Vandals deface new Burnet County AgriLife building

By Lew K. Cohn

Managing Editor

The Highlander

Vandals broke into the former Burnet Elementary cafeteria and another building this weekend, causing a great deal of damage to property being refurbished by the county for use by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.

Burnet County Judge James Oakley said workers arriving early Monday, Jan. 9, to the building discovered the damage, which included paint intentionally splattered on the floor, on signs, on walls, on windows, on the stage and on aluminum siding.

In addition, it appears the vandals also may have struck another building on the campus that is being used for storage by the Burnet Consolidated Independent School District. A broken window was discovered Saturday and reported to police, who had no reason to believe any other buildings were involved until damage was found Monday morning.

Efforts to reach Burnet Police Chief Paul Nelson for comment about the case were unsuccessful. The vandalism is under investigation by the Burnet Police Department.

Burnet County entered into a memorandum of understanding last year with BCISD to use the 5,200-square-foot former elementary school cafeteria for a 10-year period. Since then, the county has been working to remodel the space to house the Ag Extension Service, which will use the space for arts and quilt shows and large scale demonstrations, especially with a commercial kitchen available for use.

“The county has gone in and remodeled the office portion of the building and has done a lot of cleanup and refurbishing,” Oakley said. “We have studded walls, carpeted, redone ceilings and we are all looking forward to seeing the Ag Extension Service move into the building.

“This building can be used for other large-scale training opportunities or for all-employee meetings. We have never had a facility like this before in the county. Whenever we have needed a large space to use, we have had to use the Burnet Community Center. Now we will have our own space that can be used. Just recently, we had a lot of people called in for jury duty for the Ballard case and we had to use the Community Center for voir dire. We can use this building for that in the future when it is finished.”

BCISD Superintendent Keith McBurnett, who worked with Oakley and the Burnet County Commissioners Court on the memorandum of understanding, was disappointed that vandals would damage public property.

“The damage appears to be significant in terms of what we believe it will take in manpower to fix,” said BCISD Superintendent Keith McBurnett. “I am super disheartened that anyone would choose to senselessly destroy local property. It is frustrating as a taxpayer to have to spend taxpayer dollars to repair things that are purposefully damaged.”