Commissioners OK preliminary plans to enlarge annex building
By DAVID LOWE Staff Writer

The Lampasas County Commissioners Court on Monday voted unanimously to authorize County Auditor Jack Clark to gather preliminary floor plans for expansion of the Lampasas County Office Building.

The commissioners and county department heads will review floor plans before final Commissioners Court approval of the project. The court also needs to issue certificates of obligation, Clark said, before construction can begin.

County Judge Wayne Boultinghouse said the county for several years has needed to expand the building on Pecan Street, as both the county and district clerks have cited a lack of storage space in their offices.

"It's simply to the point where we've got to do something," Boultinghouse said. "We've messed around here for several years doing this, doing that and trying to please everybody."

The expanded county building may need a whole office devoted entirely to septic documents, added F.A. Taylor, county on-site sewage facility inspector.

Commissioners added they hope to move collections, elections administrator, veterans service and emergency management coordinator employees to the county office building from their offices on Live Oak Street.

"If we could get everything localized in one area it would help," Precinct 1 Commissioner Robert Vincent said.

By moving county employees out of the Live Oak Street offices, the county could sell those buildings for retail use and add those properties to the tax rolls, Clark said.

In another matter, commissioners voted unanimously to table discussion of selling two houses on the 12.5 acres the court plans to use for a new county jail. Before their next meeting Feb. 25, commissioners will determine if both houses have septic systems, and Clark will meet with a real estate agent to gauge how much the houses are worth.

The two homes -- one vacant and the other a rent house -- sit on the northwest corner of the 12.5- acre property on U.S. Highway 183 South. Because the homes are on the edge of the property, commissioners said they could sell them without disrupting plans for jail construction.

Members of the court discussed surveying a one-acre lot for each house, and Clark suggested putting revenue from the sales into reserve funds.

The homes have city water, and one of the buildings includes four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a garage and a workshop, Precinct 3 Commissioner Lowell Ivey said.

After more than an hour of discussion, the court voted 4-1 to reclassify a "temporary" worker in the elections administrator's office as "part-time" and increase the employee's hours to 40 a week through the end of the budget year.

The part-time employee, who has been working 2.5 days per week, will use the increased work time to update the list of potential jurors through the Jury Management System. The responsibility of updating the Jury Management System will remain with the elections administrator's office through the end of the budget year.

Elections Administrator Dorothy Person said with four elections this year she already has fallen behind on voter registration. Increasing her assistant's hours will help, Ms. Person explained, but the elections administrator said she still may not have enough time to handle both voter registration and jury list updates.

Ms. Person suggested District Clerk Terri Cox update the Jury Management System, but Mrs. Cox said she already has been working nights, sometimes until 9 p.m., to complete district clerk duties. Her office lacks a heavy-duty printer needed to print jury cards, Mrs. Cox added.

The tax assessor-collector used to update the jury pool, but commissioners said the elections administrator has handled the duty since the county created the position and put Ms. Person in charge of voter registration.

Boultinghouse, Ivey, Precinct 2 Commissioner Alex Wittenburg and Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack B. Cox voted to reclassify Ms. Person's assistant, while Vincent cast the opposing vote.

In other business, commissioners voted 4-1, with Vincent opposed, to revise the local order for homeowner maintenance on secondary septic systems to require homeowner training. The county's ordinance, stricter than Texas Commission on Environmental Quality standards, requires TCEQ-registered maintenance companies to perform all maintenance of on-site sewage disposal systems using aerobic treatment.

Exceptions apply if a property owner is a TCEQ-registered maintenance provider for his aerobic treatment unit, obtains a valid wastewater Class D or higher license, or receives specific on-site maintenance training for his unit from the system's installer or manufacturer.

Detailed owner training requirements from TAC Chapter 285, effective Aug. 3, 2006, apply to the Lampasas County ordinance, although instead of mandating six hours of training the county ordinance requires manufacturers and installers to provide "sufficient time" to train the homeowner.

TCEQ encourages counties to adopt standards stricter than those established by the commission. The ordinance adopted by the Commissioners Court on Monday now will go to TCEQ for approval.

The court also voted unanimously to hold public hearings, in conjunction with the March 10 Commissioners Court meeting, on the redraft of the county's junk yard ordinance and a "junked vehicle" ordinance.

The proposed junk yard ordinance requires owners or operators to submit an application and pay a $25 annual licensing fee.

Under the proposal, junk yard owners would not be allowed to expand or relocate their business without Commissioners Court approval and submission of a new license application with the applicable fee.

The proposed ordinance also requires junk yard owners to construct a six-foot-high screen within three months of receiving a license if the business faces a public road or residence.

Owners also would be prohibited from placing a junk yard within 50 feet of the right of way of a public street, state highway or residence. The ordinance would make any offense a misdemeanor punishable by a fine between $100 and $500 for each day the violation continues.

The other proposed ordinance defines a "junked vehicle" as a vehicle that lacks a valid license plate and inspection certificate; "and, is wrecked, dismantled or partially dismantled, or discarded;" or has been inoperable for more than 72 hours on public property or for 30 consecutive days on private property.

Under the proposed ordinance, a "junked vehicle" or part of such a vehicle constitutes a public nuisance if it is visible at any time from a public right of way or other public place.

An offense would be a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed $200.

Exceptions include vehicles screened from view, those stored on private property by a licensed vehicle dealer or junk yard owner, antique or special-interest vehicles stored on the collector's property and vehicles "routinely operated exclusively on the farm or ranch."

The Commissioners Court will consider and may adopt both ordinances at its March 10 meeting, which will begin at 9 a.m. Members of the public may pick up copies of the ordinances in the county judge's office.

In addition, the court voted unanimously not to accept a preventive maintenance agreement with McQuay Air Conditioning Service and took no action on a proposal to enter into the company's Assured Full Maintenance Program.

The full maintenance program, for $11,520 annually, includes four inspections yearly of the heating and cooling system at the county courthouse and covers the cost of labor, parts, materials and emergency services. If McQuay works overtime, the county would pay the difference between the company's regular and overtime rates.

Commissioners said they thought signing a full maintenance agreement would save the county money. By taking no action, however, the court allowed itself time to determine if the agreement would include the cost of repairing existing damage to the courthouse's heating and cooling units.