It seems that the county’s co-located emergency communications center will be built at its current planned site after the Hays County Commissioners Court discussed a potential change of plans for the facility.
At its meeting Tuesday, the court took no action on a change of location for the center, which is currently planned to be constructed at 810 S. Stagecoach Trail, adjacent to the Hays County Government Center. However, concerns about flooding have arisen.
“The site of your government center is below the huge Purgatory Creek flood control dams,” Dianne Wassenich told the commissioners during public comments Tuesday morning. “... If you have an emergency center where people have to get there to work, or get out and shut the place down … then you have put the emergency center in a place that doesn’t make sense.”
Frank Arredondo, a former San Marcos mayor who said he has lived here for 72 years, said that he grew up in the area around Guadalupe Street and used to run in the area near the current government center.
“During times of rain, there were rivers running through there,” he said. “... I don’t know when the plans were made to build this communication center behind the government center on Stagecoach Road. I think that’s a bad idea.”
County Emergency Management Coordinator Kharley Smith gave a brief presentation on how the co-located emergency center plan came about and the site studies involved. The Stagecoach Trail site is one of three that the county looked at, the others were a site at Plum Creek in Kyle and the current 911 dispatch location at the county jail on Uhland Road.
“The 100-year floodplain, currently, as it sits, the government center and the projected site is not in the floodplain,” Smith said. “It borders the 500-year floodplain.”
County Judge Ruben Becerra said that he put the item on the agenda for the sake of transparency, because the location of the center has been of public concern.
“As you can see, there are conflicting ideas and conflicting conversations,” he said. “... If it goes nowhere, that’s OK. I’m not trying to push it in any direction.”
The new public safety building will be a 69,482-square-foot facility located northeast of the Hays County Government Center. The center is part of the county’s 2016 public safety bond project, and its construction was approved in 2017. It is meant to provide 911 dispatch and emergency communication services for Hays County, the Buda and Kyle police departments, the constables’ offices and most fire and EMS services in the county.
