WAXAHACHIE – The Ellis County Commissioner’s voted last week to post the County Judge’s seat this week.
That seat will be coming open in the next 30 days.
Ellis County Judge Todd Little will be leaving the seat to move into a new role with the North Central Texas Council of Governments as the Executive Director.
Little said his last day will be May 15.
The commissioners will look at all eligible candidates within the next week and choose three to five to interview.
Little said he will not be voting on his replacement, since he is moving into his new position, and will be working with the new judge.
He also mentioned if a commissioner was interested in the position of judge that person would not be able to vote as a commissioner to vote himself into the judge’s seat.
After the meeting, it was discovered Texas Local Government Code makes it even more transparent should a commissioner decide to vie for the vacant county judge seat.
Under section 87.041 of the Texas Local Government Code, it states commissioners do have the authority to appoint a county judge to serve until the next county election.
However, “The commissioners court may not appoint the current commissioner because of the self-appointment doctrine.”
Therefore, if a commissioner is interested in taking the county judge seat, he would have to submit a resignation letter for his current commissioner’s seat.
He would then have to vacate that seat and the county judge would have to appoint a replacement, the new commissioner would have to take office and only then would the former commissioner be eligible for the appointment of county judge.
Little told those in attendance at court that he did not see this move coming, but he reminded everyone how Covid changed the game for Ellis County.
“Today we are beyond that and five years out and Ellis County recovered, matter of fact we recovered so quickly we could not take any long-term lost revenue money,” Little said.
“We had to call it something else and we could not claim the lost revenue feature that other counties claimed because we didn’t lose any revenue in Ellis County.
“Matter of fact, while everyone else leveled out or went down we skyrocketed up because everybody wanted to move to Ellis County because of what we were doing during Covid.
“They kept talking about it. It has been a ride no doubt, sometimes it has been a very smooth one and a regular British saddle would work and other days I had to put on a rodeo saddle and ride it like a bucking bronco because it has been a busy job.”
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