Ector County commissioners Tuesday acceded to District Attorney Dusty Gallivan’s request and approved the creation of an adult sexual assault cases team and the appointment of its seven members.
First Assistant DA Greg Barber and Assistant DA Melissa Rayne, who prosecutes sex cases, said before the 10 a.m. meeting that the initiative was in deference to a new state law and that all the team members had agreed to serve on a volunteer basis.
They are Lorie Dunnam and Xylia Hidalgo, executive director and counselor at the Crisis Center of West Texas; Brad Cline, a sergeant in the crimes against persons division at the Odessa Police Department; sheriff’s investigator Jodi Alvarado; Lisa Montoya, coordinator of the sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) program at Medical Center Hospital; David Graham, MCH’s divisional director of emergency, trauma and SANE services; and Rayne.
Barber and Rayne said the program was required by Senate Bill 476, which was sponsored by Republican Sens. Jane Nelson of Flower Mound, Lois Kolkhorst of Katy and Lynn Stucky of Denton. It went into effect Sept. 1.
In other business, the commissioners voted 3-2 to donate $49,038 to the Odessa Council for the Arts and Humanities to help study the need for a new library.
Joined by Precinct 4 Commissioner Armando Rodriguez, Precinct 1 Commissioner Mike Gardner voted “no,” he said, because it is uncertain if a new library will be built and the money will be wasted if it isn’t.
Council Executive Director Randy Ham said he won’t begin raising money for the project until it becomes more definite and he is able to answer all the questions of prospective donors. “It will take the entire community to do this,” said Ham, who is chairing the study committee.
The court accepted the by-laws of the library advisory board and expanded the panel by naming Feliz Abalos, Kellie Wilks and Tehisha Muhammad additional members of it.
The commissioners authorized a geotechnical investigation by the Landgraf-Crutcher Associates engineering company for the 64-bed, $25-million juvenile detention center that is being planned next to the jail just south of town off U.S. 385. County Maintenance Director Charles Pierce said construction will start next summer and take about a year.
They also:
- Reappointed Precinct 2 Commissioner Greg Simmons to represent the court on the appraisal board.
- Approved the installation of ice shields on the radio towers at Notrees and Penwell and the repair of antenna lines at the county jail and the Penwell tower.
- OK’d the purchase of a foreign objects debris sweeper for the Odessa Airport-Schleymeyer Field.
- Approved leasing a mobile clinic for the health department.
