Shelby County Today

August 7, 2020 - The Coronation and the month long series of activities for the East Texas Poultry Festival Queen’s Pageant has been postponed.  

The Princesses and their escorts participate in a number of fun social events as well as several mandatory rehearsals over the course of four weeks. Due to the circumstances at this time, the Committee felt in order keep all participating students, parents and committee members safe, the pageant has been postponed.  

It has not been cancelled.

August 6, 2020 - State Highway 7 East and Loop 500 in Center was the scene of a major two-vehicle crash Thursday afternoon, August 6, 2020.

According to Center Police Officers Brian Wright and John Clevenger, at 1:30pm a grey Dodge Journey driven by a 15-year-old female driver of Center was westbound on State Highway 7 (SH7) East approaching the intersection of Loop 500.

As the Dodge turned onto Loop 500 heading toward State Highway 87 South, it failed to yield right of way to a silver Nissan Rogue driven by Edith Williams, 74, of Logansport which was westbound on SH7.

The Nissan then struck the Dodge and collided with a stop sign before both vehicles came to rest in the roadway.

Williams and her passenger Christopher Williams were transported by ambulance to Nacogdoches Medical Center - Shelby Emergency Department as a precaution.

August 5, 2020 - The Shelby County Commissioners agreed to contribute $65,000 in CARES act funding to local schools during their meeting held Wednesday, August 5, 2020.

"We have a lot of money that we're probably not going to use," said Judge Allison Harbison. "Clint [Porterfield] and I discussed it and we hate to send this money back to the state."

Judge Harbison offered to reach out to the public schools in Shelby County to share CARES act funds with them.

"The protocol is, we can't just write them a check for their grant, they have to submit the billing to us. Clint's assured me and Ann [Blackwell's] assured me that they can keep up with that and they would send the bills to us and we would pay it through the CARES act."

According to Judge Harbison, Sabine County and other smaller counties are taking this action to help their schools. Judge Harbison stated Center ISD has almost half of the school children in Shelby County. She remarked the Superintendents may not even want the funding; however, she proposed allocating $20,000 to Center ISD; $10,000 to Timpson ISD; $10,000 to Tenaha ISD; $10,000 to Joaquin ISD; $10,000 to Shelbyville ISD and $5,000 to Excelsior ISD.

During a June meeting of the commissioners, Judge Harbison shared the county was to receive $188,000 in CARES act funding.

According to Judge Harbison, with groups such as Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) having provided such things as masks to the county, free of charge, funding hasn't been needed for those items.

"We have been supplying the volunteer fire departments and the [Police Department] and the [Sheriff's Department] and even some of the health clinics that are doing COVID testing as well as the [Emergency Room], we have been giving them masks and shields and whatever they need," said Judge Harbison.
 
A list of acceptable things the money can be spent on would be provided to the schools.

"I think it would be a great gesture to the schools to show that we are wanting to help them get going," said Judge Harbison.

Jennifer Fountain, County Clerk, stated as a parent she would appreciate and she felt a lot of parents would also.

A motion carried to offer the grants to the schools.  

The Center Police Department has recently lost access to their shooting range and Center Police Department Lt. Jeremy Bittick has requested the use of the Shelby County shooting range utilized by the Sheriff's Department. 

"They have evidently lost their range and they need to be able to qualify," said Judge Allison Harbison.

She recommended entering into an interlocal agreement with the agency, should it be approved to outline any rules for all to follow.

"I know that in the past that there's been issues about cleaning up after themselves and replacing targets and things like that. I mean they should leave it the way they find it," said Judge Harbison. 

According to a list of items relating to the shooting range presented by Sheriff Willis Blackwell, it was noted by Tom Bellmyer the backstop behind the targets needs to be renewed.

"Sounds to me like right off the bat we need to come up with a plan, I know that the city has had quite a bit of material on the streetscape that they have dug out and hauled away," said Commissioner Bellmyer.

Bellmyer said the Sheriff described the need of three loads of material for the backstop and for it to be contoured. Additionally Bellmyer would like to confirm with Shelby County Attorney Gary Rholes about the liability to the county and he agrees written guidelines need to be in place as well as a county representative being present when the site is in use.  

"We've got county tax payers across the county and we've got law enforcement groups across the county that in my opinion all need to be able to use it if we have a plan on how to use it and keep it up," said Bellmyer.

Judge Harbison said she could confer with other counties that have shooting ranges and contact the city about the potential of donating some of the concrete debris from the square.

Commissioner Charles Barr spoke with Keith Byndom, Center Fire Chief, about the possibility of burning the old Justice of the Peace Precinct 1 building, and he agrees with the fire chief it would likely be too small of an area to burn the structure.

Commissioner Bellmyer suggested contacting Sandhill, the company demolishing the old hospital/probation department building about the possibility of tearing down the old Justice of the Peace building while they are in town working on the old hospital.

This suggestion gives the county a potentially short window with the possibility of the demolition of the old hospital and parking lot being completed by the end of the week.

It was suggested whatever remains in the building needs to be removed by August 10 and for whatever utilities remain active to be disconnected.

Judge Harbison said she would contact Donna Hughes, Justice of the Peace Precinct 1, and Gary Rholes, County Attorney, to make sure they know to be completely out by August 10.

A motion carried to seek a quote for the demolition from Sandhill. 

Tax-Assessor-Collector Debora Riley addressed the commissioners on 2020 calculated tax rates. She reported no new revenue is the effective tax rate for the county and that rate is .6393 and for Road and Bridge it's .0794 for a total of .7187. Last year was .7027 as the total.

The rollback rate which is now called the voter approval rate, the county is .67 and the Road and Bridge is .0865 for a total of .7565. 

"Whatever we had of income last year, our rate was to give us the income. This year the automatic effective rate will be that rate to keep the same income, otherwise if we go back to last year's we're going to lose 100-something-thousand dollars," said Commissioner Roscoe McSwain.

The meeting entered executive session at 10:05am and returned to open session at 10:17am.

No action was taken regarding discussions in executive session.

Judge Harbison shared some information she recently received from the United States Forest Service. 

"Out of the timber sales from the Sabine National Forest we're going to be getting some funds, they're called 'Good Neighbor' funds and we're going to be getting between $25,000 and $50,000 worth of money," said Judge Harbison. 

She stated this money would be used for road work and encouraged the commissioners to get some projects together and named to utilize the funds.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:20am.

Agenda items approved during the meeting include:
1. Pay weekly expenses.
2. Current payroll.
3. Allocate funds from the County’s CARES Act Fund in the amount of $65,000 to the Shelby County School Districts to help them prepare and combat Covid-19.
4. Dispose of the old JP1 building located behind the County Jail by August 10, seek bid for demolition.
5. Reappoint Mr. John Howard for a two-year term as a board member of the Burke Board of Trustees representing Shelby County.
6. Sheriff and Constable Fees for FY 2021.
7. Adjourn at 10:20am.

Agenda items tabled during the meeting include:
1. Discuss and possibly take action on a request from the Center Police Department for use of the County owned shooting range.
2. Discuss the request from the Probation Community Service Department regarding additional fencing for the Community Service buildings.

August 5, 2020 - The Shelby County Emergency Management office reports as of 8:30am on Wednesday, August 5, 2020, TxDSHS has reported 2 new cases raising the cumulative case count to 379. The death count is 14 for Shelby County. (The DSHS website dashboard shows 17 deaths for Shelby County as of Aug 4th.)

According to the state's algorithm to determine recoveries, 5 new recoveries were reported and the total of recoveries increases to 290. The number of active cases is now 75.

Breakdown of cumulative cases by zip code and ages:

Active Cases in each zip code: (Change in Data)

Center (75935) - 38 (2 new, 4 recoveries)
Joaquin (75954) - 5
Shelbyville (75973) - 6
Tenaha (75974) - 14 (1 recovery)
Timpson (75975) - 12

Cumulative Cases in each zip code:

Center (75935) - 256 (2 new)
Joaquin (75954) - 20
Shelbyville (75973) - 24
Tenaha (75974) - 46
Timpson (75975) - 33

Ages of Confirmed Cases:

Ages 1 to 20: 36 cases
Ages 21 to 40: 124 cases (1 new)
Ages 41 to 60: 119 cases (1 new), 4 deaths
Ages 61 to 80: 62 cases, 4 deaths
Ages 81 to 100: 31 cases, 6 deaths
Age unknown: 7 cases