Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A majority of county commissioners court members voted Tuesday to continue investigating the sale of a portion of the land between Del Rio and Laughlin Air Force Base for the possible development of an industrial park.
Only one member of the court, County Commissioner Pct. 3 Beau Nettleton, voted against further investigation into selling the land, saying the county had purchased the land for the sole purpose of protecting the air force base from encroachment.
County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. initiated Tuesday’s discussion of the SE Ranch property, an area of more than 2,000 acres that lies on the south side of U.S. Highway 90 between Del Rio and Laughlin.
“The city called a meeting, but there were more people in there from the (Del Rio) industrial park that wanted to know if we would consider doing something between (Highways) 90 and 277, SL79, back towards the city,” Owens told the court.
Owens said he would like the court’s permission to further investigate the possibility of selling a portion of the SE Ranch property, as well as asking questions and seeking opinions from Laughlin officials and others.
Owens also reminded the court the county is currently involved in working on a new compatible use study for land around Laughlin.
County Commissioner Pct. 4 Gustavo “Gus” Flores asked, “Judge, that study that (is) being conducted, has it been done?”
“It’s not been finalized. We have the old study in place, and, Carlos (Velarde, county engineer), you correct me if I’m wrong. Looking at that study, this would be one of the things that is allowable, but again, we are going through a study right now where we could ask (the consultants doing the study) a specific question and get answers, if we had an idea where we were going to put it. Not to say we’re going to go do it, but if we had an idea where we were going to put it and ask them the specific question for that area, to see if it would be okay,” Owens said.
“That’s all that I would be asking for right now, would be permission to designate an area and bring it back to the court,” the county judge added.
“Are we looking at building it ourselves or are we looking at selling the property?” Nettleton asked.
“Probably selling it, but that would be a decision of the court,” Owens replied.
“I know that we borrowed the money. We borrowed it in two different loans. One of them was a taxable. One of them was non-taxable, for the simple reason that we thought we would do something with the property from SL79 to the base,” the county judge added.
“I understand that, but the whole purpose of buying that place was for a reason, and now we’re talking about selling it off, developing. You can put together a plan. I have a lot of concerns about it. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to put a second international bridge on the west side (of Del Rio) and an industrial park on the east side,” Nettleton said.
“But this would be just preliminary, right, judge?” County Commissioner Pct. 2 Juan Carlos Vazquez asked.
“It would be nothing in concrete, just something to bring back to the court. I just didn’t want to waste the time if you all weren’t interested in any of it at all,” Owens said.
“Judge, I’m in favor of anything that brings economic growth to the community, to the city of Del Rio and the county of Val Verde. As long as the land that we consider for development does not encroach on Laughlin. We don’t want to encroach on Laughlin whatsoever; so if the west side of Loop 79 is good to go, I mean, definitely, we need to do something with it,” Flores said.
“We’ll present something to the court, a map, and then we’ll get questions answered and get it to the (consultants) and get those questions answered,” Owens said.
“I make a motion, judge, to give you permission to start that process,” Vazquez said.
Flores gave the second.
Nettleton gave the sole vote against the motion.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com .
