Burnet County Texas news

Making sure no child is injured an auto accident is the goal of the car seat inspection event of Marble Falls Area Emergency Medical Service (MFAEMS) on Saturday, Nov. 12.

The MFAEMS is scheduling appointments before 1:30 p.m. for car seat inspection and fitting at their main station, 609 Industrial Boulevard, in Marble Falls.

The number to call is 830-693-7277. The service is free and the MFAEMS can help provide a seat for families that cannot afford one.

Every child younger than age eight and shorter than four-feet-nine-inches tall travel in a federally approved child car seat. Fines from $25 for the first offense up to $250 for subsequent offenses are little compared to the heartache of injury or death of a child.

By Alexandria Randolph

Highland Lakes Newspapers

No one was injured when an RV caught fire in the northbound lane of Farm to Market Road 1174 on Saturday evening.

At about 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, Bertram Volunteer Firefighters were called to FM 1174 just 200 feet south of the entrance to Balcones Canyonlands Wildlife Refuge Doeskin Ranch, where an RV was already engulfed in flame.

Bertram Volunteer Fire Chief Bobby Huffstuttler said the owner of the vehicle had made it out before the fire consumed the cabin.

“He said he was driving and heard the engine make a strange noise,” Huffstuttler said.

The driver pulled as far off the road as possible, with a portion of the RV still in the northbound lane, and stopped to inspect the situation.

“He pulled the hood off and the engine was already on fire,” Huffstuttler said, adding that the driver attempted to use a fire extinguisher, but it “didn't do any good.”

Burnet County voters top 50 percent

By Glynis Crawford Smith

The Highlander

Just how far numbers will rise today, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016 General Election Day, remains to be seen, but so far early voters are breaking records.

“It wouldn’t take much of a record election day to push us to 80 percent turnout overall,” said Elections Administrator Doug Ferguson.

Burnet County citizens flocked to early voting polls, which closed at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4, with a record 47 percent of registered voters, 13,885 of them, having voted early in person.

Another 1,686 ballots by mail had been received in the Burnet County Elections Office Monday morning, Nov. 7. That means 15,571 of the county's 29,556 voters had cast early ballots, or 52.68 percent of them.

“Our military mail ballots are coming right in too,” said Karen Peraino of the elections office.

By Glynis Crawford Smith

The Highlander

An event billed as “food and lots of memories” will celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Marble Falls Area Emergency Medical Service from 1-4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29.

It will take place at the EMS station at 609 Industrial Boulevard in Marble Falls and it will be a rare chance outside the throes of an emergency or the clamor of a community celebration to visit with paramedics and technicians.

And the memories will be many for an organization that has grown from a fledgling ambulance in Marble Falls in 1976 to a force of six MICU (Mobile Intensive Care Unit) capable ambulances and two SUV first responders housed at stations in Marble Falls, Granite Shoals, and Horseshoe Bay.

The service runs up to 4,000 calls each year in as many as 450 call per month by 9-1-1 and inter-facility transfers. They are staffed by 48 paramedics, 32 of whom are are full time.

By Alexandria Randolph and Glynis Crawford Smith

Highland Lakes Newspapers

A whopping 22 percent of the 29,556 registered voting population in Burnet County had cast an early vote as of Friday morning, Oct. 28.

“Voting numbers in Burnet County are exploding like everywhere else in the state,” said Burnet County Elections Administrator Doug Ferguson on Thursday afternoon. “Each day we have voted more than any day in past years' elections.”

Turn out at the polls on the first day of voting broke records from previous presidential election years.

“A total of 1,197 voters cast their ballot on Monday, roughly four percent of registered voters in the county.

“It was biggest early voting day that I know of for Burnet County,” he said. “We beat 2008 and 2012 – all those numbers.”

By Tuesday the number of Burnet County early voters had grown by 1,306 to 2,117. The third day's vote was 1,268 and Thursday was set to exceed 1,262.

A new bridge across the Colorado River below Wirtz Dam will be the topic of a public open house Wednesday, Oct. 26.

The meeting will be held from 4-7 p.m. at Quail Point Community Center, 107 Twilight Lane, in Horseshoe Bay.

It is one in a series of outreach programs being conducted by the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) to gather public opinion about the proposed project.

Another is scheduled for the same time period on Thursday, Nov. 3, at Lakeside Pavilion at 307 Buena Vista Drive in Marble Falls.

After an initial meeting with civic leaders, CAMPO began to concentrate on the general public last month, attending

Everyone in the Highland Lakes area also is invited to take a survey to add to data on the project. Copies of the survey will be available at the public meetings and online at www.CAMPOtexs.org/wirtzdam.

by Alexandria Randolph

Highland Lakes Newspapers

Burnet County voters must be registered by Oct. 11 to cast their ballot this year for Presidential and local elections.

Sept. 27 was National Voter Registration Day, but residents still have two weeks to register for the vote. Those applying for ballot by mail may do so until Oct. 28. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8. Early voting for the Nov. 8 election begins Oct. 24 and ends Nov. 4.

To register to vote in Texas, applicants are required to complete a voter registration form. A form to fill out, print sign and mail is available at VoteTexas.gov. Applications must be turned in or postmarked on or before Oct. 11. On VoteTexas.gov, voters may also check their registration to make sure their information is current and correct.

Those who possess an approved photo ID must use that ID to vote. An approved photo ID may be expired up to four years.

By Glynis Crawford Smith

The Highlander

September is National Preparedness Month and the Highland Lakes Amateur Radio Club (HLARC) and its affiliated Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) unit is sponsoring a program with an American Red Cross (ARC) speaker to help Burnet County residents understand all that preparedness entails on the local level.

The program will be presented at 6:30 p.m. tonight, Friday, Sept. 30, at at Westside Park Community Center, 1704 Second Street, in Marble Falls. Red Cross Volunteer Rik Chapman will be the main speaker, but former Dist. Judge Gil Jones also will be on the program.

By Glynis Crawford Smith

The Highlander

Reports of telephone outages began rolling in shortly before noon today, Wednesday, Sept. 21., according to Marble Falls Police Chief Mark Whitacre.

The fault lies with a fiber optic line cut between Fredericksburg and Stonewall the chief said. That was confirmed about 4:45 p.m. by Gordon Shattles, the public relations manager of Frontier Communications in the company's Dallas office.

"A construction crew in the area severed a Frontier line," he said. "Our team was out immediately to re-splice and repair the line and now we are bringing everyone back online. If phones are not up yet, they will be very soon."

Chief Whitacre said Marble Falls and Blanco County phones went down, but emergency dispatch calls were routed through Burnet County."

The annual celebration of Cononstitution Week began Sunday, Sept. 17, and the Llano Uplift Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution is urging Burnet, Llano and other member counties to join in recognition of the founding document of the United States of America.

“There are two documents of paramount importance to American history: the Declaration of Independence, which forged our national identity, and the United States Constitution, which set forth the framework for the federal government that is still in use today,” said Linda Groff, chairwoman of the Llano Uplift DAR Consituttion Week committee, reporting the national organization's message.

“ While Independence Day is a beloved national holiday, fewer people know about Constitution Week, an annual commemoration of the living document that upholds and protects the freedoms central to our American way of life.”