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Councilwoman Arrested

By JON AWBREY and LAURA KESTNER

A Comanche County Sheriff’s deputy arrested DeLeon City Councilwoman Pauline Villarreal, Wednesday, August 26, on a warrant for the charge of “failure to remit taxes.” Her bond was set at $195, and she was released the same afternoon.

“The only reason I was arrested was because I missed a court appearance,” Villarreal said. “I miscounted the days. They mailed me a notice saying that I had to respond in 10 days. They mailed it on the 12th of August, but I didn’t get it until the 14th. So I thought I had until Thursday – but they arrested me on Wednesday. I didn’t pay my sales tax, from when I owned Villarreal’s Mini Cafe, but I had made arrangements to do so. In fact, I had already paid $700 of the $2,200 that I owed.”

Villarreal, who was elected to the council in 2008, said she was surprised and humiliated by the whole ordeal, especially being searched and fingerprinted, but understood that she’d made an error in judgment on the taxes.

“I didn’t steal anything, and I didn’t get arrested for drugs,” Villarreal said. “There are already rumors going around, but they’re just not true.

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Coming Events

Call 893-6868 if you have an event to add

Blood Drive

The Meek Blood Center bloodmobile will be parked at Lawrence Brothers for a blood drive Thursday, September 3, from 1-6 p.m.

Soccer League Fundraiser

The local Soccer League will hold two fundraising events -- a car wash and a bake sale -- Saturday, September 5, with both events beginning at 9 a.m. The bake sale will be held at IGA, and the car wash will be held across the street at First National Bank. Any support is appreciated.

GED Classes

GED preparation and English as a Second Language (ESL) classes will begin again on Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at the DeLeon ISD Administration Building on Texas Street at the west entrance. Classes will meet Mondays and Tuesdays from 6 to 9 p.m. Call 254-893-6271.

Antiques Road Show

The first ever DeLeon Antique “Road Show” is scheduled for Saturday, September 19, 2009, downtown. The Heritage Appraisers, a Dallas firm, will do up to three appraisals per family, for free. There will also be booths downtown featuring everything from antiques and collectables to garage sale items. For more information, call Linda Levens at 254-893-2083.

Council Discusses Use of City Vehicles

By LAURA KESTNER, Editor

The use of city vehicles was one of the more interesting items discussed by the DeLeon City Council during their most recent meeting, Thursday, August 27, 2009.

All council members -- Gayle Stroud, Bobby Schuman, Billie Lightfoot, Pauline Villarreal, Lee Childers and Mayor Danny Owen -- were present for the meeting.

Also present and participating were City Administrator Karen Wilkerson, Public Works Administrator Rob Duncan, Cpl. Ben Rowell and Police Chief Ralph Dickey.

Councilman Bobby Schuman said he was the one who requested the city vehicle item be placed on the agenda.

“I do not think the city vehicles should be used to commute back and forth to Comanche,” Schuman said, “or wherever they live. The police cars are what I am concerned about -- the age of them, and the money we’ve got in them.”

At the present time, two police officers, Heather Hill and the newly-hired James Elliott, both live in Comanche, as does Rob Duncan.

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For full article, subscribe to the DeLeon Free Press. E-mail edition is only $20/year.

Hospital continues to lose money, may ban smoking

By JON AWBREY, Publisher

For the Comanche County Medical Center, times continued to be rough this month, as the hospital lost $323,702 as a result of billing problems associated with the adoption of a new billing system.

Although the losses have been consistent over the last three months, they continued to dominate the discussion when the Board of Directors of the Comanche County Consolidated Hospital District met in a regular monthly meeting last Tuesday.

Tom Letz, Chief Financial Officer of CCMC, attributed the loss to accounts receivable and the lingering computer billing problems. He reported that the hospital’s revenues were on budget, but that the bad debt expense was up.

“The main problem is getting a handle on that [billing] system, and getting the billing as it should be,” said Letz. “We haven’t identified everything that’s hanging it up in the computer system.”

At the heart of the problem is a series of billing errors that have caused late billing – often so late that potential revenue is instead posted as bad debt expense in keeping with hospital policy. This has resulted in a potential loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars since the implementation of the new billing system in December.

But, Letz said, improvement is being made. In ten days, from Aug. 16 through Aug. 25, unbilled accounts were decreased from 1,962 to 749.

For some, that improvement may not be good enough, as CCMC Chief Executive Officer Kevin Storey reported that several complaints had reached him regarding  …

For full article, subscribe to the DeLeon Free Press. E-mail edition is only $20/year.

Hop On In to Ribbits Resale

By LAURA KESTNER, Editor

Zach and Tye Sadberry, 14 and 11 years old respectively, have more resale experience than many adults.

RIBBITS RESALE. Zach, Tye and Jamie Sadberry.

Their mother, Jamie Sadberry, the owner of Ribbits Resale, a new DeLeon shop selling a little bit of everything, said that the boys have helped her every step of the way.

“I started this kind of business when Zach was just two years old,” Sadberry said. “I started out renting little booths at antique malls and then I started redoing furniture.”

Sadberry said that Zach and Tye were especially helpful with the set up for the new store. “The boys have helped me buy inventory, load and unload, price items and they helped me paint and clean up the store,” Sadberry said. “They were so much help.”

She’s also gotten support along the way from her husband, Adam Sadberry, the district manager for Dollar General Stores. Adam is the son of J.W. and Ann Sadberry of DeLeon. 

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For full article, subscribe to the DeLeon Free Press. E-mail edition is only $20/year.

Football Season Starts Rough for Contestants

By LAURA KESTNER, Editor

The 2009 Texas schoolboy football season got off to a rocky start for the participants in the Free Press' football contest last week. All but one of our contestants missed picking the winner in at least four of the 15 games, and the average score was over six misses.

Miss Nicole Davis won the $50 weekly prize with her entry that only missed on three games, the only one who could make that claim. Hard on her heels were Rachel Riggs, Talmage Hodges and her grandpa, Billy Warren, all with four misses.

The games most often missed was San Saba's big win over DeLeon, Turkey Valley's slipping past Strawn, Hico's crushing of Eastland and Rochelle's defeat of Zephyr. Each of those contests was missed by 90 percent of our panel.

Cisco's defeat of Early was missed by only a single contestant. Most also predicted Gustine's defeat of Cranfills Gap and Goldthwaite's demolition of Collinsville. Dublin's loss to Clifton and Rotan' rolling over Ranger were also widely and correctly anticipated.

The football season always starts off with a generous element of unpredictability before settling into more easily anticipated results by mid-season, so you pigskin prognosticators don't be disheartened. You are just one week away from a possible $50 prize and bragging rights for the rest of the season.

Danny Owen, the Mayor of De Leon, has a personal website.

Open Danny's website by Clicking Here

Scott Hall has creating an Internet website with history & photos of our town.

Click Here to visit his website

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