So, I just had to stop and listen to this *pearl* dripping from current Somervell County Hospital District board member Ron Hankins lips at the Sept 24, 2019 Somervell County Hospital District board meeting. He said

"We basically gotta have other income. It would be nice to not have to tax anybody. I would like to take it down to zero and I've been warned about that because the programs that we're involved in can go away, which I guess is 1. I'm hopeful that maybe we find out that what we're doing it legal and what the insurance company is doing to us is not legal and get that settled so that they can't hopefully go there"

So, Hypocrite RON HANKINS IS SAYING HE WOULD TAKE THE TAX RATE DOWN TO ZERO. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HE GRIPED ABOUT PAUL HARPER SAYING HE WOULD DO AT ONE OF THE MEETINGS IN THE FIRST MONTH of the elected Somervell County Hospital District board. Hankins, who is a former Somervell County Attorney for almost 20 years, when Paul Harper made a comment about wanting the tax rate to be zero BECAUSE SCHD didn't even have a good budget, looked at Harper and said "Are you SERIOUS, Paul, are you SERIOUS?".   (it was not a motion, no motion was made or recognized or voted upon). As a note, within a short time, Ray Reynoids came up with a proper budget that went from 3 pages to a binder.  You understand this, right, dear reader? What kind of government CAN vote on a proper tax rate without at least a valid, legally compliant budget FIRST???

Within a few days after that, Ron Hankins WROTE a Petition to Remove Paul from office. He did it secretly because he didn't want anyone to know, since he was on the Somervell County Hospital District board, that he was the one writing it.

 Then he handed it to Darrell Best to file. In the petition, the first charge, completely wrong, was the Paul had tried to set the tax rate to zero. The Glen Rose Reporter wrote about it and then had to correct their article a few weeks later because they GOT IT WRONG. Andy Lucas, as the State of Texas rep, took over the petition to run with it and never bothered, apparently, to find out if what Paul had reportedly done was even 1. Maybe Lucas was listening to the baloney Hankins was saying. 

Harper wanted, and actually ran on with his agenda, the same deal that Hood County Hospital District has. They pay ZERO taxes because they have a deal with Lake Granbury Medical Center, which operates a public clinic for the district to take care of the needy. What's also interesting about this is that at least two commissioners on the Somervell County Commissioners Court, when Somervell County still had  Glen Rose Medical Center, wanted to do a 3rd party deal with Lake Granbury Medical Center and were shot down by what at least I thought were some underhanded actions by then Somervell County Judge Mike Ford (ask Larry Hulsey or James Barnard) 

So if you like HYPOCRITE HANKINS idea of zero tax, no prob. If you like HARPER's idea of zero tax, then dammit, Ron Hankins is going to sneak around and create a Petition for Removal to get you off the board and ulitmately cause the county a quarter of a million dollars once the State of Texas, as represented by Andy Lucas, lost yet again for a frivolous lawsuit.