CR0301120

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KAZ’S KORNER

SPORTS COMMENTARY Page 1 Section B

ORANGE COUNTY

Outdoors

FISHING

HUNTING & FISHING

Capt. Dickie Colburn Page 1 Section B

Capt. Chuck Uzzle Page 4 Section B

RELIGION & LOCAL CHURCH GUIDE Page 6B

County Record TheRecordLive.com

Vol. 60 No. 40

The Community Newspaper of Orange, Texas

Week of Wednesday, March 11, 2020

2020 Census counts count for OC citizens

Delta Sigma Theta Orange Alumnae Chapter members, from left, Kim Franklin, Bettie J. Curtis, Margaret Adams, Linda Lee and Peggy Richard make plans to get the word out about the 2020 Census and how a response by all residents can make the city and surrounding area better. RECORD PHOTO: Dave Rogers

DAVE ROGERS

For The Record

It’s time to stand up and be counted, Orange County. Or you can sit down and do it. You can even be counted while lying on your bed. The 2020 U.S. Census has begun and Americans will begin receiving info about it in the mail next week.

But there’s no need to wait. As Bridget Johnson told members of Orange City Council and the audience at the city’s Tuesday meeting, you can grab your phone, tablet or computer and go online and fill out the short questionnaire in five minutes time. An employee of The Record Newspapers needed six

OC Master Gardeners plant sale set for Sat.

Mike Layman (L), secretary, and Sheri Bethard (R), president of Orange County Master Gardeners are pictured with plants that will be for sale 8 a.m. – 1 p.m., Saturday at Jewel Cormier Park on FM 1442 in Orangefield. RECORD PHOTO: Penny LeLeux

PENNY LELEUX For The Record

The annual plant sale of the Orange County Master Gardeners is 8 a.m. – 1 p.m., Saturday at Jewel Cormier Park on FM 1442 in Orangefield. Many of the plants have been grown by the Master Gardeners, while some have been purchased from local growers. Flowering and vegetable plants in both perennial and annual varieties will be available along with a selection of fruit and pecan trees. Sheri Bethard, president of the OC Master Gardeners said they will have the variety of pecan tree the Lions Club planted in various areas in Orange County. “The Jackson and Kansa pecan trees,” said Bethard.

With pecan trees you have to plant two different varieties to produce pecans. “These two varieties will cross-pollinate each other,” she said. “We’ll have Satsuma, mandarin, for the first time we will have Dorsett apples,” said Bethard. “They only require 200 chilling hour.” A chilling hour is an hour when the temperature is below 45 degrees. They will also have the Florida King peach tree, lemon trees, orange trees and figs. The citrus trees are in three and five gallon containers and 4-5 feet tall. They run $25-35 each, according to Bethard. In vegetables, they have 12 types of tomatoes, 11 varietPLANT SALE Page 3A

minutes to go to my2020census.gov and fill out all the asked-for info for his twoperson household. The census is a count of every living person in the United States which is required by the U.S. Constitution to be conducted every 10 years. It is against the law for the Census Bureau to publicly release your responses in any way that could identify you or your household. By law, your responses cannot be used against you and can only be used to produce statistics.

Those statistics are used by businesses to decide where to build factories, offices and stores. Local governments use the census for public safety and emergency preparedness. More than $675 billion annually is distributed in federal funds, grants and support to states, counties and communities based on census data. That money is spent on schools, hospitals, roads and other public works programs. “People want better parks, better services, better stuff,”

Orange Mayor Larry Spears, Jr., said. “You’ve got to let people know you’re here.” The Orange alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta is doing all it can to get the word out, partnering with the U.S. Census Bureau. “In the last census, the city of Orange was very underrepresented,” said Margaret Adams, the DST social action chairperson for Orange. “We began working Sunday, and we’ll be pushing this through the end of June.” Adams, who joined DST members Peggy Richard, Kim Franklin, Bettie J. Cur-

tis and group president Linda Lee at Tuesday’s meeting, said the group is working to promote the census with 22 faith-based communities [congregations] and had met with 10 local pastors already. “Each pastor shared with their congregations that the census is coming,” she said. Bridget Johnson is the Partnership Specialist for the Dallas Regional Census Center. She said she’s also trying to establish partnerships with city and county governments 2020 CENSUS Page 3A

‘Car guy’ commissioner checks under hood DAVE ROGERS For The Record

Commissioner Kirk Roccaforte celebrated his first county election last week by poking around under the hood of a county ride. The former Bridge City mayor, who said he was turning over operation of Bridge City Radiator and Auto Repair to son Aaron when he took an interim appointment as Precinct 3 Commissioner last summer, told Tuesday’s meeting of Orange County Commissioners’ Court that he had personally checked out a 2009 Crown Vic assigned to the AgriLife department. “Major mechanical issues” that would cost more to fix than the car was worth was the description given the vehicle that led to the agenda item of “providing and/or purchasing a vehicle for the AgriLife Department.” Roccaforte said he understood the issues developed after a routine oil change but before a trip to a Ford dealership service bay. The commissioner said he’d driven the car and didn’t notice any problem, suggesting the Ford people may

Orange County Commissioners Court recognizes Connie Cassidy on her retirement as county purchasing agent after nearly 19 years during Tuesday’s meeting at the County Administration Building. RECORD PHOTO: Dave Rogers

have fixed it. He said he would let the county’s Road and Bridge mechanic “drive it around” a few days and see if a problem surfaced. Fallon Foster, county extension agent, said her big concern was making sure the department had a safe ride for out-of-town trips. Commissioners said they

would re-visit the issue in a couple of weeks if necessary. Besides Roccaforte, Orange County Precinct 1 Commissioner Johnny Trahan ran unopposed and won reelection in the March 3 GOP Primary which will count as a final election for the county as none of the races drew a Democratic challenger.

County Judge John Gothia won his race for a two-year term over Ernest Bayard and Carl LeBlanc finished behind Roccaforte in the commissioner race. Both LeBlanc and Bayard were in attendance Tuesday and Gothia thanked all for avoiding negative camCOUNTY BUSINESS Page 3A

Orange ups its Boardwalk Grille investment DAVE ROGERS For The Record

The long-awaited Boardwalk Grille hasn’t broken ground yet and already the city has decided to double the length of its $100-a-year lease to 50 years. “This is one of the final steps to beginning construction,” Jay Trahan, city economic development director, said after Orange City Council approved action taken by the Orange Economic Development Corporation to allow for a 25-year extension for the restaurant. Three extensions have been granted for groundbreaking on Jake Lemoine’s dream, a dream that is ap-

parently shared by a devoted weekday lunch crowd that has filled his temporary location across the street from the Sabine River boardwalk. The restaurant is to be located on the boardwalk at Fifth and Division Streets and resemble the Wheelhouse in Port Neches, with space for dining inside and out along the waterfront. “They’re set to begin construction by May 1, subject to the weather,” Trahan said. The original 25-year lease begins this year and runs through 2045. The extension will run through 2070. The EDC and council saw a $200,000 infrastructure grant and the friendly lease as a great tradeoff to develop

a must-go dining location downtown. “First and foremost, it’s a riverfront destination that’s very attractive, right on the boardwalk,” Trahan said. “The restaurant is already very successful in its third year. “The main thing is keeping residents and visitors here in the city of Orange, as opposed to leakage.” Also in Tuesday morning’s meeting, council voted to award a $42,850 contract to Frey’s Landscape for planting 700 trees in three different “planting zones” for the Coopers Gully Planting Project. Councilors also approved a $1.2 million contract with

LD Construction of Beaumont for the 2019 Bond Program streets, south of I-10. A vote passed for official acceptance of a $3.2 million Harvey grant from the General Land Office to be used for acquisitions of 30 homes that have suffered repetitive floods. In a community workshop held March 3 to discuss upcoming work on Lions Den Park, council members heard from about 10 citizens and dispensed with the idea of replacing a now-shuttered playground there with a splash park. Kelvin Knauf, city planning director, said the city ORANGE Page 3A

CELEBRATING 60 YEARS! Everybody Reads ‘The Record’

In Print and Online • The County Record and the Penny Record hometown news for Orange County, Texas

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