Stunned silence fell over the Terrell County courthouse on Friday afternoon after the Commissioners Court approved a lease with border wall contractor Fisher Sand & Gravel to use a portion of the county airport for a staging area and worker housing. While a handful of Terrell County residents showed up to voice their support for the lease, the vast majority of people who signed up to speak begged the county not to enter in any legal agreements with the contractor, citing concerns about the language of the lease itself, the potential impacts of a large influx of transient workers on county resources and the company’s extensive history of controversy and litigation.
The county pressed ahead anyway, with Precinct 1 and 4 Commissioners Adam Johnson and Gene Chavez citing “overwhelming” support. Precinct 3 Commissioner Ele Hagelstein abstained because of a conflict of interest, as did County Judge Dale Carruthers, who did not supply a reason for sitting out the vote.
Chief Deputy Manuel Jimenez of the Terrell County Sheriff’s Office spoke first and explained that he’s not “for or against the wall” but worried that the department, normally responsible for around 700 people, would have trouble covering a semi-permanent population swell of 250-500 additional people. The county jail only has seven beds and can only accommodate one gender at a time –– any folks taken into custody beyond that cost the county money in transfers. “These are not political issues, they are public safety and operational realities,” he said.
Local rancher Kinley Coyan, who owns land near the airport, said that he had met with Fisher Sand & Gravel months ago –– not to discuss business, but because he caught their employees trespassing on his land. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and my first impression with them was not good,” he said. “I know they’ve got to be [housed] somewhere, but I’d appreciate it if it wasn’t in my backyard.”
Sanderson High School Senior Harper Sertich took time out of preparing for the tiny town’s homecoming festivities to speak her mind, citing research about how man camps are correlated with a rise in gender-based violence in rural communities. “Our school is the backbone of Sanderson, and a man camp would threaten that,” she said, explaining that the local kids often commute to and from extracurricular activities early in the morning or late at night –– something they hadn’t had to worry about previously in such a small, tight-knit community. “There’s a bunch of men we can’t control around, and that’s really scary.”
Damon Harrison of the massive Harrison Ranch south of Dryden provided another perspective. He felt it was just another example of the county coming into a windfall from the border security industry, rather than sharing the profits with landowners, who he believed were more directly and severely impacted by illegal border crossing and smuggling. He had also urged the county not to sign an anti-border wall resolution earlier in the summer, and found it hypocritical for the county to officially oppose the wall but attempt to make a profit off of it. “You were against the border wall when you signed it, but now that there’s money coming up, you want to reconsider,” Harrison said. “I think that’s wrong –– this is a private landowner deal.”
Those who spoke in favor of the lease arrangement included Maggie Banner Kerr, who hails from a long-time Terrell County family that has had to wrangle numerous oil and gas leases and was of the opinion that the agreement presented to the court was pretty standard. “Any amount of money that can go to the county is not something to sneeze at,” Kerr said.
Rumors ran rampant around the three meetings about potential conflicts of interest between the commissioners and Fisher Sand & Gravel as hundreds of landowners in the greater Big Bend region work out land, mineral and water leases as the wall project looms. At the meeting held on September 18, the Sentinel asked if Judge Carruthers or any of the commissioners had private leases with Fisher Sand & Gravel, and if so, if those had been disclosed to the county attorney. (Judge Carruthers said that that information was “private” and Commissioners Johnson and Chavez did not answer the question.)
The Texas Local Government Code defines a conflict of interest as any person owning 10% or more in shares or profiting 10% or more of their gross annual income for that particular year from the company in question, or if someone they’re related to by “consanguinity or affinity” (blood, marriage or another close relationship) falls under either of those categories. The presence of a conflict of interest does not automatically render the agreement void, but a government official who cast their vote anyway could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor.
The Texas Attorney General’s office has also issued a handful of rulings related to county airports and how they can be chopped up for lease. These rulings hold that county airport land can only be leased after a competitive bidding process, or the lease may be rendered void.
Judge Carruthers explained that the county wasn’t planning to lease the airport and was approached by Fisher Sand & Gravel to explore the opportunity. Billy Bartko, the owner of a river tours company in Terlingua and a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the border wall, offered to lease the entire airport for up to twenty years, but the commissioners did not formally include his proposal on the agenda because they felt it was too different from the 20-acre, one year arrangement offered by Fisher.
Legal counsel for Terrell County and Fisher Sand & Gravel did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
