Brown County Commissioners approved the adoption of guidelines and criteria for the purpose of potential future tax abatements during Monday’s meeting at the Brown County Courthouse.

All four commissioners – Precinct 1’s Gary Worley, Precinct 2’s Joel Kelton, Precinct 3’s Wayne Shaw and Precinct 4’s Larry Traweek – voted in favor, while County Judge Paul Lilly stated his opposition.

Worley stated, “Establishing guidelines and criteria does not mean we will automatically grant a tax abatement to Radiant Solar or anyone else. What it does mean is that 3M, Kohler, Superior Essex or any other industry in the county that wishes to expand and would like to have a tax abatement, the criteria is already set. It’s not just for one industry, it’s for every industry that might come in. The second thing is just because we set these guidelines and criteria doesn’t mean that anyone that fills out an application is automatically going to get it. In these guidelines and criteria, there is always a clause that says we can approve or deny anything that is set before us.”

Fourteen people spoke – nine in favor and five against – regarding the issue of a solar power plant that has been proposed for southwestern Brown County, near Brookesmith. The company that would construct and operate the plant is Intersect Power of San Francisco, California. The project would be constructed on approximately 3,000 acres within the Brookesmith Independent School District and would produce 300-megawatts of power, 830-gigawatts annually, enough to power nearly 60,000 homes, according to Intersect.

No action was taken during Monday’s meeting.

Commissioners also voted to keep the burn ban intact, however, the Texas Forest Service was approved to conduct a prescribed burn at Camp Bowie Feb. 22-26.

Lisa Dick with the Brownwood/Brown Health Department gave a COVID-19 update, highlighted by the number of COVID patients at Hendrick Medical Center-Brownwood dipping from 12 Friday to eight Monday morning.

Dick did implore commissioners and Judge Lilly to secure more vaccines for Brown County.

“Brown County has received 2,100 vaccines and all of those have been given and there’s no stipulation on what county you live in to receive the vaccine because they are provided by the state,” Dick said. “So 1,853 of those vaccines were provided to Brown County residents, which is just over 6 percent of our population. We are requesting that you support us in getting more vaccines here in Brown County. The distribution is supposed to be based on population but we can look at our surrounding counties and see that distribution is not exactly accurate. Smaller population counties have received almost as many vaccinations as we have, including one that has received 1,875 vaccines, so their rate of vaccination is at 13.82 percent which is more than twice what we have here in Brown County.”

Another mass COVID vaccination, similar to what took place at Gordon Wood Stadium last week, is being planned for Wednesday at the Depot. A total of 400 vaccinations are expected to be available to those who have signed up on the Health Department list. The move to the Depot was done due to expected colder temperatures later in the week. More information will be released as it becomes available.

Courtney Parrott with the Texas Agrilife Extension Agency spoke about the Healthy County Program. Parrott stated Brown County earned $3,360 in reward money, and that money is expected to be reimbursed into the program to make plans going forward.

Coordinator of Grants and Government Affairs Bob Contreras stated the county received two checks pending for deposit – one from the Texas Department of Emergency Management, a 75 percent reimbursement of $5,886.75 to be deposited this week, and one from the county Texas Infrastructure Fund Project with an 80 percent reimbursement of $18,563. The county this past Friday deposited a check for $566,192 for the Coronavirus Relief Fund, bringing the county total to $707,740.