By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Members of the city’s international bridge board will hear an update on the city’s plans to
create an EZ Pass Lane at the existing bridge during the board’s meeting later this month.
International bridge board member Seferino Gomez III asked questions about the city’s
progress toward creating the express lane during the bridge board’s regular meeting on
March 25.
During the meeting, Mayor Al Arreola made comments about the city’s plans for a
second international bridge (see separate story), and afterward, asked board members if
any of them had comments.
Gomez indicated he wanted to ask some questions, but said he would wait until later in
the meeting.
Arreola then asked Assistant City Manager Manuel Chavez to go over the international
bridge fund reserves for future improvements and construction, a regular item on every
agenda for bridge board meetings.
Chavez told the board as of February, the reserve fund contained $1,777,330.54, and a
separate fund contained $2,755,253.20. Another account, part of the city’s general fund
reserves, contains $1,417,914.48, he said.
Chavez said the total of all three reserve accounts was $5,950,498.22.
When Arreola asked if there were any questions or comments, Gomez said it has been
brought to his attention that an “express pay lane” at the city’s existing bridge “was no
longer going to happen.”
Gomez said, “My question was, I see the bridge as the leading revenue generator for the
city; it’s a business within the city that’s generating a lot of money, and so we brought
this (express lane) forward so we could streamline traffic, whether it’s someone trying to
get to a doctor’s appointment that sees a line and is not able to go, or it’s somebody
trying to go to dinner and rather not go to dinner because the lines are too long, and so
we’re trying to generate an easier way for these people to get back and forth on this
bridge, and I was thinking this is the investment we wanted to make for this bridge to
succeed, to continue to generate funds, and then I get the report that we’re not going to
move forward because there’s not enough money.
“That’s concerning to me because in any business, you need to continue to invest and
reinvest in the business for the business to continue flourishing and developing, and so
that was concerning for me,” Gomez said.
Gomez added he would “like to know where that money is going.”
“Because the money that’s being generated by this bridge and the (board) that is
managing these funds, is asking for something to better the same product that we have,
and if there isn’t enough money, I would like to know where that money is going,”
Gomez said.
Chavez said city staff would bring an agenda item to discuss the EZ Pass Lane issue back
to the board’s next meeting in April.
“There’s a lot more to it than that. . . It became a much bigger issue than what we thought
it would be, but we can provide that explanation,” Chavez said.
Reach the writer at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
