Nacogdoches County commissioners presented the Nacogdoches County Committee on Aging with a grant check worth nearly $2,300 when the court met Tuesday for a regularly scheduled meeting.
Commissioners also approved a resolution designating the grant to help provide home-delivered meals to county residents in need. Between September of 2008 and August of 2009, 56,851 meals were delivered to home-bound elderly and disabled residents inside Nacogdoches County, according to grant documents.
Tammy Blank, director of the Nacogdoches Senior Center and with the local Meals on Wheels program, accepted the ceremonial over-sized grant check on the behalf of the Aging Committee.
"We deliver approximately 240 meals per day to the home-bound," she said at Tuesday's meeting. "We also provide a place for the senior citizens to come and have social contact and a good hot meal." Last year, the state of Texas helped subsidize the meal program with about $44,000 in funds, she added.
In other business, David Selman, area engineer for the Texas Department of Transportation, received the county's blessing for a project to make the intersection of state Hwy. 204 and U.S. Hwy. 259 safer for drivers. With approval from county commissioners, Selman said that he can now seek funding for the project, but that there is no start date set.
"We have a lot of folks coming eastbound on 204 that will merge in with southbound 259," Selman told commissioners. "We've had some accidents there, and I've personally received some calls that there have been some near misses at that intersection."
The proposed plans call for the construction of an acceleration lane for drivers merging from state Hwy. 204 onto the southbound lane of U.S. Hwy. 259 and a deceleration lane to be created for northbound drivers on 259 turning west onto 204. The roadside park that currently sits at the intersection will be removed to make way for the new pathways. If the project is completed, County Judge Joe English said in a previous report that it would ease the flow of 18-wheeler traffic into the future construction site of the biomass power plant near Sacul.
Kenneth King left the Pct. 4 constable's office on Oct. 10 to join the Nacogdoches County Sheriff's Office as an investigator, and county commissioners approved Rusty Allen, formerly with the Angelina County Sheriff's Office, to fill the vacancy in the Pct. 4 constable's office.
"He's a very good person, comes from a very good family, and we'd be fortunate to have him," Pct. 4 Constable Jason Bridges said of Allen, who is a lifelong resident of Nacogdoches County.
Additionally:
Commissioners approved Bridges' request to auction off a 1995 Ford Crown Victoria that was replaced by another law enforcement vehicle this year.
Nacogdoches County Attorney John Fleming was granted funding to hire an independent contractor to review an incident report from the Pct. 1 constable's office. According to English, the request was made because of a possible conflict of interest within the county attorney's office with regard to an investigation. The county attorney's office also received approval to scrap an out-of-use 1996 GMC Jimmy.
Commissioners also elected to find new bids on two properties slated for a tax sale.
