Brownwood News – Brown County is the latest community to join the Certified Local Government Program of the Texas Historical Commission.  Only 17 of the 254 counties in Texas are Certified Local Governments.

According to Bob Contreras, Grants Manager and Government Relations for Brown County, the CLG Program is a local, state and federal government partnership to empower local communities to better protect historic resources.  They do so by identifying local priorities, meeting recognized historic preservation standards and providing access to financial and technical services to further the identification, evaluation, designation and protection of buildings, sites, districts, structures and objects.  The Texas Historical Commission administers the program at the state level and the National Parks Service is the responsible federal agency.

“Mr. Lappe from the Brown County Historical Commission and his group have done an amazing job of cataloging hundreds, if not thousands, of bits of data that we had to gather and place on a map and correlate each of the places with what they currently have at the state and federal level,” said Contreras.  It took about one year for the group to put it together.

“By doing this we now have a partner in preserving our heritage and history,” Conteras said.  Being in the CLG Program is one way for Brown County to access grants on the state and federal level and attend workshops and other training specific to local preservation challenges.