By Louis Zylka
The 830 Times
City council members got heated during a discussion about approving funds for promoting this year’s Fiesta de Amistad events.
During Tuesday’s regular meeting, council members discussed an ordinance to approve $10,000 of hotel occupancy tax (HOT) funds requested by the International Good Neighbor Council (IGNC)-Del Rio Chapter to use for promoting the 2025 Fiesta de Amistad celebrations through the event’s official magazine.
The Fiesta de Amistad celebrations are an annual series of events taking place in October and celebrating the friendship between the city of Del Rio and its sister city Ciudad Acuña, Coah., Mexico. The celebrations are organized by the IGNC-Del Rio.
Councilman Jesus Lopez Jr. made the motion to approve the ordinance, and Councilwoman Ernestina “Tina” Martinez gave the second.
The decision to approve the ordinance came after the attempt to table the ordinance for the next meeting. Mayor Pro-tem Jim DeReus made a motion to postpone the ordinance, and Councilman J.P. Sanchez gave the second.
DeReus expressed his concerns over some information given to the council before the meeting started. The information involves around IGNC’s tax identification number being incorrect and the organization’s status as an official entity in Texas. DeReus said the information should be reviewed more thoroughly to allow the council to have an “accurate, valid application.”
After DeReus requested the ordinance to be postponed, City Manager Shawna Burkhart told council members the IGNC will only have two weeks to submit the information in order to get the funds needed to order the magazine. Though he understood the tight circumstances, DeReus responded by saying, “That is not our problem.”
“No offense. That is not our problem that the timeline is that close, when they have an application that has bad information on it, and again, we just got a revised one (before the meeting), and we did not have a chance to look at it, so that is why I think we should postpone it,” DeReus said.
Councilwoman Carmen Gutierrez defended the IGNC and mentioned the organization was notified the day of the meeting about the errors in the application. Mayor Al Arreola mentioned how it is the responsibility of the city staff to have information checked and approved, adding it is unfair for organizations to be informed about errors at the last minute.
Martinez cut into the conversation and said the information was corrected, and Andrew Scarbo, president of IGNC-Del Rio, has a letter from the IRS stating that IGNC is a 501(c)(3) designation (an official non-profit organization recognized by the U.S. government).
DeReus spoke again, saying the information presented to him states that IGNC is still in the process of getting their tax-exempt status reinstated. Burkhart said IGNC was not listed as an official entity on the Texas Secretary of State’s website. Although she said the information could be corrected soon, Burkhart suggested the council should decide if they want to move forward with approving the ordinance based on it being “contingent on receiving the accurate documentation.”
City Attorney Ana Markowski Smith said IGNC is waiting for the Secretary of State to process the pending information for the organization to become a corporation. Scarbo elaborated on Smith’s comments. He said the employer identification number (EIN) number his organization has used for years is a global EIN number from Monterrey, Mexico, which is the global headquarters for all IGNCs, but which is not registered in the state of Texas. He then said IGNC of Del Rio has applied for its own EIN number and is expecting the information to be processed within the next upcoming weeks.
“What we did is, when we applied for this year’s HOT funds, we used the EIN number we’ve always used under Monterrey. It wasn’t until this morning that we were told it would not work for us, so that is when we (said) that we ourselves have been trying to get our own corporation established, and so Ms. (Smith) said; Why don’t you present us with that (new) EIN number, and we will look into that.’ And that is when we changed the application with the new EIN number,” Scarbo told the council.
Smith said she thought IGNC would have corporate status in the next few days. She then brought the focus back to the agenda topic by saying how the council will have to decide whether to approve the application with the expectation that the organization’s corporate status would be completed within days.
Lopez asked Scarbo what the issue would be if the ordinance was postponed for the next council meeting, and Scarbo answered Lopez’s question by saying how IGNC would not get the funds and would have to find another way to pay the remaining balance for the magazines.
Scarbo also said IGNC has until Sept. 1 to distribute the magazines.
Lopez said, “I don’t want to blame organizations . . .we got to this point (in the meeting), we put it on the agenda, and the agenda says (the city staff) reviewed everything, and it was correct. It is not right to punish the organization on the same day as it was presented to us.
“Based on this information being wrong or right and not doing the right thing because (the error) was given on the day of (the meeting). It is not (IGNC’s) fault; it is the fault of the tax committee and whoever is in charge of taxes. I would make the motion to set this (to be approved),” Lopez added.
DeReus also brought up his concerns over the expense of 500 magazines being sent out of town, as mentioned in the application. Scarbo responded to DeReus’ comments, saying 1,200 magazines are being printed and 1,000 are going to be sent out of town. Scarbo then said 500 was written as a safe margin, adding that “(IGNC) is never told that they have to put exactly how much is being sent out of town.”
“That is my concern, is how do we justify all of this money being spent locally? . . . We have a lot of really awesome events that bring hundreds or thousands of people to the events, but most of them are from the city of Del Rio, so we have to be able to justify the amount of taxpayers’ money that we are using for these events to advertise and get people from outside of the city, and that is my concern,” DeReus said.
Gutierrez said the funds for the magazines are the “major part of (advertisement)” for representing Del Rio in other cities. After further discussion between Gutierrez and DeReus, Arreola requested the council to move forward on voting on the ordinance.
The council voted 4-3 on the motion to approve the ordinance. Arreola, Lopez, Gutierrez and Martinez voted in favor of the motion, and DeReus, Councilman J.P. Sanchez and Councilman Randy Quiñones voted against it.
