Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
County commissioners court members changed the days when they hold their meetings and have changed the time of the meeting on one of those days from morning to evening.
Beginning on Oct. 11, the court will hold its meetings every other Wednesday, instead of every other Tuesday. It will also alternate the time of the meetings.
The meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 11, will be at 9 a.m. The court’s meeting after that will be at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 25.
The court made the change during its regular September session Tuesday, after repeated requests from the Border Organization.
Tuesday, several other citizens spoke to the court during the citizen comments portion of the agenda and asked members to change the time of the meeting from mornings to evenings to allow more citizens to attend.
change the time of commissioners court meetings. (Photo by Karen Gleason)
Before the court discussed and voted on the issue, though, County Clerk Teresa Esther Chapoy urged the court to keep the meetings during the day.
“I know that it’s probably public knowledge that I have a vision problem. I don’t drive. I am legally blind. Otherwise I can function. I cannot drive because I cannot see when cars come up around me, so driving is an issue,” Chapoy told the court.
“I know that our agenda items sometimes go to 50, 60, so that takes a great deal of time to get all that done, and then going into executive session, that can go even longer. My own opinion on this is not to have (the meetings) at night and not to have them go so long. It would be a nightmare to me if we were here until 12 or 1 o’clock. . . I would rather that it not be at night,” Chapoy added.
Commissioner Pct. 2 Juan Carlos Vazquez then asked County Attorney David Martinez if the county could possibly incur liability if the meetings were changed to nighttime.
“Ms. Chapoy, I didn’t know you had an issue to that extent,” Vazquez said.
“I don’t know that it would necessarily create a liability or exposure for the county. The county as a governmental entity has a lot of immunities, and there are only certain causes of action for which the county is exposed. No disrespect to Ms. Chapoy, of course, but it’s kind of a general response,” Martinez replied.
Chapoy added she also goes to church on Wednesday evenings.
“It would create problems for me,” she added.
County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. responded, “To me, we were elected to do a job, and if we’re not capable of doing our jobs, we shouldn’t have run, and no disrespect to anybody, but we were elected to do a job and to represent our constituents.”
Owens then said he would like to “make a motion that would probably fail,” but added the court could continue making motions until one of the motions passed.
“Again, we were elected to do a job, and when we were going through fires, everybody answered their phones at 1, 2, 3 o’clock in the morning to go to a fire. Everybody answered their phones when we were going through COVID,” Owens said.
He then made a motion the commissioners court meetings be moved to every other Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Commissioner Pct. 3 Beau Nettleton gave the second.
Owens’ motion failed on a 2-3 vote, with Owens and Nettleton voting in favor of the motion, and Vazquez and Commissioner Pct. 1 Martin Wardlaw and Commissioner Pct. 4 Gustavo “Gus” Flores voting against.
Flores then made a motion the court keep its meetings as they are, at 9 a.m. every other Tuesday.
Wardlaw gave the second, and the motion failed on a 2-3 vote, with Flores and Wardlaw voting for, and Owens, Vazquez and Nettleton voting against.
Vazquez then made a motion that the court move its meetings to every other Wednesday and keep one of the meetings at 9 a.m. and move one of them to 6 p.m.
Nettleton gave the second, and the motion passed 3-2, with Vazquez, Nettleton and Owens voting in favor, and Wardlaw and Flores voting against.
Owens noted the court’s next meeting will be held at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 11, and its second meeting in October would be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 25.
“As much as I’d like to move them all to the evening, we can keep going back and forth and nothing will happen, so this is as close as we’re going to be able to get it,” Owens told audience members after the vote.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com .
