Welcome to Brazos Matters.

I'm Jay.

Socol.

In studio today is Brazos County judge Duane Peters.

He has held that position since 2010.

Before that, his resumé includes several years with the Bryan Fire Department as a private rancher, Brazos County constable, and then a jump in 2003. to Brazos County commissioner, that's a seat he held until his successful run for judge in 2010.

He oversees a budget of about $554 million in an organization comprised of more than a thousand employees.

Judge, thanks for being on Brazos Matters.

Thanks, Jay.

Glad to be here.

You bet.

Well, you've been making a media tour to mostly talk about three topics that are getting people's attention.

Proposed Inner East Loop Construction Update for the county's first medical examiner's office and what you're calling the 101 building.

And that's referencing the future building across from the courthouse, formerly Bryan ISD's Administration Building.

So let's see if we can get to all those.

And I figured we would start with the Inner East Loop project because that seems to be what people are talking about.

Okay, sounds good.

Sounds good.

All right.

So if you don't mind, give me a quick description of what it's meant to be talked about that loop and how it was determined that there was even a need for it.

Okay.

So the MPO has to I mean, MPO was originally created by the federal government in the sixties, and what they're required to do is look at least 20 years out and even up to 50 years out.

And that's that is a requirement is it is the local in our case, it's two cities the county Texas A&M and TXDOT and MPO being the Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Correct?

yes.

Sorry.

And so they are required to look at least 20 years out and even further out in the future to see what transportation needs they that they believe may be there.

They determined that based on those projections that there should be an East loop sometime in the future.

And and they drew a line on a map and it was really about a half a mile wide not that not that that loop would be a half a mile wide.

But but an area a half mile mile wide so that they could come up with a line alignment within.

There are two or three alignments to to actually look at to see when the time came about whether where exactly that inner loop should be.

So so that was in 2017 is when that happened.

The problem, of course, with that is without having a way to preserve a route, There's there's development that's going on all the time.

And I mean, we through the county, we see a plats being filed and and a lot of them are in that general corridor of this inner loop.

Well.

Well, the problem is, if it's 15 or 20 years from now and you have a whole bunch of other subdivisions that keep on being built in those that area, it'll be very difficult to get through there without impacting even a lot more people than than what currently would today.

I mean, you know, if you look at it, probably it might have been better if this had been done 15 years ago, ten years ago.

But it takes money to do that kind of stuff.

It was the bond issue in 2022 that gave us the money to be able to do this study.

And that's exactly what it is as a study to see where, number one, to make sure that it that the studies that were done back in 2017, that they're accurate and that they that there is a loop that needs to be projected out there and then to determine where that route and there it down to a route not not a half mile wide strip through the county.

So the MPO did that work?

Right.

Has it gotten more precise since then?

Yes.

So so we had the first there was a public meeting in I think it was November, which is the one that everyone got upset about when and they they drew like four lines within that half mile radius because that's where they had to start out, because that half mile radius was what the MPO had decided, that that's probably in the area where it needed to go.

So when you're doing studies like this, you've got to follow what federal laws require and one of those worst within that area to determine some different types routes that would go in that that half mile radius.

And that's what they did.

And I mean, when I saw the routes, I mean, some of them went through subdivisions.

There were there was plenty of issues that I thought that people are going to really be upset about.

But but that's the process that had to be followed.

And that's what they did.

And so then we had the public meeting, the public hearing, and and people certainly were upset.

But that's the time that the public has the opportunity to reach out to.

In this case, it's our contracted engineering firm, Quiddity and they reach out to them and and give any input that they would like about where that route based on those plans are and where where that route might be best suited to them.

And so that was the first meeting.

And then that right now they're the they are working on.

Not only that, they expanded that half mile out to a mile and a half because to get through that area you were going to hit, there's just almost no way to get through there in that dedicated half mile route without hitting subdivisions.

Right.

And so they expanded it out to about a mile and a half so that they could look at whether they could get through there and not hit subdivisions.

And so that's really the process they've been going through today.

They're also looking at making sure that the the studies, the demography studies, the traffic studies and all that are correct.

And they do that, that what was done in 2017 is still accurate today.

And so those are the things that have been going through.

There'll be a another public hearing probably in the next month, month and a half, maybe a little more.

But somewhere in that neighborhood that that they will reveal the the what they've come up with, whether it's close to the same or some other routes within that mile and a half.

So so that's really what the next step will be.

And so I guess the whole intent of this is you've been talking about is to do the least amount of harm out there and to have a route, sort of a proposed route plan on the shelf to give detects DOT should they move forward with this project at some future date and said is that the least amount of harm.

Correct.

That that's exactly what we've been looking at.

Commissioners Court That was our intent all along.

I mean, I, I mean, I've been around all my life, you know, and I tell people, you know, in, in 1972 population of Brazos County was 65,072 is when they opened up Highway six.

And and I drove when I was in 72.

I drove that route early on after it opened not long after and because I wanted to see what it looked like out there in Ranchland that I had never seen before.

Yeah.

And I remember distinctly passing meeting two cars all the way from one end to the other.

And I thought at that time, this is may have been the biggest waste money I've ever seen.

Everybody's on Texas Avenue.

Nobody's going to come out here in the middle of nowhere, you know, to to do business.

It's just a long way from anything.

And there really wasn't a big need for traffic.

There was no traffic congestion on how on Texas Avenue at the time.

I mean, and now you look at it here, it's 50 years later, but you look at it and we're fixed.

Expand oor TXDOT's fixing to expand to three lanes, go in each direction from two.

Yeah.

And so if you're not looking forward at it, what projected growth is going to be?

And I mean, I'm seeing it from where I'm sitting, the growth is going to come.

Whether we like it or not, we ought to be prepared for it.

And so really that's that's really when when I saw the when I recognized that that was a that that there probably was going to need to be a a route it needed to be preserved.

And if we didn't preserve it, then whenever it was the time came that it needed to happen, it would be much harder on those people out there because it would be going maybe through a lot of subdivisions right now.

Like I say, the first pass that it went through a couple, two or three subdivisions and I'm hoping that those changed, but it'll be a lot worse if we don't do something today.

Am I right to to say that you're placing your bets on work?

If we have a good, competent plan for this corridor, then that does more than doing nothing and letting TXDOT identifying where all this goes.

And but there's no guarantee that TXDOT won't say nice plan Brazos County but we feel like it should go in this direction that direct is that kind of correct I mean that that certainly could be a possibility because there's a lot of effort, time and money that to come up with a plan.

I mean, certainly my hope would be that that text recognizes that this is as good a plan as we can get no matter what.

And so, you know, that'd be my hope is that they recognize that and that they would take the plan and and do with it as they may and this would be TXDOT built TXDOT maintained if this ever comes to fruition right That's correct.

Yeah.

Now there'd be federal money that would come through TXDOT.

And that's why you have to follow the federal process and make sure that you've done everything that they require because there'll be federal money that comes through TXDOT, you know, to help build it in the future whenever it's done.

So here's a curiosity of mine.

Through my experiences with the City Bryan and City College Station now and then I would see the cities build a new roadway, you know, through undeveloped areas.

And when that happened, it would create new frontage opportunities for development, whether that was commercial or retail or, you know, convenience stores or that sort of thing.

Anyone at the county kind of looking ahead as you as you develop this proposal, is somebody in tandem looking at kind of an economic development proposal as to what could be out there.

We we at the county have not been looking at really the economic development side of it.

I mean, I felt like I was on the MPO board a long time ago.

And so I recognize transportation is one of the biggest things.

It's a it's something that people in Brazos can see.

It's rise high on the level of of the things that they believe are important.

And so I really haven't looked at I think you certainly could, you know, when you create a new road and it goes through property that's a that there is that availability is certainly can there really wasn't the reason that we looked at it we looked at it for transportation need.

Yeah.

Before we get off of this topic, is there anything else about it that you want to make sure folks know whether it it's a point of, of common confusion or anything else?

Well, I mean, there are a lot of things that, you know, this is a new process to us on the commissioners court and to me.

So there are a lot of things that I didn't know when we got into it.

I mean, I felt like we needed to have a rght-of-way that was preserve for the future.

One of the things that that has been asked that I've had people ask me and I didn't really wasn't sure until recently was so what happens if it's if it if that let's say 200, 300 foot, whatever it is and it goes through your place, what can you do with that property in the interim between the time that that TXDOT decides that here now's the time and we're going to build it?

And I've been told now that you can do anything you want to with that property until TXDOT actually takes possession of it.

You can do anything you want to with it.

If you wanted to build whatever you can, knowing that if you build it on there, it'll be bought, it'll be paid for by TXDOT.

And I mean that changed legislature last, last session changed the condemnation rules and now they say that it has to be appraised at its highest and best use that that keeps anybody whether it's whether it's tech start or whether it's a pipeline or whether it's either the government's a series of counties from coming in or making a lowball offer, which means it may have happened in the past.

I don't think it'll happen today because now the legislature changed that.

And so those are the kind of things that that I wasn't 100% sure about.

And I think that might clarify some thanks for for people out there.

Okay.

If you just tuned in I'm Jay Socol, you're listening to Brazos Matters.

Our guest today is Brazos County Judge Duane Peters.

We're talking about an inner East Loop study and more.

So let's get to some of that more medical examiner's office.

So you've got construction underway on East 29th Street in Bryan.

It's it's the first medical examiner's office that Brazos county will have ever had.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Some information I got in front of me, 21,000 square feet, cost of $34 million.

18 and a half million of that comes from American Rescue Plan Act money.

And is there an expiration in on, you know, when you need to have those dollars spent by.

Yes, we had to have it contracted by the end of December 2024.

What we did okay, we're under contract.

We have to have it spent.

We need to have the project finished by the end of 2026 December 20, 26.

The proposed schedule would it would be completed.

I think it's in May, somewhere in that April-May area of 2026.

So even if it runs a little bit long, if some weather or whatever, if it runs long, we should we should finish that up well before that that that final date that we have to have it done.

So it shouldn't should be an issue.

Are costs locked in or are you subject to possible increases due to tariffs and so forth?

Well, there they are.

You know, they are locked in in that.

And we could if we just thought that there was something that that we missed and we needed to add to it, well, then we've got contingency built in there and then there's contingency built in there for the contractor that they can use if if something cost them more money than what they anticipated, they can use there that contingency in their if it does not get used, it comes back to the county.

Right.

Are you hearing that it could exceed the 34 million, but not yet.

Okay, that's good.

Yeah.

We've we've got piers poured and we're working on foundation right now, so we haven't heard that we're going to have, you know, any significant increases.

I mean, I know that our I think that they probably tried to take all those things into account.

COVID changed the world.

Now we've got tariffs, you know, that potentially could I don't know what in that building that might be brought in from overseas.

You know, I just don't know.

But hopefully it won't impact the price.

Can you talk about why brands this county needs a medical examiner's office?

Okay.

So a medical examiner, we actually looked at this through the COG back in 2012 and did an in-house study in 2012.

And then we had an outside engineering arctec firm that looked at it in 2014 and actually did a presentation on it.

It will I mean, we send all of our bodies to Travis County currently to be autopsy, and there's really more than just the cost of the autopsy.

I mean, you've got a basic cost to the autopsy.

And if there's extra things that you need to get done that it costs you more, then you got both investigators from sheriff's office or if it it was a murder inside the city limits.

Well, then they'll send their their detectives to actually be there for the autopsy.

And so it's a cost of going down there and then delivering the body down there.

And also there's a there's a there's a cost that it keeps going up.

But it it has impacted not just Brazos County, but all the surrounding counties.

And I've had most of the well, I think all of the county judges that surround us have expressed positive, really, that they're looking forward to that medical examiner's office opening, because then they can participate in the hopefully a lower cost for a lot of those incidental things.

They do cost you a lot of money.

You know, it's not just the cost of getting that autopsy done, but you have to then if it's in it, let's say it's a murder within, then the medical examiner has to come in and testify on that trial.

And in that cost money, too.

It's not part of it.

So there's a lot of cost in there.

And it will actually, I think, save the the surrounding counties, too.

And then we may be doing autopsies for others.

I think we will be, other than just Brazos County.

And then, you know, in addition to all that, we we got into a discussion with with Texas A&M, the College of Medicine, a doctor where she says that there's a shortage of medical examiners not only in the state but in in the nation.

And so we're we're building this medical examiner's office.

We're actually building it with an educational component.

So it will so that they can actually be teaching over there at the same time.

So and so we will collaborate with Texas A&M in part with how this with the medical examiner and a deputy medical examiner and we haven't got anything locked down yet about, you know, a contract or anything, because all that probably has to go through the board of Regents and all.

But well, we've been in some good discussions, and I think we will collaborate together to make this work.

And I have to think you were talking about the cost of investigators and so forth having to accompany your body to Travis County.

In the past, I would assume that local law enforcement agencies are pretty happy to have this thing coming.

Yes.

I mean, Mayor Mooney was really active back back in when he was mayor and wanted to see that happen.

And I know he's happy to see it.

We're moving forward with it for sure.

Well, let's try to quickly tackle topic number three, which I believe you call the 101 building, which is going to be right across the street, right across Texas Avenue from the Brazos county courthouse.

My understanding it will be, home to offices like Justice of the Peace Precinct four, Constable Precinct four, a public defender's office adult probation and allow kind of decompress the courthouse and allow for some future growth.

Would you talk about that building?

Sure.

Yeah.

We call it 101 because that is the address, Right?

So it.

But it's the old location of what was before his headquarters there.

We looked at the building in depth about whether we could make that old building work.

And it had it had a lot of issues and it just didn't look like there was any way we could make it fit for what we needed it for.

It was either going to be have a lot of vacant space in it that we couldn't fit full departments over there.

And it it had enough issues with leaking and other things that just it was it wasn't going to be a it cost savings.

It didn't look like to try to remodel and do keep that building.

So we took it down.

Right now it's the like you said JP constable for that will move them out of the courthouse.

Right now they're on the fourth floor of the courthouse.

What the longer term goal would be to put the 472nd the new district court up on the fourth floor.

That'll take some remodel in the area of the Jp Constable up there to be able to accommodate that.

But that would move the JP out to the new building and 472nd up on the fourth floor.

That will put all four district courts on the fourth floor, public defender's office, which is right now in the admin building and it's in the old JP Constable two place one or two.

I don't remember which one it would go, but that's where they're at.

And they've got cubicles in there and there's just stuffed in there too.

It was a makeshift to try it because that was the only area we had to try to accommodate that because we got the grant funds.

I mean, the county is required to pay for indigent defense.

That's what the state requires.

Right.

And so you could do that with private attorneys or you can do that with public defender's office.

And we did it with private attorneys for a long time.

It seemed like more and more of the private attorneys were retiring.

And there there was a a need for something like a public defender's office.

We got grant money to get that thing started.

That grant money was it starts out like 100% that they paid the first year and then 80% and it's 60 and it drops on down.

So and it will be zero out at some point.

But but we needed a way to pay for public defense.

And that looked like the best way to do it.

We did make a commitment to them that we would we would have we would be working on a space to get the public defender's office into.

And so that's was the plan all along, was to try to shift them over to that one or one building.

One of the things that we've looked at also with the public defender's office in other areas, they've got regional public defenders.

And and while we don't really fit the mold for what a regional public defender's office looks like, because in those your population, even for the central, the center of that region population and counties was I think 120,000.

And of course we've got to 40.

So we may be too big according to the rules today.

Our hope and we've had some discussions about because we've got six surrounding counties that are that are much smaller rural counties and they struggle to try to get attorneys to do public defense.

And and and so in most have expressed an interest if we could go that route to look at whether we go for region and that we would actually need more space for that.

So if we get this building done, that's that's part of what we'll look at is to have enough space there to even go regional.

Now I have in my notes 60,000 square feet, $60 million budget.

No, no timeline yet, though, correct?

No, we haven't got to we haven't got a date for for that yet.

Okay.

And it doesn't have any ARPA money so there's no requirement, you know, that it has to be done by cert type.

I see.

So but there does seem to be an element that people are talking about most.

I understand you have planned a protected walkway, an elevated, protected walkway that would connect the courthouse to this future building to help, you know, folks stay dry, stay warm and stay safe, because that that can be a pretty busy intersection.

But you want to talk about this feature that people are focused on.

Well, I mean, and I don't think it's extravagant because I think those are public safety is certainly one of the things that we're supposed to be looking at, crossing back and forth across Texas Avenue at the intersection of just run with the medians and all would be difficult at best.

And and the constable for the probation and the public defender's office all would be going back and forth all day, lots of employees.

It would be a difficult thing.

And and I mean, this is a this is a secured ride away to our secured way to get back and forth to the the courthouse.

We've also looked at whether the the parking lot that fronts Texas Avenue is a is where we the judges and prosecutors have always parked and other like elected officials.

The problem that we're having is that we had wanted two years ago, we talked about trying to put a wall up there to make it more secure.

Similar to what Bryan PD does did.

Our problem is that sidewalk is right next to the parking lot and next to Texas Avenue.

So there was no way we could put a wall in there.

And now we find out that the TXDOT right-of-way is actually part of our parking lot.

So and TXDOT has been very good and been gracious and talk like that.

We could work it out.

But if we want to make a secure area for judges and that's really where that I mean, it's a big issue.

You know, it's it's They can park over there also in that parking lot that's across the street 101 and they cross over into the building securely.

Well, it sounds interesting.

And I think the community will be looking forward to seeing their building go up and have it completed.

I feel like we've barely scratched the surface on some of these topics.

But Judge, I really appreciate you coming in and talking to us about all of them.

Very generous of you to give us your time.

I'm glad to, Jay.

and any time we will, we will have you back.

Okay.

Perfect.

Brazos Matters is a production of Aggieland's Public Radio 90.9 KAMU-FM, a member of Texas A&M University's Division of Marketing and Communications.

Our show is engineered and edited by Matt Dittman.

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I'm Jay Socol.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Have a great day.