Archives for December 2006

Someone will go home with $400 in Christmas Cash this Thursday as Late Night Shopping draws to a close for 2006 in downtown Clarendon.

Last Thursday, five people – Martin Oliver, Pam Watson, Kim Layton, Judy Morris, and Greg Lowry – each took a spin at the wheel, but none landed on the jackpot, which has now rolled over to its maximum.

Five more people will spin this week; and if none of them land on the big money, the downtown merchants will start drawing names out of the hopper until someone is present to win.

Merchants on Kearney Street will be open Thursday until 8:30 p.m. for your holiday shopping convenience, and prizes from 27 local businesses will be on the wheel in addition to the jackpot money.

The Chamber of Commerce has provided $100 in Christmas Cash during each Late Night Shopping for the jackpot. Shoppers can register from 5 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. at any participating Christmas Cash merchant, and the drawing will be held at 8 p.m.

You must be 18 years old to register.

Santa Claus will be downtown again this Thursday. Kids are encouraged to come tell him all their wishes, and parents are reminded to bring their cameras to get those memorable photos.

The Downtown Ministry Center will also be open from 6 to 8 p.m. and will serve hot chocolate and refreshments.

Support your local merchants this holiday season, and watch for their Christmas specials and holiday hours in the pages of the Enterprise.

The Clarendon Board of Aldermen last Tuesday threw its support to a large junior rodeo that will be held here next spring.

Robert Benson addressed the board during its regular meeting on behalf of the Junior Rodeo Cowboy Association, which has already held their annual rodeo once at the Clarendon College Livestock & Equine Center.

“This brings 300 kids and their families to Clarendon,” Benson said. “It fills up the hotel and helps local restaurants and businesses. The last time we had it, you couldn’t find a Coke or bag of ice in Lowe’s (supermarket). It wiped them out.”

Benson said the association considers the LEC the best facility in the area for the event but said more financial support from the community was needed to bring the event to Clarendon in 2007. He said several local businesses had already pledged their support, and he asked the city to sign on as a corporate sponsor.

The board approved a motion to spend $2,575 from the Motel Bed Tax fund to support the event, which will be held May 12 and 13, 2007.

In other city business, a public hearing was held on a grant application through the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department for improvements to City Park. City Secretary Linda Smith said ten letters of support for the project and several donations or promises of donations for goods and services had been received.

Assistant City Clerk Jeannie Molder has been working on the grant application.

Ordinance 365, freezing taxes on the elderly and disabled, was approved on its second reading.

City Superintendent Jim Roberts said he has been working with the city engineer to identify streets that would need to be seal coated this year.

The board will not have its next scheduled meeting on December 26 but will resume its schedule with the second Tuesday in January.

Hedley School Trustees on Monday night cleared Superintendent Bryan Hill of recent allegations against him regarding inappropriate computer usage.

Bringing a close to its investigation, the board’s only action was to formally issue Hill a letter advising him to turn off his computer when he leaves his office and to change his password on a regular basis.

Board President Cary Don Neeley announced the board’s findings in a prepared statement after the board met in closed session for over an hour. All board members voted in favor of the letter except one – Jason Sargent, who abstained as a relative to Hill by marriage.

Neeley said Hill’s computer had been subjected to a forensic evaluation by Mandry Technology Solutions in Lubbock, and the board considered that firm’s report along with a review of documents and testimony of individuals.

“As a result, we have found no conclusive evidence of that any inappropriate Web searches were conducted by Mr. Hill, and there is no evidence that any inappropriate Web sites were accessed on any of the district’s computers,” the statement said.

Neeley said a previous examination of Hill’s computer by school board members and the Region 16 Education Service Center had not compromised the investigation but said that some files had been erased “before school was out last year.”

Following Monday’s meeting, Hill appeared relieved but had few words on the case.

“I’m glad it’s over,” he said.

The Clarendon Enterprise made a formal request Tuesday morning under the Texas Open Records Act for all documents related to the board’s investigation and reviewed those documents Tuesday afternoon.

A 38-page server listing of Internet links visited by Hill’s computer between April 24 and June 22, 2006, shows several inappropriate searches conducted by someone and some adult Web sites that resulted from those searches. Thirty-six pages of screenshots reveal other inappropriate searches.

The documentation also includes 17 pages of more than 450 thumbnail images that resulted from the searches. One of the images was of a topless woman.

A ten-page report from Mandry Technology Solutions concludes that the company “Could not prove the user in question (Hill) was searching and viewing the inappropriate material” because the “Username and password (were) not secure.”

Neeley told the Enterprise the server listings end in June because no inappropriate material had been found after that time. He also said there was no way to know for sure who had searched for the information and whether that person had been actually sitting at the computer or not even in the office at the time.

“We tried to find a footprint or a trail, but we couldn’t,” he said. “We know the computer was remote accessed at one time. It was done with what they call a remote desktop.”

Neeley said the board had learned a lot about computer security during the investigation.

“We’ve made some changes, and more will be done in the future to have more security,” he said.

Donley County Commissioners accepted the resignation of Constable Mike Wallendorff when they met in regular session Monday.

Judge Jack Hall said Wallendorff made the move in a letter to the court and said the constable’s resignation would take effect December 15.

“He just said he wanted a change in his occupation and had some other work he wanted to pursue,” Hall said.

Wallendorff was elected to the constable’s position in 2000.

Commissioners did not take action to replace Wallendorff, and Hall said the county is not looking to abolish the office of constable in Precincts 3&4 as it did the same position in Precincts 1&2 in 2003.

Hall said he knows of three potential candidates to succeed Wallendorff but said the county was not going to rush into a decision and would probably wait until January to fill the vacancy.

In other county business, TxDOT representative Jimmy Bridges also gave commissioners an update on plans to replace the bridge on CR 28 over Buck Creek. The project is in the contract letting stage and will get underway in 2007.

The county’s match for the new bridge will be $12,000, but Hall said that has already been taken care of by some in-kind labor the county did for the state back in 2001.

Training and continuing education courses were approved for the county attorney and county treasurer. The court also authorized the county treasurer to administer some accounts for the district attorney’s office.

The county policy manual was altered to require all part-time employees to participate in the county’s retirement plan.

Commissioners approved the county’s liability, auto, and property insurance coverage through the Texas Association of Counties in the amount of $51,500, which is $10,000 less than last year.

The court approved an agreement with TxDOT to keep trees trimmed near the Giles railroad crossing on CR Z, and commissioners also approved a resolution supporting the attorney general’s grant for Victim Assistance Coordinator Kim Jeffrey.

Judge Hall’s attendance at a preservation workshop in Austin next February was approved. The workshop, which will be on the maintenance of restored courthouses, is being funded by the Texas Land & Title Association.

Hall also said the Donley County Courthouse will be featured on a program on KACV-TV this Thursday at 9 p.m.

Five lucky people took a spin at the wheel last Thursday during Late Night Shopping, but no one hit the big money. Now the jackpot is $300 this week.

Several merchants on Kearney Street will be staying open Thursday until 8:30 p.m. for your holiday shopping convenience, and prizes from 27 local businesses will be on the wheel in addition to the jackpot money.

The Chamber of Commerce is providing the $100 in Christmas Cash during each Late Night Shopping through December 21. Five lucky winners will be drawn; and if no one hits the big money, the pot rolls over and will continue to do so until the final night of Late Night Shopping when someone will win the money.

Shoppers can register from 5 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. at any participating Christmas Cash merchant, and the drawing will be held at 8 p.m. You must be 18 years old to register.

Last week’s winners were Laura Carr, Scarlet Estlack, Jan Farris, Gigi Martinzez, and Jeremy Howard.

Santa Claus will be downtown again this Thursday. Kids are encouraged to come tell him all their wishes, and parents are reminded to bring their cameras to get those memorable photos.

The Downtown Ministry Center will also be open from 6 to 8 p.m. and will serve hot chocolate and refreshments.

Late Night Shopping will continue December 21.

Holiday shopping at home is easy and affordable with all three local banks again teaming up to provide zero-percent interest “Christmas Cash” loans this year. For the 12th year, anyone can make application for a loan up to $3,000 interest free with Community Bank, the Donley County State Bank, or Herring Bank.

Christmas Cash may be spent like US currency toward new purchases of products and services (excluding Lottery tickets, gasoline, and tobacco products) at all of the participating businesses.

Support your local merchants this holiday season, and watch for their Christmas specials and holiday hours in the pages of the Enterprise.

A called meeting of the Hedley school board left some citizens unsatisfied Monday night, and they made their feelings known to officials afterward.

At issue is an ongoing investigation involving Hedley Superintendent Bryan Hill and an allegation of misusing a school computer.

The board first met in an emergency meeting December 1 when the allegations came to light and called in the Region 16 Education Service Center of Amarillo to conduct an investigation. The results of that investigation were given to the board in closed session December 5.

The board unanimously voted Monday to continue the investigation after a 45-minute closed session during which they conferred with an attorney for the district.

“We have investigated the allegations to an extent,” board president Cary Don Neeley said when the board reconvened in open session, “and we feel in fairness to Mr. Hill, the school, and the community, there are a couple of other steps we can take.”

Neeley also told the crowd of about 20 people that the board was not at liberty to discuss the steps it was going to take and assured that the results of the investigation would be revealed in a future public meeting.

“We are not computer experts, and there are people in the computer field that can help us,” he said. “We’d like to put this to rest, but we can’t tonight.”

In speaking with the press after the meeting, Neeley told the Enterprise that there is no timeline for the investigation and that it does center on computer usage and the superintendent but that no law has been broken.

As members of the local and Amarillo media readied to leave, two parents – Sandra Shields and Connie Wheatly – confronted Neeley and expressed their anger about not being able to speak at the meeting and the time the investigation is taking. They also wanted to know why Neeley was in Hill’s office prior to the December 1 meeting with no other board members.

“We would have to have had a posted agenda to have the board there,” Neeley said. “We looked at it (the computer), said this is here, and called the meeting.”

Board member Brannon Stephens then said these questions were all coming too early to be answered and that the board needed to complete its investigation.

“We’re tired of the rumors,” Stephens said, “and we’re trying to find out what happened.”

Former board member Bob White, whose wife works at the school, then confronted Neeley again about his presence in Hill’s office.

“What were you doing here on Thursday (November 30)?” White asked.

“He (Hill) wanted me to come in and look at the stuff on his computer,” Neeley replied.

White then said he had previously asked Neeley if an investigation had been conducted prior to Region 16 coming in and had been told no. Neeley said he was not conducting an investigation and that he was there to “preserve evidence.”

White then said maybe his original question should have been whether Neeley had looked at Hill’s computer prior to the December 1 meeting.

“If you had asked that question, then the answer would have been ‘yes,’” Neeley said.

“Then I think that was inappropriate,” White said.

“It possibly was, and I probably wouldn’t do it again,” Neeley said and later “officially apologized” to White.

Stephens and board member Abby O’Neal then said the whole incident could have been handled better if the board had received an official complaint rather than finding out about the allegations through the rumor mill. Now they have to have an investigation into what really happened, they said.

The board will hold its next regular meeting Monday at 7 p.m. Neeley did not know if the investigation would be a topic on that agenda.