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COLORADO COUNTY EMERGENCY SERVICES
A public hearing was held on the petition for the creation of the proposed Colorado County Emergency Services District No.1, bringing about many questions from concerned residents, city officials and commissioners themselves at the recent Colorado County Commissioners Court meeting on Monday morning, Jan. 13.
Commissioners will determine at their next meeting, Monday, Jan. 27, whether or not Colorado County voters will get the opportunity to vote for the ESD on the May. 3 election ballot.
The first round of questions came from Charlie Oberrender, a “relatively” new resident of Colorado County who grew up in Fort Bend County and has been involved in local government for over 37 years through the finance and purchasing sectors. Oberrender, like many other residents according to comments made by other residents at the public hearing, haven’t been able to find any information on the ESD, bringing about key questions commissioners should weigh on before making their final vote Jan. 27.
“What services can this, ESP, provide that we do not already have,” said Oberrender. “How is it going to improve the quality of life of residents here in the county? There’s going to be a proposed tax that I understand is up to 10 cents per $100. That’s quite a bit of money on the county’s appraised value by my calculations. I’ve come up with about three and a half million dollars roughly in tax revenue. So, what would happen? What would it be useful for? What is the plan for that revenue?”
Howard Katz, attorney for the Colorado County Firefighters Association, attempted to clarify some of the confusion with voting surrounding the ESD, highlighting how the power to decide whether the county, or even their specific municipalities, lies on the voters at the end of the day. Katz mentions however that if the overall vote across the counties is in favor, despite each city saying no, the creation of the ESD is still possible.
“Now, within the county, you have three cities that independently have to agree to be included in the ESD, Eagle Lake, Weimar and Columbus,” said Katz. “Columbus and Weimar have already passed their resolutions to include this item on the ballot for Election Day. Regardless, the voters in those cities still have a right to say yes or no. However, even if all three cities say no, I think the numbers indicate that the district would still be feasible. Clearly, most of the funding would be coming from the county areas, but it would still be feasible. The volunteer fire departments in Colorado County are the main providers of emergency services. So, each of those fire departments will engage the contract with the ESD to cover the county.”
Katz remarked that his conversations with fire chiefs and members across the different fire departments have all leaned towards the creation of the ESD, to be “able to provide the level of service necessary” for Colorado County residents.
“In talking with the fire chiefs and the members of various fire departments,” said Katz. “It’s clear that in order for them to stand on their own and be able to provide class a service to Colorado County, this ESD is a way to do that. I can’t say I’m or against it but talking to the fire chiefs and the members of the various fire departments, I think it’s critical that Colorado County have this district.”
Colorado County Precinct 2 Commissioner Ryan Brandt expressed his concerns with the fast pace of the process despite still lacking a concrete plan with the ESD, specifically over the potential tax revenue of three and a half millions dollars that could be raised without knowing where exactly that money would be spent.
Brandt felt that the responsibi lity should lie with the firefighters within the community and the various VFDs to educate commissioners on just what exactly the ESD is and its benefits to the community, rather than the other way around.
“You (Katz) haven’t said what the plan is for the ESD and how the ESD in Colorado county is potentially going to operate,” said Brandt. “In two weeks, we vote, and we don’t have a plan. So that’s what’s that’s what’s very concerning to me is that I haven’t seen a plan on how the ESD is going to use three and a half million dollars. In one of the last meetings, this time last year, the court was told that we need to do our due diligence to educate on ESDs. I think that’s backwards. Somebody should come to the court and say, “this is what the ESD is going to do for the county.” This is how we’re going to do it, how we’re going to proceed, how we’re going to use the funding, and not just we need money, and it’s going to be a bank for the fire departments. Because that’s all that I’ve heard. All I’ve heard is that things are expensive and we need money. That’s true. I don’t argue that at all. But what is the plan?”
Brandt’s main concern was over approving a vote to place the item on the upcoming election ballot without knowing where the money is going, leaving voters potentially just as in the dark as commissioners. He stresses that voting on the ESD without a proper direction for the spending is “not how anybody manages a business” or their own personal finances “We’re going to vote and then it potentially goes to the public to vote,” said Brandt. “Then we tell everybody okay, now we’re going to figure out what we’re going to do now that we’re going to have your money. I mean that that’s not how anybody manages a business or your own personal finance. What do you all have in place to go to the board with and say, “this is how we want to utilize the funding.” Has any of that been done? We’re down to two weeks for us, and then the election in May. When that comes up, I just think that you’re running out of time to thoroughly inform the voting public.”
Richard LaCourse, Fire Chief at the Columbus VFD, noted to councilmembers how the fire department has been attempting to inform the public as much as possible about the ESD, with public hearings being held at all three cities’ city council meetings. In addition, he explains the numbers behind operating and sustaining the fire department regarding equipment costs, saying the city can no longer keep up with the demand.
“I can tell you, for the city of City of Columbus, our budget without capital expenditures is right around $300,000 to $400,000,” said LaCourse. “That’s for our operating budget; that’s without buying any new equipment. Can the city of Columbus keep that up? We cannot. Our last fire engine cost a little over $800,000 and that was last year. We know there’s no way the city of Eagle Lake is going to be able to afford another engine. They need another engine now. Their engines have a 25-year lifespan. Can anybody operate their trucks for 25 years, their personal trucks? Well, that’s a fire department problem. We are expected to get 25 years out of them. That is if you keep up with normal maintenance.”
LaCourse, having been with the Columbus VFD for 35 years, feels that the department at times is being “taken for granted” with residents expecting the VFD to be at every fire, every time, solely off fundraisers, which he feels, shouldn’t have to be done just for the department to exist.
“I think we are being taken for granted, that we’re always going to be there to make a fire call every time that the pager goes off,” said LaCourse. “And we are there. It’s just that we shouldn’t have to fundraise for our existence, and that’s where we are right now, we’re fundraising for our existence. Our next engine is supposed to be replaced in 2031, we’re not going be able to do that. The city can only put about half a million dollars away. By that time, that truck is going to be $1.2, $1.3 million, and we operate two engines.”
One resident who went up to speak during the hearing but did not identify herself, questioned how exactly ESD funds, equipment and services would be split and dispersed amongst smaller towns within the county, such as the Bernardo VFD, Rock Island VFD or wayward of Alleyton.
“That is one thing people want to know,” said the woman. “How is the money going to be spent? We want to see it in black and white.”
Colorado County Judge Ty Prause could not give a definitive answer, as the process of laying out the fund dispersion in his words are similar to the long-time question of what comes first, “the chicken or the egg,” hinting that the ESD might have to potentially be instated first for fund dispersion and spending to be figured out.
“I try to answer that myself as you’re speaking, because we obviously all have a lot of those same questions,” responded Prause. “It’s an organic process. Just like our budget each year, this board would look at needs, have hearings that are all open to the public by statute and by law, look at requests made to that board and then that board would make the decisions based on their representative capacity working for the public. I don’t think that can exist at the front end of it unfortunately. It’s kind of like the chicken or the egg, what comes first?”
Brandt, regardless of his skepticism towards the rushed feeling of the entire process, spoke to commissioners from other counties across Texas within the past two weeks to get more insight on their adoptions of ESDs, including Brazoria, Medina, Harper, Brewster, Sabine, Comal and Crockett counties.
The Precinct 2 Commissioner said there were three main takeaways from his conversations with other county representatives, the first being to ensure due diligence is done when appointing a board, the second being that most of the counties mentioned all had multiple ESDs, not just one, and that none of them regretted the creation of said ESDs and the third being all of the counties wish they if they could go back in time, they would instate county wide ESDs instead of individual ESDs.
“The three main takeaways from that were, number one, to make sure that you do your due diligence when you appoint your board,” said Brandt. “Make sure that you educate yourself with the people that you put on the board. Number two, the counties that all had ESDs, most of them had multiple ESDs where it was a volunteer fire department and that is where the ESD would be formed. Some of them had six, seven, eight even nine ESDs, so there were multiple in a county. They all said that once they got going, the ESDS were positive for the county. It was a positive outcome. They did not regret the county doing it and they were glad that they had them. The third takeaway from it, every single one of the counties said that if they could do it over again, they wish that it would have been county wide instead of individual. I think here today, everybody’s talked about kind of the same thing; informing the voting public in some kind of way so that they can make a sound decision.”
The next commissioners’ court meeting will be held on Monday, Jan. 27, where a vote will be taken to determine whether or not the proposed ESD will make the ballot for the May 3 election.
