Crockett City Council Proposes Tax Rate
Hears Calls for Fire Department Funding
By Greg Ritchie
Messenger Reporter
CROCKETT – The recent Crockett city council meeting held Monday, Aug. 21 was a busy one, not only suspending several members of the Crockett Economic and Industrial Development Corporation (CEIDC), the council also set their proposed tax rates and reassured residents essential services will be improved.
As the meeting began, Councilman Darrell Jones shared a personal tragedy.
“A few weeks ago, two houses burned down – they belonged to my family members. They lost everything,” Jones said. “The chief (Crockett Fire Department [CFD] Chief Jason Frizzell) told me he didn’t have enough people to handle both fires. Just a few minutes ago, my sister’s house caught on fire. This time, they had enough people to get there in time. So what I am saying to this council is, ‘Get off your butt. Let’s work on the fire department.’ It could have been one of your houses, or anyone else out there.”
When Frizzell later presented his department’s numbers to the council, he addressed Jones’ comments.
“We had two structure fires at the same time, one caused the second one to catch on fire,” Frizzell explained. “When Jones asked me what had happened, I told him, ‘Manpower.’”
As The Messenger has noted frequently in these pages, our county fire departments are desperately under-staffed and in need of volunteers. Even the CFD with some paid staff is suffering from this lack of help, with the cost of hiring, training and equipping a new, full-time person representing a big expense for the city.
“The first truck got there within seven minutes,” Frizzell continued. “The people in the house had to evacuate themselves out of a window. Two of the three who lived there got cut coming out of the window, but otherwise were fine with no burn injuries. I want to commend Crockett Police Department and Officer Blake Dickey who went and rescued the next door neighbor, a blind elderly man and probably saved his life.”
Frizzell said the second truck, manned by an off-duty firefighter and himself, were on the scene within 20 minutes and worked on the fire at the second house, explaining the attic was burned but they were able to save the rest of the home.
Lovelady and Latexo fire departments came and helped make sure nothing else caught on fire with the ground being so dry and making sure the situation did not become worse. Frizzell thanked Grapeland VFD for coming and manning the Crockett station in case a third call came in.
“People have said we did a good job and we could have done a better job if we had more manpower,” Frizzell concluded. “Luckily no one got seriously hurt or died.”
Crockett Mayor Dr. Ianthia Fisher thanked Frizzell and his team, saying she was glad CFD had more resources now than before, but that it is something the city still wants to make better.
Councilman Ernest Jackson said those who have lived in Crockett for most of their lives understand the city operates with a mostly volunteer-based fire department.
“I hear murmuring out there that we need to hire more firefighters,” Jackson said. “It’s not that simple. We are aware that the spirit of volunteerism is dying. Not many people seem interested anymore to work as a firefighter. So it is incumbent upon this council to protect the citizens. We get that. But at some point, it is incumbent upon the citizens to come along with us, because all of us have a stake in this.”
Jackson warned the realities of local government don’t always allow a city to do everything it wants or needs whenever it wants.
“We are looking at options on how we can increase our budget. There isn’t money right now to hire paid, full-time firemen. We need to protect ourselves and our property – with all this dryness and triple-digit heat – we will have more fires. It will take all of us working together, and if we want to hire more people, it will take an increase in our budget,” Jackson said.
Frizzell reported CFD responded to 39 calls in the month of July, 27 of which within the city of Crockett.
Crockett Police Department Chief Clayton Smith reported CPD had 15 officers who worked 2,795 hours in the month of July and responded to 450 calls including five traffic accidents, 47 arrests, issuing 254 traffic citations and completing 76 case reports.
The council held public hearings on both the city budget and the 2023 tax rate which is set to be $0.6813 per $100 appraised taxable value, the same rate as last year. City Administrator John Angerstein explained why the city budget can only support so many programs and projects each year.
“By keeping the same tax rate, this increases the additional tax burden on the average homeowner by $69.80 a year, but the city only brings in a total of $51,000 of new revenue from this – which is why hiring a new firefighter is so difficult. Only a third of our general fund revenue comes from property taxes – and that’s the only tool the council has control over to fund the city.”
The council next awarded a contract to paint the civic center awning, ag arena awning and park pavilion, before welcoming the Keep Crockett Beautiful Committee. (See related article in today’s edition.)
The council finished with public hearings to designate the Crockett Enterprise Zone and a reinvestment zone. Angerstein described the enterprise zone designation as a way for the city to access monies, incentives and abatements based on the latest census data from the Texas Enterprise Zone. The city can receive funds based on the size of the project, the amount of money invested and the number of jobs created. Other criteria included is the poverty rate where projects are proposed and if the projects are on vacant land or under-developed areas.
Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]
