On Thursday, May 15, Judge Porter and the county commissioners held their bi-monthly meeting, beginning with public comment from Sena Brainard.
“I had to drive down here because there was no public posting, I don’t know if the website is not working or if y’all changed where you are posting the agenda, but I know things happen. That’s why I put on my public comment the whole agenda. By law, it has to be posted, and like I said, it could have been posted and I just couldn’t find it. But I looked and I had a friend look too, because sometimes it’s your own phone or whatever.”
“I know things happen. It’s just like Pampa ISD when they were named in a Supreme Court ruling for not posting an agenda, their excuse for not posting an agenda was their website is not working, so they are the footnote.”
“The other thing is number 8, the Interlocal Agreement with the Extra Territorial Jurisdiction-I think it needs to be clear because of Ken King’s law on the state of Texas where you can only be forced into the city limits. The city changed their city limits and moved it from the hospital out past the junior high and I think the county needs to be clear on what is extra territorial. I know it’s a mile, but is it a mile from the previous city limits or the mile from when they moved the city limits? It’s just a thought. To me, when people move to the county and live in the county, they don’t want to live in the city. The state covers many of these things about your codes to build your house, all of that. And here we are giving the city some of the jurisdiction out of the county. Your subcontracting with them. I watched it on Youtube and I watched their dicussion and it’s a trial-basis-but to me, y’all are the county officials. Y’all were elected by the county. Y’all are to reside over the county. We didn’t elect the city. We didn’t elect the city commissioners. The people of the county elected the county commissioners and the county judge.”
Judge Porter informed Ms. Brainard that he would look into what happened regarding the posting of the agenda.
Next items were to consider the minutes of the previous meeting, to pay bills as presented to the auditor, to consider any line-item transfers or budget amendments, to accept the County Treasurer’s Monthly Report, and to accept the County Clerk’s Report; all were approved.
Next was to discuss the Lovett Building with Honorable Connie Ogle, Justice of the Peace Precinct 2 and 4.
“First of all, I’m not here as a disgruntled tenant, I’m here as an elected official for Gray County.”
“After nine years I want you guys to see my concerns. My main concern is we have some safety issues and even health issues regarding the employees that work in the building as well as the people who visit. If you start at the parking lot, it is a speedway through there. I’ve got experience clocking speeding cars, and they are hitting about 45 miles an hour when they come through our parking lot. The City of Pampa says they are coming off Pennsylvania and they’re flooring it. My personal cars have been hit before and we have to be careful backing in and pulling in-it’s ridiculuous.”
“If you walk up the sidewalk, it’s a long walk from the parking lot to the door on the west side, and the sidewalk is turning to pebbles. A lot of times we have high grass and weeds. At Christmas time, we had weeds so high, I said I was going to put Christmas lights on it. We’ve had people come in and tell us that it looks like an abandoned building and didn’t know we were even in there. There’s dust that comes through in my office and it gets in my printer even though my printer is covered up. We have no hot water, which is ironic considering they came six months ago and said, ‘we’re taking the hot water heater because it’s leaking.’ Well it may be leaking but it never even produced hot water. We have no public restroom, we have no private restroom for the jurors. The jury bathroom has been out of commission for about three years now. The carpet is 30-50+ years old. It’s nasty and full of filth and there’s places where the water leaks-we had a lady come in when it last rained and the stench of the building is so overwhelming, she actually gagged in the lobby. Water is leaking in the courtroom through the window seals and down the walls, cracking the walls. We have a buckets we put out from the lobby to the courtroom because of the rain.”
“I know we’re not going to do anything new, but I have one clerk that is a severe asthmatic. The weeds are just a breeding ground for critters. I’ve had to caulk the windows and the windows in the lobby are not safety glass-there’s a crack that’s been there the nine years I’ve been there, so I’m scared to death someone is going to fall through that. I have bought an absorbant powder that we put along the base of the courtroom windows and the lobby to soak up the moisture so we don’t have people slipping and sliding in there.”
“This all may sound petty to you guys, but nine years of this is not petty. I care about the citizens, I care about what we look like to the citizens. When they think a county building is abandoned and it houses a Justice of the Peace and Juvenile Probation, that is just kind of sad to me.”
“I have talked to Mr. Kitchens about our roof because my office gets it from three sides and you can literally hear it and it looks like fairy dust falling down on me. We have nothing that is ADA compliant for employees.”
“There’s only one door in and one door out, and that concerns me for many reasons.”
“We had no AC and no heat for three almost four weeks during March to April because there’s a sensor in the hallway that didn’t click on or off and I’m tired of feeling like I’m complaining all the time, so we didn’t report. I was told ‘if you’re hot, open a window, if you’re cold, get a space heater.’ We’ve done all that, but it’s getting really bad.”
Commissioner Arrington stated to Connie that the workers he had didn’t have the time to take care of the landscaping without going into overtime, to which Connie suggested hiring a company through the budget.
Connie also suggested using the bottom floor of the county-owned bank building across the street to house both her and JP Sims for the time being until a more permanent resolution was reached.
“There’s actually plenty of room for the small courtroom and my courtroom for every one of us, and it would be within walking distance of the courthouse and the jail, everything,” Connie said.
“I just would appreciate exploring options for us. I kind of feel like I’ve been shoved to the side-not so much for me, but for my employees that at least deserve some hot water.”
She also stated that wherever she goes, she wants to take the historical Lovett plaque from the current building and her courtroom bench that was specially built by TDCJ inmates.
There was discussion about the options on where to temporarily house the JP and the juvenile probation, including finding space within the courthouse itself.
“We’ve been saying this for a while that we’ve got to get y’all out of that building,” Judge Porter said. “I think the purchase of the bank building was a wise purchase on our part and I don’t think any of us thought that $7-8 million was what it was going to take to redo that whole building. We have to figure out a solution to this.”
“When the roof was leaking, we got an estimate for over $100,000 to replace the roof, but I don’t really think spending tax payer dollars on a building that we can tear down or sell is a good idea. I’ve had two people actually call about us selling that property, so there is interest.” Judge Porter and the commissioners decided to revisit the issue at a later date and try to figure out the best solution.
Next on the agenda was to discuss and consider the resolution with TxDot for maintenance of Railroad Pavement Markings and Signs in Gray County, which was approved.
Next was to consider the Interlocal Agreement between Gray County and the City of Pampa for Subdivision Jurisdiction in the Extra Territorial Jurisdiction of the City of Pampa, which was approved. The agreement had also been accepted by the City during their last commission meeting.
Next was to discuss and consider the proposed amendment by IMS to Gray County Health Benefit Plan, which was approved.
Next was to accept the donation of top soil from Jessie Calloway, which was gratiously accepted.
Last was to accept and record into the minutes of the meeting the County Treasurer’s Public Funds Investment Act Training, which was accepted and with no further items on the agenda, the meeting was adjourned.
