Bastrop, Texas Events, News & Stories

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.