Commissioners express support for new court covering Lavaca, Colorado counties

Gonzales County commissioners have approved unanimously a resolution supporting the creation of a new district court that would cover Colorado and Lavaca counties beginning Jan. 1, 2027, under the condition that Gonzales County would continue to have two sitting judges in the 25th Judicial District.

Commissioners discussed the resolution and the ramifications of the Texas Legislature creating a new court during their Monday, March 24 regular meeting.

Currently, the 25th Judicial District has two courts — the 25th District Court, with Judge William Old III  having seniority as the sitting judge, and the 2nd 25th District Court, presided over by Judge Jessica Crawford. The two courts have concurrent jurisdiction over Gonzales, Guadalupe, Lavaca and Colorado counties.

County Judge Pat Davis said when plans were first announced to create a new court within the 25th Judicial District, Gonzales was to have been removed from the 2nd 25th, leaving only Old to handle cases in Gonzales County.

“Initially, it started out that Judge Crawford would remain solely in Guadalupe County with Judge Old covering Gonzales, Guadalupe, Lavaca and Colorado initially, up until 2027when they got this new district,” Davis said. “The county attorney and I both agreed that we have a lot of cases on the felony side in Gonzales County and we've had two sitting district judges for a long time, and now we're going to be down to just one district judge that's going to be covering all of these counties. I’ve never really liked this idea, period.”

County Attorney Eddie Escobar said while Old has “an amazing work ethic” and would have tried to fill in as the sole judge for Gonzales County, Escobar was concerned that it could have an impact on an already existing case backlog.

“My concern was if he's also covering all these other counties, and we have one judge, he's in a trial and we can't get a hold of the judge, or he's busy in trial settings,” Escobar said. “He's going to have to double up trial settings in the other two counties down the road. I just did not feel that it was sustainable for any kind of long period of time to have only one district judge coming here. I'm not speaking in any negative way towards Judge Old. I just feel that it's a non-sustainable format.”

Escobar also said it made no sense for Lavaca and Colorado counties to get a second district judge when “our caseload is much higher than, for example, Lavaca County, as far as felonies are concerned.”

“They're still going to have two judges, and we would only still have one. And it just the numbers didn't make sense as far as having enough settings and trials to keep everything moving like it needs to be,” Escobar added.

Escobar said he spoke to Crawford when she was at the Courthouse and expressed his concerns about losing a judge in Gonzales County. He said Crawford then spoke to Third Administrative Judicial Region Presiding Judge Dib Waldrip about the plan and he agreed to change it to keep Crawford over Gonzales County.

“It just didn’t make any sense to me because every other county would have more than one judge except Gonzales County,” Escobar said. “Guadalupe County has a lot of judges, but they’re much bigger, but we were going to be going down to one, which did not make any logistical sense to me for case flow or case movement.

“The good news is with my discussions with Judge Crawford and her discussions with Judge Waldrip, they have agreed to have her continue to come to Gonzales County, which I think was a good compromise.”

Had the plans not been altered, it would have been at least 2027 or 2028 before the county could have pleaded their case to get another district judge, Escobar said.

Davis said he was also concerned what would have happened regarding probation and the budgetary funds Gonzales County puts in for court reporters and other staff for the district courts. Lavaca County manages the 2nd 25th Judicial District CSCD and Juvenile Probation Department, a dual department providing probation services to adult and juvenile offenders in Gonzales, Lavaca and Colorado counties. It also owns and operates the 2nd 25th Judicial District Intermediate Sanction Facility (ISF) in Gonzales County which was established in 1995 to house 60 adult male offenders.

Not only does the department serve Old’s and Crawford’s courts, but the three county judges from the area and it employs 44 full-time staff, including 11 full-time adult community supervision officers; five full-time juvenile probation officers; four administrative staff serving the adult and juvenile departments; a director who is dual-certified as an adult and juvenile probation officer and 23 full-time staff at the ISF.

Assurances have been given to Davis and Escobar that the probation department would continue to operate as it does with all three counties contributing and that Gonzales County would not be paying into a court that no longer had jurisdiction over it because they would remain under both Old and Crawford.

Passing the resolution in court supporting the creation of the court is a way to get the county’s position on the record so the Legislature knows they will support the move as long as they continue to have concurrent jurisdiction with both Old and Crawford, Escobar said.

In other action, commissioners voted unanimously to waive permit fees that would have been charged to the Gonzales Independent School District for construction of the new $19 million CTE building and Ag barn facility on Steiren Road north of Gonzales. The move is expected to save the school district — and ultimately, taxpayers — about $2,800, Precinct 2 Commissioner Donnie Brzozowski said.

“I think we ought to not charging for the permits because we're just charging another taxing entity in the schools,” Brzozowski said. “There’s no sense for the taxpayers to pay double when they’re already paying for that.”

Commissioners also agreed with Permitting Department director Jimmy Harless to treat permit requests like this on a case-by-case basis when it involves another taxing entity that needs a permit and continue to bring them before the court for a request to waive fees.