Commissioners Court Asked To Consider Signs To Better Identify Rosemont Street Buildings
Hopkins County Commissioners approved 2 road-related items and heard a request from the District Clerk’s Office regarding signage for Rosemont Street buildings. Precinct 3 Commissioner explained the request to abandon a CR 3531 right-of-way.
Granitized Road Materials
The court was asked to consider approving bids for the purchase of granitized road materials.
Hopkins County Auditor Shannah Aulsbrook explained that county had sought bids for granitized road materials, which is separate from earlier bids approved for road materials because it’s a different type of material. The granitized material is now available from a local contractor, but required bids be taken. Commissioners could opt to accept for all and list by precinct approval.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Mickey Barker noted that it’s a separate type of material that perviously had to come from Oklahoma. Commerce Sand & Gravel now has a crusher. He said he has used the granitized rock on roads and is satisfied with it. Utilizing a local vendor instead of paying to have the rock transported from Sawyer, Oklahoma would “save the county a tremendous amount of money.”
The court approved the bids as recommended.
CR 3531 Right-Of-Way
The Commissioners Court was also asked to consider approving an application and petition to close and abandon a portion of right-of-way off County Road 3531.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Wade Bartley explained that several years ago, potentially 100 years or so ago, the township of Weaver was platted. The streets were platted along with small lots. The streets were never developed. At some point later, county roads were built. County Road 3531 did not follow the exact plat of the streets.
Now, a piece of property is slated to be sold downtown Weaver next to the Baptist Church. A survey showed a small part of the house on that property is sitting on the county right of way. As is the underwriters for the title policy wouldn’t approve the deed as is.
A small portion of that house is sitting on that old “street.” The county road is adjacent to the street right-of-way. So, the request would not actually affect CR 3531. Because of the “street” designation, legally, the right-of-way must be abandoned in order for that to be corrected and the property to be eligible for sale.
“So we are abandoning a portion of that right-of-way that joins CR 3531 right-of-way. I would like to move that the court approve this,” Bartley said.
Barker asked if Ark-Tex Council of Governments would take that out of GPS systems.
“What I’ve run into, there are some other road in my precinct that have been abandoned, but they are still in GPS,” Barker noted.
“Well, I don’t know that this was in GPS because if was established so many years ago. It shows a street name, I can’t recall the street name right off the top of my head. But it’s not going to affect 3531,” Bartley said.
t was never questioned until now. Using modern surveying equipment, the house was found to actually sit 2 feet on the right-of-way for the formerly platted Weaver township. Instead of abandoning a portion of CR 3531, the county would be granting abandonment of the right-of-way, the Precinct 3 Commissioner explained.
The request received unanimous approval of the Commissioners Court.
Rosemont Street Sign Request
Cindy Caviness with Hopkins County District Clerk’s Office asked the court to consider adding signage to the Rosemont Street in the law enforcement center area.
“We have daily at least one person, sometimes more, who comes in looking for the sheriff’s office. A lot of times, they’ll go actually to the new courtroom. We’ve had them leave deliveries there on the front step. We’ve had them go in the courtroom when Judge Northcutt was having a court session, trying to deliver stuff. We’ve had out of county officers come, looking for the sheriff’s office — just lots of delivery people all the time. We have had that since we moved in. We’d like to have some kind of sign other than the little bitty one that’s on the north entrance,” Caviness explained.
She asked if perhaps signage could be placed outside of the courtroom that shows where the sheriff’s office is located, or a sign other at the north entrance that designates which building is the sheriff’s office.
“GPS always sends people to the courtroom when they punch in 298 Rosemont. Luckily, we have found some that the delivery people have left out and put on the courtroom door. One person left food, because they were instructed to leave food at the front entrance of the sheriff’s office. So they actually left food on the bench, and we caught them as they were getting ready to drive off and explained to them. I know the DA’s office also gets people too looking for the sheriff’s office,” Caviness explained.
Barker asked how the address for those Rosemont Street buildings was determined.
Hopkins County Sheriff Lewis Tatum explained that when the new law enforcement center, which houses the jail and sheriff’s offices, was opened the building kept the former address assigned to the Hopkins County Sheriff’s Office, 298 Rosemont St., even though the new structure was construct a distance from the former HCSO.
Butch Adams, who sheriff at the time the new building was constructed, said local officials were told by the Post Office that the address would remain the same even though the new building is on the opposite end of the property and now faces Houston Street.
Barker asked if there signs could be put in place directing people to the appropriate building.
District Clerk Cheryl Fulcher explained that most people pull into the Rosemont Street complex from the south entrance because of the parking available in the lot next to the building. Rarely, she said, do people pull in the complex from the north entrance where a small sign points to the various offices in the complex.
“We’re always running out the door, trying to help people find their way that don’t come to our office,” Caviness said, suggesting perhaps a visible sign directing visitors to the sheriff’s office.
“You can actually see some of them, I think they are following GPS. They’ve go their phones open out of the car. They see all these doors with different labels and they’re saying, ‘It’s supposed to be here,'” the district clerk noted.
HCSO Chief Deputy Tanner Crump said the court had approved a court sign to go on the court building. The court sign has been built but has yet to be installed. He pledged to make contact to schedule the sign installation.
Crump said the only other solution he can think of would be to label “Jail” on the side of the Hopkins County Law Enforcement Center nearest the three Rosemont Street buildings. He cited aesthetic as cause for a big billboard saying “Sheriff’s Office this way.” He said hopefully, putting a label on the district courtroom will be enough to let visitors know that’s not part of the sheriff’s office.
Newsom recalled that when the new jail was opened, the county did approach the Post Office about the changing the address for the sheriff’s office to Houston Street, since it faces that direction.
“I don’t know that we’d systematically have an objection to changing our address. I think that there’s a lot that that would entail and the Post Office would have to cooperate. When that decision was made, we didn’t have the courthouse or the district clerk’s office or the district attorney’s office, so that’s just more things compounded on that issue,” Crump said.
“We might pursue that issue. It’d probably help more than anything. The truth is that Butch and Donna give so many people directs,” Newsom said of courthouse officer Adams and Donna Goins, administrative assistant to the county judge. “Every day we give them to get all of y’all because people come here first always, just like they are doing with y’all. It makes sense if at this time — I don’t know what it would change on your stationary. Anybody have thousands of pages with 298 Rosemont on them. That’s traditionally been our sheriff’s office, but what if we changed that, how much trouble would it be to everyone?”
Crump said he’d research the process to change the physical address of the sheriff’s office from Rosemont to Houston Street.
Bartley asked if ATCOG could potentially help with the process.
“Probably. Just off the top of my head, every database in the United States lists that as our address. It would take years probably to overcome that change and that stress would be put on the Post Office to understand that things that go there, got to both places. There’s a lot more to it, but we’re not opposed to it,” Crump said.
Newsom thanked Caviness and Fulcher for bringing the Rosemont Street buildings signage issue to the court’s attention, as it does need to be address, even if not immediately.
