GUN BARREL CITY–The East Cedar Creek Fresh Water District (ECCFWSD) Board of Directors voted Jan. 21 to approve transferring $150,000 from the district’s improvement fund to its operating reserve, setting the stage to add an additional building to the current administrative office off Hammer Road, which will add capacity for administrative operations due to growth.
ECCFWSD Office Manager Angie Crowsey said plans are for that additional building to be right next to the existing office. Plans are to meet with the district’s contractor and then submit those plans to the City of Gun Barrel City for approval, Crowsey added.
As of now, the vision is for that extra building to be utilized for board meetings and for projects, as well as to host a training facility, and that the existing board room will become storage space and perhaps more offices, Crowsey said. The current ECCFWSD office space will be reconfigured, according to Crowsey, and in addition, she said the ECCFWSD lobby will be expanded.
The current ECCFWSD headquarters building on Hammer Road is about 25 years old and replaces a previous headquarters that was across the road, which burned down, Crowsey shared.
Another item related to the ECCFWSD administrative office building approved by the board of directors Jan. 21 was repairing the current building’s exterior. That’s an item that the board limited to cost no more than $5,000, and which is a budgeted 2025-26 capital improvement expenditure to be paid out of the water district’s operating reserves account.
Crowsey said that work entails replacing older light fixtures to improve surrounding luminance, along with repairing doors.
Furthermore, the ECCFWSD board approved upgrading radio communications for both of the district’s water treatment plants (ECCFWSD has a northern and southern sector), the cost of which the board limited to no more than $26,000. That is considered by the water district to be an unexpected 2025-26 capital improvement expenditure which will be paid out of the ECCFWSD operating reserves account.
The reason for the upgrade is because the current system is obsolete, ECCFWSD Chief Water Operator Anthony McLaughlin informed the water district board, and the new system will be using radio telemetry.
In addition, the board approved rehabilitating the chemical building at the Brookshire Water Treatment Plant (which serves the water district’s northern sector and is near its Gun Barrel City headquarters) for a cost not to exceed $20,000. That item is a budgeted 2025-26 capital improvement expenditure which will be paid out of the ECCFWSD operating reserves account, also.
The rehab is needed because the chemical storage building’s exterior has corrosion issues, ECCFWSD General Manager James Blodgett explained to board members.
In other business, the board:
• Approved for board members to attend the Texas Rural Water Authority’s annual meeting in Arlington March 26-27, as well as appointing voting delegates.
• Approved engaging Mike Ward Accounting & Financial Consulting, PLLC to perform the water district’s annual audit for fiscal year 2025-26.
• Approved the investment officers (Board President Jim Willi and Blodgett) to review maturing accounts in 2026 and authorized those officers to close and/or reinvest those accounts following the ECCFWSD investment policy and internal procedures.
• Approved paying bills of $360,378.81.