Bastrop County Suffers AT&T Wireless Outage
The Bastrop Advertiser
• AT&T wireless customers in parts of Bastrop County were experiencing service issues that prevented emergency 911 calls on June 28, county officials said. Bastrop County Judge Paul Pape’s office said people should try texting 911 if they are experiencing issues when trying to call the number. People should also try connecting their phones to a wifi signal instead of AT&T’s 4G service. “If you are not able to call or text to 9-1-1, please proceed to a location that has access to a landline or cell service not on AT&T or proceed to your nearest fire station,” Bastrop County spokesperson Lyndsey Schroeder said on June 28. “The issue has been escalated with AT&T for quick resolution.” An AT&T representative said they were working on gathering more information. It’s unknown how widespread the issue is and when it may be resolved.
• Several Bastrop County voters have had their vote-bymail ballots returned to sender this month due to a processing error, according to the Bastrop County Elections Department. The United States Postal Service reported that misdirected mail pieces sent by Bastrop County residents had been processed either upside down or backwards by automated mail handling devices that caused a ballot’s return address to read as a delivery address, said Elections Administrator Kristin Miles. The error caused the filled-out ballots to be mailed back to voters instead of to the Bastrop County Elections Office. The elections office was first made aware of the issue on June 11 as it began to receive phone calls from confused voters. After conversations with the local Bastrop USPS Post Office and USPS’ Rio Grande District political coordinator, the postal service assured Miles that the issue would be corrected and that training would be provided to employees to ensure the error would not happen again. “Phone calls from voters slowed and we thought the problem had been corrected,” Miles said in a statement issued June 25. “However, today it was brought to our attention that some voted ballots are still being returned to the voter.” This is the second ballot mishap the Bastrop County Elections Department has had this year. In February, nearly 500 voters who requested ballots by mail for the March primaries each received three ballots after a processing error by a third-party vendor. The vendor, SeaChange, was contracted to mail and track ballots requested by mail, but several batches of mail-in ballots were delayed. During one batch of ballot mailing, 484 voters received three ballots each.
• The Bastrop County Commissioners Court tweaked the county’s firearm discharge ordinance last week to make the rule clearer and enforceable by sheriff’s deputies. The county’s rule, which has been in place since 2007, has lacked clarity to both residents and law enforcement, officials say. For years, commissioners, the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office have received complaints from residents confused over the law that limits their ability to shoot on their own property. The ordinance that has been on the books for 13 years restricts firearm discharge “within a subdivision with five or more contiguous lots each of which lots are less than five acres, both individually and including any contiguously owned lots or tracts as reflected by the records of the Bastrop County Clerk or the Bastrop Central Appraisal District. “The newly-written version of that ordinance, which was approved June 22, has the same legal effect as the previous version, but with cleaned up language. “The discharge of firearms is hereby prohibited in Bastrop County on lots that are five acres or smaller and are located in the unincorporated area of the county in a subdivision,” the ordinance reads. The law also specifies that anyone who owns multiple contiguous tracts that collectively add up to more than five acres will not be able to discharge a firearm on any of those tracts. Those tracts must be re-platted through the county to become a single tract that is over five acres before anyone can legally shoot on it. Bastrop County resident Doug Kelsay argued that there are no public shooting ranges in the county, making it hard for gun owners without the proper acreage to find suitable places to train and practice. Kelsay floated the idea of the county opening its own gun range on unused county-owned property that would be managed by a designated 501(c)3 organized by local gun enthusiasts.
The Banner-Press
• Washington County Commissioners approved an updated agreement for medical malpractice insurance for Washington County Interim Medical Director Stuart Yoffe, M.D. The proposed plan in April was for Yoffe to put up $1 million of his own money for malpractice protection, but the county would not have access to these funds unless they were a co-owner of the fund. Yoffe was not for the proposal and the county increased his pay by about $850 a month to offset the cost of malpractice insurance for the duration of his interim term. The new insurance plan is $1,400 a month, which comes from an annual premium of $16,800. This policy began on July 1 and is set to end in September.
Giddings Times & News
• The Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) is deeply saddened to report that staff member Sean Wilson, a respected Youth Development Coach at the Giddings State School, has died from complications related to COVID-19. He passed away at his home late on June 28, after being diagnosed with COVID-19 on June 22. “The entire TJJD family is grieving over the loss of Sean Wilson, a dedicated staff member at the Giddings State School who cared deeply for the youth he worked with,” said TJJD Executive Director Camille Cain. “Sean had worked for the State of Texas for fourteen years and for TJJD since 2014. He leaves behind a loving wife and an eight-yearold son. We are devastated by their loss and mourn with them during this time.”