Hawkeye Hunting Club donated $5,000 to Precinct 2 for road improvement. Pictured are (from left) Allison Harbison, Shelby County Judge; Jason Wiebenga, Hawkeye Hunting Club General Manager; and Jimmy Lout, Commissioner Precinct 2.
July 31, 2024 - Nancy Adams, Elections Administrator, addressed the Shelby County Commissioners during their July 3, 2024 meeting about increasing the rental cost of County-owned voting equipment to $100 per machine for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2024. Adams explained that she presented contracts to John Price, County Attorney, and he approved them.
“The reason I'm doing this early, the Cities and school elections aren't until May every year, but we do Center ISD and we do City of Center and we do those with our November election. So that's why I went ahead prepare the contracts. Mr. Price has approved them and then they just need to be signed off on,” said Adams. “This will be the standard city and school contract, and then of course we'd like to increase our rental on our machines to a hundred dollars per machine to any entity who contracts with us.”
Commissioner McSwain moved to increase the rate for the voting machines at $100 per machine, and his motion was seconded by Commissioner Lout. The motion carried.
Ann Blackwell, County Treasurer, presented weekly expenses for the commissioners to consider and Stevie Smith, Commissioner Precinct 3, contested including a tree removal by Campbell’s Tree Service in the Road and Bridge Precinct 3 expenses.
“It’s got nothing to do with the Road and Bridge, it’s not even on a county road,” said Smith. “That was on a piece of property that Mr. [John] Price is familiar with, he went and looked at it.”
Smith didn’t believe it appropriate for Road and Bridge to pay for the expense. Price explained the tree was on county property and had fallen over onto another property owner’s land where the owner had an old truck parked and the tree was threatening even more damage.
Commissioner Smith stated the tree was 1/2 a mile from any county road and was actually on a city street. Blackwell said she was open to suggestions on how to pay the bill and Roscoe McSwain, Commissioner Precinct 1, suggested paying out of the Courthouse Repair fund or Contingency fund.
“Mr. Price advised to have it done to prevent a claim against the county,” said Judge Harbison.
Clint Porterfield, County Auditor, recommended paying out of the Contingency fund.
Commissioner Smith moved to pay the weekly expenses and Tom Bellmyer, Commissioner Precinct 4, seconded the motion and it carried.
The commissioners were presented with an invoice from Lone Star Global I&E Services on the Jackson Well project in the amount of $4,700 and Blackwell, said due to an oversight, she thought this invoice had already been paid; however, she hadn’t receive it and it still needed to be paid for the Jackson Well Project.
“We had come in under budget as far as what we had allowed for contingency. We had originally allowed $371,293 and what we had spent was $364,118. This $4,700 would still be under what we actually, what we allowed,” said Blackwell.
Commissioner Smith moved to pay the bill with ARPA funds and the motion was seconded by Commissioner Roscoe McSwain. The motion carried.
Jason Wiebenga, Hawkeye Hunting Club General Manager, was present for the meeting and Commissioner Jimmy Lout explained that the club was making a monetary donation of $5,000 for the roads to help upgrade County Road 2308.
Commissioner Lout moved to accept the donation and Commissioner McSwain seconded the motion, and it carried.
The commissioners considered the purchase of seven new Direct to Module cables for Shelby County DPS in the amount of $1,995.
“This is a really big help to the local DPS officers. They can download data from wrecked cars immediately instead of having to wait,” said Judge Allison Harbison.
Texas Department of Public Safety State Trooper Taylor Buster explained that there are times they have waited up to a month to be able to access the data on a vehicle due to equipment not being nearby.
“We've been using it on the county vehicles. If they've been in a crash, we've downloaded several of them, PD (Police Department) units, our own units, if they're involved in it. Any major crash, something that's going to have criminal charges or a fatality to try to determine, you know, the factors surrounding if there was anything,” said Trooper Buster.
Trooper Buster described a circumstance where a witness to a crash incident believed they had heard a blowout just previous to the crash occurring. With the assistance of the data retrieval equipment, the DPS Troopers were able to retrieve information on the tire pressure for all four tires on the vehicle involved just previous to the crash taking place, and it recorded that the pressure was the same in every tire. This helped to clarify for the investigators that the “boom” heard by the witness was actually the vehicle colliding with a tree and not a tire exploding.
“For this year's budget, we actually have it in the budget for the software, the Bosch software. However, we did not budget the cables. The software doesn't do us any good if we don't have the cables that are updated to go with it. We probably should look at putting that in the budget for next year's cable updates,” said Clint Porterfield, County Auditor.
Commissioner McSwain moved to approve the $1,995 as requested and the motion was seconded by Commissioner Tom Bellmyer. The motion carried.
The commissioners considered giving permission for the Precinct 4 Commissioner to access private property on CR 4017 to improve drainage.
Commissioner Bellmyer moved to allow Precinct 4 Commissioner to go on private property off CR 4017 to do a drainage clean out and have a temporary easement for that work. His motion was seconded by Commissioner Smith and the motion carried.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:08am.
Agenda items tabled during the meeting include: 1. Pay weekly expenses. 2. Current payroll. 3. Pay the invoice from Lone Star Global I&E Services on the Jackson Well project in the amount of $4,700. 4. Monetary donation of $5,000 for Precinct 2 Commissioner from Hawkeye Hunting Club to upgrade County Road 2308. 5. Increase the rental cost of our County-owned voting equipment to $100 per machine for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2024. 6. Purchase of seven new Direct to Module cables for Shelby County DPS in the amount of $1,995. 7. Permission for Pct 4 Commissioner to access private property on CR 4017 to improve drainage. 8. Adjourn. Agenda items tabled during the meeting include: 1. Discuss and possibly request bids on a 150 or larger KW 3 phase natural gas generator for the County Courthouse to be purchased with ARPA Funds.
