A.D. Ibarra

-Eagle Pass

Commissioner of Precinct 2 Daniela Aleman will be attending a workshop this week in order to somehow reduce the incredible amount of discarded tires which has been stockpiling for many years.

Should one go out to the isolated patch of land adjacent to the Maverick County Fairgrounds, you would be shocked as the amount of tires found there.

Commissioner Aleman has a crew of workers from her precinct, Precinct 1 and Precinct 3 working on organizing the massive mountain of rubber which was piling higher and higher every day.

"If we wanted to send them off to be disposed of, it would cost the county approximately $1,500.00 for every 800 tires," stated Aleman, "We have anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 tires out there, do the math.  We can save the county $30,000 to $60,000 by processing them ourselves."

Commissioner Aleman informed The News Gram of the need to establish a more efficient system which won't be as expensive.

"First of all, a system must be in place in order for us to get the necessary help to reduce the amount of unwanted tires in our county, stated the commissioner, "We must create a system that will provide the accountability in order to meet TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) requirements."

"If we had the stack the way it was, TCEQ would fine us $10,000.00 a day because it would've been considered an illegal stockpile," as the stockpile was over twenty feet tall at one point before they started separating the tires by category.

What is being considered is a manifest system, a way to calculate how many tires are coming into the area, a document which determines tonnage for record keeping.

City of EP to receive an $833,000 lump sum

City Attorney gives details on proposed lease agreement 

With GSA for International Bridge II Admin. Bldg.

A News Gram Exclusive

A.D. Ibarra

-Eagle Pass

City Attorney Eddie Morales graciously informed The News Gram of the details surrounding the long-awaited lease agreement with GSA (General Services Administration) the federal body governing federal projects which coincide with municipal entities housing government facilities.

Essentially, we got a brief history lesson on how the Camino Real International Bridge began to be built back in the late 1990's, an agreement, which has officials wondering how and why the details actually went down back then, to have the city be responsible for the construction of the facility, for a lease amount of $1 a year for the first ten years which were up on July of 2010, plus details on an agreement which took many months to years to agree on a fair market value for the lease of the property on which the Administration Building sits.

The presidential permit back then which called for the city to build the administration building, the dog kennels and the canopies for the facility for the $1 a year lease agreement, was established in the late 1990's when Eagle Pass jumped from 12th on the bridge building list of the federal  government to 2nd or 3rd.

Cut to 2013 as City administration and Morales awaited the resolution of the agreement which we now know will pay the city a lump sum amount of $833,000.00 for the period of July 2010 to May 2013 on or around may 31st of this year.

What was also agreed was the amount of $172,000.00 per year for the lease of the land on which the building sits.

These welcomed revenues are in addition to the funds generated by tolls which run in the millions.

"we're finalizing these documents now with GSA," stated Morales who added, "Once we donate the 40 acres, the deal will be in place and we can finally move forward."