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The Hays County Commissioner’s Court approved a contract that launches new counseling services to veterans and their families.
The memorandum of understanding authorized Tuesday between Hays County Veteran’s Treatment Court and Restorative Pathways, LLC will broaden the array of treatment options for veteran clients of the court with a licensed clinical social worker.
“This agreement gives us another treatment option. The social worker is actually one of five local providers that provides services for our court. They work with us to keep the costs down and provide us with another option for us to keep our process moving and improving our services,” said Veteran’s Treatment Court Program Manager Gerald Ramcharan.
The Hays County Courthouse already offers counseling services for veterans and their families, combat veterans and veterans who are survivors of military sexual trauma.
“Our veterans experience different types of trauma, needing different types of counseling. I am glad that is something we can provide,” said Commissioner Debbie Ingalsbe.
In other business, commissioners approved a technical assistance letter regarding the development of a program to finance land conservation and recreation within Hays County.
The letter represents the collaboration between several local conservancy organizations: Hill Country Alliance, Wimberley Valley Watershed Association, Hill Country Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy and Trust for Public Lands. “The letter allows us to access grant funding that will support research that we hope will be helpful as the county moves forward with the Parks and Open Space Advisory Commission and the research that it needs to plan for how to fund parks and open spaces across the county,” said Katherina Romans, executive director of Hill Country Alliance.
Judge Ruben Becerra clarified the letter was not a commitment of funding, rather it was a commitment to work with the related organizations to learn what is important to the public as the recently convened Parks and Open Spaces Advisory Commission looks at potential projects and developing a master plan.
“My hope is that we will create a good body of work that is shared with this commission and the community: the hopes, desires and long range planning of parks and open spaces for the county. At the moment we are purely facilitating and opening all channels so that we can find the most useful ways to go forward,” Becerra said.
Public Comment responded to commissioner’s request for an update on elections.
Hays County Elections Administrator Jennifer Anderson reported on the success of the Hays County Elections. She said a pilot program for utilizing two check-in tables at locations with enough space indicated lines would run much faster.
“Our office is always looking for ways to improve voting in Hays County. We know that voters’ time is valuable and we don’t wish to make it inconvenient,” said Anderson.
They are working with Texas State University on a committee to help prepare voters for elections by promoting things like checking registration status, looking at sample ballots and learning about the candidates. The committee will also address the long lines at the Texas State polling location, although it was not the busiest location they had this year.
With seven to 10 poll workers at each location, the polls clocked out with 25,506 Democratic ballots cast and 15,591 Republican. The elections administration office encourages all voters to utilize the early voting system if they are able.
