O utgoing county judge, officials offer advice, say goodbyes
As the year comes to a finish, the Kendall County Commissioners Court bid goodbye to several officials and staffers Tuesday morning.
Two county commissioners and longtime County Judge Darrell Lux hosted their final meeting at that time.
Closing out his speech, Lux made it clear this was his final foray into public office, adding, “Will I be back? Absolutely not. I’ll have a different constituency, and they’re all going to have four legs.”
“It was honestly one of the best things that I have ever done,” Lux said, choking up. “Serving our community is such a special thing. I probably wouldn’t know any percent of y’all if I hadn’t taken this position. Y’all, the people that work for Kendall County, in my opinion, are truly professionals.”
Two more commissioner seats will see new faces as both Precinct 2’s Richard Elkins and Don Durden of Precinct 4 bid adieu to their public service.
Durden, who has lived in Precinct 4 all of his life, was first elected to fill the vacant seat in 2016.
“Kendall County is a great place. It really is. If you’ve been anywhere else and lived here after that, you know what a special place it is,” Durden said.
Elkins, a Republican who has served several terms from the dais, has worked tirelessly during the past few legislative sessions to grant counties more control over development and density.
Lux, as he did with all those leaving office, thanked Elkins for his work and specifically noted the “unique skills” he brought to the court.
“I’ve always been told to keep it simple,” Elkins said. “Thank you for the opportunity. As one chapter closes, another opens in January.”
Boerne Kendall County Economic Development Corporation’s business incubator
The incubator program – now known as Das Greenhaus – officially has a place to call home after the Boerne City Council unanimously approved a lease agreement last week.
The incubator program is set to foster small, entrepreneurial business startups to grow smaller startup businesses in the area, creating jobs and loyal, community- focused companies. The Boerne Kendall County Economic Development Corporation and the Boerne Kendall County Angel Network are working to start a nonprofit incubator to help businesses grow in their early days.
“This has been a project I have been so excited to see come to life,” BCKEDC President and CEO Amy Story said. “… I love the branding and the association of growing something here with the German name and the little nod to our town.”
The Boerne incubator program – known as Das Greenhaus – was granted $500,000 in funding from the Kendall County Commissioner’s Court late last month in a split vote, and the money was handed down with some objection from commissioners.
The Boerne Kendall County Economic Development Corporation and the Boerne Kendall County Angel Network are working to start a nonprofit incubator to help businesses grow in their early days. Several of the community leaders working to start the new nonprofit initially requested $750,000 from the commissioners’ American Rescue Plan Act funds.
2022 ice storm
The Hill Country Mile resembled an icy ghost town throughout the day last Thursday before showing signs of life again on Friday as inclement winter weather invaded the area and officials across the state urged residents to stay home. However, Kendall County and its encompassed cities fared well compared to last year’s February storm.
In Kendall County as a whole, there were no major, ice-related accidents reported or utility outages, according to county Emergency Management Coordinator Jeff Fincke.
“It was fairly quiet,” Fincke said. “There were some accidents but nothing major. … I appreciate people heeding notice and kind of staying home and being careful.”
According to the National Weather Service Office in New Braunfels, the station that tracks Boerne and Kendall County weather, a cold front came through the Hill Country overnight Wednesday into Thursday, bringing with it the coldest temperatures of the season and a blast of icy precipitation.
The precipitation started as a cold rain but turned to ice before daybreak Thursday as temperatures plummeted from a 57-degree high on Wednesday to a Thursday low of 21 degrees. The temperature did not top the freezing mark during the day on Thursday.
On Friday, the thermometer topped the freezing mark for a few hours in the afternoon, hitting a high of 37 degrees. Friday night’s 19-degree low was the first of three consecutive nights when the temperature dipped to about 20 degrees.
The temperature rebounded a little on Saturday as 46 degrees was reached. On Sunday, Boerne topped out at 55 degrees.
Woman facing charge in fatal wreck A 22-year-old San Antonio resident, Kendall Lauren Batchelor, has turned herself in after a warrant was issued for her arrest on an intoxicated manslaughter charge following an accident last week that left a Boerne man dead.
Batchelor was booked into the Bexar County jail Tuesday. The arrest warrant, which was signed by Kendall County Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Debby Hudson on Tuesday, indicates county officials are recommending she be held without bond. The Bexar County Magistrate records indicate Batchelor was booked into the jail at about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and remanded without bond.
Intoxicated manslaughter is a second-degree felony with a punishment range between 2 and 20 years, but Batchelor’s charge has yet to go before a grand jury.
According to information from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Batchelor drove her 2021 Ford F-150 into oncoming traffic in the eastbound lane of Highway 46 at about 9:50 p.m. last Thursday. The information stated Batchelor struck 49-year-old David John Belter’s 2002 Honda Accord, which was traveling east out of Boerne, hitting him head-on near the intersection of Rust Lane and Highway 46. DPS officials stated Belter was pronounced dead at the scene.
A search warrant was signed by 451st District Court Judge Kirsten Cohoon to get a blood draw from Batchelor after a Kendall County EMS technician noted the smell of alcohol on Batchelor’s breath at the scene of the accident and DPS Trooper Allen Meyer noted multiple cans of beer were scattered around the crash site, according to the arrest warrant.
DPS Trooper Robert LaFerney served the warrant for the blood draw, and the results were delivered to the Kendall County District Attorney’s office on Tuesday morning. According to the warrant, Batchelor’s bloodwork showed her blood-alcohol level was .166 – more than double the legal driving limit – and a urine analysis showed Batchelor tested positive for cannabinoids, opiates and amphetamines. The arrest warrant states a bottle of methamphetamine salts – a substitute for Adderall – prescribed to Batchelor was found in her truck.
Officer-involved shooting
Boerne Police Department Cpl. Cheyenne Weber fatally shot 41- year- old Brandon Cruz at the Carrington Place Apartment Complex Monday afternoon after a pursuit from Gillespie County took place earlier in the day.
A press release from the city of Boerne stated Cruz was a Bexar County resident. A search indicated his Ford Mustang is registered to an address in Boerne owned by Eduardo Cruz. Information from the BPD call sheets and the press release indicate a suicide threat was made by Cruz at a nursing home in Gillespie County when Cruz allegedly placed his father’s gun in his own mouth. His father reportedly was able to get the gun away from Cruz before he began his journey to Boerne.
The custodial death report for the fatal shooting of Brandon Cruz by Boerne Police Department Cpl. Cheyenne Weber was released late last month, offering more insight into the events that took place Feb. 21.
State law requires a custodial report be submitted and published on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s website within 30 days of any shooting where an officer or subject is injured or killed.
Once BPD officers located Cruz in the parking area at the very back of the apartment complex in his black Mustang with a gold racing stripe down the center, Cruz attempted to flee the scene and struck a trooper’s vehicle in front of him, according to the report. Weber then ordered Cruz out of his vehicle at gunpoint, according to the report.
The report states Cruz failed to obey Weber’s commands and “used his cell phone as a simulated handgun ( held in the manner you would a firearm and pointed it at the officer).” Weber realized it was a cell phone and continued to order Cruz out of his vehicle.
The report states Cruz then “accelerated at a high rate of speed backwards into a Boerne PD unit” before driving forward again toward the state trooper’s vehicle.
“In fear of the trooper’s life, the Boerne PD officer (Weber) fired his gun multiple times, striking Cruz multiple times,” the report reads. “Cruz was pronounced dead at the scene.”
It is unclear whether or not the trooper was in the vehicle at the time.
At the scene, Cruz’s driver’s side front end was touching the front end of a trooper’s SUV.
New Boerne police leadership
The Boerne Police Department had its new top- tier leaders take office Friday as both Chief Steve Perez and Assistant Chief Cody Lackey were officially sworn into their new roles.
First up, Perez was sworn into his new role as BPD chief of police by the interim police chief and former assistant chief Jeff Page on Friday morning in the Cana Ballroom at the St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church surrounded by family, friends, fellow law enforcement agents and city officials. Perez’s wife of 21 years, Kathleen, and his two sons, Diego and Max, stood by his side as we was sworn in.
But first, Boerne’s City Manager Ben Thatcher and Mayor Tim Handren had a few kind words to say about the 22-year BPD veteran.
“So, as I sat back and came up with that list of qualities and characteristics that I thought were important for our community and for our department, I could see those easily in Steve,” Thatcher said of Perez. “And I know you, who know him well, can agree with me there. But I also want to share with you the other aspects of what I think Steve brings to this role. … “You will not be surprised to know that Steve is a big family man. Family is important to him. He talks about his wife and his boys all the time. You know that he is a man of faith. He understands what it means to love your neighbor, which is really important in those attributes we talked about. Integrity, he wears it on his sleeve. But lastly, I think the most important attribute that really resonates with me is he’s a man of great humility.”
Lackey was sworn in that afternoon at the training facility at the Boerne Police Department by his new chief, accompanied by his wife, Jamie; his daughter, Olivia; his two sons, Jarrett and Hunter; and his brother-in-law who also works in law enforcement, Jacob Leslie.
Lackey began his law enforcement career with the BPD 18 years ago, starting as a dispatch officer as a teenager, and he has worked his way through the ranks, officially reaching second in command Friday afternoon.
Alabama mom charged in crash death of child
Kianna Elizabeth Adams, the mother driving the 2004 Chevrolet Tahoe that flipped on Interstate 10 last week that resulted in the death of her 4-yearold daughter, Starr Adams, and serious injury to two younger children, has been charged with three felony counts, including a second- degree manslaughter charge for the death of her daughter.
Information from the Boerne Police Department stated Adams was driving back to Foley, Alabama, with her three children – including Starr, 14-month-old Issac and 2½-year-old Skyler – from another state when her vehicle overturned on the interstate on the far north side of Boerne shortly after 2 p.m. March 28.
All three children were ejected from the vehicle during the accident, and none of the children were properly secured in their car seats, according to information from BPD. According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Adams said she recalled buckling the children into their car seats, but she allegedly admitted the child safety seats were not anchored to the vehicle.
Adams is being charged with the first-degree felony offense of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury, the second- degree felony offense of manslaughter and the third-degree felony offense of bodily injury to a child.
The arrest warrant affidavit alleges Adams admitted to receiving a ticket from a state trooper nine days prior to the accident for failing to secure her children in their safety seats.
Adams eventually pled guilty to the charges.
Boerne’s twin centurions
Brent Evans, son-in-law of Juanita Herff Chipman, one of the twins who turned 100 years old earlier this week, told a group of family and friends on Saturday evening at Herff Farm that the twin girls did not have to blow out 200 candles before their birthday cakes were cut.
“We won’t do that to them,” he said.
He did, however, encourage anyone who had a glass in hand to raise it in honor of the sisters, who “have lived long, they have lived well and we all have been so lucky to have known them.”
He then led everyone in attendance to a rousing verse of “Happy Birthday.”
Evans, who married Carolyn Chipman to punch his ticket into the large and well-known Herff family and then more than three decades ago helped the Cibolo Center for Conservation get off the ground, was the master of ceremonies for the gathering of family and friends at Herff Farm on Saturday night. During the event, Juanita and her twin, Carolyn Herff Kennon, remained seated in their wheelchairs on the front porch of the old, restored farmhouse smiling, clapping, enjoying the festivities and visiting with guests.
The majority of people in attendance were family spanning several generations. When the family photo was taken on the porch after the ceremony, young and old alike crowded together to pose and form a who’s who of Herffs.
“We especially want to thank the family for their continued support of the Cibolo Center of Conservation, which has preserved this property,” Evans said. “And we also thank the larger community for its support.”
Boerne gym coach at center of growing sex-abuse scandal
Criminal charges and a potential civil action are piling up for a former Boerne Gymnastics coach after more women this week came forward to say he inappropriately touched them or exposed himself when they were minors.
As first reported by the Star, Michael Spiller, 75, was arrested Nov. 18 on a charge of indecency with a child after a woman accused him of displaying his genitals and wrongfully touching her in 2001 and 2002 at a camp Spiller hosted at Boerne Gymnastics.
On Tuesday, a Kendall County grand jury handed up an indictment in connection with the third-degree offense.
Spiller was released on a $ 150,000 bond from the Kendall County Jail the same morning, but promptly booked again after prosecutors arrested him on a second related charge based on the same victim’s outcry, officials said.
In that case, Spiller is also charged with indecency with a child and remains behind bars in lieu of posting an additional $100,000 bond.
District Attorney Nicole Bishop promised to apply the full extent of the law to the cases.
Although the victim told investigators she was assaulted more than once, a charge for continuous sexual abuse cannot be filed for any claims before 2007 when the statute didn’t exist.
Despite nationally recognized civil attorney Michelle Simpson Tuegel being the first to sound the horn on future civil suits for potential victims of Michael Spiller, 75, Meredith Stratigopoulos – of the San Antonio law office of Watts Guerra LLP – filed suit Dec. 1 against both Spiller and Boerne Gymnastics Center, where he worked until last spring.
While the two criminal charges filed against Spiller by Kendall County prosecutors stem from allegations from the early 2000s, the civil suit claims Spiller inappropriately touched a 9-year-old girl at the gym in April.
“On April 5, 2022, plaintiff was training at the Boerne Gymnastics Center with Michael Spiller, who proceeded to reach his hand underneath her leotard and make unwanted physical, sexual conduct with her body,” the suit reads. “Plaintiff immediately reached out to her mother over the phone to pick her up. The assault was immediately reported.”
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