July 5, 2016 - Potholes in the Land's End subdivision are an issue for residents of the community and the assistance of Bradley Allen, Commissioner Precinct 4 was requested at the recent meeting held on June 27, 2016.
Mary Masterson, Land's End resident, stated the road which enters Land's End appears to be defined as a public road, because it is "free and open to all the habitation to use it." Masterson referenced Reed vs. Wright case law as a starting point in requesting the assistance of the commissioners.
"The road is less than a mile in distance, it has a hard surface that the homeowners in the subdivision can no longer afford to maintain. The potholes are becoming a very big hazard, they are very deep," said Masterson.
Masterson said there is a handicap child living within the subdivision who rides a handicap bus and, according to Masterson, the driver of the bus has complained about the roads.
"The potholes are becoming so bad that when the handicap children start back to school, this will become another issue," said Masterson.
According to Masterson, with the exception of two homes, the houses in the subdivision have been there for 22 to 30 years, "In 2014 the property taxes that were brought in for these properties was $42,960 according to the tax data that I obtained."
The tax total included Center Independent School District figures. According to Masterson, in the past 22 years the residents of the subdivision have paid in over $900,000 in property taxes. Masterson stated Gary Rholes, County Attorney, and Ken Muckelroy have each reviewed the case law and are in agreement the roadway is public.
Roscoe McSwain, Commissioner Precinct 1, questioned Masterson how long she has lived in the subdivision to which she responded she has been there for 22 years. He asked her if during all that time the county has ever done anything to help maintain the road and she responded, "no."
Allison Harbison, Shelby County Judge, stated she has spoken with several of the residents in the subdivision and of those she spoke with it is not their expectation of the county to pave the road, they're just asking for some maintenance.
Masterson says, at this time her husband does the majority of any current maintenance on the roadway. She reiterated the residents pay a lot of taxes and McSwain agreed it was a lot to pay to not receive a benefit. Jimmy Lout, Commissioner Precinct 2, questioned in what precinct the subdivision is located.
Bradley Allen contended it has been a private roadway for years.
"I guess it's because of the, like I said, the case law that I researched. Because of the inherent nature, that it is a public access road, it does automatically make it a public road not a private road," said Masterson.
The commissioners asked for the item to be added to the next agenda for consideration.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, and I may be wrong, but if we go out and we do do work, we have accepted that road," said Allen. The other commissioners and Harbison agreed he was correct.
A motion was carried to table the roadway until the next meeting.
Jheri-Lynn McSwain, County Extension Agent, gave a report to the commissioners about the Shelby County Community Garden.
McSwain reminded the court in January she explained food insecurity for rural senior adults is a community-wide issue. With the cooperation of state and local organizations as well as adult volunteers, improved nutritional health of those seniors can be accomplished.
"According to Feeding America, the number of food insecure adults in the United States doubled between 2001 and 2011. That means every 1 in 12 seniors in the US has limited or uncertain access to food, and this impacts their lifestyle," said McSwain. "Research has also shown that insecure senior adults consume less calories and lower quantities of the 10 key nutrients that are required for healthy living."
McSwain said the Extension Service is collaborating with Juvenile Probation, adult volunteers, civic organizations and other groups to work on the community garden. According to McSwain, $3,000 in local funding for the program has been received from area businesses, which helped to get the garden started. General Shelters also donated a building, which was not even in the inceptive plans for the garden, but planned for a later time.
According to statistics provided by McSwain, 16% of the population in Shelby County are senior adults and 69% of them are food insecure.
"We're working very closely with Shelby County Outreach Ministries and their Meals on Wheels Project and the Senior Nutrition Site and according to their data they served 19,500 lunches every year at their Senior Nutrition Site, that's a lot of food," McSwain said.
She also stated 13,260 meals are delivered through the Meals on Wheels program, demonstrating there is a need.
One issue McSwain said initially had to be dealt with involving the garden are deer. She and Lane Dunn, County Extension Agent, researched possible defenses against the deer and while SFA has been performing testing with a 3D electric fence Texas A&M is participating with the test. The 2-foot tall electric fence is installed around the garden and there has been yet to have been an issue with deer invading the garden.
"It's a really good model and we hope to showcase that later," said McSwain.
As of the meeting 398 pounds of vegetables had been harvested including 40 lbs. of tomatoes, 136 lbs. of sweet corn, 23 lbs. of summer squash, 128 lbs. of cucumber, 65 lbs. of zucchini and 6 lbs. of radishes all delivered to the Senior Nutrition Site.
"We've had 4H actually come in and harvest, and then go to the Senior Nutrition Site and present the vegetables," said McSwain. "The kids were at first going, 'what difference does this make?' and then when they saw the reaction they received from the seniors it was like, 'I get it,'" said McSwain.
Four different varieties of tomatoes are being grown in the garden to see which ones grow the best locally and McSwain presented the court with Biltmore, Celebrity, Heatmaster and Park's Whopper for a taste test. McSwain said what people like more often is the Celebrity.
Three gardens were selected statewide to be model gardens and McSwain stated one of those three is the Shelby County Community Garden to represent the entire east side of Texas. This means the head of Texas A&M will tour the garden as well as congressmen and other representatives to tour in the fall.
The Extension Service is startng out a new program called healthy community and McSwain said she has been selected to teach a class to minority and lower income individuals at the garden on sustainability, gardening and nutrition.
"A community garden can produce vegetables as we can see that's happening, but the main thing is we want to improve the nutritional health of our seniors. So, we're off to a great start, we're working to alleviate that food insecurity in our county and hope to produce more pounds of produce for our senior adults," said McSwain.
Judge Harbison presented two grant applications to the Texas Association of Counties under the Risk Control Reimbursement Program for approval by the commissioners. One application is for a surveillance security system for the Shelby County Courthouse. The system includes 14 cameras, panic buttons in all offices including the annex building and the County Clerk's building.
Front and back door key card entry would be added as well for after hour access to the buildings to help secure the courthouse.
The second application is for bullet proof vests for the five constables in the county.
"As everyone knows we'll have three new constables in January. We've never purchased them bulletproof vests," said Judge Harbison.
A motion was carried by the commissioners to approve the grant applications.
Judge Harbison acknowledged the efforts of Cindy Clark, her assistant, in seeking right of way acquisition for the Spinney and Shoat bridges and the letting of projects by TxDOT.
Harbison stated a lot of what TxDOT has traditionally done to gain right of way for counties is no longer being performed. She said TxDOT would perform surveys, make contact with property owners, negotiate the right of way and get deeds.
"They're not doing a lot of that. They're giving us the survey and who owns it, or who they think owns it and then we have to do the rest, so I really do appreciate her," said Judge Harbison.
Judge Harbison said she is excited about these two bridges being added to TxDOT's work list.
Stephen Shires, Assistant District Attorney, made a request of the commissioners to rent office space in the courthouse annex where the District Attorney's office is located. Although he made the request, Shires was not present for the meeting and Judge Harbison made the recommendation to table the request until Shires could be present to discuss the request.
A motion was carried to table the request until the first meeting in July.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:10am.
Agenda items approved during the meeting: 1. Pay monthly expenses 2. Payment of $1,000 for TOW from Peddy Farms LTD for the bridge on County Road 4564, Hilliard Creek. 3 Two grant applications to Texas Association of Counties under their Risk Control Reimbursement Program. 4. Adjourn at 10:10am.
