By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A meeting of the city’s International Bridge Board scheduled for Tuesday was canceled because only two of the board’s four members showed up.
The board meets monthly to discuss issues pertaining to the city’s international bridge over the Rio Grande between Del Rio and Ciudad Acuña, Coah., Mexico. The board then makes recommendations about bridge-related issues to the Del Rio City Council.
For more than two years, the bridge board has also been getting updates on the city’s efforts to build a second international bridge.
Mayor Al Arreola presides as head of the bridge board, which also includes members Mario Bosquez, Frank Mendoza and Ruben Nino. A fifth seat on the board is currently vacant.
Arreola and Mendoza were the only two members who showed up at City Hall for the 10 a.m. Tuesday meeting. Various city staff, including Deputy City Secretary Ana Maria Giraldo, International Bridge Superintendent Jose Castillo and Assistant International Bridge Superintendent Jose Rivera, also attended, as did two members of the public.
At 10:09 a.m. Tuesday, Arreola said, “I’m just going to announce that we don’t have a quorum for today, so we’re going to postpone this meeting to the next month.”
Arreola said the next bridge board meeting will be scheduled for 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 26.
After the meeting, this reporter asked Arreola if the city’s consultants on the proposed second international bridge, RRP Consulting Engineers LLC, have presented their recommendation for a route between the site of the proposed second international bridge and area highways.
The placement of that route has been a point of contention, with large numbers of Val Verde County residents living in subdivisions just north of the Del Rio city limits speaking out against it because that route, a major commercial corridor, would go through their mostly residential neighborhoods.
In response to the question about whether a route had been recommended, Arreola told The 830 Times, “Specifically, that we can say we go thumbs-up on it, not yet. And I think that was what Mr. Chavez (Interim City Manager Manuel Chavez) was going to address (today).”
We asked the mayor if he anticipated that route would be revealed at the May bridge board meeting, and he said, “I believe by the 26th, we should have a definite route, and then the days that we’re going to present (the route) to the public.”
The proposed route is a step in the process of the city’s application for a presidential permit to build the second bridge.
One of the county residents who has opposed the routes through neighborhoods north of Del Rio, Lori Reyes, was among two members of the public who attended Tuesday’s meeting. The other was Jon Grace, who has also spoken out against previously proposed routes at many city and county meetings.
As members of the bridge board left the dais on Tuesday, Reyes wondered aloud if canceling the meeting had been deliberate, saying if the route is announced a month from now, it would give residents less time to organize their opposition.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
