Inter-local deal with Longview causes county clash

Part of the following story was omitted in Wednesday’s News Herald.

With over $3.5 million worth of road-building equipment in the county’s parking lot, Pct. 2 Gregg County Commissioner Darryl Primo finds it downright weird that the county gives the city of Longview a check for road maintenance each year.

Primo was the lone dissenter when county commissioners voted in what has become an annual tradition to pay for road repairs “for an amount not to exceed $400,000.” It’s a case of double-dipping on the taxpayer, he said.

County Judge Bill Stoudt disagrees.

The commission voted to write a check to the City of Longview for their 2010 pavement management program for asphalt recycle and overlay to cover reimbursement of contractor’s services and materials.

The city of Longview has hired an out-of-state company from Kansas to do the projects, which include overlay on portions of 4th, Cotton, Martin Luther King Jr. and Hawkins Parkway, and the Longview city council approved the award in the amount of $437,970.

“The city appreciates the continued support given by Gregg County,” wrote Keith Bonds, the city’s director of public works, in the request memo.

Most of Darryl Primo’s precinct is within the Longview city limits, but he is not on board with that.

The original interlocal agreement had neighbors giving each other a hand - the city of Longview helped with providing fire and emergency protection in surrounding rural county areas, and in return they got a helping hand with their roads.

“Where this has gotten off track – we’re not talking abut the county doing the work, we’re talking about making a cash gift,” Primo said.

“It’s very common to have interlocal agreements … I think it is very rare for cash gifts to be made,” he said.

“The original agreement was a fair tradeoff, in exchange for ambulance and fire protection we would assist the cities with street work,” Primo said, estimating that the interlocal agreement with Longview has been in place at least two decades.

(While Primo asserted in an earlier version of this article that the assignment of a County check to handle Longview City roadwork was never done prior to Judge Bill Stoudt’s taking office, Stoudt said Friday that a quick record check revealed that in 2002, former County Judge Smith gave Longview a $300,000 check for the county’s part in the interlocal agreement.

Primo said the current interlocal system has taxpayers being taxed twice.

“The point is there’s a better way to do it for the taxpayers - to use the county equipment and the county men to lay the asphalt that the county taxpayers have already paid for.

“I’m not suggesting I want the county to be doing city streets. Those are city streets, period,” Primo said.

“The taxpayers are already paying for street departments .. It’s unfair to the City of Kilgore and the City of Gladewater and any other municipality. Why should they be taxed to pay for the streets in the city of Longview?” he said.

So does the county have the wherewithal to help Longview get its roadwork done?

Perhaps not a stockpile of road construction toys, but since 2005, according to a list from Primo’s office, Gregg County has bought or leased or gotten terms on about $3.618 million worth of roads equipment. Of that list, there are 15 machines that cost about $100,000 or more each.

By precinct, they include:

Pct. 1: a Caterpillar motorgrader, a Caterpillar reclaimer, a Caterpillar steelwheeled roller, and a $321,000 laydown machine budgeted in 2010.

Pct. 3: a Caterpillar motorgrader, a $289,000 Cedar Rapids asphalt paver, three Mack dump trucks, an $274,000 excavator and a wheel loader.

Pct. 4: a Noram turbo motor grader, a Case wheel loader and two dump trucks.

“There’s Third World countries that don’t have that kind of equipment. Why are they not using it to pave streets? The logic of it is lost from a business standpoint,” Primo said, adding that he routinely has voted no on the payment arrangement with the city of Longview for the last five years.

“It is good politics for the county judge, but other than the politics, it’s a lose-lose for the taxpayers,” Primo said.

Gregg County Judge Bill Stoudt said the arrangement is not about politics – unless they’re on Commissioner Primo’s part.

“That’s what he plays; we don’t, nor do the commissioners. This is about getting good things done in the community,” Stoudt said.

“He voted for the budget that had (the payment to Longview) in it,” Stoudt said, adding that Primo voted for the requested road equipment over the past year.

Stoudt said the city’s assistance with fire service and EMS service in rural county areas is probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars – and keeps the county from having to buy fire equipment.

Additionally, the city provides striping services on county roads, since the county doesn’t have a striping machine. Also, the Longview-based Emergency Operations Center coordinates with several area communities.

The interlocal agreement with Longview was reviewed by the county’s legal and auditing departments and found to be okay, Stoudt said.

The problem with providing county assistance with paving Longview streets can be summed up in the words “curb” and “gutter,” he said.

“Our equipment is not set up to pave streets that have curbs and gutters,” he said, noting that contractors Longview works with have such machines that do the street, curb and gutter all together in two swipes.

“I’m not an engineer, but that’s the way it was explained to me by engineers and city people,” he said. “The checks are for work we don’t have the equipment to do.”

Stoudt said the county does projects with communities that don’t require special equipment, such as paving the parking lot at Pine Tree High School at Primo’s request.

The county has interlocal agreements with area school systems, the cities of Kilgore, Gladewater, Lakeport, Easton and others.

“Whatever we can do to assist all municipalities, manpower, equipment, cash or in kind .. that’s part of the mission of county government,” Stoudt said, citing the work done on the state highway at the Kilgore Economic Development Corporation’s Synergy Park.

“We did all the work on the state highway – KED provided cash for the material, TexDOT provided the cost of engineering – it was a partnership,” he said.

“More and more, you will see more and more partnerships of money and/or inkind work being done between the municipalities. We have money in the budget for overlay programs in the city of Kilgore this year,” Stoudt said.

As for the Longview taxpayers – well, they pay Gregg County taxes too, Stoudt said.

“The court has to look at what’s best overall for the county, not what’s best for a precinct. Darryl (Primo) represents these people in the city of Longview and he doesn’t want to help them with county money? I don’t quite understand that part,” he said.

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In other business Wednesday, commissioners voted to approve an from requirement that they seek competitive bids for technical services and software required to index county records with the company Manatron, Inc. The county clerk’s office uses Manatron’s GRM recorder equipment, and is the developer and sole owner of the Anthem system.

In other business, even though Hurricane Ike is an 18-month-old issue, it’s still on the front burner. The commission passed an “Urgent Need” resolution declaring Tryon Road Special Utility District, Liberty City Water Supply Corp., Glenwood Water Supply Corp. and West Gregg Special Utility District as eligible for Urgent Need funding under the Disaster Recovery Grant Program of the Texas Department of Rural Affairs Disaster Recovery division.

The grant application submitted by Mary Kay of Amazing Grants seeks backup generators for pumps “due to the failure to function of the public utility water and sewer facilities” around the time of the hurricane that occurred around Sept. 13, 2008.

The commissioners approved a request from the fire marshal to adopt the NFPA 101 Life Safety Code 2009 edition, with the exclusion of the residential sprinkler requirement, as adopted by the Texas Legislature.

Two requests from the Gregg County sheriff ’s office for the use of inmate labor were approved.

Inmate labor will be used to help the East Texas Lions, a non-profit organization, an annual request, and with the Longview Museum of Fine Arts with the demolition of the front of a building in conjunction with a Main Street façade grant.

The county commission approved a task order of $150,450 to KSA Engineers of Longview for professional engineering services related to the parking lot reconstruction and expansion at the East Texas Regional Airport.

The commission designated Dorothy Walker (Commissioner Charles Davis’ designee) and Billy Hatten (Commissioner John Mathis’ designee) to the health care trust advisory board.

Commissioners granted a waiver of principal and interest in the amount of $117.99 for the 2008 taxes for Jimmy and Debbie Broyles.

Also approved, $1,458 for the purchase of two ovens for the Judson Community Building.

The commission approved a proclamation declaring April Child Abuse Prevention Month in Gregg County. According to the procla-