By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
County commissioners court members have approved the use of the fairgrounds for a four-day solar eclipse festival in the spring of 2024 expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors to the area.
Val Verde County Commissioners Court members approved use of the county fairgrounds off North Main Street and the county stage after discussing the festival with organizers during the court’s May 23 regular term meeting.
Blanca Larson, executive director of the Del Rio Chamber of Commerce, and Anita Pruneda Mariner, communications and marketing director for the city of Del Rio, attended the commissioners court meeting to make a presentation about the festival and answer questions from the court.
On April 8, 2024, Del Rio will be one of the first cities in the United States in the path of what has been dubbed “the Great North American Eclipse.” According to the web site, www.nationaleclipse.com, the eclipse will begin in Del Rio at 1:28:33 p.m. on April 8, 2024, and last nearly three-and-a-half minutes.
County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. said his administrative assistant Tom Garcia, who recently retired, had been attending planning meetings for the solar eclipse festival, which is scheduled to begin on April 5, 2024.
“I will tell you that the work that they have done, the city, the chamber, has been unbelievable,” Owens told the court.
Owens said although he was skeptical about the festival at first, he said he spoke to someone at a local business who’d been involved in a similar festival in her hometown, and she told Owens’ the town’s population doubled during the event.
The county judge added although the eclipse itself only lasts three minutes and 25 seconds, other communities in the eclipse path have already asked for help from the state and noted local organizers have planned a variety of events at area venues.
The county judge told the court he knew that eventually local entities planning the events would probably need more money, but added, “But I believe that it’s going to be worthwhile, especially for everybody coming in and the amount of notoriety that we’re going to get here in our city.”
Owens then invited Larson and Mariner to address the court.
Larson told the court the first thing the commissioners should do is determine which county parks could be used to accommodate campers.
“Right now what the city and the county have to do is for the commissioners to look at where your parks are at and find out if you want to lease them for RVs or lease them for tent camping, primitive camping, and identify them, and maybe we can put them all in an app, and people planning to come to Del Rio can look and see ‘this is available and I want to lease it,’ and they go to an app and they lease it through the county. I would make sure you put a cleanup fee for it. So if you’re going to lease (a site) for $200 a night, whatever you decide and the city decides, and I would put a cleanup fee along with it because you’re going to have to clean it up,” Larson told the court.
“We only have 1,100 (local hotel) rooms, and right now we’re at 65 to 70 percent occupancy. We’re not going to have any rooms, so we don’t need to advertise for people to come. People are coming,” she added.
Larson said a consultant hired by the planning group has told her to expect about 35,000 visitors in the county during the eclipse. Larson said she hopes that number is only between 5,000 and 10,000.
“We already have people who have called and booked some ranches and booked some casitas, ranch camps, at $2,200 a night,” she told the court.
“We just need to make sure that we have enough port-a-potties, we need to make sure we have security, we’re making sure we have a list of emergency management. We need to treat this as a natural disaster, so that we are ready for all these people, because where are we going to put them?” Larson said.
“So if you gave land you want to put them on, and you want to lease that land, or rent that land, you can, the county and the city, and you decide how much you want to charge per night, whether it be a two-night minimum, a three-night minimum, and then put a cleanup fee along with it,” she added.
Larson said a web site for information about the eclipse and its related activities has been set up at www.txsolareclipsefest.com
Owens said he would investigate if the county could rent its parks, including all or a portion of the 60-acre field north of Walmart. Owens said he would speak with the county attorney and learn what the county can and cannot do as far as leasing its parks.
County Commissioner Pct. 3 Beau Nettleton asked what dates the parks would be needed.
Mariner told him the festival would be April 5 through April 10, 2024.
Nettleton then made a motion to authorize use of the fairgrounds and the county stage from April 5 through April 10, 2024, at no charge, with County Commissioner Pct. 4 Gustavo “Gus” Flores giving the second.
The court unanimously approved the motion.
Owens then asked Mariner to address the court.
“We just wanted to introduce this to all of you, to the whole court. We want to thank the judge and Tom for being a part of our committee meetings. We do need to plan as if for a natural disaster for this event, because people are going to come whether we like it or not and so depending on what land or properties are available for camping, let us know as soon as possible so we can start advertising and possibly even marketing the event for only a certain amount of people if that’s the case,” Mariner told the court.
Nettleton asked if any of the property at the SE Ranch could be cleared for use as camping sites.
“We can. We actually have 47 acres that are already available within the fence, and that way it could be sort of contained,” Owens said, adding the acreage was recently vacated by the National Guard contingent that had been staying in Del Rio.
He said the acreage is fenced and the portion that has been fenced is covered with a crushed gravel base.
“Eight months ago, a year ago, when everybody started talking about this, I really thought it was ridiculous, you know, that we’re be planning for this, but it’s amazing the amount of people that we could have within our community. The lady from Tractor Supply, and she said the town where she was at, basically, the restaurants ran out of food. They didn’t prepare. They didn’t realize they would have that many people in their community. Gas stations ran out of gas. And she said she thought they had prepared, but they just weren’t ready for it,” Larson said.
“One of the problems (other communities) had is that as soon as the eclipse was over, everybody headed out. It took anywhere from three to six hours to leave wherever they were at, and there were people running out of gas on the side of the road,” Larson added.
“We have talked to H-E-B, and we have talked to Walmart, and we haven’t gotten ahold of people from 7-11 with Stripes. We sent an email out to 50 or 60 restaurants, and only 10 or 15 came to the meeting. We talked to all the RV parks and hotels, so we’re going to run out of hotel space, so we need to figure out, unfortunately, Amistad National Recreation Area only has 77 (camp) sites available and then you’ve got Seminole Canyon State Park only has about 30.
“We have a list of them, and we’re going to put all this on a web site, and everybody can link to it. We need to identify it and then we need to figure out with your IT people and see how you want to handle it,” Larson said.
Owens pledged the commissioners would each see what was available in their precincts and he would visit with Martinez about the legal parameters the county would need to stay within.
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