By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
The co-chair of a local government watchdog group has praised plans by one county commissioner to work with the school district to build a park and a sports facility near the Del Rio Middle School.
Sandra Fuentes, co-chair of The Border Organization, made her remarks during the citizen comments portion of the court’s Feb. 28 meeting.
However, she also called on County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. to schedule an evening meeting of the court to further discuss several roads in a south Val Verde County subdivision. The Border Organization has met with the court on several occasions to discuss maintaining and upgrading roads in the Moreno Valley Subdivision south of the Del Rio city limits.
But first, Fuentes lauded County Commissioner Pct. 2 Juan Carlos Vazquez’s plan to work with school district officials to create a park and a sports field facility adjacent to the Del Rio Middle School on the east side of Del Rio.
“I am here to address Item 29, concerning a possible sports complex that Commissioner Vazquez is moving forward on, working with the school district. It’s always very good to hear when local governmental entities are willing to work with one another,” Fuentes told the court.
“The (larger county) sports complex has been canceled, I guess, a couple of times. I think it’s very good for Commissioner Vazquez to bring this forward. The Border Organization would love to see a mini-sports complex go up, and eventually we would like to see all three entities, the school district, the county and the city, work together, possibly pass a bond to get a major sports complex here in Del Rio and Val Verde County, so we’re in support of that,” Fuentes added.
Fuentes also spoke about the Moreno Valley Subdivision. Late last year, the court met with Moreno Valley residents and advised them the roads in their subdivision had never been accepted for county maintenance, adding until those roads were brought up to county subdivision standards, the county could not seek state or federal grants to extend city water lines to the area.
“The other item I wanted to bring up, if there’s a possible closed session conversation concerning Moreno Valley, I know that County Attorney David Martinez has mentioned to us that Old Foster Road and the Moreno Valley issue needs to go in front of a district
judge,” Fuentes said.
“We believe that this might possibly be incorrect. We’re asking that this be placed as an agenda item for discussion in the next county commissioners meeting, and we would like for it to be an evening meeting. We believe strongly that the process is, that it needs to be in front of the public, to remove Old Foster Road off the list (of county-maintained roads), and I guess that goes also for Pace Miller (Drive). So, Judge Owens, if this could be done in the next two weeks or month, placed in the evening for discussion with the public. Thank you,” Fuentes continued.
No members of the court addressed Fuentes’ comments during the commissioners’ or
judge’s comments section later in the meeting.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com .
