Commissioners fail to agree on designated county engineer

BY DAVE LEWIS, Examiner publisher

The vacancy created by the departure of County Engineer Bobby Lys has left the county without direct oversight of the road and bridge department’s $3.9 million budget and has also left county commissioners scrambling for an answer on how to handle day-to-day operations in the department.

An agenda item to have Precinct 1 Commissioner John Bertling serve as interim manager and commissioners’ court liaison over the road and bridge department failed to gain support from any of the commissioners.

According to County Attorney Jon C. Fultz, the court’s options are limited in a situation where an administrator or engineer is not readily available for hire in the county.

Citing the Texas Transportation Code, Fultz recapped the court’s responsibilities for policy in the department, but that to supervise the department, a qualified appointee should be named. Appointing a liaison would create less of a problem, but there would still need to be someone to supervise daily activities under the county’s unit system of maintenance.

Sam Nobles is the department superintendent and directs foremen responsible for both north and south ends of the county. Precinct 2 Commissioner Bill Pendley said he thinks Nobles is “perfectly capable” of running the department. “I think we should leave it alone and let hiCommissioners fail to agree

on designated county engineerm run it,” said Pendley.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Julian Melchor said, “I don’t think a commissioner should be running the road and bridge department.”

Precinct 4 Commissioner Pam Finke said she’d received several calls from “people who’ve done their homework on the Transportation Code,” and that she was of the opinion the entire court sould conduct regular sessions to supervise the department.

County Judge Betty Shiflett, while expressing complete confidence in Nobles’ ability to manage the department, said her chief concern was having someone on staff, or serving in an official capacity, to have oversight of the $3.9 million operation. “I have great confidence in Sam, but I don’t want a budget that large not accountable to someone,” said Shiflett. “There needs to be oversight. I don’t care who. I have no doubt Sam can do it.”

So far, only one applicant has responded to the county’s on-line advertisement for a county engineer.

Commissioners will revisit the topic in a special session at 1 p.m. Friday.

Also in Monday’s meeting, the court unanimously approved entering into an interlocal agreement with the City of Navasota to pave Veterans Memorial Parkway.

Approval was given conditioned upon acceptable agreements for necessity of the project and for its cost, that bids be advertised for the job and that county funds from the 2007-08 budget be used, not those from the 2008-09 budget.

The county and city will split the cost of the project.

In special session Sept. 26, the court awarded bids for gasoline and diesel, contract bridge services, contract hauling, culverts, road materials and limestone.

Also in last Friday’s meeting, commissioners: