HometownGeorgetown.com

I ate lunch today at the Williamson County jail today, along with a bunch of other dangerous characters (otherwise known as the Leadership Georgetown class of 2008). We learned about our area’s justice system. I learned that jail food is not all that delicious. We ate soupy tacos with watery grape Kool-Aid. I thought we had cornbread slathered with whipped butter on the side, but it was actually a dry white cake with frosting smeared across the bottom. I’m not a picky eater, so I did get enough to keep me from starving, but immediately after our class was over, I rushed to H-E-B to pick up some steaks for dinner. After three hours in the jail, I was glad to escape!

I was very interested to learn about a new system for housing inmates here in Georgetown. While they do still have a couple of wings of traditional barred-cages type cells, the majority of the inmates are housed in what are called “pods.” Each pod is a large open area with enough bunk beds for 48 inmates, and one guard supervises these 48 people. There were six toilets and sinks open to everyone’s view (eww!), a couple of showers, a bunch of stainless steel tables bolted to the floor with four stainless steel stools at each, and even a washer and dryer. The inmates in that pod have access to a recreation area with a pingpong table. This recreation area is walled up, but there is no glass in the windows, which allows them to get fresh air on a regular basis. Smoking has not been allowed in jail since approximately 1992. The officers with whom we spoke all said they were skeptical about the pod system when the idea was introduced, but they’ve all been surprised to learn how well it works. The inmates are much more relaxed than they were with just one hour per day to move around, and there are far fewer problems at the jail these days.

After dropping off our steaks at home, I went to Georgetown’s Economic Development Department to meet with George Gomez to learn about a new commercial development named Longhorn Junction that’s coming to town. The only business specifically mentioned at the city council workshop last night was Bass Pro Shop, but there are rumors of some very exciting retail stores that have shown interest in opening venues in Longhorn Junction.

Since the story of this development was in today’s Statesman, we talked more about a workforce training initiative that George is helping to facilitate for many of our large local companies. George is responsible for retention of companies already based in Georgetown, and he’s excited about how much this training initiative will help our local employers. Austin Community College (ACC) has received a grant from the Texas Workforce Commission, and the money is earmarked as skills development funds. Local companies contract with ACC to provide training for their employees. The most exciting aspect of this is that the company decides for itself what type of training it needs, and can even name the person they want to serve as the trainer. For example, if a company has an employee on staff who already knows the company’s policies and procedures, that staff member can be named as the trainer. Austin Community College will then hire that person and will pay him or her for the hours spent training other employees. The company would continue to pay the staff member for the hours at work not spent in training his or her colleagues. What a boon this will be to our local businesses! The role of the Georgetown Economic Development Department (and George Gomez in particular) is simply to facilitate this. Right now, the department is surveying 13 to 15 local employers to assess their training needs over the next 18 months. The target start date is mid to late January.