The Dew Volunteer Fire Department has received a grant that will strengthen its abilities to fight fires, to which the county will contribute an additional amount and the Department will add even more of its own funding.
That good news was announced at the Freestone County Commissioners Court meeting of Jan. 2, when the commissioners also accepted bids on the sale of a used truck, mower and trailer; and made other decisions regarding county business.
As for the grant to Dew VFD, the source was the Texas A&M Forestry Service. County Judge Linda Grant noted that the grant money was to purchase firefighting clothing, gloves, jackets and pants.
Commissioner Lloyd Lane explained that the Forestry Service awarded a grant to the Dew VFD of $20,000 toward the purchase of the equipment.
“They purchased $27,000 worth of equipment,” Lane said, referring to the fire department.
The grant match was 10 percent, so the fire department was asking the county to put up $2,000 for the grant match, and the Department, out of its funds, was paying for the additional $7,000 in equipment.
Bidder wins truck, mower, trailer
A single bidder – Dustin Dodge – came through for the sale of three items in Precinct 1:
• $3,625 for a 2002 Dodge 1-ton flatbed truck;
• $3,650 for a John Deere CX15 mower; and
• $1,250 for a 24’ tandem axle gooseneck flatbed trailer.
Other court decisions In other matters, the court:
• Took no action to reinstate the burn ban at this time;
• Reappointed Leonard Smith as the Freestone County emergency management coordinator;
• Tabled consideration of a change to policy for county employees that use and operate county systems;
• Tabled consideration of a JAVS maintenance contract extension for county and district court at this time;
• Tabled consideration of use of administrative time so the court could review the matter;
• Tabled consideration of a closed-system Internet;
• Tabled consideration of making a change to Windstream switches;
• Tabled consideration of a discussion on employees doing business on personal phones until the court members could continue discussing the matter; and
• Took no action on a proposal from OTIS Elevator to modernize the courthouse elevator.
Other matters
Also at the meeting, Lane gave a report on Teague VFD’s statistics for 2024. That VFD had a total of 326 calls: 28 were structure fires; 14 were vehicle fires; 44 were grass fires; 79 were motor vehicle fires; and 161 were miscellaneous, which includes medical, gas leak, weather related, water rescue, etc.
In a separate matter, Precinct 2 Commissioner Will McSwane reported on a tornado that touched down in Precinct 2 that affected one family, badly damaging two houses.
