By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A former city council member chastised city leaders Tuesday for not providing supporting documents related to proposed city expenditures on projects and asset purchases as part of a budget workshop.
Alexandra Falcon Calderon, a Del Rio business owner who served a single term on the city council, made her remarks during the “citizen comments” portion of a special city council meeting. The meeting was scheduled as a council work session on capital improvement projects and fixed assets to be paid from the city’s proposed Fiscal Year 2025-2026 budget.
Calderon told the council, “CIP (capital improvement plan) projects is my concern for right now. I don’t know who made a decision on not posting nothing on this item. No attachments, no reports, no documents, nothing. And why I say that is because year after year, there has been documents, attachments, for citizens and others that are interested (in) these items that are very crucial and very important because it is a lot of money, a lot of money, and projects that are still pending.”
Calderon held up a sheaf of documents she had brought with her.
She said, “As most of you know, I do my research. There has been, from year 2017 to 2024, that there’s been documents presented, presentations presented, and today, very disturbing, there’s nothing.
“Nothing, unless you’re going to do a presentation right now, and you all need to present that on Facebook, on all the social media that you all are aware of and (the city’s) web site, because we need to know what is going to happen, because when you. . . do something like this, (it) makes people wonder, especially myself, why? It is a shady thing, in my opinion, to not do that.
“Who decided that? I know I don’t have answers right now, but I don’t like that. So again, please consider putting something in there on this item, and everything else, because this is the budget, the budget,” Calderon said.
She said she was particularly concerned about the San Felipe Creek bank stabilization project.
“It has not been talked about. There’s money there, and we need to do something with that. The community is out there crying. They want their creek, but nothing. When I left (the council) there was a biologist that was pending. They had that, but it was money.
There was a process and plan, but nothing. Nothing. What is the plan that you guys have?
“Council might have one, and obviously, most of it is staff. So please, we want something, and again, attach everything, and to those that are listening, you can always do an open records request,” Calderon finished as her time to address the council ran out.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com .
