By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A Del Rio resident recently asked city council members to deal with a pavement hazard on the city’s north side and requested the installation of restrooms at a popular north side park.
Del Rioan Jimmy McDonald spoke to the city council during the citizen comments portion of its regular meeting on April 9.
McDonald first requested the placement of restrooms at Del Rio Lions Memorial Park off Fox Drive.
Park off Fox Drive in north Del Rio. The park includes a popular walking track, but no
access to public restrooms. (Photo by Karen Gleason)
He told the council, “For the last two years I’ve been dealing with the mayor and with the parks manager for the city of Del Rio to get a bathroom built in the Del Rio Lions Club park that’s right there off of Fox Drive because you all have recently built as many as six different bathrooms for six different parks, but we do not have a bathroom there.
“For (park users) to go to the bathroom, we have to leave the park because there’s no bathroom there for us to use. I was told about a year, a year-and-a-half ago, through the mayor and through the supervisor for the parks here in Del Rio, that this past Oct. 1, they were going to put it on your agenda (when you discuss) financing for the upcoming year, and we still do not have a (restroom) there to this day.
“People are either going off in the brush and going number one or number two so that they can continue their walk, and we all pay property taxes, so I don’t see what the problem is to get us a bathroom similar to what they have (near) the (Val Verde County Community Center on Cienegas Drive) or the other six (bathrooms) the city has already built,” McDonald said.
McDonald also had another request for the council.
“The second reason I’m here is the Stripes convenience store that is located on Veterans Boulevard and Edwards Street, right next to Ram Country. It’s like a war zone to drive out of that parking lot, and I’ve personally worked with the state of Texas and the mayor to get the city or the state of Texas to go fix that parking lot because (the part of) the parking lot that needs fixing is in the right-of-way, and recently Stripes had all of their gas tanks replaced and in doing so, the contractor that was doing it was asked if they would fix the (pavement), and the city and the state told him no, that that was property that belonged to the city and the state of Texas, as a right-of-way between the (private) property and the highway,” McDonald said.
installation of restrooms at a popular north side walking trail and the repair of a stretch of
pavement in the right-of-way along Veterans Boulevard. (Photo by Karen Gleason)
“So who’s going to fix it? Is it going to be the city of Del Rio or the state of Texas? We need to quit this going back and forth, putting the responsibility on the other guy. The citizens of the north side use that store because there’s no convenience store back off of Kings Way in that neighborhood. So thank you all very much and God bless you,” McDonald finished.
The council made no comments following McDonald’s presentation.
However, the bathroom issue resurfaced during the council’s April 16 special workshop on proposed capital improvements for the city for the next fiscal year.
During the April 16 meeting, Mayor Al Arreola asked about McDonald’s request for restrooms to be constructed at Del Rio Lions Memorial Park.
“Is there anything that can be established there, and can we put that in the budget?” the mayor asked.
“I think that’s the line item for the larger restroom,” Scot Carcasi, the city’s operation and compliance auditor replied.
Lazaro Castro, the city’s parks superintendent, told the council, “We currently have a quote in place to get (the restrooms) added to the funding for the next fiscal year. It would be a smaller bathroom than what’s proposed for the parks with the baseball fields that have concession stands. This would be a basic men’s restroom and women’s restroom, so that’s currently in place.”
“Lazaro, where do you anticipate physically placing this restroom, assuming it gets added (to the list of planned park improvements)?” Councilman Jim DeReus asked.
“We’re looking at (placing them) directly next to the Lions hut (a small building in the park), since there are already connections there, and that would make the project faster and easier to get done,” Castro replied.
The council has not voted on the final list of projects to be included in next year’s budget and will discuss the projects again before the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
