The Meadowlakes Community Pool is closed until further notice as the city fights an “obstinate” algae bloom in the water, the city announced on July 9.
The pool will reopen once it is deemed safe for residents.
City Manager Johnnie Thompson was informed of the emerald-colored pool on Sunday, July 7, after one of the pumps quit working. After fixing the pump, crew members turned their attention to scrubbing the sides of the pool to clear away algae deposits.
“When they scrubbed the walls, it turned the water white, so we had to let the filters run to get the plaster out,” he said. “It’s just not a good deal.”
Thompson said the age of the pool, which was built in the 1970s, has compounded the issue.
“All the plaster is gone, so you can’t clean it,” he said. “It’s terrible.”
One silver lining for the city is this summer marks the final season for the old pool. A new community pool will be built with part of a $7.5 million voter-approved bond that will also go toward renovating city facilities.
“I can’t wait!” Thompson exclaimed in regards to the bond.
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A forensic audit of the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office ordered in September 2023 could be available within the next four weeks, according to Burnet County Judge James Oakley. The Commissioners Court voted almost a year ago to hire third-party accounting firm BakerTilly to conduct the audit for alleged payroll irregularities. The cost was not to exceed $20,000.
At the time the audit was ordered, Sheriff Calvin Boyd denounced it as a waste of taxpayer money. He said there might have been inconsistent labeling associated with training hours versus normal hours but not any wrongdoing.
“Nobody got paid for hours that they didn’t work,” Boyd told DailyTrib.com after the Burnet County Commissioners Court meeting on Tuesday, July 9. “I don’t know how an audit can change that.”
The sheriff said last year that Oakley’s audit was in retaliation for a series of charges brought against the judge in March 2023. Oakley was suspended from office on March 15 after a grand jury handed down four charges relating to abuse of office.
The suspension was lifted in August 2023, when a Blanco County jury found him not guilty of misuse of government property. District Attorney Wiley “Sonny” McAfee appealed three other charges that were quashed by a district judge to the Third Court of Appeals, Texas Division, where they are still pending a court ruling.
Oakley defended the audit on Tuesday.
“I am hopeful that we will have the report from BakerTilly very soon, hopefully by the next Commissioners Court meeting,” he said. “I am very confident that it will confirm everything that has been found internally.”
The judge told DailyTrib.com he could not discuss audit specifics without the final report.
“We just want to make sure timesheets were accurate,” he said.
At the time of the initial investigation into alleged payroll irregularities, Sheriff Boyd said the district attorney had already looked into the BCSO payroll and found no wrongdoing.
“What we saw (in our investigation) was nothing that was criminal,” DA McAfee said. “(The information) was referred to in (the Sheriff’s Office) database one way, and it should have been another way. My takeaway was, yes, (the deputies) had worked the hours. (The Sheriff’s Office) had just labeled those hours in a different way.”
The county brought in BakerTilly to get an impartial report on BCSO activities, Oakley said.
“The whole purpose of doing this (forensic audit) was so that an outside firm would do it to ensure that there was no bias to the findings,” he said.
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A Llano County library lawsuit regarding removed books will be reheard before the full U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans around Sept. 23. A three-judge panel’s June 6 ruling in support of a preliminary injunction issued by a lower court has been vacated.
Appellants (defendants) in the Leila Little et al. v. Llano County et al. civil suit have until Aug. 2 to file an en banc (full court) brief. Appellees (plaintiffs) have until Sept. 3 to file a brief. As of Monday, July 8, the exact time and date for oral arguments had not been set.
On June 6, the three-judge panel ruled 2-1 in favor of the plaintiffs, 365 days after hearing oral arguments last summer. The majority opinion stated the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their case on claims that their First Amendment rights were violated when 17 books were removed from the library system’s shelves and online catalog on the instruction of government officials, who called them “pornographic filth.” The books included a national bestseller on racism and the KKK and several written by LGBTQ+ authors on issues in the gay community. Also removed were children’s picture books that joked about farts and butts.
“Government actors may not remove books from a public library with the intent to deprive patrons of access to ideas with which they disagree,” Court of Appeals Judge Jacques L. Wiener wrote in the majority opinion in June.
The ruling upheld a preliminary injunction issued on March 30, 2023, to re-shelve 17 books, but reduced the number to eight. (The children’s books do not have to be returned because they do not discuss political ideas, according to the ruling.) The defendants appealed Judge Robert Pitman’s order from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in Austin to the Fifth Circuit.
The district court case has been on hold since the appeal was filed.
The case has national consequences and has drawn scrutiny from major book publishers and state attorneys general.
The Association of American Publishers, seven major book publishers, and three library-related associations filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief supporting the plaintiffs during the original hearing last summer.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, along with 15 other states, filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of the defendants in asking for an en banc hearing.
The plaintiffs in the suit, which was filed in April 2022, are Llano County residents and library system users Leila Green Little, Jeanne Puryear, Kathy Kennedy, Rebecca Jones, Richard Day, Cynthia Waring, and Diane Moster.
The defendants are Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham; county commissioners Peter Jones, Linda Raschke, Mike Sandoval, and Jerry Don Moss; library system Director Amber Milum; and Library Advisory Board members Gay Baskin, Bonnie Wallace, Rochelle Wells, and Rhonda Schneider.
BOOKS IN QUESTION
The 17 books removed from library shelves are:
“Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” by Isabel Wilkerson
“They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
“Spinning” by Tillie Walden
“In the Night Kitchen” by Maurice Sendak
“It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health” by Robie Harris
“My Butt is So Noisy!,” “I Broke My Butt!,” and “I Need a New Butt!” by Dawn McMillan
“Larry the Farting Leprechaun,” “Gary the Goose and His Gas on the Loose,” “Freddie the Farting Snowman,” and “Harvey the Heart Had Too Many Farts” by Jane Bexley
“Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen” by Jazz Jennings
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The EDC Board of Directors considered a roughly $1.24 million bid from Schmidt Electric for electrical work on the bridge and throughout the city’s parks system during a regular meeting on July 2. Of that amount, about $845,000 is slated for bridge lighting.
“I think we need a conclusion on this maintenance question before we can act on this,” said EDC board President Steve Reitz. “If we’re on the hook for (maintaining), it’s a totally different situation.”
If approved, plans include illuminating the west side of the bridge. The city would be able to change the colors of the lights for special events, such as holidays and Friday night football games.
“I really support the bridge thing,” Reitz said. “I think the impact of that, overall, for our projects going on down in the parks area, is pretty significant.”
Attempts to determine whether the EDC or TxDOT would be responsible for bridge light maintenance have so far been unsuccessful, according to EDC Executive Director Christian Fletcher.
“I will continue trying,” he said. “They’re busy, and we’re dealing with stuff that isn’t squarely on their critical priority radar.”
The state traffic agency has been difficult to communicate in the past, he continued.
“We’ve asked for feedback on the future of the 281-1431 (intersection) and have gotten no response on that,” said Fletcher, referring to an inquiry to TxDOT regarding the EDC’s recent $2 million purchase of a property at U.S. 281 and RR 1431. “It’s impactful to the property we bought in terms of what can be done there. They’ve just been radio silent.”
Director Ryan Nash shared his view on the lights if the EDC was tasked with maintaining them.
“I wouldn’t want us to be in the maintenance business and maintaining these light fixtures,” he said. “They’re going to break. They’re going to wear out. Changing them would be a nightmare. We’d be encumbering future EDC boards to figure out how to deal with that.”
He argued that TxDOT should maintain the new lights.
“On a highway structure, it seems like the state ought to take care of it if they agree to let us install them,” Nash said.
Director John Packer reminded officials that the majority of the lights currently maintained by TxDOT are out of service.
“More of them are out than that are on,” he said. “I counted the other day. There are 16 lights. I think I counted nine of them that were out.”
Another issue for EDC directors is the potential traffic impact associated with installation.
“With traffic being what it is already, and then condensing it to one lane for however long, there’s going to be a lot of public outcry with that,” said EDC board Vice President Mark Mayfield.
Fletcher was unable to provide a timeline for how long it would take to install the new lights.
Director Lindsay Plante echoed the concerns set out by Mayfield and Nash.
“Every time there’s going to be any repair or maintenance, we might have to go get the permit, the crane, and be the ones responsible for shutting down a lane on the bridge,” she said. “That’s hard to swallow for me because, right now, we already have lights and they’re nice lights.”
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An end is in sight to the Hill Country Humane Society’s battle against an outbreak of canine distemper, a contagious and deadly virus. Since June 3, the virus has upended the shelter’s operations, killing eight dogs and forcing a stoppage of animal intakes.
The situation could have been much worse, HCHS leaders say.
“(Dealing with the outbreak) has definitely been really hard, and it’s nothing short of heartbreaking watching this happen to our dogs, but we are dedicated.” Hill Country Humane Society Executive Director Paighton Corley told DailyTrib.com during a July 3 tour of the shelter. ”Our team is fighting to save everybody that we can.”
A dog brought into the Buchanan Dam shelter from Kingsland in early June was carrying the virus, which likely led to the outbreak, Corley said.
In total, 44 of the 111 dogs at the Hill Country Humane Society showed symptoms of the virus after initial exposure to the infected dog. The virus can have a kill rate of 50 percent in adult dogs and up to 80 percent in puppies. Vaccination protocols kept the outbreak from reaching those levels, Corley said.
The shelter director hopes the virus will have run its course within the next two to three weeks, but it won’t technically end until all dogs test negative. Right now, each exposed animal needs to be tested every few days at $88 a pop.
Canine distemper has no cure once it is contracted, but it can be prevented by vaccination. According to Corley, the dogs most impacted were those that had direct exposure immediately upon arrival, before they could be vaccinated. The rest were able to better manage the symptoms because vaccinations had time to set in.
Eight out of the 44 symptomatic dogs were humanely euthanized once they exhibited late-stage neurological symptoms, which inevitably lead to seizures and paralysis.
“Emotionally and physically, this (outbreak) has been one of the hardest things I have ever dealt with,” Hill Country Humane Society Medical Manager Theresa Hudler told DailyTrib.com as she performed a checkup on Bentley, one of the shelter’s quarantined dogs. “We’re rounding the corner on this, and we’re going to conquer it.”
Hill Country Humane Society Medical Manager Theresa Hudler performs a checkup on Bentley, a dog that might be suffering symptoms of the canine distemper virus. Staff photo by Dakota Morrissiey
Hudler has been at the shelter for 10 years and has never seen a case of active canine distemper come through its doors. She said the work has been especially challenging because of the close bonds between staff and dogs.
The shelter has been divided into several quarantine rooms. Many of the healthy animals are being kept in outdoor kennels to help prevent exposure. However, even a vaccinated dog can carry the virus and pass it on.
“We’d never normally house dogs outside, especially in the Texas heat,” Corley said. “We’d never do this if we didn’t have distemper inside.”
The dogs are provided shade and water, but it is still less than ideal to keep them outdoors in the summer. Burnet-based metal fabricator Nailhead Spur donated several handmade kennels to the shelter. Corley estimated they would have cost $5,000 if purchased outright.
While the shelter has been unable to take in stray dogs since the outbreak began, staff and volunteers have still been hard at work in the community. Corley said they have vaccinated over 1,500 pets at free clinics over the course of the outbreak.
If you’re interested in lending a helping hand to the Hill Country Humane Society, it always needs donations and foster homes. Every dog taken out of the shelter and fostered in a home makes room for another dog in the kennels.
Learn more about fostering on the Hill Country Humane Society website or by contacting 512-793-5463 or info@hchstexas.com
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People and their pets should stay away from algae in the Highland Lakes, warned the Lower Colorado River Authority, after a dog died following a swim in Lake Travis on July 4. Toxic algae exposure in Lake Travis near Point Venture could be the cause of death, according to the LCRA, which is awaiting test results.
“LCRA strongly recommends that people and pets avoid all contact with algae in the Highland Lakes,” reads a July 5 notice from the authority. “Algal material can begin producing toxins at any time without a change in appearance, and ingesting the toxins can be dangerous and potentially even fatal to animals.”
Algae is not always dangerous, according to the LCRA, but with excessive sunlight, warmer or stagnate water, and an increase in nutrients in the water from fertilizers or lawn waste, a massive growth can produce higher-than-normal levels of toxins that can be dangerous to humans and animals if touched or ingested.
Swimmers should avoid stagnant, shallow water with obviously large amounts of algae. Pet owners should prevent their animals from ingesting lake water or swimming in shallow areas. If children or pets do swim in shallow lake water, wash them off immediately afterward.
Symptoms of toxic algae exposure include skin or eye irritation, rashes, diarrhea, cramps, vomiting, fainting, dizziness, or numbness in the extremities. Small children and animals are particularly at risk and can exhibit symptoms within minutes of exposure.
The most effective ways to reduce algae are to physically remove it and avoid fueling it with fertilizer and lawn waste.
The LCRA does not recommend using chemicals to kill algae during a bloom because it can drastically increase the levels of toxicity as the algae dies.
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discuss and consideration of 2023-24 and 2024-25 fiscal year budget; review of proposed year-end financials, capital projects, tax rate, and associated debt
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The “coming soon” sign for Raising Cane’s at 2711 U.S. 281 in Marble Falls has been removed. The sign had been up since at least June 24.
The bright red banner raised the hopes of fans of the fast food chain’s chicken fingers and signature sauce, but Raising Cane’s corporate office was unaware of a new store in Marble Falls.
A Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers ‘coming soon’ sign popped up at 2711 U.S. 281 North back in June. Staff photo by Nathan Bush
“At this time, we do not have a location planned for your area,” reads a company statement on June 28 in response to an inquiry from DailyTrib.com. “Since it is our vision to have restaurants all over the world and be known as the brand for quality chicken finger meals. We will certainly keep your suggestion in mind for our future growth plans.”
At the time of the sign’s installation, Marble Falls Development Services officials told DailyTrib.com that no permits for the restaurant had been issued. The empty building at the U.S. 281 site previously housed two other fast food eateries: Jack-in-the-Box and, most recently, Church’s Chicken.
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The Burnet County Jail is on trend to meet its budgeted expenditures and revenues for the 2023-24 fiscal year despite a rocky start and the rising costs of goods and services. The lockup is one of the single-largest expenses for the county, and its operation is a delicate balancing act.
After months of work acquiring new contracts and bringing on a full staff, the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office could end FY 2023-24 with the jail budget in the black.
“Revenue-wise, we’re ahead of the curve,” said Chief Deputy Alan Trevino in an interview with DailyTrib.com after the regular meeting of the Burnet County Commissioners Court on June 28. “We started off the year below the mark, but here we are, nine months later, and we’re significantly above it.”
The Burnet County Jail is funded by revenues derived from out-of-county prisoner intakes. For FY 2023-24, the jail must make at least $5.16 million to hit its target revenues. The fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, and the jail seems to be on track to meet or exceed projected revenues, according to Burnet County Auditor Karin Smith.
“Right now, the jail is on trend to cover budgeted expenditures this year,” Smith told DailyTrib.com.
The jail’s total yearly budget is roughly $9 million. This figure is made up of projected revenues, $5.16 million this year, and a contribution from the county general fund.
This year, the county plans to contribute about $3.8 million to the jail’s budget. If the jail were not able to meet its target revenues, the county would be forced to make up the difference.
Burnet County Judge James Oakley explained to DailyTrib.com that the jail is not necessarily designed to be profitable or cover all of its own costs. It is an essential public service.
“The jail is just a very expensive thing,” he said. “Its never a break-even thing.”
For perspective, the county’s FY 2023-24 operating budget is about $40 million. The $3.8 million contributed to the jail is 9.5 percent of the county’s total operating expenses.
The Commissioners Court approved an interlocal agreement with Bexar County during the June 28 meeting that will allow for up to 120 inmates to be transferred to the Burnet County Jail from Bexar County. That should bring in significant revenues. This new contract helps make up for a once-lucrative contract with Bell County that was cut in half in 2023, from 200 prisoners to 100.
The Bexar County contract is just the latest in a series of positive moves made by the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office to bolster the jail’s finances. The jail also became fully staffed in May, meaning more efficient operations and a decrease in unbudgeted overtime expenditures.
The jail’s fiscal health was brought under the public eye in November 2023 when Judge Oakley and Auditor Smith raised concerns about a drastic increase in medical expenses and lagging numbers at the outset of FY 2023-24.
These concerns were addressed with the formation of a committee that examined the jail’s operations and identified means of how they could be improved.
When the committee was formed in December 2023, the jail faced a 64 percent increase to its medical coverage costs, from $771,000 to $1.265 million. This was the lowest bid received for medical services, according to BCSO Capt. Matt Kimbler, who runs the jail.
While medical costs were a blow, the jail is currently managing well, according to Chief Deputy Trevino.
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