Jasper County Commissioners Court 5-19-25

Jasper County Commissioners Court 5-19-25

The Jasper County Commissioners Court met on Monday, May 19, 2025 in a Regular Session and covered the following agenda items:

Jasper County Sheriff Chuck Havard and Major Steve Crowell, presented their monthly Jail report. The Jasper County Jail had invoiced a total of $51,680.00 last month for housing inmates from Newton, Sabine and Liberty Counties, as well as from the City of Jasper and the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas.

The Court voted to authorize the engineering firm Goodwin, Lasiter & Strong to publish a request for contract bids on road and drainage improvement projects under Jasper County’s allocation of the Texas General Land Office Hurricane Harvey MIT Community Development Block Grant. This latest round of grant projects will cover upgrades to County Roads 317, 322, 323 and 328.

Also, under the same program, Jasper County’s grant administrators David Waxman and Lesley Waxman of Waxman, Inc. stated that contract bids were received for the Evadale WC&ID # 1 water impovement program. Grant funding will go to assist in upgrading infrastructure.

Waxman stated that the bids that had come in from Maguire & Caldwell Tanks, Inc, at $617,573.91 were higher than the grant amount budgeted for the project, which was $2,623,426.09. Waxman recommended cutting back on the project scope for rebidding.

The Court noted that the WC&ID # 1 board of directors had also recommended rejection of the bids received and rebid the entire water improvement project. The Court agreed to republish for bids in hopes of receiving a contract within the budgeted amounts.

The Court voted to accept bids received for equipment purchases under Jasper County’s U.S.D.A. Community Wildfire Defense Grant fund. The winning bidders submitting bids on skid steers, mulchers, a truck and trailer were King Ranch Ag & Turf out of Jasper, Weaver Brothers Inc. out of Kirbyville, George P. Bane out of Tyler and ROWMEC Equipment out of Conroe.

Next, the Court voted to authorize the County Auditor to publish for bids for leased oil pugmill services and to research the purchase and to bid a portable unit to make material for use by all four of the Commissioner Precincts.

The Court then voted to accept the deed conveyed by the Rayburn Country Association for roads listed as Deer Park Drive, Black Squirrel Drive, Red Wolf Lane, Racoon Lane and Red Oak Drive in Rayburn Country. The Court also voted to accept these roads into the Jasper County Road System as long as no prior order had been made by a previous Court preventing the roads to be adopted.

Next, the Court heard from Jordan Oliver who is a resident of Angelina County but has ancestral ties with Jasper County going back from before Texas was a Republic. Oliver advised that he was a member of the Alamo Letter Society, a group dedicated to placing a bronze plaque in all 254 Texas Counties containing Lieutenant Colonel William Barret Travis’ Victory or Death letter during the siege of the Alamo.

Oliver advised that Hardin County had completed their project recently, along with other counties in Texas and asked if Jasper County would participate in the project and authorize this plaque to be placed on the Courthouse Square. The Court agreed to participate in the project and authorize the placement of the plaque on the Square.

The Court then discussed the possibility of providing fingerprinting services to the public by placing an Identogo automatic kiosk system in a Jasper County facility open to the public during normal operating hours to allow for the use by citizens that needed fingerprints taken for employment, ATF firearms and equipment purchases, court proceedings or other reasons.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Holloway advised that he had recently utilized a similar system at a local business and found it useful but noted that this business was apparently no longer going to utilize the kiosk.

He advised that the kiosk could generate revenue for Jasper County and that the system was credit card based and that the parent company of Identogo would pay Jasper County a portion from revenues received by the company.

The Court noted that there was no other known system deployed in Jasper County and that citizens here and from neighboring counties would be able to utilize this service instead of traveling longer distances. The Court also noted that Identogo would provide the kiosk, training and materials at no cost to Jasper County.

Tax Assessor/Collector Joe Hawthorn stated that he would be willing to dedicate office space in his department lobby at the Courthouse Annex in Jasper for the kiosk to be used during normal business hours. The Court approved.

The Court then discussed Hawthorn’s request for two additional automotive registration computer systems to be installed at the Jasper Courthouse Annex location and at the Buna SubCourthouse location. Hawthorn advised that the total licensing cost would be $718.00 per year that he would fund through his budget, and that he felt there was a need for the additional system in Buna due to tremendous growth in the amount of citizens utilizing the Buna location.

Hawthorn stated that he was adding the unit to the Jasper office  because he was cross training his staff to process both automotive registrations and property payments, and the addition would allow for less wait times for citizens, which the Court approved.

Concluding business, the Court heard from District Clerk Rosa Norsworthy who presented her monthly civil and criminal fee report and from County Treasurer Rene’ Ellis who presented her monthly finance report, both of which the Court approved.

"That covers it for this Court meeting. Have a great week and as always, feel free to give me a call if you need anything my way."

Mark Allen, County Judge

Jasper County, Texas