Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 102, No. 130, Ed. 1 Sunday, June 1, 1980 Page: 1 of 34
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Sulphur Springs
VOl. 102—NO. 130.
NjMus-Sfelwjrom
Sunday
FoynSECTC«6
Two views on civic center improvement
’The people should
have a vote on it'
-A News-Telegram Special Report-
-By Jim Moore, Staff V/jiter-
Donnie Wisenbaker is confident that his
campaign to obtain signatures on petitions
calling for a public vote on expenditures to
finance improvements to the Regional
Civic Center in Sulphur Springs will be
successful.
At midweek, Wisenbaker said he aready
had accumulated almost 500 signatures on
petitions, and “I believe we’ll have
reached 1,000 by the end of the week. ’ ’
Wisenbaker is the man who announced
to the Hopkins County Commissioners
Court Tuesday that he is circulating
petitions to stop the issuance of $250,000 in
certificates of obligation (COs) by
requiring the county to hold a bond elec-
tion.
If the bond election fails, the county will
be out about $5,000 for its cost.
If the bond issue passes, the center
improvement costs will still be about the
same — whether financed by bonds or by
certificates of obligation — according to
the county’s financial advisor, Dan Almon.
Wisenbaker says that he is not against
the idea of completing the Civic Center but
is instead against the concept of being too
“fancy”.
“I read about the issuance of the COs in
the paper back when it was only $150,000,”
Wisenbaker says. “I called Judge (Joe R.)
Pogue and he told me there would be a
public hearing. But we never had that
public hearing.
“The judge called me and told me that
we’d need to get a petition.
“When I found out they’re going for a
quarter of a million dollars — that’s when
I called the Attorney General’s office and
they told me about how to go about the
petition. I drew one up and had it checked
by an attorney.
“Besides, even with $250,000, they can
only get about 80 to 90 percent of what they
(the Civic Center Board) want, so I’m
told,” Wisenbaker said.
“The key to that is what they want, not
what they need.
"I’m not knocking the Civic Center
workers who have put in a lot of their own
time. In their way of thinking they’re
right.
“In my way of thinking, it’s too much,”
he said.
Wisenbaker is quick to agree that the
ventilation system is needed in the
livestock arena but on the auditorium, he
says that the Sulphur Springs Independent
School District “should carry the ball on
that.”
Hospital parking
plan to board
A request for rezoning, one to widen
a street and a public hearing are on
the agenda for the Sulphur Springs
Planning and Zoning Commission at
its meeting Monday at 7 p.m. at the
Municipal Building.
Albert J. Burris will request
rezoning from Residential II to local
business for property located at 715
Houston St. and David Jackson,
representing Memorial Hospital, will
be present to. request - widening of
Memorial Drive at the hospital to
allow more parking. i
A public hearing will be held on the
request of Cannon Craft to close a
portion of Longino Street.
Ed Rosamond of Cannon Craft has
told the City Commisson and the
Planning and Zoning Commission that
the closure and vacating of an
easement will allow the local com-
pany to go into a two-year expansion
program that will increase the tax
base of the company and provide
more jobs for local area residents.
Rain remains
in forecast
The National Weather Service
forecast calls for partly cloudy skies,
warm temperatures, and continued
high humidity through Monday. There
is a chance of widely scattered
thundershowers in the late afternoon
and evening hours Sunday and
Monday.
Temperatures are expected to
range from daytime highs in the lower
90s to overnight lows in the low 70s.
Hie mercury climbed to 07 degrees
Friday under partly cloudy skies. The
temperature dropped to 70 early
Saturday morning for an overnight
—
“The other school districts won’t get the
benefit of that stage,” Wisenbaker said,
“they had to furnish their own.
“I’m a taxpayer too and live in the
Sulphur Springs School District. In a way,
it’s taking it out of one pocket and putting
it into another — it’ll still have to be paid
for.
“They need to go ahead and put the steel
up to hang the curtains and put the ven-
tilation in the arena,” Wisenbaker said.
He advocates that the board of directors
has adopted more for the auditorium than
is really needed.
“I wouldn’t support $250,000,” Wisen-
baker says. “I would support the needs of
the Civic Center, but not the wants. What,
we need is fiscal responsibility.”
Wisenbaker says that normally he has
been one to sit back and observe the
government at work.
“But if you don’t like the way things are
going, you have to demonstrate the rights
that the Constitution gives us or just sit
back and moan and groan about it,” he
said, "I just decided to be a doer.
“Any time you spend $250,000, the people
should have a vote on it.
"The people are going to need a feasible
tax office. I believe that the people aren’t
as easy to sell on bond issues as they were
in the past.
“If a study were made by experts and the
people are told the reasons why it’s not
feasible to repair the tax office or the jail
— if valid reasons are given — the people
will vote for it. Expert advice is cheap at
any price.
“We need to build a jail and we need to
renovate (the inside of) the courthouse,”
Wisenbaker said, “but we need to spend
money like it’s the last dollar we had.”
Wisenbaker says a reduction in the
expenditure at the Civic Center could be
used for the jail or other needed projects.
“But this stuff about no new taxes is like
Roosevelt’s New Deal where we would
spend our way to prosperity,” Wisenbaker
said, “and just look at our national debt.
“They say it will come out of fines and
fees but we need less felons and
misdemeanor offenders — not more.
Anytime you spend $250,000 you've got to
pay for it.”
As to the petition campaign, “I started it
rolling mySelf. We’ve got petitions in
Brashear, Ridgeway, Saltillo, Weaver,
Birthright, Sulphur Bluff, Cumby, Martin
Springs, Como, Pickton and here in
Sulphur Springs,” he said. “The ball really
got started rolling since the people became
aware of it (the petition). There’s no
organization behind it, just people like
myself who are taking the ball and running
with it.
“If the people vote it (bond issue) down,
we’ll know about it,” Wisenbaker said,
“and if they don’t, we’ll know about that
too."
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Petitioner
Donnie Wisenbaker, who is trying to stop the issuance of certificates of i
amounting to $250,000 for improvements to the Regional Civic Center, displays use
of the petitions he is circulating in an effort to obtain the signatures of five percent of
the registered voters to call for a bond election on the same amount of money. Me
says he is confident more than enough signatures will be obtained on the petitions.
tar 2»
Grant fund review set
i £ fimbi
The move toward the second
funding of the Sulphur Springs Con
Development Block Grant (CDBG)
program will begin Monday night in Mount
Pleasant.
Glenn Wagner will review the city’s
application to the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development for
$483,000 in second-year funding at the
Executive Committee meeting of the Ark-
Tex Council of Governments.
The meeting will be held in the Titus
County Civic Center beginning at 7 p.m.
Sulphur Springs is about to conclude the
current fiscal year’s funding of the three-
year comprehensive grant.
The three-year, ilJMJN program a
approved on an annual boss with the city
re-applying each year.
For 1980, the city was granted IfJM
That money has been spent on or
obligated for the rehabilitation of houses,
relocation of families, ctearancr of sub-
standard structures and the begmwng d
the pavement and drainage improvements
on Front Street
All of the work under the CDBG has to be
within the area bounded by College Street
on the north, Oak Avenue on the nest,
Whitworth Street on the South mi Cams
Landmark church tumbles
Tho old Evening Chapol Methodist Church building on Putman
Street Saturday morning was being torn down to make way for a
parking lot and a fellowship hall. According to a member of the
church, the huHdtag it around •* years old and is ono of the
oldest brick churches in a Mack ciwwunHy hi To
Mehlhoff, who got the contract to ill ms Mlidto hud
would take about a week to rfHMuo Mtos
Sommer doss
plan scrubbed
Eheaes
to to
IMtaad
—
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Keys, Clarke. Sulphur Springs News-Telegram (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 102, No. 130, Ed. 1 Sunday, June 1, 1980, newspaper, June 1, 1980; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth824815/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.