Flap over county road ‘work’ raises questions

August 21, 2012, 7:00 pm by James Walker

Bill Neve

County roads, public roads, publicly dedicated roads and others.

"There are many kinds of roads and it is extremely complicated,” said Burnet County Attorney Eddie Arredondo, who conducted an investigation after the anonymous caller complained to County Auditor Karen Lester July 15.

Lester later informed one of her bosses, 424^thDistrict Judge Dan Mills of the complaint and Mills forwarded the complaint to Sheriff W. T. Smith.

"Previous county attorneys Eddie Shell and Robert Klaeger gave opinions that county equipment and personnel could do this,” Arredondo said in an interview Monday. "It goes back to what commissioners thought they could do.”

The county attorney is now recommending that the county get an updated opinion on the matter from legal counsel.

The caller complained to Lester after receiving an unsatisfactory initial response from someone in Arredondo’s office, Arredondo acknowledged in a report to the commissioners at their meeting Aug. 14.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Bill Neve has acknowledged that his employees hauled materials bought by Council Creek Village Subdivision residents near East Lake Buchanan to a road within the subdivision and deposited them there. The county employees did no work on the road, Neve said.

For the rest of the story, see Wednesday’s Bulletin.

Reader Comments

Someone needs to check out the problems of roads and favoritism in Cottonwood Shores? They do weird and irrelevant project, and yet they neglect the roads here.
August 15, 2012, 10:13am by John

the rule is - NOT WRITTEN, NOT SAID county workers only do work for the county, and that is exclusively. at no time does the county deliver or work for another without compensation being accounted for, when the public wants extra work done, there had better be a surplus in the checking account to do it with. NO DIFFERENT than any business, the county is incurring a cost per person, per vehicle, per day. county workers, even commissioners and county attorneys know there's a related cost of operation per day. HOW much did the county attorney charge the commissioners for the opinion the attorney rendered? POLITICS had better be put on the back burner and that the appropriate person was invoiced the appropriate cost of the improvement to a PRIVATE subdivision. IF NOT, then the person in charge of this area of county government should be fired immediately and the house cleaned of those whom they trained incorrectly.
August 15, 2012, 3:36pm by Neal