The filing deadline was 5 p.m. yesterday, and after 4 p.m. Tahitian Village resident Bob Parmelee appeared at City Hall on Main Street to file for a place on the May council ballot.

Previously only Beal, Mayor Terry Orr and Council Member Julie Hart had filed for places on the ballot. All three were first elected to office in 2008.

Over the past year Parmelee has emerged as an outspoken participant in various so-called Tea Party politicanl events in Bastrop and Travis County. Last fall he was ejected from Kerr Community Center in Bastrop for being disruptive during a gathering which featured US Congressman Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat.

Beal is a former general manager of the Lower Colorado River Authority. Previously he served on Bastrop’s Planning and Zoning Commission.

The report by Texas AgriLife Extension Service agent Rachel Bauer estimated total production in the county at $46.9 million for 2008. That total fell to $26.2 million in 2009, she said.

In 2006, before the onset of a multi-year drought, the total production was valued at $63.2 million.

Bastrop County’s biggest products, hay and cattle, also took the biggest hits, according to Bauer’s figures. Hay production, valued at $5.7 million in 2006, sank to $2.3 million last year.

Beef cattle production, which reached some $34 million in 2006, fell to an estimated $24.9 million in 2008 and sank to $16.7 million in 2009 as producers thinned or sold off herds while grass and water disappeared during the dry period.

Pecan production, which topped $3 million in 2007, dipped to less than $1 million in 2009. Vegetables were valued at $1.9 million in 2007 but fell to $837,000 last year.

A few minor production categories showed increases, however. Bauer estimated the value of hogs in 2006 at $45,000, a number which had more than doubled to $99,000 by 2009. Hunting, recreation and timber production also either held steady or showed small gains since 2007, according to the report.

Democratic ballots were fully counted and winners determined by about 10:30 p.m., with party voters favoring the two incumbents who had primary opponents.

Republican poll watchers were still waiting for the final ballots to be counted at 11 p.m. Some GOP polling places ran out of printed ballots and voters were forced to fill out makeshift ballots which were then transferred to a form which could be counted by an optical scanner, officials said.

Incumbent GOP County Commissioner Clara Beckett in Pct. 2 seemed headed to an easy renomination over challenger Adam Meuth. With some votes still out, Beckett held a 1047 to 431 vote lead.

The race was much closer between Republican Pct. 4 Commissioner candidates seeking to challenge Democrat Lee Dildy in the November general election. David “Rocky” Palmquist held a narrow 342 to 321 lead over rival Ron Jay, with results from one voting box still to be reported. The winner will face the veteran Democrat in November.

Dildy overcame a challenge from Michael Flowers for the Democratic nomination, 502 to 444, with all ballots counted.

In the contest which has drawn the most candidate interest this year–for Pct. 1 justice of the Peace–Democratic incumbent Bill Weddle turned back challenger Dickie Henderson, 503 to 325.

On the Republican side in Pct. 1, Justice of the Peace hopeful Donna VanGilder apparently won a four-way race without a runoff. With one voting box still to be reported, Van Gilder had 708 votes (54.7 percent) with a large lead over other GOP candidates including Vann Pressley with 279, J.W. Snell with 221 and Sue Fruge with 84.

Corbett said she will not hold court during party primary elections in Texas on March 2, which is also Texas Independence Day.

Daniel Lee Holmes is accused of altering or destroying a quantity of methamphetamine to prevent its use as evidence in a drug possession investigation. The alleged offense took place March 16, 2007.

Holmes is being defended by Bastrop lawyer Van Presley, who is also a candidate in Tuesday’s GOP party primary. Presley is seeking the party’s nomination for the Pct. 1 Justice of the Peace slot. He has three primary opponents. Two other candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination for the post.

The Holmes trial is expected to conclude later this week.

Lt. Eddie L. Matthews, 45, was taken into custody about 8:45 a.m. Friday and ordered held under $100,000 bail. Jail records show that Matthews was released at 3:21 p.m. after a local bail bond company posted a bond the same day.

Pickering scheduled a media briefing on the case for 2 p.m. Friday, but the session did not begin until almost 2:30 p.m. It lasted about 30 minutes.

Matthews, a 16-year veteran of the sheriff’s department, was in charge of the patrol division prior to his arrest. He was immediately suspended from duty pending an internal departmental probe, said Pickering. Matthews is accused of repeated assaults on the girl beginning last year.

Lt. Eddie L. Matthews, 45, was arrested at 8:45 a.m. Friday and ordered held in the Bastrop County Jail under $100,000 bail, according to public records and a statement by Sheriff Terry Pickering. A 16-year veteran of the sheriff’s department, Matthews was also suspended with pay pending an internal sheriff’s department investigation, said Pickering. Matthews had been in charge of the sheriff’s department uniformed services sections, including the patrol division, according to the sheriff.

The investigation began Feb. 25 when an Elgin police detective contacted Texas Ranger Brent Barina about child sexual assault allegations against Matthews, according to a court document. Barina subsequently met with state Child Protective Services officials, interviewed the girl’s mother and arranged for the child to be interviewed at the Children’s Advocacy Center in Bastrop. Matthews was also interviewed and denied any inappropriate conduct, according to Barina.

The child said she had been repeatedly molested and assaulted by Matthews since October 2009, according to a sworn statement by Barina.

In a press statement Friday, Sheriff Pickering said the alleged offenses did not arise from the officer’s law enforcement duties, and the alleged victim “was not a stranger” to Matthews.

The formal charge against Matthews is “Continuing Sexual Abuse of a Child,” an offense which carries a penalty, upon conviction, of 25 years to life in prison without parole.

Bastrop County employment records show that Matthews worked for the sheriff’s department from January 1993 to July 2004, then was rehired in January 2005. Pickering said Matthews had received a number of commendations for his job performance during his time with the department.

In a dramatic turnaround from recent polling patterns, voters in the Republican primary are outnumbering their Democratic counterparts by a margin of almost two to one. Through Feb. 25, 1495 ballots in Bastrop County had been cast in the GOP primary. Through the same period only 844 votes had been cast in the Democratic primary.

Today was the last day for early voting in the primaries. Election day is Tuesday, March 2.

Four years ago, when Texas staged its last election for governor, Bastrop County’s early voting primary turnout reached only 611 Republican ballots and 832 on the Democratic side.

GOP primary interest is centered on a heated contested for the governorship as well as contests for the party’s nomination for county commissioners in Pct. 2 and Pct. 4, not to mention four Republicans seeking to challenge the incumbent Democrat, Bill Weddle, for the Pct. 1 Justice of the Peace bench.

Weddle also has a Democratic opponent, Dickie Henderson, and Pct. 4 Commissioner Lee Dildy is facing a Democratic Party challenger, Michael Flowers, as well.

School will begin at 9:45 a.m. Wednesday for students in grades Pre-K to 4. Students in grades 5 to 12 will begin classes at 10;30 a.m., according to an announcement emailed from BISD offices at 9:20 p.m. Tuesday.

As rain, sleet and snow dusted the Bastrop area during the day Tuesday, emergency management officials worried about the possibility of icy bridges and roads if temperatures fell below freezing overnight.

The Bastrop City Council called off its 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday because of weather conditions.

Bastrop school officials said all events scheduled for Tuesday evening have been called off. They will monitor conditions overnight and decide early Wednesday whether or not to cancel classes for the day, said BISD communications director Donald Williams.

By mid afternoon Tuesday some roads in northern Bastrop County, including U.S. 290, had begun icing over in places, forcing some lane closures, said Peter Hicks in the Bastrop County Office of Emergency Management. The chief worry, however, is what happens overnight as temperatures fall, possibly into the upper 20s, said Hicks.

Some forecasts hint that overnight lows could reach 28 degrees F, cold enough to freeze moisture on bridges and roadways after a rainy day, said Hicks. Anyone considering a drive late Tuesday or early Wednesday should take notice of overnight temperatures and the possibility of icy roads, he added.

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.