Judge: Milam County made positive changes in 2019

Milam County is moving towards a positive outcome and Judge Steve Young took some time during Monday’s Commissioners Court meeting to review those good things including a potential training center for the jobs moving into the county.

Young said there have been several positive improvements throughout the year including improvements to the courthouse, security upgrades, new computers and IT services, radio shows and newspapers articles, county unity, clean up, pay raises and economic development.

He said the four economic summits held in the county over the last year were a great step forward. 

“We talked about what we can do to fix our economic problems,” Young said. “We have to do that ourselves. We are going to leave no stone unturned in terms of economic development. We talked about that in our first summit. We are making good progress with that.”

Young said the first summit for 2020 will be held on Jan. 23. The topic of that summit will be job training.

“What we are going to do is we are going to train the workforce in this county to fill the jobs we have coming to this county,” he said. “We’ve got solar and tech coming and we are going to train them.”

He said he is working with the companies moving to the area to put the training in place so that if you want to go work there you can get the training through Workforce Solutions free of charge. Then you can go to work.

“We met last Thursday with the EDA, Workforce and the COG about a $1 million grant to build a training center in the county for that purpose,” he said. 

Young said the training center will train adults and the CTE programs at the area high schools will also use it for training. He said this is a two-year project and they are working on it.

“If we can train our workforce then they will have something to do here,” he said.

“It’s important for us to have pride in our county,” he said. “There is nothing worse than to drive down the road and see a stack of tires. We took it upon ourselves to clean up. The first thing we did was a tire clean up. We collected 8,500 tires and just got them all hauled off last week.”

He said the county will have another cleanup this year.

Young said the county has also worked to update computer systems and make sure the county is safe from cyber attacks this year.

“That was an expensive undertaking,” he said. “That cost the county $360,000 that we really didn’t have, but we had to do it. We have installed new computers, software and programs across the county.”

He said the county also has a new webpage thanks to Justice of the Peace Greg Hoelscher.

Young said the county was also able to give employees a four percent raise this year.

He also gave an update on the county’s move to the old hospital and turning it into a new county annex.

He said that the county has agreed to trade nine buildings and two lots for 8.5 acres of land and about 40,000 square feet of usable space in annex building.

“What I want to accomplish here are some nice offices for the county employees,” he said. “When you come as the public come to see the county I want you to see a professional office space. I want Bea’s Kitchen to have a nice place to feed those seniors.”

Young said Bea’s Kitchen is the most successful feeding program in the area. They feed 100 people a day. The roof is leaking and it would cost $300,000 to fix. 

“I want us to get out from under these issues,” he said. “I think if we get out of downtown Cameron we can revitalize downtown. If we don’t, nothing is going to change. This gives Cameron a chance to grow.”

He said plans are 80 percent complete with the plans for the new building and they have been sent to John Egger with EBCO to see what he thinks the cost is going to be.

In other business the commissioners also: approved the deputation of Monica Montez in the County Clerk’s Office; approved a subdivision variance for a 4.31 acre tract of land on FM 979 at CR 258; appointed Dana McClaren to replace Durwood Tucker on the POSGCD Board of Directors; approved utility installations; and tabled a lease agreement for vehicles for the Milam County Sheriff’s Department.