The Austin County Commissioners Court met in the county courthouse Monday, Dec. 13, to approve changes to voting districts within the county in an attempt to lower costs and move towards centralized voting locations.

Austin County Elections Official Kim Rinn started the discussion on the changes by explaining some details regarding the proposed changes and the accompanying goals.

“I am asking the court to consider redrawing some of our voting precincts, the reason I’m going this direction is to make it more costeffective,” said Rinn during the meeting. “What it does is it cuts our precinct numbers by three. We are already doing some of it, combining some of those in our elections already. So, it doesn’t technically affect too many. By reducing the number of precincts, of course, that would mean renumbering the precincts.”

Rinn explained that she had received the blessing from both the Democratic and Republican County Chairs.

“(There are) two main reasons for this, one is the cost and the other one is that we are slowly working towards centralized voting locations,” County Judge Tim Lapham said Monday. “It’s probably not the right terminology for it – it’s what has been used – but it means that you can go vote at any one of the locations in Austin County. If you’re from Industry and you happen to be in Bellville on voting day and you want to vote there, you can vote there.”

With a motion from Precinct 2 Commissioner Bobby Rinn, the court voted in favor of the proposed changes to the voting districts. The new voting districts are effective as of Dec. 13 with the approval of the court, but county-wide polling will not be effective until a future date – no speculative date was given.

New voter registration cards will be sent directly to voters in January according to Kim Rinn in a follow-up interview. She emphasized that Precinct 2 is most affected by the changes to the voting districts.

Changes to county voting districts include the following:

• Precinct 206 voters south of FM 2754 will become Precinct 205.

• Precinct 207 and Precinct 208 will be renamed to Precinct 206.

• Precinct 210 will be renamed to Precinct 207.

• Precinct 209 will be renamed to Precinct 208.

• Precinct 211 voters with an address on Oak Road, Old Concrete Crossing Lane, and a portion south of FM 1094 (near the Westcreek Subdivision) will be moved to the renamed Precinct 208. The remaining voters will become a part of Precinct 205.

• Precinct 312 will be renamed to Precinct 309.

• Precinct 314 will be renamed to Precinct 310.

• Precinct 313 will be renamed to Precinct 311.

• Precinct 416 will be renamed to Precinct 414.

• Precinct 417 will be renamed to Precinct 412.

• Precinct 418 will be renamed to Precinct 413.

Stolen/ Vandalized signs

Precinct 1 Commissioner Mark Lamp took a moment at the start of the meeting to address a series of stolen and damaged signs that have consumed valuable taxpayer dollars. Lamp explained the streak of vandalism and theft has impacted a variety of county expenditures including speed limit signs, flood gauges and flood warning signs.

“We have had a ton of signs that have been stolen, that have been damaged and vandalized. Everybody is writing their tax checks out. This coming year, please remember that those signs cost us about $200 apiece, if not more,” Lamp explained. “There are man-hours involved in it, there’s the material cost in it, there’s damage to the poles if we have to replace those. Anyhow, all of us citizens – myself included, a voter – I don’t appreciate somebody vandalizing something that is part of the county’s infrastructure. It’s necessary to be there.”

Lamp explained that there has been roughly $2,000 spent in the past few weeks in response to this matter. The court confirmed that this has been an issue in all of the county’s precincts and urged the public to help put a stop to the issue.

“Someone is pushing them over with trucks and just bending them and breaking it off. If y’all know anybody that’s doing this, please tell them to stop because us taxpayers are footing the bill and this is just a waste of taxpayer money,” said Lamp.

In other action, the court also:

• Approved the creation of a Sexual Assault Response Team;

• Approved a Road Maintenance agreement between Industry Volunteer Fire Department and Austin County; and

• Approved a personnel policy regarding House Bill 2073.