By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A major city sewer line project, water line replacements and improvements to a walkway along the San Felipe Creek were among projects discussed Tuesday by Interim City Manager Manuel Chavez.
Chavez gave an update on ongoing city projects to city council members during Tuesday’s regular meeting.
He began by reminding council members the city remains under Stage 2 water conservation measures.
Chavez told the council, “The north side sanitary sewer line project is still ongoing, and currently, it’s up to 90 percent design (completion). We do have a water line replacement project and that’s currently in Phase 2. We’re looking at, in the current phase, 60 percent design (completion), and that should be through September 2024. We’re looking at the final design to be completed around December 2024/January 2025, and the construction phase for this particular project between February 2025 to January 2027.
“And just a reminder, this is a project through the Texas Water Development Board Clean Water SRF funding of $10 million with the difference coming from a city match,” the interim city manager said.
Chavez said, “Our San Felipe Creek bank improvement project, if council remembers, we had put a stop to this about a year back, and this is something that city staff has been working with our engineers to come back with a redesign. We’re looking at meeting with the engineers here in August so we can bring a plan back to the city council for future consideration.”
Chavez also spoke about several grants for which the city has applied.
“A little bit of good news: on March 28, city council had approved staff to submit two grants under the Rural Development Business Grant for the revolving fund and for the business incubator. We were notified last week from the United States Department of Agriculture that the city of Del Rio was selected to receive funding under these two grants, and this is very exciting, as not too many applicants that submitted (applications) were awarded, but the city was actually awarded under these two categories, and we will be bringing these two grants back for council approval at a later city council meeting,” Chavez said.
He also spoke about ongoing work at the city’s Moore Park Pool.
“I know this has been something that we’ve been dealing with. We’ve had some issues with the pool pump. Unfortunately we had some issues with the initial vendor; he could not meet the expectations, so we went with the second vendor, who is currently working on it and hopes to complete this project by tomorrow.
“We are looking at extending the time that we have the pool available. Normally, we have the pool season ending the weekend before school starts. Being that the majority of the lifeguards are students themselves, we have reached out to each one, and we had some commitment from some of the lifeguards and they are willing to stay beyond the initial deadline, so we’re looking to extend the evening swim until the end of August. It doesn’t recover the time that we lost, but it does offer an extension so the citizens can enjoy the Moore Park Pool once we reopen that, and we’re looking at reopening here at the end of this week,” Chavez said.
He also spoke about some ongoing events at the Del Rio Police Department.
“The police department has a few events going on. Currently they have ‘Christmas in July,’ and this is available at the police department. Any child can go and receive some toys and some gifts courtesy of the police department. They also have a ‘tip a cop’ event, and that’s this Thursday at Texas Roadhouse from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Any proceeds from this event goes to Special Olympics,” Chavez said.
The interim city manager, as he has done for several months, took time to honor long-time city employees.
“I want to recognize the employees that have celebrated 20-plus years with the city, and for this particular one, is for the month of July, and I have four of them,” he said.
Chavez then read the names of the long-term employees and presented each with a certificate and a city pin.
Chavez said, “For the month of July, celebrating 21 years of service, we have Soledad Gutierrez, head cook at the city’s nutrition center; celebrating 22 years of service, Ruben Veliz, head custodian at the Del Rio Civic Center; celebrating 23 years of service, Rebecca Acosta, lead toll collector at the city’s international bridge; and celebrating 34 years of service, Capt. Delbert Hill of the Del Rio Fire Department.”
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
