By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Citizens who attended Mayor Pro-tem Jim DeReus’ town hall meeting on Thursday asked questions about local help for the homeless, city finances, water rates, street paving and the Paul Poag Theatre.
The meeting, held at the Del Rio Civic Center, was DeReus’ last as the District 2 representative on the Del Rio City Council. DeReus has reached his term limit in the office.
DeReus welcomed those attending the town hall and said, “What kind of concerns do you have? What do you think the city needs to focus on? What should the budget priorities be?”
Most of those attending the town hall were “regulars,” citizens who have come to most or all of DeReus’ previous meetings. One was a newcomer, Carlos Cura, who said he had recently met DeReus at another event.
DeReus called on Cura first and invited him to share his comments or concerns.
Cura asked, “What has the city council done to deal with the homeless problem around town?”
He added he had heard at least one of two recent house fires in the city “was caused by a bunch of homeless people using drugs.”
“What has the city done, or what could it do, about things like that?” Cura asked.
DeReus replied, “The short answer is we haven’t done anything. We’ve talked about it a couple of times from the standpoint of is there enough of a problem that we need to do something, and it’s always been decided, no, it hasn’t risen to that level yet, and that is, unfortunately, how a lot of things happen in government. Until it’s an issue big enough, no one does anything about it.”
DeReus added the city does not have any department to deal with the issue of homelessness and “would have to stand up a whole new department” if it were to deal with the issue. He said he believes dealing with the issue of homelessness in Del Rio would have to be a collaborative effort.
“It would have to be the city, the county, the hospital, from the mental health side, because mental health issues and drugs are two of the biggest contributors to the homeless problem,” DeReus said, adding several other citizens have spoken to him about the issue in the last few months.
“It seems like it’s getting to be a bigger issue, and that is something I would need to look into, how big of a problem is it, and how big a solution would it require on the city side?” DeReus said.
DeReus next recognized one of the “regulars,” former Del Rio City Councilman Lee Weathersbee.
Weathersbee thanked DeReus for having the town hall meetings.
Weathersbee said he has looked at the city budget, “and it seems like the major percentage of the (city’s) water rate increases went into the general fund instead of going back into the water fund, where it needed to be.”
Weathersbee also spoke about the city’s plans to build a second international bridge. He pointed out traffic across the existing bridge is down, adding, “. . . It just seems like nobody wants to talk about what the financial implications will be on the construction of a second (international) bridge.”
DeReus said he is concerned and believes the city will “have to do a bond vote” to finance construction of a second bridge, adding “there’s no way” the city will be able to pay for the construction using only property taxes.
DeReus also worried aloud about using the $5 million to $6 million the existing bridge makes each year to make payments on the bond. He said if the city uses those funds to pay back the construction bond on the second bridge, it will leave a “$5 million to $6 million hole in the general fund,” because currently the city transfers those monies into its general fund every year to help pay for other city operations.
DeReus said he has asked about transfers from the city’s enterprise funds like the bridge and the water fund since he was elected to the council, adding he will be getting a briefing about the city’s water funds revenues and that the entire council will be briefed during their meeting on Tuesday.
Weathersbee also asked if the city was planning to increase its gas rates.
DeReus replied, “They’re doing another rate study to see if it needs to go up based on actual costs.”
“Here’s the problem,” Weathersbee said, then turned toward the rest of the audience and said, “How many of us have gas?”
DeReus said, “The problem there is they didn’t require gas lines in new builds, right? So now, because the city wasn’t requiring gas lines to be put in, the city wasn’t putting in gas lines on their own, how many houses on the north side – and that’s where a lot of the growth is – are even plumbed for natural gas? Ours isn’t. So even if I want, and I like cooking on natural gas a lot better, but my house is not plumbed (for natural gas).”
“So in addition to running the connection from the city system, and mine would be like half a block away if I wanted to connect, I would not only need to get it to my house, but I’d have to get plumbing in my house, and how much is that going to cost?” DeReus said.
Weathersbee said, “My concern is, how fair is that?”
He said gas is mainly used in the older areas of south Del Rio, adding, “Those of us who don’t have gas, in my opinion, aren’t paying our fair share of government, and we’re putting that on the backs of our lower income areas.”
“Primarily, yes,” DeReus agreed.
“So how in good conscience can anybody do that?” Weathersbee asked.
Weathersbee and DeReus spent a few minutes discussing gas and water rates and the city’s enterprise funds, then Weathersbee said he had read that the city’s financial advisors had told the city council the city had a total debt of $151 million.
“Is that accurate?” Weathersbee asked.
“Somewhere around there,” DeReus replied.
Weathersbee replied, “A 2014 study for a new (international) bridge said a new bridge would cost $130 million. (Together) that’s $280 million (in total debt). How in the world could we even come close to sustaining anything like that? How is that even possible?”
“You must not be asking me,” DeReus joked, adding, “I’m about the only one who’s been raising the red flag on the second bridge. So yeah, we have that issue. We have the issue of would our current transfer from the bridge fund cover our annual debt service on a new bridge? Probably, at least to start, and then in theory, because you have a second international bridge which is intended for just commercial traffic or primarily commercial traffic, that brings up another point: Will our commercial traffic increase?”
DeReus also discussed his other concern vis-à-vis a second bridge, including how the city will fill the $6 million hole in its general fund if bridge revenues are used to make bond payments for the second bridge and the current manpower shortages at ports of entry all along the Texas-Mexico border.
Weathersbee said again he appreciated DeReus speaking to citizens, and the two spent some time talking about how the current city council deals with public comments.
Finally, Weathersbee said he wanted to make a “Del Rio Proud” statement, recognizing the hard work and talents of a young baseball player, Wade Cooper.
“I think it’s wonderful that we have young men like that representing our town,” Weathersbee said.
“Every time they announce him, they say Del Rio, Texas,” Carole Cooper, Wade’s grandmother, added.
Following his exchanges with Weathersbee, DeReus continued making his way around the room.
He next recognized Cooper.
Cooper first spoke about the city’s gas department. She said she recalled several decades ago, the city sent out information that it was going to install natural gas lines on Westward Way and invited citizens to take advantage.
Cooper said, “The city told us they’d take the gas to the meter, and then all you have to do is get it into your house, and it’s going to be wonderful. Well, obviously, nobody went for it, but in so doing, they completely tore up the street (Westward Way). Our street is in horrible shape.”
Cooper said she has called and emailed the city’s streets department, which she said quickly comes out and patches areas on the street, but added, “After these last two wonderful rains, it’s gotten so bad, that I feel the need to say can you put us on your list to have a complete, $1 million-per-mile redo, because (Westward Way) has really gotten bad, all the way down to Meandering (Way) down to Enchanted. How do I go about doing that?”
DeReus replied, “The two streets I use as exemplars whenever I talk about this, one is Crestline (Drive) and the other is Pauline (Drive). I could use Westward Way. Pauline and Westward Way are both really bad, so this is one of those ‘be careful what you wish for’ type of things.”
DeReus added, “A few years ago, just after I got on council, (the city) redid Canal Street by Brown Plaza. It was beautiful. It was smooth. About two weeks later, they tore it up because they hadn’t put water and/or sewer. And so now not only does it take a while to get filled back in, now you have a different topcoat that’s not smooth and that leads to a quicker erosion and deterioration.
“So we said, we’ve got to stop that because we spent a lot of time and money on it. Now, part of the problem is, west of you (on Westward Way), in the Reservation, they went and put a bunch of gas lines in there while they’re not done with the water and sewer in there, so all they’re doing is filling up on top of the new gas lines that they tore the roads up for, but they’re not going to fully finish the streets until they’re done with water and sewer so they don’t pave them, then tear them up and repave them,” he said.
DeReus said because of this new philosophy of dealing with the city’s streets, it may take longer to get to or to finish some streets.
“The other part is, because they’re side streets, they don’t have as much maintenance done as often and so it takes even longer to get to them,” DeReus added.
He also said he was happy to report that next year, Crestline and adjacent streets are on the paving plan, and said when he met with the interim city manager and finance staff members about budget priorities for the next year and presented them with “some options to allocate more money to do streets.”
But DeReus admitted, “We are so far behind (on streets), if we don’t do something exceptional, we’re never going to come close to catching up, and all we’re going to have the resources for is doing the big, busy streets, and we’re never going to get to the side streets.”
DeReus recommended Cooper email the city’s streets department to express her concerns about her street. He also encouraged her to reach out to other council members.
Cooper also spoke about the latest round of bids for the renovation of the city’s Paul Poag Theatre. Cooper has been a stalwart supporter of the renovation and a tireless advocate for the historic theater.
“We’re getting close to maybe getting something done,” Cooper said.
“I hope so,” DeReus said.
He added, “That’s one of the things, you know, a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, we have so many more important things,’ but we have money that is restricted, set aside, allocated, for certain projects that we can’t just (move to another project) on a whim. . . a big portion of the Paul Poag will be covered by money we borrowed to do the Paul Poag. So you can’t just move that money.”
DeReus then welcomed Leno Hernandez Jr., who is currently seeking election to the District 2 seat on the council currently occupied by DeReus.
Hernandez also addressed the bid opening for the Paul Poag renovation project, and he said he believed those bids would again be far higher than the city or its engineers on the project had anticipated.
Hernandez said, “I wanted to see if maybe we could be a little proactive, instead of throwing egg on (the engineers’) faces or ours, if we could we maybe revisit the scope of work?”
DeReus replied, “Yes, I don’t know why we haven’t trimmed (the project) down or done piecemeal; the electric is going to cost this much, the new seats are going to cost this much, stuff like that. Something else, a couple years ago, there was a referendum to convert the economic development corporation from a Type A to a Type B, and this (project) is clearly a quality of life issue, and Type B EDC can do quality of life projects, so we have a potential as an additional source of money, to potentially use some EDC money.”
Hernandez said a stakeholder group the city initiated when it first began planning the theater renovation project “have probably not been as involved in the actual project.”
“I finally got involved in the project maybe a couple of months ago, and when I saw some of the scope (of work), we’re spending a lot of money of things we might not have to spend on,” Hernandez said.
An example, Hernandez said, are the theater’s air conditioning units.
“The current scope shows a whole new air conditioning system, when the reality is, we replaced the air conditioners maybe a year before closing it down, so maybe we don’t have to include those in the scope,” he said.
DeReus said he relies on city staff to provide him that type of detailed information.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
