Rio Grande Herald (Rio Grande City, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 12, 1973 Page: 1 of 20
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RIO GRANDE
Serving over 5000 readers over 55 years
No. 24
TPA Award Winning Newspaper
Ten Cents
Vol. XXXI
Thursday July 12, 1973
Rio Grande City, Texas
Oh where, oh where, has our dear coaching staff gone'.''
The cows are in the pasture, the track looks crummj
and the $2,G00.lTniversal Gym Set that the Rio Gran-
de City Rattler Quarterback Club bought along with tax-
payer's money is being destroyed ... oh where, have
they gone?
Recently, the Rio Grande City School Board of Trustees
elected Roel Maldonado to head the high school coacliint;
staff and already the football field is in shambles. The
trac'i is over-grown with lniffi 1 grass and wee ;s, parts
have been broken of: the Universal Gym Set (a gift from
the quarterback club and the taxpayers . nci .e just don't
seem to see any type of activity around the physical edu-
cation department.
We don't blame all that has happened to the football
field on the head coach although he bears the ultimate
responsibility for its condition, but school and a football
season is just six weeks away and our 1973-1974 crop of
football players is no where in sight and the coaching
staff has not even been named.
I ho only offici. i tiling that this editor has hear 1 thus far
is that Eliseo Villarreal's services are no longer re-
quired or desired by the new head coach or by the high
school principal.
Some school board members have told us that the new
head coach was supposed to name a new top assistant by
now, but has not done so . . . needless to say the l>oard
is pressing hard and is supposed to get a report at next
Tuesday's meeting on the coaching situation.
And . . . oh where, oh where . . is Tavito when the clean-
ing of such school properties are supposed to be cared
for . . . ?
Our $13,r.00 tax-assessor collector and maintenance
supervisor has always been a day-late-and-a-dollar-
short when it conies to taking care of school properties,
but the present condition of the football field and track
are a damn shame.
Perhaps our coaching staff has forgotten that a lot of
quarterback club members spend endless hours selling
tickets to come up with their share of the cost for the
Universal Gym Set, only to have it destroyed and have
knives taken to the padding . . . perhaps our coaching
staff (if there is one) has forgotten that the Rio Grande
City Jaycees went deep into debt to provide the coaches,
players and school with a top notch track ... I ask you,
is this fair?
We suggest that somebody get off their can and start
putting that football field and athletic program back into
shape real quick or we'll quickly return to those wonder-
ful years when we used to be number 9 in an 8 man race
.... We also suggest that the administration bear down
on those responsible for maintaining the grounds and
especially the football field and track ... if the coaches
are not interested enough to do something about it then it
should be up to the superintendent or the business-man-
ager to see that things are kept half-way decent looking.
Boy ... it looks like it's going to be another long foot-
ball season.
If any of you have ever had occasion to visit the school
board during one of their sessions you have more than
likely heard Johnny Pope III ask about the money being
spent by the school district.
In fact most of the board members are very cost-con-
cious and all of them have done a pretty good job in keep-
ing costs, of operations down.
The last audit that the school district got some three
weeks ago shows that the board and the administration has
done a good job of living within their means in the last
budget year.
It is the first time in 14 years that the district has tx'en
able to present an audit in the black. Last year's budget
was •'jS,874,789.13 but the district had a total expense of
See TELL Page 2
Court meets
in regular session
by RAUL TREJO
The Starr County Commis-
sioners' meeting in their re-
gular monthly discussed every-
thing from the hospital to a dis-
criminatory immigration offi-
cer at the Roma-Miguel Ale-
man International Bridge.
The commissioners court
has been having trouble finding
a tract of land to locate some
44 low rent housing units that
were given to the county by
the federal government.
The houses, G4 of them, with
20 to be located in Roma would
be rented to people of low in-
come and with families. The
houses are two and some three
bedroom houses to lie operated
by the county for the govern-
ment for equated to incomes
rent will be owned by the coun-
ty in twenty years. The money
from the rents would be used
to maintain the houses.
Early last year County Judge
Mario E. Ramirez appointed
Alex Gabert and Joel Guerrero
to help find a tract of land to
locate the homes. The site
has been located in Roma but
the committee has had trouble
findiug a site in Rio Grande
City. Twice the government
has urged the county fathers
to hurry-up with the project
or lose the money for the pro-
ject.
The board first heard a
report from Joel Guerrero and
L.A. Smith of the Texas office
of HUD. Smith told the court
that Guerrero and himself had
looked at several sites and that
out of four sites only one would
pass HUD flood requirements.
Guerrero told the court that
the three other sites were not
above the required flood re-
quirements and that the only
tract of land that would be ap-
propriate was one owned by
E. (Lalo) Carrera.
The court expressed thoughts
of dropping the entire project
after hearing what Carrera was
or is asking for his land. The
land is located in the North
Grammar Elementary School
area and at one point Gabert
told the court that the price
being asked presently was not
the price he had been trying to
negotiate with Carrera in pre-
vious dealings.
"I think that this great in-
crease in price is largely due
to the fact that the press is pre-
sent when you discuss these
projects and they print what
they hear and this time they
printed that we were in a bind
as far as a deadline for find-
ing the land," Gabert said.
Gabert never really quoted a
previous price but Guerrero
told the court that Carrera now
wants $G,000 an acre.
The cour then went into a dis-
cussion of breaking down what
$G,000 an acre meant in dol-
lar and cents and Commission-
ers Hector Lozano andReynal-
do (Moreno) Alaniz thought the
idea was crazy to pay so much
money for land that didn't have
any water or sewage.
Guerrero defended the idea of
the land by saying that the pro-
perty would soon have water
and possibly sewage through
the water district's new pro-
jects to serve that area.
"The land would cost about
$43,000.00 dollars or if fi-
nanced would cost the county
some $90,000.00, and this is
crazy," Alaniz said.
"I thought that this was a pro-
ject for the poor and we end up
discussing alx>ut how to make
someone a very rich man . . .
if we are going to have to set-
tle for that type of land pri-
ces then we should just aban-
don the project," Lozano said.
The item was tabled until
Friday when the court will re-
port on their meeting with Car-
rera whom they hope to ap-
proach this week and try to
negotiate a low price.
The court will meet Friday
morning at 10 a.m.
The court then heard a re-
port from the county auditor
which stated that the county
presently has in the treasury
some $r,G7,r>7n.9r. with out-
standing bills of $29,100.39 for
a total of $r,38,4G9.r,G.
The court then discussed that
EDITORIAL PHOTO.
■ -4-
-vV
Football Field or jungle training area?
4
a travel voucher had been sub-
mitted by Commissioner Ala-
niz. The court does not pay
travel vouchers unless that
party does not get travel pay as
do the commissioners. Com-
missioner Alaniz said that he-
had submitted the voucher be-
cause other officers of the
courthouse had submitted some
and he felt that they should not
be paid. The bills were not
paid and the court further
stated that any officer should
not submit travel vouchers in
the future because they would
not be paid.
Ramirez and several others
stated that they had never sub-
mitted vouchers for any travel
pay and had done extensive
travel on county business. The
matter was dropped.
The court was then presented
a check for $103,000.00 from
revenue sharing funds and was
told to rene"- the Certificates
of Deposit which are due to
mature this week. The court
approved the request.
The court then heard an ex-
tensive report from the county
road superintendent and one
from the bridge manager.
Ernesto Trevino's report was
as follows: The June operation
of the bridge showed an $1,1GG
increase over last year's June
operation.
The rest of Trevino's report
was as follows:
Paid pedestrians for June
were 20,282.
Unpaid vehicles for the month
were 318.
During the first six months
of 1973 we show an increase of
$4,fiG0.21 for a combined
eighteen month increase of
$19,807.82. We believe that
since the city of Roma gets a
yearly increase of the revenues
of the bridge that the bridge
employees should be allowed an
increase in salaries.
At the present we are in need
of a four drawer legal size file
cabinet.
A roof should be installed
where the turnstiles are now
situated.
The brick outside walls of the
exchange lxx>th should 1* fin-
ished.
On July 2, and July 3, 1973
See COURT Page 2
Local boys
busted for
weed
Two Starr County youth were
arraigned before Starr County
Justice of the Peace B.S. Lo-
pez early Thursday morning
for possession of Marijuana.
Starr County Sheriff Rey-
mundo Alvarez told the He-
rald that Rafael Juan Guerre-
ro, 19, of Rio Grande City and
Oscar Harrera Jr., 17, of Fal-
con Heights were arrested by
deputies Dutch Piper and Ro-
meo Alvarez late Wednesday
night for disregarding a stop
sign. Sheriff Alvarez said that
when the officers inspected the
car they found a hag contain-
ing marijuana and two ci-
garettes in the possession of
the two youth.
J. P. Lopez set bond at 9000.
each and were released.
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Trejo, Raul. Rio Grande Herald (Rio Grande City, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 12, 1973, newspaper, July 12, 1973; Rio Grande City, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth194417/m1/1/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rio Grande City Public Library.