News

Seven years. Seven years of mowing, painting, building, cleaning, and sweating. In the Bible, seven is a paramount number. A number of extreme importance. Seven means complete or whole, good and full, but it doesn’t mean finished.

The city’s annual street sealcoating project got underway here Tuesday morning, as shown in this photo taken by City Manager Joe Jarosek on Nelson Avenue. The project will eventually result in improvements to parts of Mesquite Street; Washita and Nelson avenues; and 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th streets. Portions of some streets on the north end of town, including Lamar and Austin avenues, will receive first-time paving. One-block sections of three streets—Nelson, Washita, and Panhandle between 1st and 2nd streets— were pulled from this year’s project due to conflicts and substituted with additional sections of 6th Street and Purcell. Hemphill County’s portion of the sealcoating project will cover sections of Hickory Trail and Juniper Road, Teas Circle and Shaller Drive around the Mesa View Assisted and Senior Living facilities, a section of Mesquite Road, and all of the streets in the Edith Ford Memorial Cemetery. The project contractor, Bryer’s Paving LLC, of Amarillo, expects the work to be completed within 45 calendar days.

A public sale will be held on Tuesday, Aug. 2, for the property located at 203 Birch St.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In Tuesday night’s board meeting, school trustees revisited the subject of teacher salaries, and agreed to a 5 percent salary increase in order to remain competitive in the district and state. The complete report will be published in next week’s Canadian Record.

As the budget planning process for 2022- 23 continued last week, commissioners focused on possible pay raises—the first in two years—for the 11 elected officials, and 46 fulltime and two part-time employees that keep Hemphill County running.

Looming in the background of the budget talks being conducted by each of Hemphill County’s taxing entities this month is a lawsuit against the Hemphill County Appraisal District, filed by Midcoast Pipelines, arguing that its property in this county was appraised in excess of its market value in 2019 and 2020.