attendance or, perhaps, of public understanding of issues county officials have to make decisions on, according to some officials.