By Rich Flowers
rflowers@athensreview.com Feb 11, 2021
Feb 11, 2021
The electronic sign that stands along State Highway 31 at the Henderson County Regional Fair Park Complex is getting a larger, more up to date, replacement.
Fair Park Manager Howard Calloway told Commissioners Court on Tuesday, the new sign will cost about $190,000. At the meeting Commissioners authorized Calloway to apply for a 2021 Community Development Grant through the Athens Economic Development Corporation to pay for part of the sign.
The county is applying a grant of $38,000. The sign has been up there for about 15 years, Calloway said. Some of the components in it are broken. Some are obsolete and you can t replace them.
Williamson County commissioners on Tuesday approved hiring lawyers to explore legal options, including filing a lawsuit, to prevent the city of Austin from using a hotel to house homeless people.
Last week, the Austin City Council approved spending $9.5 million to buy the Candlewood Suites at 10811 Pecan Park Blvd., an area of Austin that is in Williamson County.
Commissioners had asked the Austin City Council last week to delay its decision to buy the hotel for six months because they had only recently learned of the project.
By a unanimous vote, the Commissioners Court on Tuesday approved exploring legal actions against Austin over the hotel purchase.
The Bastrop County Commissioners Court on Monday approved a new location to house a pair of Confederate monuments that sit on the courthouse s grounds after a months-long process to find the obelisk and headstone a new home.
The Commissioners Court approved the relocation by a 3-2 vote, with commissioners Donna Snowden and Mark Meuth dissenting. The monuments an obelisk erected in 1910 by a local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and a granite headstone erected in 1964 by the state of Texas commemorating Joseph D. Sayers, a major in the Confederate army and Texas’ 22nd governor will be relocated to county property located off Texas 95 and Cool Water Drive in Bastrop.
Williamson County commissioners have approved a resolution asking the Legislature to establish a new district court and a new court-at-law for the county.
District courts in the county had a 20% increase in case filings between 2015 and 2019, according to a study by the state office of court administration.
Ronald Morgan,
the county s director of district court administration, presented the study to the Commissioners Court on Tuesday. It said there were 7,446 cases filed in Williamson County courts in 2015 and 8,909 cases filed in 2019. We have seen many changes in the past 10 years as the Williamson County population has soared, 425th District Judge Betsy Lambeth told the commissioners. We ve gone from a mostly rural community to an urban community and our justice system needs to grow with it.