By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. told county commissioners court members on Wednesday he believes the county ‘has a fight coming’ with the city on a second bridge and suggested the court might investigate building its own second bridge.
Owens spoke about the city’s planned second international bridge during Wednesday’s meeting of county commissioners court.
Owens told the court he met with Mayor Al Arreola and City Manager Shawna Burkhart on Monday, Dec. 2.
Owens said, “I was informed that they would be proposing the route sometime in January, and the meeting on Monday was, and I will get you all a packet of what I got on Monday. . . They want to be able to go to Washington, D.C., in March, and one of their items on their (meeting agenda) was to ask for a presidential permit for a second international bridge that this court is not in favor as of, today, I guess.
“But we will get you all a copy of that packet today, and we will be presented with a route from the city sometime in January. I was told also by the mayor that if they were going to consider any other route, that, if we wanted to cough up some money, but I believe if the county is going to cough up any money, maybe we should go build our own bridge, south (of the existing international bridge).
“Why throw good money after bad? That’s just my opinion.
“If you notice, we do have more traffic at the bridge, but it’s not commercial truck traffic, it is just traffic,” Owens said.
“I was told yesterday (Dec. 3), that they did have five lanes open on this side. It’s just with the holidays, starting with Thanksgiving and going through Jan. 1, we just get more traffic. . .
“I do believe that we have a fight coming on this bridge. We’ve been told by our attorneys to wait until they (the city) finalize a route to be able to engage, but my other deal is, if we believe there needs to be a (second international) bridge, we go build our own bridge, but build it south (of the existing bridge),” the county judge said.
Once he had finished his own remarks, Owens asked, “Are there any other comments on the second international bridge?”
Hearing none, Owens said he would continue placing an item on the court’s agendas for continued discussions of the second international bridge “just in case something does pop up.”
At this, County Commissioner Pct. 3 Beau Nettleton chuckled and said, “Just don’t put it on the next meeting.”
The court’s next meeting, on Dec. 18, will be Nettleton’s last meeting as Precinct 3 commissioner. The new Precinct 3 commissioner, Fernando Garcia, will be sworn in on Jan. 1.
Reach the writer at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
