Claiborne West Park and the Orange County Parks Department have been without a director since the retirement of Donna Scales at the end of March. Tuesday Commissioner Barry Burton made the motion to appoint Mike Hale as interim director for the Parks Department. Burton added the appointment of an interim director will allow Hale to take care of the business of the park including processing invoices and making some purchases. Hale has served with the Parks Department for 14 years. Hale’s appointment was approved.
It was mentioned during the meeting by County Judge Brint Carlton that the appointment would not include an increase in pay for Hale. Judge Carlton said earlier on KOGT that there have been discussions to share some of the duties of the Parks Department with the maintenance section of the Road and Bridge Department, as well as, moving the reserving of park facilities to the Orange County Convention and Expo Center which already handles the reserving of that facility by groups. No action was taken Tuesday on those items by the Commissioners.
Several agreements and amendments to contracts were approved Tuesday by the Commissioners. The county will continue to collect ad valorem taxes for the Orangefield School District as it has for the last 15 years after renewing the agreement between the two entities.
The Court approved an amendment to the contract with Five Star to provide food service for the Orange County Jail. Assistant County Attorney Doug Manning said the amendment corrects an oversight in the original contract. Manning indicated that there was a mutual mistake by both parties when the contract was reached in that the renewal clause was omitted possibly because the county briefly shared a contract with Jefferson County for food service at the jail.
An amendment to the contract for the facility used by the University of Texas Medical Branch as the Health Clinic in Orange was approved. Joel Ardoin explained the change to be added to the decades old contract between UTMB and the county which owns the facility at Tenth and Cordrey was to allow UTMB to add a permanent lock box at the clinic. Ardoin pointed out that the contract has been in place since John McDonald was county judge over 20 years ago, and the request for the amendment was actually made to him.
The Commissioners Court approved guidelines and advertising for applications for a $275,000 block grant that will do sewer tie-ins for low income families. Some funds are still available from an existing block grant which the county will also advertise for applications.
May has been proclaimed “Elder Abuse Prevention Awareness Month” by the Court. Cecilio Lopez with Adult Protective Services said Texas last year had over 100,000 reports of elder abuse or abuse to disabled adults.
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