The Texas General Land Office (GLO) kicked off its Housing Assistance Program (HAP) at the Orange County Convention and Expo Center Tuesday. It turned out the contractor for the GLO was a little understaffed. About 30 people began applying Tuesday morning for the Housing Assistance Program, but by lunch that total had more than doubled.
Emergency Management Coordinator Joel Ardoin whose office is at the Expo Center said there were only two case workers and the lines were backing up. Additional case managers were sought. One more case manager was able to help take the applications.
HAP is a program which will have the General Land Office either rehabilitate the person’s home or if the residence is damaged enough the GLO will tear it down and rebuild a new one. Applications will continue to be taken at the Orange County Convention and Expo Center on FM 1442.
The Commissioners Court on Tuesday approved an agreement between Orange County and the Orange County Community Supervision and Corrections Department. The agreement will allow probationers to perform their community service requirements ordered by local courts for the county doing various manual labor jobs.
Department heads Kurt Guidry with Maintenance and Clark Slacum with Road and Bridge would assign an employee to supervise the probationer doing the work and to keep track of the number of hours worked by that person. County Judge Dean Crooks was pleased with the two-year agreement adding the county could definitely use the probationers to do certain jobs around the Courthouse.
For the second week in a row the Commissioners Court discussed the county’s policy for oversize permit and bond procedure. Engineer Clark Slacum met with Assistant County Attorney Denise Gremillion previously to discuss the permitting procedure. They informed the Commissioners that Texas law prohibits the county from imposing additional permits on companies that already have purchased permits or bonds from the state.
The concern the Court members had was whether the county would be covered for damage done to county roads by the big rigs used by companies that purchase the permits from the state for use on state highways. The Commissioners voted to take no action again and requested Slacum and Gremillion to further investigate whether the oversize bond would cover damage to the county’s roads.
The Commissioners Court will decide possibly at its next meeting about postponing or changing the dates of the meetings currently scheduled for Tuesdays, December 25 and January 1. The meeting the week of January 1, 2019 has to be done before the county processes its payroll for employees that week.
story and photo by
-Dan Perrine, KOGT-
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