By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. said recently he plans to schedule a meeting with Texas transportation officials to obtain information about the city’s plans for a second international bridge, information he claims city officials are not providing.
Owens told members of county commissioners court during the court’s April 11 regular term meeting that city officials are not providing information about their plans for the construction of a second international bridge connecting Del Rio and its sister city across the Rio Grande, Ciudad Acuña, Coah., Mexico.
Owens began the April 11 discussion by noting he had placed an item on the court’s agenda to discuss the bridge issue.
“We had talked about sending a letter, doing a resolution, and we actually started a resolution. Over the last 30 days, 45 days, the city has come out, and they’ve had more meetings. They had a meeting with some people out in New Mexico, and they had another meeting last week with some individuals in Mexico, and then we get the phone calls (from citizens): ‘Is the bridge still moving forward?’
“There’s not a whole lot we can do about them having meetings,” Owens told the court.
“We’ve reached out to people at TxDOT (Texas Department of Transportation). We’re going to try and set up a meeting with them, and I think it would be better if we went down there to Laredo to meet with them. We will be doing that,” Owens continued.
Owens also claimed that the day before local elected leaders attended the “Del Rio/Val Verde County Day” in Austin to speak to state legislators and administrators, he and County Attorney David Martinez attended a meeting at which Del Rio Mayor Al Arreola allegedly told them that the city would in the future invite county officials to any further meetings about the planned second international bridge.
“The conversation we had with the mayor was, they were going to invite us to the meetings that they have (about) the second international bridge. That’s not happened,” Owens said.
He told the commissioners, “But I don’t know what you all want to do, if you want to move forward with the resolution of non-support, but again, we’re starting to get phone calls. People are not real happy because they feel like they’re not being informed.”
After Owens finished, County Commissioner Pct. 3 Beau Nettleton said the county attorney’s office is working on a resolution of non-support for the city’s second international bridge project.
“Hopefully we’ll have one together for the court to review here soon,” Nettleton said.
Assistant County Attorney John Clemmer confirmed he is working a resolution and told the court he would “have a draft together in the next week.”
Owens said he has asked County Engineer Carlos Velarde to “put some days together” for county officials to make the trip to Laredo to visit with the TxDOT district engineer.”
“We want to just try and get an idea of what exactly is going on because we can’t get information here,” Owens said.
Owens asked the commissioners if they had any questions or comments.
“I just wanted to give you all an update and let you know what we’re still thinking of doing,” the county judge added.
The court took no formal action after Owens completed his update.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com .
