Dateline: September 12, 2002

County will borrow more funds for project 

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

Donley County will borrow an additional $350,000 to finish the restoration of the 1890 courthouse and to make critical repairs not called for in the original scope of work.

County officials are looking to refinance and extend the tax notes already taken out for the project. They believe it will be possible to obtain the new funds without significantly increasing the county’s annual tax note payments by stretching out the indebtedness period and taking advantage of interest rates which are lower now than in 2000.

The additional funds became necessary after workers discovered severely deteriorated bricks behind the cornice of the building this spring. The bricks, which are supposed to hold the anchors for the roof joists, are so badly deteriorated they are falling out. In certain areas, workers have not removed the rain gutter because that is all that is holding the bricks in place.

Dale Sellers of Phoenix I Restoration says decades of water damage have eroded the bricks.

“I’d say this has been going on for 60 to 70 years at least,” Sellers said. “It also looks like the bricks in this part of the building were not of the same quality as the rest of the structure.”

Project officials have also speculated that supervision in the later stages of the original construction was not as close as it should have been. Bricks used behind the cornice were the same as the softer bricks used on the interior of the courthouse rather than the harder, more durable bricks used on the exterior.

The master plan for the restoration called for bricks behind the cornice to be tuck-pointed where necessary. With that area fully exposed, the project managers and architects realized the work would be much more extensive.

“We’ll have to go in and take out all three courses of brick 18 inches down and completely rebuild those areas,” Sellers said. “The work will have to be done in 10- to 20-foot stretches, and the roof will have to shorn up while the work is done.”

Project officials have said that currently a good updraft would lift the roof off the courthouse because the anchors are not connected solidly into the walls.

County officials, project managers, and the architects have been struggling with how to handle the problem for months. The county had to finally take action as the situation threatened to bring the project to a standstill. Interior work cannot be finished until the roof is completed, and the roof cannot be completed until the masonry work is done.

The added work will take approximately six weeks to complete, and the overall completion of the project has been pushed back to December.

“I think December 14 is a very reasonable date,” Sellers said. “It would be great to be finished for the holidays.”

The Commissioners’ Court voted unanimously Monday to authorize County Judge Jack Hall to begin the process of a new tax notes issuance to pay for the additional work. Commissioner Don Hall was absent due to health reasons.

“We hate this,” said Commissioner Buster Shields. “But there’s no choice. This has to be done.”

The Texas Historical Commission (THC) has reportedly kept $2 million of the money appropriated by the Legislature for courthouse restoration in a contingency fund. Representatives of Donley County are making a request for some of those funds to pay for the new indebtedness.

But grand administrator John Kiehl told the court this week that the THC is only going to allow $200,000 of its contingency fund to be awarded to counties in situations similar to Donley’s. The county is making a request for 75 percent of that money, but it is not known how much if any will be awarded locally.

The court also approved Change Order No. 5 for the project during Monday’s meeting, which authorizes Phoenix to begin the work on the deteriorated masonry as well as authorizing six other necessary changes to the project.