Two of District Clerk Polo Vielma's clerks were deputized on Friday at the Commissioner's Court Meeting Chambers.
    Two filers at the District Clerk's office, Christy Flores and Dolores De Leon, are presently undergoing training, but can now facilitate certain services. With this they become official Deputy Clerks for the District Clerk's Office capable of certifying documents and expediting service to our residents.
    According to Vielma, they are still training, and are still in the midst of a six month orientation period. These are two of two others who have already received their training and have been on staff.
    Both Flores and De Leon have been on staff since January and have been garnering experience in the office as they train.
    A luncheon was held in order to formally welcome them to their new positions where they are available daily to take care of any needs you may have in the District Clerk's office.

 A.D. Ibarra
-Maverick County

    Big news in Maverick County on Friday evening. Maverick County Commissioner's Court effectively washed its hands of the Maverick County Detention Center citing irreparable negotiations with bond holders and the trustees of the facility. When the meeting began at 5:25 PM, Maverick County Judge David Saucedo asked legal counsel Robert Wilson if he had anything to say with respect to the issues at hand who said he would rather address this in executive session which they immediately retired to. Maverick County Sheriff Tom Schmerber was called into the office at 6:35 and when they returned at exactly 7:00 PM, they did so to unanimously reject the offer made by the bond holders followed by a motion made to advise the Sheriff to cease operations at the Maverick County Detention Center and to give the PFC, the US Marshals Office and the bond holders a thirty day notice of said action. Commissioner's Court made reference to their not agreeing with the bond holders on their proposal and cited that the Maverick County Sheriff's Office and their staff kept the operation afloat for 18 months despite low numbers also saying that they effectively have nothing in place to continue.  The commissioners continued that the bond holders had an arrogant point of view in their negotiations and that their new financial advisor Raul Villaseñor was in favor of taking this action. They said that they were trying to negotiate with the bond holders in order to save this project and that it hurts, but that a decision had to be made seeing that Maverick County has  financial difficulties and that the tax payers of Maverick County have no reason to have to pay for this project. After this, the court who was short two commissioners, Jose Luis Rosales and Gerardo Morales, who may have made a difference in the ultimate decision whether in closed session or in open session were not present. When the vote was taken, the vote was unanimous to effectively do away with 140 jobs and from 380-400 prisoners housed at the facility who will be gladly taken at other similar facilities across the state of Texas.

A very important meeting was held on Thursday where representatives of the City of Eagle Pass Oversight Committee met with Nick Gignac of Gignac & Associates, the architects in charge of the design of the Public Safety Headquarters facilities. The group viewed and discussed updates to the site plan and floor plans in 3-dimensional renderings of the facilities taking input from the group which included the desire to create a central unifying element near the main gated entry to the facilities. "Basically what we went over was how he fire station and the police station will look and function," said Sonny Mello, Fire Chief for the Eagle Pass Fire Department who said that the preliminary design will not include the proposed training tower which was initially mentioned, but they will continue to seek grant funding in order to get this done sometime in the future, "We are basically approving the preliminary designs which is Option #3. From there they will sit down with myself and the Chief of Police to make any other necessary design changes before going back, making those changes and then coming back with a final design." Also presented were some preliminary cost estimates and a design and construction schedule for the project. "They're going to redo the flooring and the entrance to make it uniformed with the rest of the buildings in the Fort Duncan area which is a very interesting concept," added the chief, "It's also going to have an extension done to the side. The property itself is going to have more parking area, it's going to have a real nice facade, so it won't look like the armory anymore. It will have a design which will resemble the buildings in the Fort Duncan area." According to Chief Mello it will probably resemble what the original entrance to the actual Fort Duncan in the late 19th century. The existing armory will be the future police Department and another adjacent building will house the new Fire Department.

 An accident between a large commercial truck and a private vehicle took place Friday afternoon on El Indio Hwy when emergency personnel were summeoned to a rollover accident. The Chevy Tahoe was completely destroyed landing on its right side on the side of El Indio Highway and the truck showed damage to its right front side. Two ambulances were summoned to transport the victims to the FDRMC to be evaluated medically and two rescue units from the EPFD were also at the scene of the accident. Both inbound and outbound lanes of El indio were shut down down for a considerable amount of time due to the severity of the collision as both vehicles were removed from the roadway.