For now, work by Gonzales County on the outside of the Randle-Rather Building has stopped because of concerns about the building’s historical status and a bigger priority on renovating the Gonzales County Annex on Sarah DeWitt Drive.
As a result, commissioners voted unanimously Monday, Jan. 13, to take down the scaffolding they put up last month, but to erect a temporary structure that would create a tunnel to safely allow people to walk past or into the building in case there is another incident of pieces of exterior crumbling and falling from the building’s south-facing limestone façade.
“We're paying $2,800 a month for the scaffolding and I don’t know when we’ll be able to get into the actual repair (of the building),” County Judge Pat Davis said. “I was thinking that if we did remove the scaffolding, then we could come back in for the amount that we would pay for one month and we could build a tunnel or something that would look a lot better with the building. It would look a lot nicer and that way it wouldn’t be so bad until we could actually get to the project.”
The judge said he believed the tunnel structure could be something with a flat roof so “that way it could catch anything that might fall off the building.”
Davis said the county originally thought the Randle-Rather building’s historical status had been invalidated by inside renovations done when the county bought the property. However, research by Tere O’Connell, the architect helping the county with its Courthouse renovation project, revealed the building is still considered by the Texas Historical Commission to have historical status.
“That scaffold looks terrible in front of the building,” Davis said. “That walkway is probably going to be there at least a year or a year and a half until we can get to it and at least figure out all this historical stuff.”
County maintenance employee Brian Kloesel said it would take about four or five days for the scaffolding company to take down the structure. He said the county would need to be ready to put up the safety tunnel as soon as the scaffolding comes down.
In other action, commissioners made appointments to a number of boards and commissions for the new year. For Gonzales County Emergency Services District 2, which oversees fire departments in the county, the commissioners reappointed John Everett, Jason Whiddon and Brian Schauer. For ESD 1, which oversees EMS, the commissioners reappointed Linda Carter and Rene de la Garza and appointed Julie Fairchild of Harwood, which marks the first time someone from that area has been named to the board.
For the Gonzales County Historical Commission, the court agreed to appoint everyone who requested to be on the board and later schedule a joint meeting with the commission to see to the appointment of a chairman.
Appointed are Robert L. Wolff, Janell Duderstadt Majorka, Leslie Patteson, Glenda Gordon, Cindy Munson, Meggan Thomas, Crystal Whitlatch, Sandra Wolff, Janet Currie, Elyze Davis, Quincy Johnson, Sandra Mauldin and James Kirkwood.
The court also appointed Craig Hines to the board of trustees of the Luling Foundation.
Commissioners received into the minutes the order by Judge William Old and Judge Jessica Crawford appointing Shauna Lehnert as the new County Auditor for the rest of an unexpired term. County Auditor Becky Weston retired at the end of December.