The Gray County commissioners held their bi-monthly meeting on Monday, March 16, 2026, quickly going through the first items on the agenda that included: considering the minutes of the previous meeting, paying the bills as presented, considering line-item transfers and budget amendments, and accepting the County Treasurer’s and County Clerk’s reports; all were approved.
Next on the agenda was to discuss and consider declaring any remaining loose items in the Lovett Building as surplus property, including damaged filing cabinets and other non-essential items; which was approved.
Next was to discuss and consider the disposition or sale of the Lovett Building located at 1146 N. Hobart, and the commissioners agreed to declare the building as surplus and to discuss how they want to go about announcing it as up for sale for a future meeting.
Next was tot discuss and consider the disposition or sale of the olf First Bank Southwest building located at 300 W. Kingsmill.
“If we can get the District Attorney to move his cars elsewhere, then we could have a parking lot and I would feel better about selling it,” Commissioner Hudson said. “If we don’t then we will have a parking issue for the courthouse if we decide to sell.”
“Bringing in the JP 2&4 over here has created more parking, and it’s also created more parking issues if she has a trial,” Judge Porter said. “That parking lot is typically used for overflow for the juries. And it has been nice controlling it, but I’m not married to it. The City of Pampa is interested in buying the building from us. I’m not sure what they want to do with it. Shane has asked me if we were interested in selling it.”
“That was acquired for county expansion and there was a lot we could have put in that building,” Commissioner Haley said. “It was sizable enough with plenty of parking, but when we acquired this we thought we could just move in there, but we discovered there were issues the building had. It was a good buy to have something adjacent to us, but now the parking is the necessity and I’m not sure the structure is. If the City is determined to have the entire thing, maybe they would allow us to have our parking there. It can be further explored, but I can’t really see us using that building for other than storage with all the issues that was involved with it.”
The commissioners agreed that they were not ready to sell the building yet, but will have talks with the City to see what they intend to do with it and see if they can come to an agreement about use of the parking lot, and postponed it to a later agenda.
Next was to discuss and consider Emergency Management Operations and Procedures for county owned maintainers, where Emergency Management Coordinator Troy Schwiegerath spoke with the commission.
“On our last trip to Clarendon, you asked us to go down and we went,” said Commissioner Baggerman. “You told me to get ahold of Trent, and I did. He was in a different location, and evidently later on they got a little sideways, so they dragged up and left. They didn’t say anything to us, didn’t say they were leaving, nothing. So when we go to places that you send us, are we on our own or are we going as a group?”
“The only reason you are going is to protect our firefighters,” Troy said.
Baggerman: “We were sent elsewhere not with Gray County personnel. We were at a different location, so that didn’t work and we were pretty much left on our own to fend for ourselves. I just want to know if when we go down, are we supposed to go with a group or are we on our own and come and go as we see fit.”
Troy: “You should be tied with our fire guys for the most part. I understand sometimes when they have other things come up, they need you to blade, but that was a special circumstance. Just so you guys know, I ended up in a screaming match with their incident commander in Donley County just because of how they were running the fire. There was almost zero communication between them and our people.”
Baggerman: “Were you down there?”
Troy: “No, sir, I can’t cross county lines. And that’s what’s hard is I have to sit up here and monitor what those guys are doing. Obviously we like to help them as mutual aid because they come down and help us, but I don’t necessarily like sending county equipment into somebody else’s county. But sometimes these smaller counties don’t have the resources and I don’t want our firefighters to not have the help to finish what we do.”
Baggerman: “Were you informed that Hoover left?”
Troy: “They’re usually pretty good about letting me know if they’ve left or they got relieved, so I count on them to get our equipment out of there, but apparently they did not do that. When they pull out, they need to let you know. It’s hard because I’m sitting up here and I don’t know anything and I have to rely on them. If the blade operators need to call me, call me just so I know what is going on.”
Troy: “The biggest thing with this is if I hand you an asset and you’re the incident commander, I expect you to take care of that asset. I expect you to make sure they get back, they get fuel, they get everything they need. Once they cross that county line, that’s what I expect. I don’t expect me as the individual who said, ‘yeah, you can go down there,’ because I know what happens in my county, but if you’re saying to me that that’s not happening and we’re not getting reciprocal service back on that, then we have a problem. I shouldn’t have to send equipment and worry about what’s happening with it. If they’re not running that process and not taking care of an incident-I want it back in a timely fashion if you are a responsible incident commander.”
Troy: “When they’re somewhere outside of Gray County, I rely 100% on feedback from them because I can’t see them. When the fire is in our county, I’m engaged 100% until the incident is done. But outside I can’t see, I can’t hear radio communications. At some point, someone has to reach out to me and say, ‘I don’t like this,’ and then I will call you. You’re asking me to take an incident that I can’t control, hear or see and tell me to sit and worry about what these people are doing.”
Baggerman: “I did not know that you could not cross county lines. Now that I do, it changes the whole ballgame. Now I know that once we cross county lines, we are with them and somewhat on our own.”
Judge Porter: “That’s why it’s so important to check in with whoever is in command. Basically if another counties are requesting maintainers and volunteer fire departments, they’re basically all a strike force and need to work together. That way we don’t have anyone getting hung out.”
After quite a bit of discussion, Troy and the commissioners came to an understanding that clear communication is important and while each is responsible for their people, lines of communication need to be established.
Next on the agenda was to consider extending the Interlocal Road Maintenance Agreement between Gray County and the City of Lefors, which was approved.
Next was to accept continuing education hours for all of the commissioners, which was approved.
Before the meeting adjourned, Commissioner Hudson addressed the court regarding the motor vehicle accident involving an Intersect employee.
Hudson: “So last Wednesday morning before daylight, a vehicle from Roberts County coming into Gray County rear-ended a belly dump on County Road B and Highway 60. The belly dump was turning left onto B with no lights on. The driver left the scene and Gray County was able to identify and find him and arrest him. Since then they’ve had an ICE hold on him for being undocumented. I think we have a situation that we need to speak with our tax abatement partner about.”
“So I’ve started a rough draft of a letter to go to Intersect expressing our displeasure of their violation of the terms of the abatement that required no undocumented workers,” said County Attorney Joshua Seabourn. “And we expressed our dissatisfaction with trucks not having lights on and stopped, and we have another problem with the trucks parking partly on the shoulder and partly on the road with no lights on in the dark either waiting to go into the site or something else. I think one morning Commissioner Hudson counted four trucks and another morning six, and so we will talk to Intersect about that. I talked to Patrick last week about both of these situations and expressed our displeasure and told him we were getting a letter together for documentation.”
With no further discussion, the meeting was adjourned.
