By:  Harris                                            S.B. No. 171
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to the creation, purpose, implementation, and funding of
    1-2  the County Park Beautification and Improvement Program.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  SHORT TITLE.  This Act shall be known and may be
    1-5  cited as the County Park Beautification and Improvement Program
    1-6  Act.
    1-7        SECTION 2.  PURPOSE; CREATION.  It is the intent of the
    1-8  legislature that each county dedicating land for use as county
    1-9  parks be encouraged to beautify and improve those parks through
   1-10  measures including but not limited to improvements in or additions
   1-11  to lighting, directional and educational signs, litter abatement
   1-12  strategies, and landscaping and landscape maintenance policies.  In
   1-13  furtherance of these goals, the County Park Beautification and
   1-14  Improvement Program is established.
   1-15        SECTION 3.  IMPLEMENTATION.  The commissioners court of a
   1-16  county may by majority vote elect to participate in the program.
   1-17  On such election, the commissioners court shall designate one
   1-18  person in the division of the county government responsible for the
   1-19  care and maintenance of the county parks as the coordinator for the
   1-20  program.  The coordinator may solicit advice and assistance from
   1-21  state and county agencies and private organizations in developing
   1-22  and implementing the program.
   1-23        SECTION 4.  REPORT; ADOPTION.  The coordinator shall report
    2-1  to the commissioners court the coordinator's findings and shall
    2-2  recommend an implementation strategy to the court.  The
    2-3  commissioners court may reject or adopt the implementation
    2-4  strategy.  If the court rejects the strategy, it shall specify to
    2-5  the coordinator the reasons for such rejection, and the coordinator
    2-6  shall develop a new implementation strategy to present to the court
    2-7  within six months of the rejection.  On adoption of an
    2-8  implementation strategy, the commissioners court may fund the
    2-9  program as provided in Section 5 of this Act.
   2-10        SECTION 5.  FUNDING.  The commissioners court of a county
   2-11  electing to participate in the County Park Beautification and
   2-12  Improvement Program under this Act may solicit and accept bequests,
   2-13  donations, grants, and other money, goods, and services from
   2-14  federal, state, and private sources to finance and further the
   2-15  goals of the program but may not levy any tax or receive any
   2-16  legislative appropriation to fund such participation.  The state is
   2-17  not liable for debts or other obligations incurred by a county in
   2-18  implementing or planning to implement the program under this Act.
   2-19        SECTION 6.  EMERGENCY.  The importance of this legislation
   2-20  and the crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-21  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-22  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-23  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-24  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-25  passage, and it is so enacted.