By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
County commissioners court has approved $25,000 in funding for the county veterans
service office to pay drivers to take local veterans to appointments and doctors’ visits.
The court, during its meeting Thursday, also heard an update on the work of the veterans
service office from County Veterans Service Officer Enrique Treviño.
County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. read the heading of the agenda item: “discussion and
possible action on setting aside $25,000 for veterans office to help take local veterans to
appointments and doctors’ visits.”
County Commissioner Pct. 4 Gustavo “Gus” Flores made the motion to approve the set-
aside and noted it should be paid out of the county’s contingency fund. County
Commissioner Pct. 1 Kerr Wardlaw gave the second.
After the motion and second, Owens said, “The individuals that are going to be hired here
are going to be part-time. We already have some individuals that work for us part-time
that are drivers. They’ll just be added to the county dollar, not the grant dollar, the grant
funds we have for what we already do, the (trips) to Kerrville and San Antonio. Is that
correct?”
Treviño, who walked the to podium while Owens was speaking, replied, “Yes, sir.”
Owens then asked if there were any questions, and, hearing none, called for the vote. Flores’ motion passed unanimously.
“Thank you so much, and thank you for what you are doing for our veterans,” Owens told
Treviño.
Treviño told the court he would like to briefly review the veterans’ office activities over
the past quarter.
Treviño said, “We’ve seen a total of 590 veterans. We’ve had 133 new veterans that
we’ve started applying for benefits. We’ve had almost 600 walk-ins (to the veterans
service office).
“We’ve made 45 trips to Audie Murphy (veterans hospital in San Antonio) and 38 trips to
Kerrville. We’ve attended 17 events throughout the community, and our social media
impact, we went from 300 to 1,600 followers in the time in the time since we took over.
We’re very grateful, and we’re striving to really serve our veterans under the flag of the
county, and we appreciate your support,” Treviño added.
Owens told the court Treviño had told him he would like to give regular updates to the
court on the work his office is doing during future commissioners court meetings.
“That way we can understand what he’s doing,” Owens said.
He added County Commissioner Pct. 2 Juan Carlos Vazquez had a group that would be
coming in to offer services for veterans and asked Vazquez to elaborate.
Vazquez said, “To give everyone some more information, the U.S. Department of
Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C., with offices all over the country and of course the
office space that they wanted, they want to have a physical therapist full-time, a full-time
pharmacist and a full-time doctor and of course five other support people, for whatever
the veterans of Val Verde County might need. So I think it’s awesome.”
Treviño said, “That will be incredible for our veterans community. It will give a lot of
access to veterans who just can’t travel. It will be amazing, and we will get that done.
That will be a game-changer for our community.”
Owens reiterated the service will be essential to veterans who live in the county but who
are unable to travel to other cities in the region.
Treviño also thanked Flores and Vazquez “for providing food and water and groceries to
some of our disabled veterans who are underprivileged.”
“We’ve been able to coordinate together to make sure these veterans have food in their
refrigerators, and we’re very grateful to them,” Treviño said.
“Again, thank you for everything you do. Anything we can do. As this court and previous
courts have demonstrated, when it comes to our veterans, our door’s always open,”
Owens said.
Any veterans needing assistance locally can reach the office at 830-774-7548.
Reach the writer at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
