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Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Volume 32, Issue 24
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Happy Father's Day from The Hometown Press!
Chambers County Sheriff's Office Arrests Murder Suspects
Warrants Served at Tr i n i t y B a y O f f i c e s
By Wade Thibodeaux The Chambers County District Attorney's Office, with assistance from the Chambers County Sheriff's Office and the FBI, served warrants on the offices of Trinity Bay Conservation District during an event that somewhat resembled a raid on the morning of Thursday, June 10, 2021. Although the exact items confiscated were not revealed, the DA's office has confirmed that many items were retrieved from the location. An educated guess would be files, computers, and possibly cell phones. In a conversation with Chambers County District Attorney Cheryl Lieck, she commented that after a quick review of the information obtained that it's "Even more of a cluster than originally thought". She continued with "Over $300,000.00 worth of
equipment is missing with no records that detail the financial history". On Monday morning, June 14, 2021, the DA's office informed The Hometown Press that some paperwork had been found on some of the missing equipment and the paperwork was from 2010. Lieck continued "I don't want to insinuate in any way that there are not hard working and good people there at TBCD. But there has been a failure of accountability for years. It did not just start. The problem is when you don't do an inventory yearly, then you can't keep up". The Grand Jury has been held over and has been and will continue looking into this matter in the coming weeks. The Hometown Press will continue to monitor this situation and will report to our readers as the situation warrants.
By Wade Thibodeaux The Chambers County Emergency Services District No.1 Board of Commissioners met in regular session last Wednesday, June 9, 2021 at 6:00 pm. in the Fire Station located at 825 State Highway 124 in Winnie, Texas. One of the first items of business was the presentation of the audit report from the auditors J S Edwards and Associates. The auditors went through the audit with the Commissioners and informed them that the District was given a clean audit opinion, which is the best and most desired results from the auditors. The
board wasted no time in approving the audit report. The rest of the short 39 minute meeting was mostly routine items with the financial report showing a total cash assets position of $1,102,762.61 and operations running smoothly. The run report showed 33 total calls for the month of May and 228 calls for the 2021 year. The next regular meeting of the Chambers County ESD No.1 Board of Commissioners will be Wednesday, July 14, 2021 at 6:00 pm. in the Fire Station located at 825 State Highway 124 in Winnie, Texas.
Sheriff Brian Hawthorne reports that Thursday, June 10, 2021 at approximately 5:00 p.m., Chambers County Detectives Cody Burk and Christopher Detorre were working criminal interdiction on IH-10
near mile marker 810. The Deputies conducted a traffic stop on a purple 2017 Nissan Maxima with a Mississippi license plate for a traffic violation. The vehicle was occupied by two black males.
The driver, identified himself as Tommy Butler and the passenger was identified as 19 year old Tauj Chardez Taplin, from Kentwood, Louisiana. The driver was asked to exit the vehicle when Deputies
became suspicious that criminal activity may be occurring. A records check revealed that Tauj Taplin, showed to be wanted out of Bogalusa, Louisiana, for Homicide and was noted to (contd on page 3)
Impromptu Drainage Meeting Held
Chambers County ESD No1 Gets Clean Audit
A full house was waiting for TxDot and County Officials during an impromptu meeting last week.
By Wade Thibodeaux A meeting that was originally intended for only State and County officials turned into a full house gathering of concerned citizens who heard about the meeting and turned out in full force to voice their opinions and bend the ear of the TxDot officials and Chambers County Engineer Cory Taylor. Last Wednesday, June 9, 2021 a group of
concerned citizens, mostly from the subdivision known as Teacherville in Winnie crowded into the Annex Courtroom to voice their displeasure with the drainage situation in their subdivision. The engineers from TxDot were certainly surprised to find a room full of people waiting for them and County Engineer Cory Taylor, although surprised, took the lead and tried to address the concerns of
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the citizens. Chambers County Commissioner Jimmy Gore, Trinity Bay Conservation District General Manager James Gibson, Taylor, and TxDot engineers were scheduled to go out into the field to survey drainage structures, but instead found themselves answering questions before they ventured into the field. Several of the citizens followed the group when
they finally were able to get away from the meeting and met with them in the area on the feeder road just North of the subdivision to show the engineers the location of culbert's causing a deluge of water flooding the subdivision during heavy rains. All officials agreed that working together between all entities was the best avenue for everyone.
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