Fire Substation Funding Awaits Contract Amendment

GRAND SALINE — The controversy about an expected $25,000 check issuance to the city of Grand Saline has been quieted for now, but the money itself is still on hold.

Monday night, the Van Zandt County Emergency Services District (ESD) No. 2 directors met to confer with its attorney, Paul Elliott, about the money that has been earmarked for construction of a new fire/ambulance substation in the Sand Flat community.

Board president Doyle Milliorn announced the outcome was that attorneys for the ESD and the city of Grand Saline will begin negotiating an amendment to the contract currently between the two entities.

The amendment, as Elliott explained, will specifically address real estate issues.

"The only issue is the $25,000 requested by the city to begin building this substation," Milliorn told the assembled crowd of about 25 people. "The city of Grand Saline owns the land and if we (ESD) give money to the city to build a building, we have no title and no ownership of it, yet we are responsible for those tax dollars to do this."

The ESD wanted something in place for its financial protection should, for any reason, the substation be closed or abandoned by the city.

Elliott said he did not foresee any difficulty in resolving the issue, but explained the original agreement between the city and ESD did not cover real estate issues.

In answering a question from the audience, Elliott said the agreement "didn’t cover improvement of real estate or its purchase."

"Where you could run into a problem is, for instance, if it became a county ESD or some new state-mandated entity," he said.

"I can’t fathom the city would ever go away, but there doesn’t need to be assumptions. The current agreement didn’t address real property because it just wasn’t contemplated at that time," Elliott added.

An amendment to cover real estate issues would prevent "problems down the road," he explained.

"Everybody on both sides may be fine with things now, but in years to come, you could have different groups and different personalities. A contract brings consistency," Elliott said.

On Thursday, Grand Saline City Administrator Stephen Ashley said construction of the Sand Flat substation could not begin until the funds in question were received.

At the meeting, volunteer firefighter Bobby Sirmans expressed some dismay at what he said seemed like another delay for the substation project.

"It feels like we’re getting put off again on this, but I understand what you are saying about the contract," he said.

"I believe the money has already been budgeted," Elliott replied, "and I feel the ESD board will expedite it as quickly as possible."

Monday’s special meeting was set out of concerns some board members had with action taken in its regular meeting earlier in the month. The special meeting had originally been set for Jan. 19 but was postponed for six days because of an incorrect posting of the meeting’s date.

Milliorn briefly mentioned an issue he said stemmed from the previous meeting on Jan. 11. In that meeting, he said, outgoing directors John Teague and Harry Clifford voted on a motion within the consent agenda regarding the budgeted money although their terms had officially expired.

Incoming directors John Robison and Sid Shuemake were present at that meeting and waiting to be sworn into office, Milliorn said. However, Elliot had advised the board that there was "nothing illegal" about the motion made and voted upon by the now-former directors.

Clifford, sitting in the audience, later defended the action.

"That motion was part of the consent agenda, which included the minutes from the previous meeting and the new directors were not part of that meeting…There was no ‘backroom politics’ involved," he said.

Those who attended the meeting, many of them members of the Grand Saline Volunteer Fire Department, waited outside the city council chambers for almost an hour and a half during the closed session.

Elliott and Milliorn had said they hoped the closed session would not last but "20 minutes or less." Board member Ray Carnes arrived late and joined the closed session about 10 minutes after it began.