General Interest

The effort to establish countywide voting centers for upcoming elections is running into snags with disagreement among committee members as to what is actually needed. Yvonne Ramon, head of the County Elections Department, told Hidalgo County Commissioners in their Tuesday, May 21, meeting, the committee had been divided into four parts due to the size of the county. Each group was given instructions and had 18 days to determine where voting centers should be located. Two of the four subcommittees had done their jobs and located suitable locations for voting centers. Two had not.

Ramon told the Progress Times that the legislature had given counties permission to reduce the number of polling sites by up to 65 percent the first year. For Hidalgo County, that would be 48 polling places instead of the current 74 polling places. She said the number could be reduced by 50 percent the second year. Recent studies have shown that 70 percent of the people voted in 25 locations.

Read more: County plan to establish voting centers hits snags

AUSTIN — Texans wear their belt buckles with a certain Lone Star pride, but it’s the buckles in their vehicles that could save their lives. More functional than fashionable, life-saving seat belts first debuted 45 years ago when Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act and The Highway Safety Act went into effect mandating that all automobiles have seat belts as a standard feature. To honor President Johnson’s pioneering dedication to safety, the Texas Department of Transportation recently launched its 12th annual Click It or Ticket campaign at the LBJ Library in Austin with a car show demonstrating the progression of seat belts through the ages.

“The cost of not wearing seat belts is far greater than a ticket or fine,” said Phil Wilson, TxDOT executive director. “Simply put, a seat belt could save your life. Public awareness is working, but we still see some teenagers, pickup truck passengers and rural Texans who aren’t buckling up.”

Read more: TxDOT reminds drivers, passengers to ‘click it or ticket’

“In spite of the recent rains, the water crisis in Hidalgo County is not over. While the rains may have helped the farmers, the water level in the dam is still under drought conditions,” said Oscar Montoya, Hidalgo County Emergency Management Director. “Long term solutions to the problem are still needed.”

Montoya went on to say the recent hurricane preparedness seminar was well attended by representatives from cities and counties and the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB). According to Montoya, some of the discussion centered around how flood waters from storms could be retained and used to help in future drought situations instead of allowing all the water to flow to the Gulf of Mexico, as it did two years ago when the Rio Grande flooded.

Read more: County water concerns not over

Under public forum during Tuesday’s Hidalgo County Commissioners Court meeting, OWLS (Objective Watchers of the Legal System) representative Frank Travers asked the county to withdraw its support from the proposed Hidalgo County Commuter Rail District. The HCCRD was to have a meeting on Wednesday, May 8, which included an agenda item “relating to creation of a regional transit authority, and granting the power of eminent domain, providing authority to impose a tax and issue bonds for the HCCRD.”

Travers said the research he continues to do show there are no effective rail districts operating in the United States. He further stated the Valley had no high-rise business district like those in New York and Chicago were many people take trains to work daily.

Read more: OWLS oppose proposed commuter rail line

House passes voter assistance bill

AUSTIN — Legislation to amend the state elections law as to how much a person may assist others in voting was passed by the House on April 26
Committee Substitute House Bill 148, authored by Rep. Cindy Burkett, R-Mesquite, received a final vote of 93-48, but not before lengthy and contentious debate on the House floor a day earlier.

Opponents of the bill, who were rebuffed in multiple attempts to amend the bill, warned that its passage likely would result in a federal court challenge under Section 5 of the U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965, a part of the law that affects states showing a pattern of discriminatory behavior in election-related practices.

An official state analysis of CSHB 148, in short, asserts: "In certain localities, individuals receive compensation for harvesting mail-in ballots or for going door to door collecting eligible ballots and posting them on behalf of voters. Such individuals are compensated on a per-ballot basis. There currently is no limit on the number of times a person may act as a courier for mail-in ballots in a given election, and concerned parties contend that some mail-in ballot harvesters provide unlawful assistance or unlawful witness to voters and may even electioneer in the presence of an active ballot."

The bill would create misdemeanor offense for a person convicted of compensating an individual for assisting 10 or more voters in prohibited ways, and for engaging in other specific and prohibited voting-related actions.

Travis DA sentenced

Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg was arrested for drunken driving on April 12 and is serving a 45-day sentence in the Travis County Jail.

Lehmberg's duties include heading the Public Integrity Unit, a statewide office that handles ethics complaints against elected officials.

On March 8, HB 3575 by Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Frisco, was filed, proposing to move the Public Integrity Unit out of Travis County's offices and into the Office of the Attorney General. The bill is scheduled for a House committee hearing on May 1.

Texas joins EPA challenge

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and attorneys general from 11 other states have filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Obama Administration's enforcement of environmental regulations under the Clean Air Act.

Petitioners claim the U.S Environmental Protection Agency "ignored Congress' lawmaking role by rewriting federal laws through administrative rulemaking," Abbott's office stated in an April 22 news release.

Abbott said the EPA's greenhouse gas regulations "were unlawfully created out of whole cloth and are a massive burden on states and businesses."

Timothy Cole bill passes

HB 166 by Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio, was approved by the House on April 24.

The legislation would establish the Timothy Cole Exoneration Review Commission to review and investigate cases in which an innocent person was convicted and then exonerated or released on writ of habeas corpus.

The nine-member commission would review practices and procedures leading up to wrongful convictions and seek ways to minimize erroneous outcomes. The commission would not consider sentencing issues such as the death penalty and would not intervene in any pending cases, McClendon said.

The bill honors the memory of Timothy Cole, a Texan who in 1999 died in prison, having served 13 years of a 25-year rape sentence before the legal system was satisfied that another individual had committed the crime. Cole received a posthumous pardon from Gov. Perry in 2010.

Presidential center opens

The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum was formally opened and dedicated at its location on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas on April 25.

The 207,000-square-foot complex will serve as the archive for more than 70 million pages of documents and 80 terabytes of electronic records, in addition to collections of photographs, memorabilia and educational materials.

George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States, served from 2001 to 2009, and served as governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.
West continues rebound
Relief assistance of all kinds poured into the city of West last week.
West has been in a state of disaster emergency since April 17, when a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant tore through the town, killing 14 people and injuring as many as 200 others.
A memorial service for those lost and injured in the explosion was held at Baylor University in Waco on April 25. President Barack Obama spoke, honoring those who rushed to assist and giving solemn regard to "the wounded, the heartbroken, the families who lost their homes and possessions in an instant."

EDINBURG — A new policy to allow Hidalgo County employees who received overpayments as part of a longevity plan instituted by the county five years ago was approved Tuesday.

Under the new policy, employees will be able to pay back the money in one lump sum or make payments over a period of month until the money is refunded.

County Treasurer Norma Garcia said her previous estimate of as many as 200 employees being affected was high.

Read more: Overpayment policy approved by county

In light of increasing violence at schools across the country, a superintendent visited the Rio Grande Valley to discuss his Guardian Plan, which calls for school personnel to be the school’s first responders.

David Thweatt, superintendent of Harrold Independent School District, explained that the best way to ensure student safety would be by arming teachers and other personnel.

“We have stumbled on to something that is an undercurrent in our society,” said Thweatt. “We’re kind of taking back our own liberties.”

Read more: Thweatt presents ‘Guardian Plan’ in Valley

MISSION —The construction site of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 2 Mile Line and Bryan roads received its steeple placement on April 26.

Read more: Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints receives steeple