The Gray County commissioners held their first meeting of the month, beginning with public comment from Sena Brainard.
“At the last commissioners meeting, y’all were discussing the old FirstBank Southwest building that you purchased, and the City of Pampa manager Shane Stokes was wanting it. Having operated businesses in Amarillo, I don’t understand why you don’t just lease it to them. In most cases when you lease a big commercial property like that, and I have leased properties over in Amarillo, the person that leases it, they must assume the bills 100%. They must renovate it. If the air conditioner goes out, that’s $25,000 on them. I wish you would consult with a realtor that handles commercial properties of that magnitude. Mr. Whittenburg helped when I was leasing a commercial property over in Amarillo-he handles properties for Dallas investment companies that own commercial properties all over Amarillo. You have to sign a guarantee and they’re long-term leases. Maybe in your future tax abatements that you have it written in that they’re going to be renting office space and if that had been renovated, you could’ve passed the bill on to Intersect who is really Google. They came to town, they leased some property-that could’ve been y’all getting the money since y’all gave up what was it $6 million per year? That way the county doesn’t have expenses going out on a property-that’s how real people handle commercial property. They don’t pay for anything to be done-the renter does. And that’s a possibility for that building. There’s attorneys that come over here who need an office during court. People rent offices by the hour for big money, and you can hire somebody to manage it for you.”
Next items were to consider the minutes of the previous meeting, pay the bills as presented by the county auditor, consider any line-item transfers or budget amendments; all were approved.
Next was to discuss and consider the March 2026 Annual Compliance Report for ARPA, to which $831,516 was spent from the ARPA fund from April 2025 to March of 2026 with a remaining balance of approximately $33,000 left to be spent by December 31 of this year. The report was approved.
Next was to discuss and consider allocating $12,000 for the construction and operation of a homeless assistance facility at Grace Baptist Church in Pampa.
“So as you know, about three years ago we set aside $12,000 because Panhandle Community Services was telling us they wanted to set up a homeless hygiene shelter, and we do have a problem with our homeless population,” Judge Porter said. “This last winter we had opened up a warming station in the old motor bank and there was only one person who showed up. It kind of got out that people were scared to come into a county facility when they might have warrants out for their arrest. Kyle Ohsfeldt has opened his church up before to the homeless, but there were a couple of instances where they didn’t treat things very well and it was on he and his staff and his paritioners to clean up the mess. I can understand the frustration of not wanting to subject yourself to that in your own facility. So I think Pastor Ohsfeldt felt a need for the community to put together a plan to start a homeless facility, and I would like for the commissioners to move the $12,000 away from the Panhandle Community Services because they never acted on it, and instead support this project and help our homeless.”
“Probably six years ago, we opened our activity building at our church for this very purpose-as a shelter during incliment weather and severe cold,” Kyle said. “That building is 3,000 square foot. It was designed to be a fellowship hall for our church, not for what it kind of evolved into. It has a 25-foot ceiling, so when you heat that, it gets expensive fairly quickly for a church our size. We have equipment in there for church fellowships, etc. So a few months ago the property across from our church came up for sale and it has a couple of abandoned homes on it. We bought it just to have the dirt so nobody could squat on it and make it more of a mess than what it already is. Some of the men of the church said why don’t we build a warming station like we’ve done with the other building and we can make it smaller and more conducive for what we actually want to do for the community.”
“At our church we don’t have a shower part anywhere, so this new building we are going to build will have a shower in it. Long story short, it should be able to hold about ten beds comfortably, it will have a shower so if anyone needs a hot shower they can have that. It’s very important to me that we don’t enable the homeless community, but sometimes people just need help whether we agree or not on how they got to their situation. We may have ham and cheese sandwiches available-just someplace where they can lay down and get a good night’s sleep, get a shower, and feel like a person again. What they do after that is up to them. We’re not isolated from the homeless situation-we’re right in the thick of it. We’re just trying to help.”
“Our church paid $7,500 for the property and we made the down payment for the Mueller building that is going to be built. Mueller was kind to us and they’re providing the building we believe to be at a discounted rate. Through private donations, we’ve already raised about another $12,000. There are people who support it.”
“So Kyle, if we approve this today, there’s going to be some sort of agreement between us and y’all,” Judge Porter said. “We can’t support a religion with county tax dollars, but we can support the homeless and how to deal with all this. We will get some sort of contract together that the commissioners court can approve hopefully within the next week or two if this is approved. You can look at it and we can look at it and say this is what we want. I think this is worthwhile. This is something that is not talked a lot about in our community, I think people may be embarrassed with the fact that we have homeless or that if they ignore it, the problem goes away. But it’s something you’ve dealt with and I’ve dealt with at the courthouse a lot. And it is a problem. A lot of it tends to do with the choices those people have made and some of it has to do with mental issues. My hopes for the hygiene pantry was-they were going to have a doctor come in and do small examinations every once in a while or have a dentist see people who needed to be seen, and that’s where it came from and it had been successful. But they decided not to do it anymore and I don’t know why that is. I think their facilities weren’t being kept correctly. To me, this is a win-win on addressing the homeless situation and trying to take care of them, especially in cold weather.”
“Just for the sake of distinction, I’m meeting Saturday with a representative from an attorney’s office to set up a separate 501(c)(3) so that it’s not the church,” Kyle said. “The church will supervise it, but it will be a completely separate entity.”
“For years, Troy Schwiegerath has had the key to our activity building so that if I’m not available and the building needs to be opened up for anything that services the city or county, he is able to go and open it. It’s understood to them that they will have access to the building at any time that it’s needed. We will own the building, but we don’t want control. My goal is for every pastor in this town to have access to this. It’s amazing how many people have called offering to pay for a hotel room for the night, and now we’ll be able to put them in this facility where they can have a shower and get some sleep and be safe. I want it to be for the community.”
“I commend you for seeing this need and addressing it,” Judge Porter said. “There’s a lot of people who don’t want to take this bull by the horns and you have. I’m very supportive of this and I would be very blessed to see it.”
“I really appreciate what you and your congregation are willing to do,” Commissioner Jeff Haley said. “This is Christian charity, and you can do it better than the bureaucrats. That’s how it should be. I’m in favor of this, and I think we just need to get the details down so everything is done according to the law. I think the fact that you’re going to put this in a separate 501(c)(3) is a good idea. Our dollars going to you are going to have a far greater return, no doubt in my mind.”
The $12,000 allocation was unanimously approved.
Next was to consider the disposition or sale of the old FirstBank Southwest building located at 300 W. Kingsmill.
“The City is interested in the building and they are still trying to figure out the parking situation, and we are still hashing that out,” Judge Porter said. “They are wanting us to consider selling it at a lower price and I told them we are not doing that either. So just to let you know we are still talking back and forth on this, so we will leave it on the agenda until we either get a yes or no. I wouldn’t want to put anything under a deadline, and we may just agree to disagree and not sell it.”
“The information Ms. Brainard supplied earlier may be a good idea, a lease situation or something like that,” Commissioner Logan Hudson said. “We could lease it to anyone, and that would put us in a spot where it’s worth more than less. That would really help us retain control over the parking lot as well.”
The action item was postponed for a future meeting.
Next was to discuss and consider selling the Lovett Building at 1146 N. Hobart by sealed bid to be opened May 15, 2026 pending commissioner’s court approval or rejection of the sealed bid.
“I really want to make sure that y’all don’t want to set a price,” Judge Porter said. “I’m worried we’re going to blur some lines on the bids.”
“One thing we may want to think about is having an appraisal done on it,” Commissioner Haley said.
“That way we know what we’re looking at when the bids come in,” Commissioner Lake Arrington said.
Judge Porter said he would work on getting an appraisal done for the property and the land, so no action was taken on the agenda item.
Next was to discuss and consider approval of the County Clerk’s request to Expend Records Management Funds for a Kofile Project to scan and index deed records from 1933 to 1951.
“This is on a continuing basis,” County Clerk Dee Dee Laramore said. “We’ve tried to continue to save these old records that we have, plus we want to make them more accessible to the public. This is a proposal to digitize and index 19 years worth of deeds, just the deeds. Right now we have them digitized and indexed and accessible down to 1952, so I’m going through 1951 to 1933.”
The item was approved.
Next was to accept the continuing education hours for Commissioner Jeff Haley, which was approved.
The last item was to discuss and consider extending a county-wide burn ban, which was approved.
With no further discussion, the meeting was adjourned.
