The Brownfield City Council met Thursday morning, Feb. 1, 2024 and heard an update on the upcoming construction on North Cedar. Before that, the Council heard from Brownfield Fire & Rescue Chief Woolard and Municipal Judge Cox on the quarterly reports.
Chief Woolard showed the Council there were 75 calls in the fourth quarter, 35 in the city and 40 in the county. 30 of those were from vehicle accidents. Other calls include 11 structure fires, eight EMS calls, seven vehicle fires, five alarms, four grass fires, four gas leaks, three trash (dumpster) fires, two smoke sightings, and one CO2 call. Chief Woolard said, “Call volume increase of 56% over the last quarter can be atributed to inclement weather experienced during the 4th quarter, resulting in a vast increase in motor vehicle accidents. TXDOT has immediate plans to address troubled sections of the roadway.”
Chief Woolard also presented the reports for the whole year of 2023. According to Chief Woolard, there was total of 226 calls in 2023. There was 109 in the city and 117 in the county. 31% of the call were to vehicle accidents, which there was 70. There was 45 EMS calls, 37 grass fires, 22 structure fires, 12 vehicle fires, 12 trash (dumpster) fires, 10 gas leaks, 10 alarms, six smoke sightings, and two CO2 calls. The BFRD performed 27 Fire inspections which werehave requested and completed, there were 11 plans reviews that has passed through the office, and the 2021 International Fire Code has been adopted and progress continues.
Moving on to the Municipal Judge’s quarterly report, Judge Cox presented to the Council that there was 293 news cases, 143 depositions (guilty or no contest), 43 warrants issued, 17 capias pro-fines, and 32 magistrate warnings. Total case revenue was $31,810.00 with $19,501.00 belonging to the city and $12,309.00 going to the state. Judge Cox said, “Our numbers across the board are down slightly from the previous quarter. I believe you can attribute a lot of this to the holidays and the police department being busy with other offenses which dropped our cases filed down from last quarter.”
Next, the Council moved on to hear an update from Kimberly Horn Engineering Planning & Design Consultants on the upcoming road construction on North Cedar from Tahoka Road to Stewart Street and the paving of non-paved streets in Brownfield. Stephen Nava with Kimberly-Horn began addressing North Cedar Street. The main improvement for North Cedar will be milling out the top two inches of the existing road, and then comeback with new pavement. According to Nava, this will help fix the cracking, the potholes, and grooves with the new surface.
Also, while working on the road, the contractor will also improve the drainage situation where the water tends to accumulate at North Cedar and Grace Street, next to the Avalon Apartments. The intersection will be constructed of concrete, not only to divert water into the ditch, but also making sure the pavement will last for the future. There will also be more drainage improvement with grading the ditch in front of the apartment complex, adding a drainage culvert that will allow water to flow into the playa lake behind the sheriff’s dept. with the City of Brownfield owns. Kimberly-Horn did submit a probable cost of $565,000.00, which is down from about $1 million from the first estimate.
Next, Nava gave an update on paving the non-paved street in the city. In the 2020-2021 fiscal year, the City Council approved a five year plan to pave the non-paved road in the city. However, due to supply chain issues the city and contractors could not get the materials to begin the work. Nava told the Council that the city had already done some basic improvements which raised the profile of some non-paved roads and added some curbs and gutters. Nava went on to tell the Council that an initial bid for the seal coat project was over $850,000 and rejected that bid. Kimberly-Horn will send out new bids in March with the hopes that the cost will be much lower.
The Council adjourned and all council members were present. The next meeting is slated for Feb. 15, 2024 at 7:30 a.m. at City Hall in the Council Chambers.
