BREWSTER COUNTY — Brewster County Commissioners met this week to discuss a new subdivision taking shape in Lajitas, issues with the county’s tax collection law firm and the rising cost of autopsies and cremations.
County Judge Greg Henington and commissioners Jim Westermann, Sara Colando and Ruben Ortega were present. Commissioner Mo Morrow was absent.
The court first heard from Scott Beasley, managing director of the Lajitas Golf Resort, regarding a new subdivision — dubbed the Ranches at Well Creek — the company is developing in the area. The 739-acre tract is located off of State Highway 170 east of the Lajitas airport and across from the Chili Appreciation Society International (CASI) chili cook-off site.
The expanse is being subdivided into 69 smaller tracts, ranging in size from 5 to 38 acres and in price from $50,000 to $218,800. The resort, which has five existing subdivisions in Lajitas, is required to seek plat approval from the county court.
Beasley explained that the small frontage off of the highway may be used for commercial purposes while the rest will be residential. He said the plan is to put in a road, which will be built to county specifications so that it may take over maintenance at some point, connecting all of the properties.
He said that the resort is in conversations with Rio Grande Electric Cooperative about getting power to each lot in the subdivision, but that a reliable water supply is not being included. Beasley said the resort assessed whether water could be brought from its private water and wastewater facility elsewhere in town, but discovered it is not a feasible option.
“We’ve studied that on numerous occasions, tried to figure out how we could get it from our water plant there and [how to make it] cost effective. We can’t make it work,” Beasley said. “It’s just going to be like everybody else in Terlingua Ranch.”
Henington asked whether the resort would consider making water deliveries — a procurement option many Terlingua Ranch residents rely on — from its water plant to the new subdivision, to which Beasley said yes.
Texas model subdivision rules — which are regulated by counties — prevent the “establishment of residential developments with lots of five acres or less without adequate water supply and sewer services.” Model subdivision rules also state that the conveyance of potable water by transport truck is “not an acceptable method, except on an emergency basis.”
Beasley said individual landowners may also be able to drill their own wells, but if water is found it will likely need to be treated — a costly process at-scale that may be more accessible for smaller systems.
“We thought about doing it ourselves for all of them,” Beasley said. “But it’s the Santa Elena Aquifer, which, quite frankly, the water is no good. By the time you put something in to clean it — an EDR (electrodialysis reversal) like we have in the Lajitas, or some sort of RO (reverse osmosis) plant — you’re in the $10 million range.”
The model subdivision rules state that the “subdivider” is required to provide a copy of a groundwater availability study that “certifies the long term (30 years) quantity and quality of available groundwater supplies relative to the ultimate needs of the subdivision” in cases when individual wells or other non-public water systems are proposed as the water supply.
In a follow up with The Sentinel, Henington said the county does not require developers to provide water unless a lot is less than five acres. “In this case, we will require them to post in large letters on all of the plats a disclaimer showing that water is not available, might not ever be available and the chance of finding water might be zero,” Henington said.
At the meeting Henington said the project met the standards for preliminary plat approval from the commissioners court and a final hearing and approval will likely take place later this month.
In a 2023 election the resort won approval from a single voter to establish its own utilities district, a quasi-governmental entity that has the power to levy taxes, issue bonds and conduct road, utility and public infrastructure projects.
In a follow up with The Big Bend Sentinel, Beasley said that the resort is still working with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to finalize the Lajitas Utility District, but that the entity will be used for water and wastewater services in the five existing subdivisions.
Tax collection law firm
The judge and county commissioners also heard from county employees and a citizen regarding ongoing failures of its tax attorneys, Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, LLP, who are in charge of pursuing the county’s delinquent property tax cases.
Henington said he has been “unhappy” with the firm’s performance in terms of “getting aggressive with the [delinquent] tax sales and the past dues and the payments.”
“We have a lot of land in South County that has been purchased and then just abandoned in terms of its tax payments,” Henington said. “We really need to be aggressive about getting those. It helps us, helps the school. It’s a source of revenue for us.”
He said that the goal should be to take advantage of the current “land boom” and get abandoned property back on the market, sold, and contributing to the tax rolls.
Sheriff Ronny Dodson — whose office administers delinquent property auctions — said he has more experience working with tax attorneys Perdue Brandon Fielder Collins & Mott, LLP, which five out of the seven taxing entities in the county use.
Dodson said in the past Linebarger has failed to perform on the ground reconnaissance needed to ensure properties are truly vacant and to communicate with Terlingua Ranch, who also holds liens on properties.
“We’ve had people come back in and say, ‘Well, you know, you sold my property the other day, and I live there, and here’s my receipt that I paid it,’ and stuff like that,” Dodson said.
District Clerk Sarah Martinez also advocated for switching to Purdue for the sake of the county’s citizens, she said. Because two different law firms represent the seven taxing entities in the county, two civil suits have to be filed against individuals with delinquent taxes, causing confusion and two sets of court fees.
“If we went with Purdue, because they are with all the other taxing entities, it would just do away with all that,” Martinez said. “It would make it simple. It would be easy. You’re just talking to one tax attorney.”
Martinez said two incidents — one of missing documents and another of missing money after a delinquent tax sale — had caused her to lose trust in Linebarger. “We are talking about selling somebody’s home, somebody’s property, and dealing with money,” Martinez said. “That’s like two of the biggest things you could deal with. And they’ve already made two huge mistakes.”
Tom Jacobs, a Terlingua Ranch property owner interested in investing further in the area, addressed the court to state that it was his cashier’s check that was lost, which led to frustration and delays.
Jacobs said that while there has been a “land boom,” appraisals have also skyrocketed in recent years, and the prices in the area have “softened dramatically,” with more properties lingering on the market, meaning “the clock is ticking on the county’s ability to collect these because the buyers will be reduced.”
Henington said the item was primarily meant for discussion, and that he would pull a copy of Linebarger’s contact and other information for the court to review at the next meeting.
Autopsies and cremations
Another issue Henington said he wanted to make the county court aware of is the “ever escalating” cost of autopsies, cremations and body transportation — services the county pays the Alpine Memorial Funeral Home for when needed.
He said if someone dies in Brewster County and the justice of the peace (JP) orders an autopsy, often in the case of an “unattended” death, it costs a “smooth” $3,400. Autopsies have to be performed by a medical examiner in Lubbock, Hengington explained, which in addition to cremation and transportation costs can run the county around $5,600 per body. He said there have already been 13 autopsies this calendar year.
“I don’t have an answer on how to slow this down, but it’s expensive,” Henington said. “The autopsies are really going up in price.”
In the case of the death of an unidentified person, who are often migrants, “the remains belong to us until somebody claims them,” Henington said. “We have a number of remains that no one’s ever claimed.”
Autopsies are not always ordered, however. It is largely up to the discretion of the JP. A recent case of an unidentified migrant found dead in an old camping trailer near the Terrell/Brewster county line did not result in an autopsy, Henington said, because the individual was “badly decomposed,” apparently succumbing to exposure.
“Best we can tell he found an old camping trailer, ran out of water, probably froze to death and died in the camper trailer,” Henington said.
Now the body remains in cold storage in Fort Stockton, he said, with county officials awaiting a response from the Mexican consulate who may help with interment costs. In some lucky cases, bodies are able to be sent at no cost to Texas State’s Operation Identification lab, where DNA samples are taken and remains are stored with the goal of reuniting a deceased with their loved ones and repatriating their remains.