Bastrop, Texas Events, News & Stories

Bastrop, Tx–Assistant Police Chief Matt Wagner was effectively placed in charge of the 25-member department on Tuesday, according to City Manager Michael Talbot, and the status of Police Chief David Board is under review.

Board was arrested on a drunk driving charge in Austin Monday evening, according to media reports, and released on $5,000 bail. At a meeting with Board on Tuesday morning, the chief asked for some time off to address personal issues, and Wagner was placed in charge of department operations, acccording to Talbot.

The city manager has not made a decision on Board’s request, he said i Wednesday. He declined to say when a decision might be forthcoming.

Board has been a member of the Bastrop Police Department for more than 24 years. Former Chief Ronnie Duncan promoted Board to sergeant. The late Chief Bill Anderson made Board the department’s first lieutenant.

Board assumed the chief’s role upon Anderson’s retirement.

Bastrop, Tx–After a public hearing Tuesday the city council seems no closer to deciding what to do with a vacant lot it owns fronting 921 Main St. downtown.

As expected, the council heard competing visions of the best future use of the property which the city bought last year. The entire property extends from Main to Water Street, and the city has long planned to use most of the site for parking improvements. The 110 feet closest to Main is too narrow to use for parking, according to City Manager Mike Talbot.

The site was formerly home to the Texas Mercantile craft and antique outlet. That building burned in 2003 and was never rebuilt.

Speaking on behalf of the Bastrop Main Street Advisory Board, Steve DeWire laid out a vision for a downtown plaza and visitor comfort station on the site, including rest rooms, landscaping and shade trees. Such a public space would attract visitors to stay longer in the area and boost downtown sales, he argued.

He estimated the initial cost at $259,000 plus some $4,400 annual maintenance expense, chiefly rest room upkeep.

The Bastrop Economic Development Corp. offered a different vision. The board is ready to work with the council to redevelop the space for commercial use, returning the property to the tax roll and generating salex tax income, said BEDC President Joe Newman.

For instance BEDC could buy the site from the city for market value and then negotiate with potential developers with far more flexibility than state law permits the city to offer, said Newman.

More than one potential developer is awaiting a city decision, he said.

At the end of public testimony, Council Member Joe Beal said he still has little evidence about the likely economic impact of either choice.

Mayor Terry Orr noted that grant funding could help pay for a public use project, and the site “looks like a festival space to me.”

Bastrop, Tx–The father of a teen murder suspect in the August 2009 death of a McDade mother and popular restaurant waitress was indicted March 22 for driving drunk last year with a juvenile passenger, a felony offense. The juvenile named in the drunk driving case, Haley Bellard, has been separately charged in the Aug. 14 death of her mother, Tracy Bellard, 42.

The indictment, handed up by a state grand jury in Bastrop, orders Kenneth Douglas to stand trial for driving drunk on June 18 last year with Haley Bellard, then 14, as a passenger. Both Haley Bellard, now 15, and 18-year-old Joseph Douglas are in custody on murder charges in the death of Tracy Bellard last August at her McDade home.

Investigators have alleged Tracy Bellard was shot to death and her body later transported to a site near Smithville where it was burned in a brush pile. Tracy Bellard was widely known in the Bastrop area in connection with her work at the family restaurant, Mimi G’s, on FM 1441 north of Bastrop. She had repeatedly attempted to thwart a romantic relationship between her daughter and Joseph Douglas, according to police and court records.

Officials close to the case have declined to comment on possible connections between the Kenneth Douglas indictment and the murder prosecution of Joseph Douglas and Haley Bellard. Prosecutors are seeking to have the case against Haley Bellard handled under adult criminal rules instead of juvenile law. A hearing on that move has not been scheduled in 423rd District Court.

Bastrop, Tx–Court documents obtained by Bastrop-News.com shed new light on the alleged fatal beating of a Paige cook last year at the hands of two friends and what happened to the dead man’s body, which criminal investigators now say may never be recovered.

Michael Vandyke, 23, had been employed as a cook at a Paige restaurant before his disappearance about Dec. 15 last year. On Dec. 30 relatives reported him missing to Bastrop County law enforcement. His body has never been found, but a roommate and another friend are both being held in the Bastrop County Jail on murder charges.

Dustin Dickman, 24, and Dennis Leetch, 25, are behind bars under $500,000 bail each. Dickman and his girlfriend shared a residence with Vandyke near Paige. According to a court document, Dickman told investigators that he and Leetch assaulted Vandyke early on Dec. 16 “to teach him a lesson on how to treat family and friends.”

The documents do not suggest what might have prompted this instructional session.

Investigators believe Vandyke died after Leetch knocked him to the ground with a beer bottle and was kicked both by Dickman and Leetch before being struck repeatedly in the head with a block of wood by each man. Dickman was arrested Jan. 25 after being interrogated by investigators. Leetch was arrested Jan. 29 in San Marcos and talked with investigators as well, according to court records.

According to court documents Leetch also told investigators that Vandyke was initially buried in a shallow grave near the Paige residence Vandyke shared with Dickman and his girlfriend, was exhumed early in January and taken to a rural site near San Marcos in Hays County. The body was placed in an metal tool box designed for the bed of a pickup truck, doused with gasoline and burned for “approximately 1 1/2 days” or roughly 36 hours, one document says.

Afterward the “ashes” went into “an old BBQ pit” and were discarded in a trash dumpster at a San Marcos apartment complex, the documents suggest.

Investigators told a judge they found a site near San Marcos where they believe Vandyke’s body had been burned . They later recovered from a separate rural location the tool box which may have been used to incenerate the corpse.

Sheriff’s Department investigator Mike Daniel said Vandyke’s remains are likely long buried in a solid waste landfill but that the tool box and other items recovered during the investigation are being examined for trace evidence by the Texas Department of Public Safety crime laboratory in Austin.

Bastrop, Tx–A Cedar Creek woman was sentenced to nine years in prison and another 10 years on probation for driving drunk and causing the death of one Irish tourist and severe injuries to another in a traffic accident on Texas 71 just west of Bastrop in September 2007.

Susan Moore, convicted of intoxication manslaughter and intoxication assault last week by a jury in Bastrop, will serve up to nine years in prison and then begin a 10-year term on probation, ruled 423rd District Judge Chris Duggan.

Prosecutors said Moore had a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit for drivers following the accident.

Bastrop, Tx–The city council awarded bids Jan. 19 for the best construction offers for a new city hall and Bastrop’s first ever convention center on Chestnut Street. The total cost is almost $1 million less than the most recent estimates last year.

Gaeke Construction Co. of Giddings will undertake the new city hall construction for a base bid of $1,587, 617. Furniture, fixtures, technology equipment and additional off-site utility and drainage requirements will push the final price tag to just over $2.8 million or $500,000 less than planning estimates.

The final cost for a 26,000-square-foot convention center across the street from the new city hall will reach $5.1 million. The bid will go to Collier Construction Co. of Brenham. The total expense, including some $320,000 in street, drainage and utility improvements to Farm Street, will be just over $496,000 below planning estimates.

Cedar Creek, Tx–Bastrop County officials and other dignitaries will gather at 10 a.m. Dec. 5 for ceremonies dedicating the first county-owned and operated park. It adjoins Cedar Creek Elementary School on FM 535, cost roughly $1 million and came to reality only after a decade of planning, controversy and compromise.

Among others to be honored in connection with opening of the project will be the late businessman and philanthropist James Voss, a Cedar Creek native and oil company executive, who contributed to the park’s development. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department put a $500,000 grant into the effort and the Bastrop school district made available the 44-acre park site bordered by Cedar Creek.

Perhaps appropriately, weather for the event is expected to be chilly. Weather forecasters are predicting the first hard freeze of the season on Friday night, with a chance of light snow before morning. From the time the park was first proposed by former Pct. 1 County Commissioner Johnny Sanders, it had enthusiastic supporters but also faced deep skepticism and doubt in some quarters, hence the much-delayed development process.

In later phases of development the park was championed by Bastrop County Judge Ronnie McDonald.

Bastrop, Tx–A 15-year-old suspect in the August shooting death of her mother in McDade was back in Bastrop on Nov. 18 for a hearing on whether she should continue to be held in a juvenile detention center in Seguin pending trial. After an appearance before 423rd District Judge Chris Duggan, the juvenile was remanded to custody.

The girl and her 18-year-old boyfriend were detained Aug. 17 in connection with the disappearance of Tracy Bellard, 42. Investigators believe Bellard was shot to death in her McDade home Aug. 14 and her body subsequently burned in a brush pile near Smithville.

Bastrop County Court at Law Judge Benton Eskew, who normally handles juvenile criminal cases in the county, has recused himself–on his own motion–from this case. Eskew did not explain his move.

The case was subsequently assigned to Judge Duggan whose court also has jurisdiction over juvenile matters.

Duggan has yet to take up a motion by prosecutors to consider the juvenile’s murder case under adult–rather than juvenile–criminal laws. A hearing on that issue is unlikely before January 2010, said District Attorney Bryan Goertz this week.

Also charged in Tracy Bellard’s death is Joseph Douglas who is being held in the Bastrop County Jail under $500,000 bail.

Bastrop, Tx–Drivers on Texas 71 west of Bastrop and residents who live in the vicinity of the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa should not be surprised by unusual police presence and security measures in the area this week. Beginning Nov. 17 local authorities are braced for the arrival of Republican state governors from across the US for their annual national conference at the Lost Pines luxury retreat.

The GOP conference of governors is scheduled Nov. 18-20, according to the organization’s Web site. Local officials, including the county judge and sheriff, were briefed Monday on preparations for the assembly of political leaders with an eye on the 2010 election season.

Each of the 20 Republican governors is expected to bring a special security detail to the sessions, and the Texas Department of Public Safety plans to assign extra officers to each delegation, according to sources familiar with the preparations.

The governors also plan to spend some time relaxing from the rigors of public responsibility and political ambition. They have reportedly reserved Cindi’s Gone Hog Wild, a biker-themed bar on Texas 71 near Garfield, for a gathering during their Bastrop County confab.