Yoakum County Commissioners Court Meets February 22

by Eric

image003The Commissioners Court met in regular session on Monday, February 22 where they addressed their weekly agenda.

Sheriff Don Corzine was in attendance with a request to purchase a new vehicle for his department. Specifically he was asking for the court to approve the purchase of a new short bed patrol vehicle from Buyboard. He informed the Court the purchase price would be $32,245. The addition of the lights, stripped, and radio installation would be extra.

In the next item Corzine gave his annual profiling report for 2015. He informed the Court there were 1,347 traffic citations issued. Of those numbers 694 were Caucasian and 610 Hispanic. He also noted that except for one time all stops were radar or visual related and the drivers of the vehicles were unknown to the officers.

In the next item the Commissioners approved a subdivision application from Bilma Subia Rios, owner of 12.81 acres of land out of the Southeast part of Section 888, Block D, John H. Gibson Survey, Yoakum County, Texas.

There were no request for disposal county equipment and no soil conservation request. However, there were 23 line item transfers. All transfers wrapped up 2015 items.

There were no action on the Senior Citizen Building, but a representative from Level 5 Design group was present to discuss the progress of the plans for the new Denver City Community Building.

It was noted that he felt like better prices could be obtained from General Contractors rather than Construction Managers. After some discussion the Court approved getting bids from GC.

Once again, during the discussion. Precinct 3 Commissioner Ty Earl Powell questioned if this would be a good time for the project. He argued with the price of oil down perhaps the construction should be put on hold until things are financially better for the county.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Tim Addison said he agreed, but added he would be okay with the project only if the County was assured of receiving the $1 million pledged earlier by Oxy that would be applied toward the building.

“Even though I know we have funds budgeted for this project I would like to see the (Oxy) cash in our hands before we move forward,” Addison said.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Ray Marion as well as Precinct 1 Commissioner Woody Lindsey both assured the Court they felt like Oxy was still going through with their promise of the funds.

The Level 5 representative told the Court that they should still approve the bidding process and if the Court felt like funds were not available after bids had been submitted they could always “pull the plug” at that time.

Even after all of the discussion Commissioner Powell was still questioning if the time was right.

The next meeting will be held on Monday, February 29 in the county courthouse at 10 am.

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