One of the many positives that attracts new businesses to Smith County is how well the county and city governments work together. Smith County Judge Neal Franklin explores the $179 million bond for a new courthouse, the forthcoming parking garage, and joint efforts with the City of Tyler to breathe new life into downtown. He also addresses issues like jail overcrowding and the road-building project in partnership with the Tyler Economic Development Council.
MIKE LANDESS: For UT Tyler Radio, I’m Mike Landess. Neal Franklin was sworn in as Smith County Judge in November 2022, replacing Nathaniel Moran, who served in that post for 6 years before going to Congress. He (Franklin) is Smith County through and through, having gone to school here, serving three decades in EMS and fire service, and he’s our guest today. Welcome.
NEAL FRANKLIN: Thank you very much. Glad to be here, Mike.
MIKE LANDESS: You’ve been in public service for a long time. What kinds of adjustments have you had to make to serve as county judge?
NEAL FRANKLIN: Well, I think a lot of it just has fallen into place. I think I tell everyone all the time that I’m battle-scarred, and so nothing really shocks me. I love my job, I love my community. It truly is. My wife brags all the time that, “Neal’s happy when he goes to work, and he’s happy when he comes home.” So, so far, things are great.
LANDESS: Life is sweet.
FRANKLIN: It is.
LANDESS: Now, the county has a number of projects underway at any given time. One would assume that the building of a new county courthouse would be the biggest.
FRANKLIN: The courthouse is huge. A $179 million bond that the citizens have shown faith in us to construct, and we have the parking garage now that’s coming up. It actually starts in August, the construction. I mean in October, sorry about that, the actual construction of that. We’re excited about it.
LANDESS: Back to the courthouse. I’ve seen the animated drawings from Fitzpatrick, who are the architects on this project, and my goodness, that is one beautiful building. You guys have been working pretty closely with the city in terms of a total feel for all of this as it works to revitalize downtown.
FRANKLIN: Yes, it’s the courthouse that the current courthouse replaced was built in 1910. Beautiful, old structure that sat right in the middle of Broadway. The current courthouse was built in ’55. And so we’re fashion, we’ve fashioned this new courthouse to really look like the 1910, but with new modern aspects, of course. Our current courthouse is about 65,000 square feet. The new courthouse is around 265,000 square feet, so almost five times the size. We are working closely with the city manager and the mayor, the city of Tyler, because they’re actually doing some street work at the same time we’ll be constructing the courthouse, so we’ll be doing a lot of work notifying the public of everything we’re doing.
LANDESS: Tell me a little bit about the whole process with the jail. Let me digress for just a moment. We talked about projects, but I mean, (Smith County Sheriff) Larry Smith has been fighting this battle for a long time trying, and people have been fighting him, in terms of trying to get that up to speed. How’s that going?
FRANKLIN: Well, it’s going well. We’ve had, you know, we always have issues in the jail. It’s, we’ve had detention officer openings, and we’re trying to work, do some things budgetarily this year to help solve that. But we’re working hard on it. We actually passed our last inspection with flying colors, which we were excited about. Overcrowded during the COVID period, and that caused us, along with all the other counties and the other sheriff’s offices that I speak with, everybody was facing the same issues of overcrowded issues in the jail. So that’s something we deal with constantly. We’re looking in the future. I know there will be an expansion at some point for the jail, another expansion, just hopefully, it won’t have to be too soon.
LANDESS: How closely do you — I’m thinking about the project recently in which a company needed a road to be able to reach them. They bought property out near I-20, and they needed a road to reach their property, and so working with the county ended up coming with a road that served the entire community and that particular facility. How closely do you work with economic development?
FRANKLIN: You know, that was actually, Mike, was a very exciting project with Tyler Economic Development Council. They purchased over 400 acres, which was a big step for them. And that’s our first large industrial park out in the county, at 155 and I-20. And so, it was a no-brainer for us. We had ARPA funding that we could utilize to fund this road. It’s probably $4.5 million to build this road, but it assists all the folks out there in Winona area anyway. And then it provides this large, essentially a driveway for this industrial park. And we do have our anchor tenant. We can’t mention who it is yet. There are rumors out there flying, but we’ve got the anchor tenant, and then multitude of other people interested in some contracts going on right now. So, truly an exciting time for Smith County.
LANDESS: So that’s one big step. Have you got any other projects in the hopper?
FRANKLIN: Yeah, well, I mean, the largest project that I’m focused on right now is the beginning of that construction of the parking garage. That’s a big deal. Parking’s limited downtown. That parking garage will be a five-story, 540-spot, so we’re having to juggle where our jurors are going to park during that construction time. It’s about 10 months of construction. That’s the hope, and during the time that we’re constructing that, we’ll be demo-ing the buildings on the east side of the square, so that we’re ready to roll with the courthouse construction right after we complete the parking garage.
LANDESS: Have you got all of that squared away? I understand there were a couple of tenants that were holding out. There were property owners who were holding out.
FRANKLIN: Yes, we actually have made deals on all the properties now, so we’re excited about that. And with Hoar Construction, we named our construction manager at risk, and SCI out of Tyler. They joined forces, so we named them. And they’re actually going to utilize some of those buildings during the construction of the parking garage, which means they don’t have to bring their trailers in and those things, which is actually taxpayer savings.
LANDESS: That makes a lot of sense. In terms of projects for the county, what kinds of things are you excited about right now? What’s coming up in the next few years?
FRANKLIN: We have a lot of things. We’ve got the new — in fact, it will open soon. We have the new road and bridge facility. That’s on the east loop. It’s right by Smith County Appraisal District. They’ve been in a location for a long, long time, were old facilities, and really, they needed some new technology, needed some new facilities, and so we’re excited about that. That should open up this December. And really pleased about that because they provide so much work just throughout the county for the citizens as well as for us.
LANDESS: Now, Nathaniel Moran probably couldn’t have told us back in 2016 that he planned to leave the Smith County Judge position in 6 years to go to Washington as a congressman. What’s down the road for you and public service?
FRANKLIN: Well, I tell everyone I love local public service. I’m not one who has any aspirations for Austin or D.C. I love this community. It’s where I’ve really cut my teeth. I was born and raised here, went to high school here. I just, it’s truly, I feel uncomfortable when I get out of this area. And we get something done every week, and it’s really exciting here. Sometimes they run into log jams in those other locations, and I’m not one for that. I need to see those mile markers tick, and us actually make those accomplishments.
LANDESS: Neal goes to work happy and comes home happy.
FRANKLIN: That’s true, that is true.
LANDESS: Our guest has been Smith County Judge Neal Franklin. To hear this conversation again or to share it, go to KVUT.org. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio.
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