Crockett Council Gets Good News For Water Projects

By Greg Ritchie

Messenger Reporter

CROCKETT – Crockett City Council met Monday, July 15 to handle some new and leftover business, in a mostly cordial atmosphere and with the majority of votes being unanimous. Council members Dennis Ivey and Darrell Jones were absent. There were no public comments. 

Council first took up the matter of offering an abatement from city property tax to Renaissance Treehouse Academy, a child care facility qualifying for some tax relief under Texas law. At that July 1 meeting, Precinct Three Councilwoman NaTrenia Hicks had asked to table the motion, in order to study the issue further. With the need to decide the issue before a state deadline for the abatement at the end of the month, Hicks herself made the motion to proceed to authorize the abatement. 

“I was able to do some research and get an understanding of the tax exemption,” Hicks said. “I found out its not actually a tax exemption, it’s actually a reduction in taxes. With that being said, I have reconsidered my thoughts, due to the research I have done.”

The motion passed unanimously. 

Crockett Police Department (CPD) Chief Clayton Smith presented the police force numbers for the month of June, telling council CPD had a total of 16 officers work 2,539 hours during the month. CPD responded to 452 calls, including 12 accidents, 33 arrests, of which 12 were for assault, one for burglary, two for public intoxication and five for theft. 

Crockett Fire Department (CFD) Chief Jason Frizzell presented his department’s numbers for June, saying, “We’re happy we got the rain in the first part of June. That’s why our numbers are down – we’re not in that drought like we had last year.” 

CFD responded to 40 calls within Crockett, with no structure fires and assisted other county departments seven times. Frizzell informed the council CFD had just passed their inspection from the Texas Commission on Fire Inspection, which happens every two years. 

City Administrator John Angerstein offered some good news to the council, telling them the city had been approved for some grant funding and low-interest funding to help the city with some of the water and wastewater projects. City financial advisor Ben Rosenberg with U.S. Capital Advisors to present the proposals to the city. 

Rosenberg said they had begun working on funding for the $11.2 million sewer project during early 2023, and was able to report the Texas Water Development Board had agreed to give the city a grant for $7.3 million, offering an additional $3 million zero-interest loan. The remaining $1.3 million would need to be covered by a market interest loan. 

A $4 million water project would be funded in part by a $1 million grant, with the rest of the money coming from loans. The board would not officially approve the grants until September, but had notified Rosenberg the monies had been set aside for the city. 

City council was asked to approve the plan to finance that debt for 30 years, which given city revenues from water, should allow the city to pay the loan from existing receipts and not have to charge residents more for water. 

The proposal, which was not actually to seek funding but announce funding would be sought if the grants were approved, was meant to address many of the city’s water-related issues. 

“Two of our biggest expenses are shoring up our water source and our biggest expense, the wastewater plant,” Angerstein said. “This addresses most of the money we need to rebuild everything out there and increase the capacity for future building.”

“Right now we’re paying for water we don’t use,” said Precinct Five Councilman Mike Marsh. “Millions of gallons of water we don’t use.”

The project would aim to revitalize the 1970’s-era wastewater plant and end the waste. 

Purchasing a ladder truck for the fire department and replacing several outdated CPD vehicles would require a tax increase to residents, with Angerstein telling the council the city needs to have a budgeted replacement plan for police vehicles each year, so the number of unusable vehicles does not grow again, causing the city to have to borrow money to replace several vehicles in the fleet. The tax would be somewhere about $26 per year for a $100,000 home. 

“I would really like to request Council support that as we continue moving forward, so we don’t get into this position that are affecting our debt, including police vehicles,” Angerstein said.  “I think you really need to keep a fleet replacement program, just like we’ve been doing with our utilities department, where we’re rotating the trucks and it’s set in the budget. We’d like to do the same thing with our general fund that can keep fresh vehicles and we don’t get into a place where we have multiple vehicles need to be replaced.”

Council approved the measure to seek some kind of funding in September, once the grants have been approved and the interest rates and other loan obligations will be clear. 

Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]