flagpoles - after

flagpoles - before

ROCKWALL – Over 100 area residents filled the historic old Rockwall County Courthouse yesterday to protest the actions of 20-year County Commissioner Jerry Wimpee, who hired a company Jan. 28 to cut five feet off the U.S. flagpole to lower it to the same height as the Texas and Veterans flags, which fly outside the new Rockwall County Courthouse.

As the above photos show, he also moved the Texas flag to the middle and the U.S. flag to the left, flying at the same height.

Since no one apparently knew who modified the poles initially, vandalism was reported to the Rockwall County Sheriff’s Office, which notified Rockwall County Criminal District Attorney Kenda Culpepper. She then asked the Texas Rangers to investigate to see if a crime has been committed, which they are currently doing.

At the Commissioners meeting yesterday, Wimpee was lambasted by local veterans and citizens for taking it upon himself to lower the pole and change the alignment of the flags – in effect vandalizing county property.

“You can bet if Joe Citizen had done something like this and then confessed to it, he would be behind bars, not holding court,” said Connie Christensen, who served on the memorial planning committee. “Who, Mr. Wimpee, do you think you are?”

They said Wimpee voted for the design of the memorial during the construction process that called for a US flag above the others, which is acceptable under federal law.

According to Wimpee, he made the change to correct a “mistake” made during construction of the Courthouse, which was just dedicated last Nov. on Veteran’s Day. He said he was just enforcing Texas law, and wants the county to reimburse him for $760.

“Well, I’ve always tried to what’s right and not what’s popular necessarily,” Wimpee said at Tuesday’s commission meeting. “That’s what it came down to for me.”

“In my statement, I say a mistake was made,” Wimpee said. “I didn’t say who made one. Because whoever made the mistake, me or someone else, that didn’t trump the state flag code. So, it needs to be corrected.”

Wimpee said, what’s right is enforcing Texas law, which says the Texas flag should fly at the same height as the US flag.

Unfortunately, state and federal law somewhat conflict. The state flag code says the Texas flag and the American flag “should be flown at the same height:”

Texas flag code:

Sec. 3100.055. (b) If the state flag and the flag of the United States are displayed on flagpoles or flagstaffs at the same location:

(1) the flags should be displayed on flagpoles or flagstaffs of the same height;

(2) the flags should be of approximately equal size;

(3) the flag of the United States should be, from the perspective of an observer, to the left of the state flag.

Added by Acts 2001, 77th Texas Leg., ch. 1420, Sec. 7.001, eff. Sept. 1, 2001

U.S. flag code:

(e) The flag of the United States of America should be at the center and at the highest point of the group when a number of flags of States or localities or pennants of societies are grouped and displayed from staffs. (US Flag Code, 4 US, Section 7(e), Position and Manner of Display)

Commissioner Lorie Grinnan said the flag height isn’t the issue.

“Please be aware that the issue facing the county is not about flag codes,” Grinnan said. “The issue is about an elected official taking action on a public building without the approval from the elected body of which he is a member. This is a criminal property damage issue. Even greater, it tests whether or not our local government system requires our elected officials to govern as a body and not take individual, unauthorized action.”

The Rockwall County Courthouse has been a source of controversy for several years, since County voters twice voted down the building of the facility at its current location. But Wimpee, former County Judge Chris Florance and former Commissioner Bruce Beaty voted to build it there anyway, using a “loophole” in the law to do so, against the votes of Commissioners Grinnan and David Magness.

At the time, Florance told TheRockwallNews.com that by doing so the Commissioners did County residents a huge favor, by saving taxpayers millions of dollars, because if they had not started construction when they did construction costs would have been far greater. He added they couldn’t find any other locations suitable for a County Courthouse to last for decades into the future so they selected the current location despite the actions of local voters.

By J.J. Smith, Publisher

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During Tuesday morning’s commissioner’s court meeting, County Commissioner Jerry Wimpee got a verbal slashing from veterans and residents who want the flagpole restored to its original height of 40 feet.

Wimpee said he lowered the pole to 35 feet to match the height of two adjacent flagpoles flying the Texas state flag and the POW flag.

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The county has decided to sell the old Rockwall County Annex Building, leaving the fate of the 94-year-old building in the hands of the buyer.

Rockwall Historian Sherri Fowler said the annex is valuable piece of property and that it’s been a fixture for seven generations of her family.

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(CBSTV11 News) ROCKWALL – The smallest county in the State has become a job growth giant. Between 2000 and 2010, Rockwall County showed nearly 98 percent job growth. That’s good enough to rank number one in the country when it comes to job growth, we’ll run down this list, this is according to CNN Money survey.

Reporter Robbie Owens went to Rockwall to find out why people and businesses are flocking to Rockwall.

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ROCKWALL – Rockwall County has experienced the most job growth in the nation over the last ten years, the editors of CNN Money magazine announced this past week.

According to CNN Money, job growth between 2000-2010 increased 97.9 percent. Cities mentioned were Rockwall and Heath.

Second was Loudoun County VA, “the Silicon Valley of the East,” including Leesburg, at 75.3 percent.

Third was Williamson Co. TX, including Round Rock, home of Dell Computer, at 68.1 percent.

The announcement resulted in a CBS11 TV news story, quoting local officials.

As described by CNN Money:

“Rockwall County is rockin’ and rollin’ at the top of our list for job creation. It may be the Lone Star State’s smallest county, but it’s one of Texas’s fastest growing, with a population that’s almost doubled in the last decade.

The county borders Lake Ray Hubbard in the northeast corner of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Development there once centered on homes and recreation, but now Rockwall wants to be a place where its wealthy residents live, play — and work.

Like many of the counties on our list, Rockwall is luring businesses and jobs from nearby big cities with generous incentives and a higher quality of life. The latest development is Harbor Heights, a seven-story 110,000 square foot office tower slated to open next year. Major corporations like L-3 Communications and Pilgrim’s Pride make their home in the Rockwall Technology Park where more companies are expected to join their ranks.”

By J.J. Smith

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ROCKWALL – After a standing room-only crowd of over 300 people packed County Judge Jerry Hogan’s Town Hall meeting last night at the Historic County Courthouse on the Square, and the majority made it clear they do not want the County library outsourced, the County’s chief administrator agreed to remove his outsourcing proposal from the agenda of this morning’s County Commissioners meeting.

Instead, library director Marcine McCulley will continue to operate the library locally with a new, as-yet to-be-determined budget, which will likely be discussed by Commissioners at this morning’s meeting. Hogan revealed at the end of the meeting that he had met with McCulley before the meeting and agreed on a $250,000 cut.

McCulley had made a presentation at the Commissioners work session last week showing how she can cut $100,000, $200,000 or $300,000 from the library’s $1.4 million budget and still keep most current services intact and most library staff employed.

To reduce those amounts, she would have to lay off or reduce either one or two librarians to part-time staff, reduce the number of part-time staff members and limit the library’s purchase of supplies, equipment and maintenance agreements.

At the most extreme $300,000 level, she would slash 75 percent of “public programs” and nearly $10,000 worth of computer programs; discontinue the $6,000 Dallas Morning News subscriptions, Ancestry.com and World Book online; plus cut back on the purchase of additional “books and periodicals” by $7,000.

Over 25 questions and comments were made by audience members, comprised largely by the 50+ set. Most were respectful of Hogan, who spent the first 20 minutes of the evening explaining why outsourcing library and County building custodial services made sense to him financially.

He said because the County growth has slowed considerably, housing values continue to decline and revenue has consequently been reduced, budget forecasts for the next five years show the County will have a difficult time balancing its budget. He explained that whatever amounts could be shaved from the library’s budget and by outsourcing custodial services will help prevent forcing the County to dip into its six-month reserve, which he does not want to do.

He reiterated that the rumor is false that he wants to take money from the library to pay for the completion of the new County courthouse, next to the library. The funding for the $30 million + courthouse has already been secured and is entirely separate.

By J.J. Smith, Publisher

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ROCKWALL – Rockwall County Judge Jerry Hogan has announced that he will hold his next town hall meeting June 13 to discuss and answer questions about his proposal to outsource County library and custodial services in order to raise $458,000 for next year’s budget.

It will begin at 7 pm on the third floor of the Historic County Courthouse, 101 E. Rusk St. 75087.

The meeting is being called in response to what Hogan wrote in an email to media and County commissioners has been “a significant number of emails from people who have had the facts about the possible outsourcing of the library misrepresented to them.”

“This is an important issue for our County and I want to give all of the people the opportunity to personally question me on the details of this proposal and why it is being made,” he wrote.

“I will answer all questions asked about the proposal to outsource the library. I hope you can pass this information on to as many people as possible.”

Many of the emails have likely come from some of the hundreds of angry and concerned citizens who during the past few days have launched a “Save the Rockwall County Library” campaign. (See the separate article on TheRockwallNews.com).

They have started an email and letter-writing campaign to Hogan and other Commissioners asking them not to outsource or library services nor lay off any library staff.

To contact Hogan and other Commissioners call 972-204-6000 or email them at:

Judge Jerry Hogan at: jhogan@rockwallcountytexas.com

Precinct 1 Commissioner Jerry Wimpee at: jwimpee@rockwallcountytexas.com

Precinct 2 Commissioner Lorie Grinnan at: lgrinnan@rockwallcountytexas.com

Precinct 3 Commissioner Dennis Bailey at: dbailey@rockwallcountytexas.com or 972-322-2612

Precinct 4 Commissioner David Magness at: dmagness@rockwallcountytexas.com or 214-676-3966

By J.J. Smith, Publisher

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ROCKWALL – On the heels of the Rockwall ISD school board’s decision two weeks ago to outsource transportation and custodial services to save over $1.1 million dollars for the 2011-2012 school year, Rockwall County Judge Jerry Hogan introduced the idea of outsourcing custodial and County library services to County Commissioners at their work-session May 31.

According to Hogan, outsourcing custodial services for County buildings and library services should save the county $458,000 the next fiscal year — $158,000 for custodial services and $300,000 for library services.

He said he thinks it would be a “very wise business decision for us to make” and plans to recommend that commissioners consider an RFP (Request for Proposals) involving custodial and library services at their next monthly meeting June 14.

The subject will likely come up again tomorrow as the County budget is discussed by Commissioners June 7 at an additional work meeting at the Historic County Courthouse at 101 E. Rusk. It is open to the public.

The County currently pays $65,000 for custodial services at the library and $112,000 for “in-house people” to clean other county buildings.

Hogan said the total will increase to $289,000, when $112,000 is added for custodial services at the new County courthouse.

“We have gotten answers back from bidders,” he said. “That $289,000 has been reduced to $131,000 for all the buildings in the County. That, to me, is a very significant business decision that’s easy to make.”

Hogan said he has talked with several outsourcing companies during the past six months about third-party management of the Rockwall County Library.

Library Systems & Services (LSSI), for example, would maintain all current programs and hours and interview current employees for possible positions.

The company currently provides library management services across 13 public library systems and 63 branch operations across the U.S.

“These guys are devoted to not only provide service, they also are devoted to programs, the collection and it’s an operation I think we can benefit from,” Hogan said.

Commissioner Lorie Grinnan said there’s a strong lobby against the outsourcing of library services by library professionals.

Commissioner David Magness said he was somewhat surprised by Judge Hogan’s outsourcing idea and questions how it can save so much money.

“How it’s going to cost less, I don’t know,” he said.

Area residents have also begun expressing their concerns on Facebook, worried if the cost-savings measures will reduce services at the Library.

By J.J. Smith, Publisher

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ROCKWALL — Rockwall County Commissioners approved the expenditure of $499,500 for the new Veterans Memorial at the new Rockwall County Courthouse at last Tuesday’s meeting.

After the maximum guaranteed cost was set at $516,479 by Manhattan Construction, the American Legion agreed to pay the remaining balance.

The County had approved setting aside $500,000 for the project in 2007 to honor all Rockwall County military veterans.

Commissioner Lorie Grinnan, veterans groups and others have worked diligently on the project since then.

The veterans memorial and new courthouse will be dedicated Nov. 11.

“It will be a big deal for Rockwall County and we hope all of you can participate,” said County Judge Jerry Hogan.

Commissioner Jerry Wimpee expressed amazement that $500,000 was approved for the project in 2007 and the price today is the same.

The approved design of the memorial can be seen with details at on the Rockwall County website at:

http://www.rockwallcountytexas.com/DocumentView.aspx?DID=894

By J.J. Smith, Publisher

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