A look back at 2023 in Llano County

It was a busy year for Llano County, much of it involving courtrooms or the potential for court action.

School Lands

It started in January, when county commis - sioners said the tenant of school lands in Tom Green County wasn't living up to his responsibilities. The land is set aside by the state for public schools; the Tom Green land helps finance the Llano Indepen - dent School District, and commissioners – specifi - cally, Pct. 4 Commissioner Jerry Don Moss – oversee the contract.

While the matter nev - er got to an actual law - suit, the lease was ended and another tenant finally signed.

Election Protocol

As some officials wrangled over whether to hand-count ballots, Llano County commissioners voted in February to move $20,000 from the county’s non-allocated funds to the election department to pay for storing election records electronically instead of on paper.

Llano County Elections Administrator Andrea Wilson told commissioners the new system would make it easier to retrieve voting information to meet public information requests, “which you know we’re getting more of.”

The system will also help in getting ready for state elections audits and “it’s also going to assist our addressing for when we are sending out our absentee ballots,” she said.

Book Controversy

In April, the county appealed U.S. Federal Judge Robert Pitman’s restraining order that told the county to replace some removed books to county library shelves.

The appeal went to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which has jurisdiction over Texas federal suits.

Plaintiffs sued the county for removing the books, claiming the removals were improperly done and violated constitutional amendments.

Filing of the appeal puts the original lawsuit on hold; the circuit judges ordered what’s called a “stay” to keep further action from being taken.

At year’s end, circuit judges had heard arguments in the appeal but had issued no opinion.

The removal came in 2022 after some library patrons charged some children’s books were inappropriate.

County Judge Ron Cunningham and commissioners Peter Jones, Linda Raschke, Mike Sandoval and Jerry Don Moss, as well as four members of the county library advisory board, are named as defendants in the suit.

The lawsuit drew national attention at the time.

Library Closure Threat

That same month, commissioners called a special meeting to decide whether to close the county library system entirely.

Llano County libraries include branches in Llano, Kingsland and Buchanan Dam.

After a lengthy but civil session of hearing from both sides, Llano County commissioners voted to take the question of closing county libraries off the agenda, effectively keeping the libraries open.

The item, “continue or cease operations of the current physical Llano County Library System pending further guidance from the Federal Courts,” was virtually the only item on the agenda.

The agenda also allowed for a closed session for discussion.

A parade of 15 speakers argued both sides of the question; seven favored closing the libraries, or at least said the books removed from the shelves are pornographic, and eight told county commissioners to leave the libraries open.

More speakers had signed up, but County Judge Ron Cunningham noted that commissioners court policy allowed for only 30 minutes per agenda item.

Speakers were limited to two minutes each.

Among the speakers favoring closure was Bonnie Wallace, a defendant in a federal lawsuit against the county and vice-chairman of the county’s Library Advisory Board.

Wallace said, “The problem is not the 12 books that were moved (from library shelves). The problem is the 250 that are still on the shelves that talk just like you heard.

The problem with the library could go away.

If we could find a res olution with how to procure the acquisition of new books, we cannot have this stuff in here.”

She was referring to quotations from some books read by other speakers advocating closing the library because of what they consider pornographic books on children’s book shelves.

But Suzette Baker, former Kingsland head librarian, countered, “The library falls under what is called in loco parentis. You know what that means? That means that a librarian cannot and should never act as a parent.”

Two of the books removed from shelves were about the history of the KKK and how to avoid being racist.

The books that raised the ire of detractors included themes about homosexuality, transgenderism and juvenile sexual activity.

Librarian Fired

Baker was fired as Kingsland librarian last year when she refused to remove the books from that library’s shelves.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is investigating her case.

After a 25-minute executive session, commissioners returned to open court, where Pct. 4 Commissioner Jerry Don Moss moved to remove the item from the agenda.

Pct. 2 Commissioner Linda Raschke seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

Broadband Internet

Commissioners took a major step toward county- wide broadband internet in April when they met Patrick King and Hilory Parker of Netstream, a Fredericksburg company the county has chosen to oversee building the network.

The county and Netstream signed a memorandum of understanding on the project.

Pct. 1 Commissioner Peter Jones reminded commissioners that the county in 2021 began investigating the possibility of a county wide network using federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds aimed at COVID assistance.

When students were sent home from school because of the pandemic, many had no internet capability, Jones said.

That qualified the coun ty to use the ARPA funds.

Those should become available next year.

King, Netstream’s CEO, warned commissioners that a fiber network might not be what Llano County gets.

"We build fiber wherev - er we can get fiber," he said, “but there are certain areas where it’s not cost effective.

Llano County is a great example of that.

We have a lot of really pretty terrain and topography.

The flip side of that is, it's somewhat difficult to build in certain areas.”

However, King said dedicated wireless frequencies – frequencies bought by the company and used only by them – will pro- vide sufficient speed and bandwidth.

A memorandum of understanding isn’t a contract, Jones said, “it’s an agreement to agree.”

Jones also told The Highlander in November that voter passage of a constitutional amendment could give the county additional leverage toward financing of a county-wide network.

Land Swap Talks

In August, commission- ers voted finally to aban don the idea of swapping some county land for the Llano city-owned John L. Kuykendall Center, and Llano Mayor Marion Bishop, for one, is okay with that.

So is Pct. 3 Commissioner Mike Sandoval, who opposed the idea from the start.

Commissioners went behind closed doors during their regular meeting to talk the matter over and wouldn’t discuss it later.

Once they returned to open session, Pct. 2 Commissioner Linda Raschke moved simply to end the matter and the motion passed unanimously.

Raschke had joined Sandoval in voting against the swap in May.

“It was short-sighted to try to do anything anyway,” Bishop told The Highlander.

Discussions about trading several parcels of county- owned land for the center began well before Bishop took office earlier this year.

Pct. 4 Commissioner Jerry Don Moss originally estimated it would take “a cou- ple of weeks" to figure out terms of the land swap.

That was in November. Since then commis- sioners switched law firms working on titles and brought the matter up on agendas without resolution.

“I don’t think we were ever going to get it off,” County Judge Ron Cunningham said after Monday’s meeting.

The land swap didn’t get unanimous support county-wide.

Some residents objected that acquiring the Kuyken- dall center wouldn't benefit the county as a whole.

Others agreed with Sandoval, that the county was merely taking on a city liability.

Dam Controversy

In August, an estimated 150 people sat in the Rocksprings ISD auditorium glaring at Greg Garland with a displeasure that was almost palpable.

Garland, former CEO of Houston-based Phillips 66, had applied with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to build a dam on the Lower Llano River, impounding a private lake. The applica- tion was filed on behalf of Waterstone Creek LLC.

But Garland was virtually the only one in favor of the dam, and he apparently got the message.

On Oct. 16, Waterstone Creek LLC withdrew its application, causing cheer among conservation groups and ranchers in Mason, Kimble and Llano counties. All three counties, where the Llano River is the major water supply, had passed resolutions opposing the dam.

“The dam is dead, the dam is dead,” said Linda Fawcett, president of the Llano River Watershed Alliance and a resident of Junction who lives about 60 miles southwest of Gregg’s property.

Environmentalists and residents are now tracking dams said to have been built without permits upstream of Llano County.

“We love nature, we love the river and we want it in its natural state. I thank Mr. Garland for giving us a reason to unite,” Fawcett said.

Water Guarantees

The county in November locked in an ordinance that requires developers to guarantee enough water under proposed developments to support the projects.

Otherwise they won’t get approval for the projects.

County commissioners unanimously approved the rule, which says developers must get either an engineer’s or a geoscientist’s statement that "certifies that adequate groundwater is available for the subdivision.”

The ordinance falls under a new state law that allows, but doesn’t require, counties to pass it.

The law was effective Sept. 1l.

Llano County Attorney Dwain Rogers told The Highlander, “The regulations the county is adopting are the regulations put in place by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the (Texas) Administrative Code.”