Gilmer law firm pays for Christmas decorations

A Gilmer law firm will pay for providing Christmas decorations at the Upshur County Courthouse this year after the county commissioners court cut off funding because of a decades-old state attorney generals opinion that such county funding was illegal.

Goudarzi & Young will pay the $1,500, Upshur County Pct. 4 Commissioner Mike Spencer announced Friday morning. The law firm volunteered the funds after news reports that the countys funding cutoff might mean the courthouse would have no holiday decorations.

Gilmer Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Joan Small had said Thursday she did not know whether the courthouse and lawn would have decorations since the court did not include the usual $1,500 in this fiscal years budget. She said the county had provided that amount all 24 years she has managed the chamber and had funded the decorations even before that.

It was really upsetting, she said, since Theyve (county officials) given us something to decorate their courthouse for those 24 years.

The chamber has nowhere near sufficient funds for it, she said, as the annual Yulefest does not make money for the organization. Thus, Small had said she did not know whether the courthouse and lawn would have decorations this year unless we come up with something to fund them.

And while I have no idea where the money will come from, she said, where theres a will, theres a way.

The way surfaced Friday morning when attorney Brent Goudarzi contacted the county.

County Auditor Brandy Lee said Thursday she had advised County Judge Dean Fowler of an opinion issued in 1940 by then-Texas Attorney General Gerald Mann that funding for the decorations was illegal.

But theres (been) a lot of similar opinions since then (from the attorney generals office), Lee told The Mirror. This is just the one that specifically talks about that (funding Christmas decorations on a courthouse lawn.)

She said she came across Manns opinion as Ive been reading a lot of attorney generals opinions.

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Gilmer law firm pays for Christmas decorations