When commissioners met Tuesday, County Judge Dan Hicks told them about a directive from the state Office of Court Administration entitled the “COVID-19 Operating Plan,” as well as a discussion about the need to prioritize plans for work on county roads which would be needed for the county to be eligible for a Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) grant.
Sections of the court plan template cover topics such as judge and court staff health, scheduling, social distancing, hygiene and face coverings.
“This template is something they’ve said ‘shall be done.’ There is no ‘might,’” Hicks said.
One rule requires that hand sanitizer dispensers be placed at all entrances to the court building, outside of elevators on each floor, outside of each courtroom and outside of bathrooms.
“When we were looking early on at getting dispensers set everywhere, we were able to get two at that time,” Hicks said. “I think they’re going to be harder to get now.”
The plan requires each entrance to the court building to be monitored and those entering to be screened by a person in personal protective equipment, and that everyone entering the court building wear masks.
Hicks said the current deadline for the plan to be in place is June 1.
“We don’t know for sure that we have to do this, but if we do have to go to this extent, it will have to be in place by June 1,” Hicks said. “It’s still being looked at.”
Commissioners expressed uniform displeasure with the plan.
“One little step at a time, they’re taking all of our rights away,” Pct. 3 Commissioner Shawn McCowen. “They’ll finally get it to where we’ll be like a socialist country — a communist country — where we depend on the government to tell us when to eat, take a drink, who we can speak to, when we can go somewhere. I’m sorry, they can mandate it, but they can’t make me.”
The TxDOT grant must be submitted by May 27, Hicks said.
“We were discussing the grant we’re possibly getting, which is $2.8 million, and my thought as to whether we should replace tax dollars with that grant for the next budget year, or their thoughts on going forward with that, and we also discussed prioritizing the roads that need to be in that grant,” he said. “In the grant, it says that you have to list what roads you’re going to do or intend to do, and which ones you’re going to do first. In what order. So that was the main thing we got out of it today. They’re going to get that prioritized. That list of prioritized roads, and get that together so that we can turn that application in by the 27th.”
Commissioners discussed various methods of using the money, including allowing commissioners a certain number of miles of road resurfacing as their portion of the grant, or possibly using the entire grant to resurface CR 4156.
Commissioners agreed to each create a prioritized list of road projects in their precinct, to be discussed further at future meetings.