The Bastrop Advertiser (Bastrop, Tex.), Vol. 139, No. 7, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 26, 1992 Page: 1 of 38
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Texas’ Oldest Weekly Newspaper CQ C
Since March 1, 1853
Vol-139, No. 7
1 Bastrop, Texas Thursday, March 26,1992
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Uninvited
skunk adds
shop scent
An unwelcome visitor walked in
the front door of Nancy’s Cards
and Gifts Saturday afternoon,
putting the shop in immediate
disarray and leaving its stench
before the ordeal was over.
“Just after lunch a skunk mar-
ched in the front door and down
a greeting card aisle. My
daughter, Cynthia Cannon, was
here and tried to get it to leave,
but a loud noises from the street
frightened it and the skunk ran
back in,” said business owner
Nancy Sanders.
That happened twice before the
full-grown critter flattened itself
and slid under a two-inch gap
under a storeroom door where
Mrs. Sanders keeps her stock of
greeting cards and books, she
added.
' See SKUNK, p. 2
No park vote
set for Elgin
Elgin City Council voted not to
add a referendum gauging citizen
support for the park/pool project
on the May 2 ballot.
The council met in a special
Sunday evening session to discuss
the issue, said City Manager Jack
Harzke.
“There was some concern
because the city does not have a
guarantee on the operating costs
for thejDark and pool. The coun-
cil wanted to make sure the
citizens were willing to put tax
dollars into operating and main-
taining the facility,” he added.
Council will meet again
possibly on March 31 to take ac-
tion on the land acquisition for the
facility.
“If all goes well, construction
could begin this summer,” Harzke
said.
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EMS upgrade
under study
for Bastrop
By Davis McAuley
Editor
Part of Bastrop’s medical and
business community urged the ci-
ty council Tuesday to beef up the
local ambulance service, a move
officials said is already under
Consideration.
New requirements for exten-
ding a city service contract with
Bastrop Community EMS this
summer will be the topic of a
March 31 council worksession,
said City Manager JoAnn
Wilcoxen.
“We’ve been working on this,”
said Mrs. Wilcoxen. Alternatives
include soliciting bids for upgrad-
ed service or helping the present
operators get more training and
advanced lifesaving equipment,
she suggested.
“Because of the lack of advanc- /
ed training and the lack of equip- \
ment, Bastrop Community EMS
is not technically or legally able
to perform some functions that
are often necessary to keep so-
meone alive,” said Kathy Butler,
a social worker employed at
Smithville Hospital.
Saying Bastrop ambulance
operators perform well, given ex-
isting limits, she noted they have
the least training and equipment
of the county’s three EMS
services.
She proposed a citizen task
force to gather information to
guide the council in seeking
improvements.
See EMS, p. 2
Bond impact
BISD tax rate would rise in 1993
Bastrop city repairmen, working from a boat on the Colorado River, replaced a damaged section
of sewer line Friday. So far the temporary line is working fine, officials said.
Temporary fix in place
Permanent sewer line repair being planned
By Janice Butler
Staff Writer’
After a long day’s work with
cranes, boats and other tools
Bastrop wastewater crews com-
pleted temporary repair of a
broken sewer force main under
the Colorado River and turned it
on after dark Friday.
A permanent repair job is
already on the drawing board,
said city water and wastewater
director Mike Fisher.
Friday’s temporary fix cost an
estimated $2,500 plus some $15,000
for trucking sewage from a west
bank pump station to the
wastewater treatment plant over
the previous two weeks, Fisher
said.
He declined to estimate the cost
of a permanent repair.
The Friday patch job involved
bypassing a damaged line seg-
ment with flexible pipe up a
55-foot-high bluff on the river’s
east bank.
Pipe and fittings'were lowered
to river level by a crane from the
Lower Colorado River Authority
to a city crew working from a
boat.
Later the workers secured the
See REPAIR, p. 2
County education districts are
almost certainly gone and with
them any grasp school districts
had on a tax structure for coming
years, including those in Bastrop
County.
With that in mind, Bastrop In-
dependent School trustees have
proposed a worst-case scenario
for setting the tax rate that will
enable a $16 million bond pro-
posal to stand by itself if
necessary, according to
Superintendent Dr. Paul Fleming.
The scenario is based on ab-
solutely no growth in the next 20
years of Bastrop’s $501 million tax
Extra 911 help urged
Bastrop County commissioners
balked Monday at hiring five
new operators to handle 911
emergency calls beginning next
month but agreed to review the
sheriff’s department request
again March 30.
Sgt. Cary Taylor said the new
employees would cost the county
$48,498 for the remainder of the
budget year.
“The money is a problem,” said
County Judge Randy Fritz. “The
larger is we would be adding
$100,000 a year to the sheriff’s
department budget. It’s a policy
decision.”
Taylor said the positions can be
funded with revenue from jail bed
rents above the amount current-
ly budgeted.
Through February this year,
the jail has earned $20,500 above
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projections, he said.
Taylor also argued that given
the current work loads, the
department’s five dispatchers
cannot possibly handle the added
burden of fielding 911 calls when
the system goes on line about the
end of April.
Dispatchers already handle
roughly 700 calls daily, he said.
When the 911 system is fully
operational a lone dispatcher
would face the daunting task of
monitoring and responding to 16
separate communications
devices at once, according to
Taylor.
He said experience elsewhere
also suggests that opening a 911
system typically prompts up to 20
percent more calls.
Commissioner Johnny Sanders
said a survey of nearby counties
showed that only the San Marcos
Police Department added an
employee to assist with 911 calls.
Other area emergency agen-
cies took on 911 without extra
dispatchers, Sanders said.
Taylor said San Marcos already
had telephone operators and
radio dispatchers on duty when
911 went on line.
Fritz conceded that during a re-
cent visit to the dispatch center,
■ !
Advertiser Photo/Janice Butler
Bastrop elementary teacher Nancy McWhirter, left, spent part of her Spring Break last week help-
ing Bastrop High School art teacher Patty Green, right, paint a mural sized canvas depicting Bastrop
history, The picture will be unveiled at Ytesterfest on April 11. For more on the upcoming event,
See 911, p. 2 see Page 7.
base, and it assumes the district
will not receive any state help in
paying for the bonds or the
buildings, both of which are
unlikely, Fleming contends.
He also insists that the finan-
cial impact will not hit local
voters until 1993 taxes falldue, and
it could be less than the bond pro-
posal suggests.
“The bond issue will have no ef-
fect on ’92 taxes. If we stay with
Senate Bill 351,1 would not expect
to see the combined tax ra te go up
at all,” said Fleming.
Taxpayers will have a chance to
vote on the bond issue May 2.
“It’s not easy coming to the
See TAX RATE, p. 2
Hospital
orders plan
A new hospital in the Smithville
area may still be in the picture,
but it will be at least 30 days
before the Smithville Hospital
Authority will have the informa-
tion to answer that question.
Hospital board members
agreed to pay $9,800 to O’Connell,
Robertson and Associates, an
Austin based architectural firm,
to devise a master plan for the
hospital.
Board member Earl Walborg
presented the architects’ five-
phase proposal to other board
members when they met Monday
night.
“They will begin with an on-site
analysis of the present hospital as
it exists today,” he said.
Unfortunately there is very lit-
tle in the way of.plans to show the
architects, and many of the
rooms have been renovated or
altered so the architects will have
to spend some time measuring
and mapping the existing
building, according to Walborg.
As part of the first phase, ar-
chitects will also meet with doc-
tors, administrators and nurses to
See SMITHVILLE, p. 2
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McAuley, Davis. The Bastrop Advertiser (Bastrop, Tex.), Vol. 139, No. 7, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 26, 1992, newspaper, March 26, 1992; Bastrop, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth756135/m1/1/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Bastrop Public Library.