DETCOG hears update on TxDOT's Interstate 69 study

The Board of Directors of the Deep East Texas Council of Governments (DETCOG) met Thursday at the Alabama-Coushatta Indian Reservation near Livingston.

DETCOG President, Charles Simmons, started the board meeting by calling on Center Mayor, John Windham, to make the Transportation Committee report. Windham noted the recent release of the Texas Department of Transportation's Interstate Sixty-Nine study. Saying the five volume study narrowed the prospective routes for the transportation corridor, Windham urged interested parties to review the publication at the DETCOG office in Jasper. In other committee reports, the Vice-Chair of the DETCOG Solid Waste Advisory Council, Chris Fitzgerald, announced the results of the regional review of the Solid Waste Grant Applications. Hemphill, San Augustine and Crockett received the highest three scores of the eleven DETCOG applicants.

Simmons then congratulated DETCOG Executive Director Walter Diggles, on his recent governor's appointment to chair the OneStar National Service Commission. The organization is responsible for the Governor's Faith-Based and Community Initiative, the Governor's Mentoring Initiative and the National Service Initiative.

In his report, Diggles, stated the agency's Hurricane Rita Relief program has identified one hundred twenty nine eligible applicants for assistance under the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA)/Community Development Block Grant program. Eleven purchase orders have been issued for replacement housing with five of them already delivered and installed. Diggles announced that DETCOG and TDHCA would be working this next month to speed up delivery of assistance to victims of Hurricane Rita.

The next DETCOG meeting will be its annual Christmas Luncheon in Jasper County.