The county will be teaming up with a group of businessmen to aid in work for new rodeo grounds for Cowboy Capital of the World Pro Rodeo Association.
The group will be building new rodeo grounds on Highway 67 after being informed that Lone Star Arena will no longer be an equine facility. According to Chad Decker, a board member for CCPRA, they were notified at the beginning of September that this would be their last rodeo at Lone Star Arena and that equine events would cease in February 2023.
“We’re faced with having to find a new home,” Decker said.
With some hard work, the organization found a long-term lease for some property owned by the city of Stephenville and a group of generous businessmen came together to donate the grandstands and other materials to build new rodeo grounds. The city of Stephenville purchased the property for water rights and is leasing the land to the group, teaming up to solve a need.
With CCPRA needing assistance and manpower to level dirt, put in drainage and infrastructure, they asked county commissioners at the Monday, Nov. 14 meeting if the county could assist them with the project.
“There is no doubt this will help the entire the county,” Commissioner Dee Stephens said.
“Time is pretty critical,” Commissioner Jim Buck said.
The group is hoping to have the new rodeo grounds up and running by April in order to be able to host the Tarleton State University’s Rodeo in April.
The rodeo grounds will be available for many different events including Tarleton equine events.
“This will be a forever home,” Decker said.
The commissioners unanimously approved assisting CCPRA with the work.
The commissioners also addressed a variety of other agenda items in the Nov. 14 meeting.
In order to help employees who have banked many hours of holiday pay, the commissioners approved an extension to allow currently banked holiday pay to be used by July 2023.
They also approved a change to extend future banked holiday time before it expires for emergency personnel from 60 days to 90 days. For non-emergency personnel, future banked holidays must still be used within 30 days.
Though there was an agenda item to approve a road permit to bore under County Road 246, the item was once again under discussion since it involves a solar farm project.
In public comments, both Joanna Friebele and Ed Dominguez representing the Texas Coalition of Environmentally Safe Solar asked the commission to table the item again until an understanding of the project is achieved, along with a timeline and how it is going to progress.
“We want you to consider a six month moratorium on this until questions are answered,” Dominguez said.
After taking the agenda item back into open discussion from its previous action of being tabled at the Oct. 24 meeting, the commissioners discussed putting some rules in place for solar and wind farms.
Since the completion date on the project isn’t until 2025, Commissioner Joe Brown said he felt like that gave a bit of time for the county to discuss some requirements.
“Until we see environmental details, I don’t think we need to pass this,” Buck said.
“We need to research this further,” Commissioner Albert Ray said. “I think we need to look at putting some rules in place.”
The commissioners voted to table the agenda item again.
The commissioners heard two informational items including one requesting ARPA funds by the United Way and an expansion of broadband internet by Brightspeed Internet (formerly Century Link).
According to Carsi Mitzner from Brightspeed Internet, the company will be bringing highspeed broadband internet to an additional 9,600 homes in Erath County that currently do not have access to it. 1,500 of those homes are in the Dublin area, she said.
“We are excited about the opportunity,” Mitzner said.
The spokesperson also offered partnership opportunities for the county where they would be able to increase the number of homes reached throughout the county. Regardless if the county decides to take advantage of the offered partnerships, Brightspeed will be offering the internet to the additional homes in the county.
Melissa Divin with Erath County United Way asked commissioners again to consider using some of the ARPA funds to aid the nonprofit.
They asked commissioners for $320,000 over two years, or $160,000 per year.
The money would go to pay salaries of $143,400, local food pantries $60,000, counseling - $22,000, gas cards $17,000, crisis funding $25,000, medical mileage - $5,000, shot clinics $5,000 and operations $ 42,600.
In other business the court: Approved a corrected final plat for Texas Ranch West on County Road 387 Approved and renewed an agreement for court bailiff between Erath County Constables Precinct 1 and city of Stephenville Municipal Court.
Approved a lease agreement between Pitney Bowse Postage company and Erath County Sheriff’s Office Approved a yearly contract between ECSO and Lexis Nexis Risk Solutions Approved a request from ECSO to zero value several pieces of clothing that were no longer able to be used and broken soap dispensers Approved an agreement for investigative services between Erath County District Attorney’s Office and Edward Gordon, a certified peace officer.