By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Del Rioans who attended Mayor Pro-tem Jim DeReus’ town hall meeting on Thursday discussed a wide range of topics, from an unusually large water bill to a shortage of police officers, from vehicles speeding on a residential street to protecting Laughlin Air Force Base.
DeReus welcomed everyone, then began going around the room, person by person, inviting each one to share his or her particular concerns or comments or to ask questions.
DeReus told those attending the meeting, “The whole point of doing these (town hall meetings) is to hear what’s going on, what concerns you have. I will be taking notes, and I send those to the city manager to let her know, ‘Hey, I need to get this settled,’ and to let her know this is what people are talking about so she can start to develop some plans or we can put in on the agenda (of a city council meeting).”
Water bills, speeding concerns raised
Del Rioan Ken Roehn spoke about two concerns.
Roehn said the city has installed a second water meter at his home in north Del Rio.
“The bill, after one month and no water running through the meter, came in at over $3,000,” Roehn said.
DeReus asked several follow-up questions, including whether Roehn had spoken to the city utility billing department, which he said he has.
Roehn also brought up a chronic problem in his neighborhood. He said he lives on North Broadview Street and told DeReus there are several drivers who “race” on the street, especially early on weekend mornings.
Economic growth and cost of living
Roehn’s wife next asked if there were any new restaurants coming to town.
“None that we can talk about yet,” DeReus replied.
“Restaurants and shopping outlets, retail stores, are not, by themselves, going to give us this big economic boom. They’re not. . . For every dollar we keep in town, from the economic analyses I’ve read, you get the effect of $1.60, because it goes from business to business. . . but we’re going to get the biggest bang for our buck with more industry, but to get that, we really need to work on job skills,” DeReus said.
DeReus spoke further about cost of living and quality of life issues.
DeReus noted the overall cost of living is slightly higher in Del Rio than in San Antonio when one factors in the cost of having to take time off from work and travel out of town for specialty medical care.
Protecting Laughlin Air Force Base
DeReus then discussed remarks he had made last week at a chamber of commerce event.
“No one wants to talk about a BRACC (base realignment and closure commission), and I don’t want to talk about it. If they announced one today, I would sleep like a baby, because there’s nothing I can do about it, because they give you a date – say, 1 March – and they want to know what you did in the year to 18 months prior to that. There’s nothing I can do about that.
“If Congress comes out and says they’re going to have a BRACC, they will set a date and ask you all these questions about what you have done for the 18 months prior to that date, and there’s really nothing you can do. So, what is going to get the base closed?” DeReus asked.
“Not doing the mission,” he answered himself.
Lee Weathersbee, another citizen attending the meeting, said he believed the biggest threat to Laughlin Air Force Base is encroachment, adding he believes it is a mistake for the city to continue allowing water line extensions to properties east of the base, such as in the Escondido Estates and Rancho Del Rio colonias south of U.S. Highway 90.
“Laughlin is as naked as a brand-new baby,” Weathersbee warned.
DeReus said Laughlin has the “best airspace” of any undergraduate pilot training base, despite the fact that much of the airspace near the base lies over a sovereign foreign nation – Mexico.
Staffing, medical care key to base future
“So, what is going to close a base first is if you are doing the mission or not,” DeReus said, adding he does not believe the Air Force will close any undergraduate pilot training base because the Air Force is behind on training pilots.
DeReus said, “And what is going to prevent us from accomplishing the assigned mission? Manning. Personnel. Because right now, for sim instructors, we’re about 55 percent manned, and that’s the best I’ve seen in the 10 years that I’ve been a sim instructor.
“The average age of sim instructors right now is 65 or 66. Why do we have people either just getting out or retiring from the Air Force and not just coming over and becoming a sim instructor? Because the amount of money they can make flying for an airline is about three times as much then what they’ll make as a sim instructor.
“So, what is the number one reason why people stop being a sim instructor or working for aircraft maintenance at Laughlin? Lack of specialty medical care. I’ve been talking with the hospital people for years, working with both state and federal delegations, working with the VA, to try and get more (medical) care down here, because that’s going to cause us to lose the base first, and if we lose the base, the town’s going to wither away,” DeReus said.
Airline service proposal discussed
DeReus segued from speaking about the base to the city’s ongoing efforts to restore commercial air service at Del Rio International Airport.
“Some members of the hospital board think that if the city can get an airline service back in here, they could help us pay for it because they have doctors that come in on Monday and leave on Friday, but (the hospital) has to pay for all their travel costs. Well, if they can fly into Del Rio on Monday, versus flying to San Antonio and driving to Del Rio; one, they could see more patients at the hospital and two, the hospital won’t need to pay as much,” DeReus said.
DeReus said although it isn’t official, some hospital board members have told him that the money the hospital saves paying those doctors’ travel costs could be used to help the city pay any subsidy an airline might seek to serve Del Rio.
DeReus said the city council will get an update on commercial air service during Tuesday night’s city council meeting.
Police staffing and enforcement concerns
DeReus next heard from Antonio “Tony” Becerra, a former Del Rio Police Department captain.
When DeReus noted complaints of speeding and reckless driving, Becerra responded, “I have kept silent for a long time, trying to remain true to my brothers in blue over there (at the police department), but there is no traffic enforcement in Del Rio, Texas.”
“I have been saying that for a long, long time,” DeReus agreed.
Becerra charged, “The Del Rio Police Department is the lowest-paid law enforcement department in the city. In the last two months, I know they’ve lost eight people; one just last Thursday.”
“And it’s not just a number, of bodies in positions you have to fill, but the experience you’re losing, but it is unfortunate. I think they’re probably running six officers per shift, and when I was there, we were running 14. . . and six people on a shift are not enough to answer all the calls and do traffic enforcement,” the former police captain added.
Calls for transparency and long-term planning
Weathersbee said his main reason for coming to the town hall was to thank DeReus, saying he believed the meetings encouraged other city leaders to hold similar sessions on water rate changes.
“You’re willing to sit up there as long as it takes to answer our questions. That’s what’s wrong with our city, in my opinion . . . is we can’t get most of the council to listen to us,” Weathersbee said.
George Solis asked why the city does not have a one-, five- or 10-year plan, and Ken Herrera asked whether the council could request an annual report on crime statistics from the police department.
