By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Del Rio City Council members recently approved a resolution to work with the local public school district to rehabilitate the old Cody Wardlaw Gymnasium so it can be used by both the city and the school district.
The city council approved the resolution at its April 25 meeting.
After City Secretary Mari Acosta read the agenda item, Mayor Al Arreola called for a motion to approve the resolution. Mayor Pro-tem Steve Webb made the motion, and Councilwoman Ernestina “Tina” Martinez gave the second.
Background information provided to the council reads that the Cody Wardlaw Gymnasium is owned by the school district. It was opened in 1960 and was home to the Del Rio High School Wildcats, then to the Del Rio Middle School Rams and Queens.
“In recent years, the gym has been repurposed as file storage. The gymnasium is in need of upgraded lighting, new flooring, upgrade and ADA-compliant restroom amenities, façade renovation and other items in order to make it usable by the community,” City Purchasing Director Luis Menchaca wrote in a memo to the council.
After the motion and second, Councilman Jim DeReus said he had a few questions.
Arreola called on Dr. Carlos Rios, superintendent of schools for the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District, to come to the podium and address the council.
DeReus asked Rios, “In our information, there’s a bunch of storage going on (at the gymnasium) that you’re going to have to clear out. When do you think the facility would be ready for us to start scheduling if people need it?”
“Well, that’s a great question, but the reality is that we’re taking this on as an entire remodel project. There has to be a brand-new floor laid out, new windows, new A/C system. Once the construction or renovation documents are completed, and this is put out for bid, I’d say 12 months from that point would be aggressive, and that’s what we would try, so I would say within 18 months, if we start immediately,” Rios answered.
DeReus added, “As the city manager and I have talked about a couple of times, based on all of the input that I’ve received over the past year or so, there’s a lack of indoor athletic facilities, and this is definitely not what I would like for the answer, but given what our various options are, this is probably the best we’re going to do for right now, because if we take down Joe Ramos (gym) for renovations, which we all know needs to be done, then we’d have almost no places inside, and if we don’t do this, then it’s going to be four or five or six years until we might have a new gym built of our own.”
“It’s a very valid concern,” Rios said, “But in the meantime, we’ll continue to work with the city manager as we have to make all our gyms available to alleviate the need for indoor spaces, whether it be for volleyball, basketball or other activities that come up.”
Arreola said, “I think from the side of the city, we just like the partnership, and that is awesome. I think it’s something that is needed, and we’re working with you guys to improve a gym that is needed, not only for the kids, but for adults down the line, because, you know, big guys play basketball too, and they need a city gym to play in, so that is awesome.
“I think we can look forward to other adventures where we join forces, and I think the administration has already been meeting with you on some other ones, and we’ll proceed on a long adventure and partnership with the school district for the future of the city of Del Rio and of course our kids, so we appreciate this, Dr. Rios,” Arreola added.
Webb commented, “The thing I find really interesting is that this (gym) is a part of our history. All of the adults today, some of them went to that school and played in that gym, and we let it go and just turned it into a storeroom, and now we have the opportunity to come in and put it back together for our kids and our grandkids. We tell stories, but they never see the end result, and I’m glad to see the school district working with the city. I hope we can get this project going, and make it a reality for our kids.”
“It’s great that we get to do it together, the city and the school district,” Rios added.
Councilwoman Alexandra Falcon Calderon said she had a question for the city’s finance director.
“Of course, money. Where is this coming from? Because it says here in the summary, ‘if city council desires, the city could participate in the rehabilitation of the gymnasium next fiscal year through the capital improvement budget.’ Has this been discussed some time ago? Did you have this in mind or did in come in all of a sudden?” Calderon asked.
“No, actually it came about as City Manager John (Sheedy) brought it up and had the idea in discussing with the school district, so he kind of threw that out there, and we started looking at what potentially we would have available, and so again, it wasn’t budgeted this year. It is something that we could present to the city council, in the long-range plan in your capital improvement budget to fund that,” City Finance Director Alberta Barrett replied.
“Because in the agreement we have, created by the school district, it does have the financial support dollar amount, from the city of Del Rio and the responsibility and financials from the school district, so that is just a number right now, so I’m sure it will be a whole lot more once it’s approved,” Calderon added.
“We would definitely keep the council informed as to what those events are,” Barrett replied.
Sheedy added he and Rios have spoken and “are pretty confident” where the city would come in, noting the city would be limited by its agreed-on contribution of $1.5 million.
“This is a fixed agreement. What Mr. Sheedy and I have discussed is, because it’s a partnership, our school board has already allocated the funds from our fund balance. They did that at the last meeting,” Rios said.
“If the council approves this, we’ll move forward and engage the architect immediately, and I shared with Mr. Sheedy that if finances were a concern on the city’s part, that we could wait until your next budget, if that was you all’s choosing, but I’m eager to get going on it from an administrative side, because there’s a whole lot of work, so if you all approve it, we’re not going to wait until the city provides their amount, we’ll engage the architect immediately with the funds that we have, knowing that in October or November, you all will provide share your share of it, which is really closer to the time we’ll begin construction and have to start spending a lot of money,” Rios added.
Calderon indicated she had more questions for the city manager and began to ask him about work on the Joe Ramos gym.
City Attorney Jack Stern and the mayor then told Calderon discussion of the Joe Ramos gym was “off topic,” since it was not on the council’s agenda.
“It’s the Cody Wardlaw gym on the agenda, the rest, we can come back to it,” Arreola told her.
Calderon said she would bring the Joe Ramos gym up again at a later time.
Martinez said she wished to make a comment.
“I’m very happy to see this happening, united, working together for the community to improve the quality of life for our kids, and I think this is a great project that we will accomplish,” Martinez said.
After Martinez finished her comment, Calderon said she had further questions and seemed miffed that Arreola was trying to move the discussion along, saying Rios was busy “and has a lot of things to do.”
“C’mon. This is important. I know he has things to do, but this is important. So you keep saying that he needs to go, I’m sorry, but we need to . . . ,” Calderon said.
“We definitely want to collaborate, because that’s very much needed, Mr. Rios, but yeah, we do need something for the gym for all the people that are outcrying. They are outcrying for the gym, a gym. I did see the agreement here, as far as what the city is going to be responsible where the city, when I say the city, I mean the community, when they’re going to use it, the days, the months, it’s very limited. Two months in the whole year, in the summer,” Calderon said.
“Plus from 4 (p.m.) to midnight every day plus Saturdays and Sundays,” DeReus interjected.
“I think actually, councilwoman, if you don’t mind, we’ve calculated, and I believe we actually end up with a little more hours,” Sheedy added.
“As long as it stays like that,” Calderon said.
“Only for 99 years,” DeReus quipped.
After some additional discussion and pledges to keep the lines of communication between the city and school district open, Rios made a final comment.
“Just for the record, this is a great project, and there’s a lot of great things that are happening, but it was this council that approached the district for this partnership, so congratulations for the vision, from a previous council member and Mr. Sanchez (Councilman J.P. Sanchez) who initially approached the school district, probably more than two years ago, we’re just lucky to be part of the partnership, so thank you,” Rios said.
The council voted unanimously to approve the resolution.
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