Upcoming Public hearing on TAX BREAKS for massive developments on Hwy 132
Editorial… Very few people usually attend public hearings. But there is a big public hearing coming up about a possible TIRZ zone that could dramatically change the landscape of our area if it passes. It was a “TIRZ” (tax incentive) like the one proposed that led to the rapid development of the Potranco Ranch subdivision in the Castroville area, and the many other subdivisions that followed it. If you are not familiar with the term TIRZ, it is described as a “tax incentive” for large developments where developers capture a large percentage of tax revenue on improved property value. For example, on the Potranco Ranch TIRZ zone agreement, the developer will capture over $12 million dollars ( which is a large % of the property taxes being remitted back to the developer from Medina County) during the 30 year agreement. With the price per acre wildly increasing in these sudivisions, the value of land, homes, and cost of property taxes for residents in Medina County have also increased. And look at the traffic and massive MVISD school bonds needed to keep up with that growth. TIRZ zones were originally created to help develop “blighted” areas. In Medina County, they have been used to develop subdivisions where farms and ranches once were.
Gayle Sessions, former Devine ISD girls’ athletic director and mother of the late Devine ISD athletic director Jim Sessions accepts a proclamation from Devine Mayor Butch Cook on behalf of the city council honoring the Sessions family for their great contribution and dedication to the community, totaling over 100 years combined. The proclamation was presented during the Nov. 19 city council session. Photo by Anton Riecher
By Anton Riecher A contract with a Jourdanton engineering firm to develop a digital simulation of the Devine water system to better track flow and pressure was approved by a unanimous vote of the city council on Nov. 19. Jess Swaim, vice president of 6S Engineering, outlined how the computerized water flow study would benefit the city. “I’ve looked at what you have for block maps and the lack thereof,” Swaim said. “What we are doing is taking some of those documents and putting them into a software system that allows us to calculate flows and pressures throughout the community and calculate the different parameter to tell where fir flow is, where you might have a leak and things like that.” The simulation replaces the long, intense calculations utilizing water mains connected in a loop pattern to create a distribution network as a basis for engineering decisions to maintain consistent pressure, he said. “We can calculate through the model what your pressures are in different locations,” Swaim said. The simulation also permits personnel in the field to more quickly…
By Anton Riecher East Medina County Special Utility District has acquired the rights to an additional 50 acre-feet of water with the approval of the Edwards Aquifer Authority, EMCSUD Superintendent, Bruce Alexander, reported at a Dec. 19 meeting of the East Medina board of directors. One acre-foot of water is equal to 325,851 gallons. It is the amount needed to cover an acre of land with one foot of water. “We generally say that’s about 100 or so water connections,” Alexander said. EMCSUD entered into a contract to purchase the water rights listed as restricted by the EAA several months ago. On Nov. 12, the EAA board took action to allow the property owners to remove the restriction on those rights, making it possible for EMCSUD to move forward with the final acquisition. In other business, the EMCSUD board approved a resolution to renew its drought contingency plan and critical period management rules as required by EAA. “It’s up to each individual utility to determine what type of restrictions we place on our customers to meet EAA cutbacks,” Alexander said. The state requires that this action be renewed every five years. EMCSUD last renewed its plan in 2014. Since the district is currently seeking funding from the Texas Water Development Board for $2.3 million for an interconnection between the Unit Two water plant and Creekwood Ranches subdivision, immediate action to renew was necessary. Alexander also updated the board on the status of $500,000 in Texas Department of Agriculture community development…
By Kayleen Holder Editor This summer marked the end of another fiscal year for our local DEVINE AREA HEALTH AND HOSPICE RESOURCE, which helps so many in our community. Everything the thrift store makes is donated back into a good cause, so remember them as you do your Christmas shopping and anytime you have gently used items to donate. In the most recent fiscal year, Devine Hospice donated over $201,000 to area charities, scholarships, and people in need including $6,000 in scholarships, $10,000 to the Bigfoot VFD, $11,000 to St. Jude’s, $10,000 each to the Seton Home, Fischer House, Shriner’s Children’s Hospital, and Texas Children’s Hospital, $8,000 to Mission Devine, and more. In the past five fiscal years, they have raised an amazing $734,000+ for area charities, scholarships, and people in need. Devine Area Health and Hospice Resource, Inc. is a 501(c)3 corporation. Below are just a few of the goodies you might find there!
By Anton Riecher With a decision required by Dec. 5, the Devine school board tabled action on moving to a four-day school week for the 2025-2026 school calendar with plans for a called meeting in the near future. In the face of opposition from board member Renee Frieda and a quorum of only five members present for the Monday meeting, the board opted to table action until a full board could be present. Frieda cited a lack of research on the impact on families with both parents working for her opposition. She and others also expressed concern about how the change in schedule might affect the learning routine for kindergarten and elementary students.
“I still don’t think we did our due diligence with the people who I think are the most negatively impacted,” she said. However, a motion by Frieda to stick with a five-day school week for the coming school year died for lack of a second. More than 2,100 public schools in 25 states have switched to a four-day school week, often in hopes of recruiting teachers, saving money and boosting attendance, researchers estimate. Rural schools facing significant teacher shortages have led the trend, choosing to take off Mondays and Fridays to give employees and students a three-day weekend. To make up for the lost day of instruction, school officials typically tack time onto the remaining four days. District Superintendent Todd Grandjean recommended moving to the four-day schedule, citing the need to attract and retain qualified teaching talent as the primary advantage. “What we came down to was, in the end, it is a focus on attracting highly qualified talent and retaining the teachers that we have,” Grandjean said. “That in itself will have a positive impact on our students.” Consequences with regard to students remain largely undetermined, he said. “In the beginning, student performance, student attendance and student success were looked at,” Grandjean said. “We were unable to determine whether or not that had a positive or negative growth cycle.” The district has focused on the La Vernia and Bandera school districts in its research on implementing a four-day week. “My recommendation is to approve the four-day work week and then for you to ask us (staff) to prepare a 2025-2026 proposed academic calendar,” Grandjean said. Frieda countered that the board is sworn to make decisions “on the basis of what is in the best interest of the kids, not parents or teachers.” “While I can see that attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers absolutely benefits kids, at the core, this is an experiment that we don’t yet know the impact it would have on the kids,” she said. Some of the most important components of early education is consistency and routine, Frieda said. “When you’re teaching fundamentals to kids and they have three-day breaks instead of two-day breaks what kind of loss to we have as far as consistency,” she said. She also expressed concern that a longer school day for younger students might mean instruction time sacrificed to facilitate more athletics and nap periods. Responding to a question from the audience about whether the problems for parents and their work schedules board president Nancy Pepper said that district moving to a four-day week often compensate with special programs. Unfortunately, those districts report that over time participation in those programs drop to near zero, she said. Frieda said she grew up in a low-income family with five children and that “it would have been very problematic for my parents had they not been in school five days a week.” “I’m raising my kids not in a low-income family and it would have been very problematic for me to determine how we would handle childcare when my child was younger,” she said. The only solution available would have been to move the child to a different school district, Frieda said. Other members of the board said that the need to attract qualified teachers remained a powerful incentive to move to the four-day week. “We have core positions that we can’t fill where people are going to the districts around us with four-day weeks even though our pay is right up there with those,” board member Chris Davis said. Pepper said that of the two missing board members – Carl Brown and Henry Moreno – one indicated support for moving to the reduced week for staffing reasons while the other remains uncommitted. No date was set for the special meeting needed to decide the issue.
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By Anton Riecher Disagreement over how often Allegiance Mobile Health must rely on neighboring ambulance services to respond to local calls arose during the Nov. 13 meeting of the Medina County Emergency Services District 4 board of commissioners. EMS Director, Jason Miller, said data he obtained from the Medina County Sheriff Department indicates that at least 97 mutual aid calls requiring a response from outside MCESD4 were reported over this past year. “It’s taking their unit out of service that’s supposed to be servicing their community,” Miller said. Allegiance District Chief, Patrick Bourcier, questioned the accuracy of those figures. A report he obtained for ESD4 ambulance dispatches covering the month of October indicated only one such occurrence when compared to data compiled by Allegiance.
“I would just challenge that number because I have a hard time believing that the county would drop those calls to nobody,” Bourcier said. However, Miller said that the report from the Allegiance computer-aided dispatch (CAD) software only reflects calls done by Allegiance. “For the month of October, I got a report that eight of our mutual aid calls were done by other Allegiance ambulances, whether it be Frio or Bexar counties, whatever,” Miller said. “Thirteen additional calls were sent by other services.” The report provided by Medina County 911 dispatch only identifies those responding ambulances as generic EMS units, not by the agency that operates them, he said. “In a mass casualty situation, no one questions the need to muster additional units from surrounding communities to respond,” Miller said. “However, responding to everyday routine medical calls is a different matter.” “It is a problem for the other providers because it’s not their obligation and the other EMS providers are upset,” Miller said. Board member, Jerry Beck, asked how the numbers for the monthly report are compiled. Bourcier explained that once Medina County 911 dispatches the ambulance, each vehicle is tracked using global positioning system (GPS) technology. “Sometimes there can be a ‘lag time’ in receiving that dispatch from the county,” he said. The result is the possibility that ambulance calls being placed by the public are not being received. “We have a radio in this facility so when they call us it’s on that radio,” Bourcier said. “So if we’re not here we don’t hear that call” (to other mutual aid counties on Frio or Atascosa channels). Allegiance carries two radios in their ambulances, one to communicate with Medina County, and the other to communicate with Allegiance dispatch at all times. Procedure is for the dispatch to notify Allegiance through the sheriff’s department if the station cannot be reached. “That does not always happen,” Bourcier said. “I’ve asked the county why they don’t do that and the response I get was that they didn’t want to bother us,” he said. “So if I don’t get it we don’t know about it.” “Mutual aid ambulances from Lytle, Moore, Castroville or Hondo are dispatched when Allegiance personnel are away from the Devine station making a response call,” Bourcier said. “Allegiance responds as well when needed as mutual aid to other cities, common practice.” “It’s just a question of if they tone out and we don’t respond they’re supposed to tone out somebody else or switch that call over to our dispatcher,” he said. “It’s their choice which one to do.” Miller told the board that the routine work load for local ambulances is often difficult to manage. “Devine is unique because we tend to get three or four calls at a time and we only have two ambulances,” he said. Bourcier recommended that either Miller or Allegiance get with county officials to better determine how the county CAD system works. A proposal to upgrade two Apple iPhones purchased for the new ambulances to iPads that would be used for direct real-time contact with the sheriff’s dispatcher, was tabled. Using software purchase through the county, the iPADs could be used to directly access the sheriff’s CAD system for more accurate data, Miller said on the new ambulances. (The question remains if the new ambulances are going to stay or be sold, so upgrades would not be relevant.) In his monthly report on response statistics, Bourcier said Allegiance, under its contract with Medina County Emergency Services District 4, made 213 ambulance runs in October, up more than 15 percent from the previous month. “It looks like all the response times were well within the range of the contract within the city and the county,” he said. The number of ambulance responses within the Devine city limits totaled 61 with an average response time of 4.8 minutes. In Natalia, Allegiance made 21 ambulance runs with an average response time of six minutes. “In the MCESD4 area outside Devine and Natalia, Allegiance made 131 ambulance runs with an average response time of 8.7 minutes,” Bourcier said. MCESD4 logged 15 mutual aid events in which the district either assisted or received assistance from neighboring ambulance services. “Eight of those came from Allegiance from out of the Moore station or the Castroville station,” Bourcier said. “The remainder came out of Lytle, at least those I can track.” In other business, Miller reported to the board that the two ambulances recently purchased by ESD4 were scheduled to go into service Nov. 14 staffed by Allegiance personnel. In the course of discussing the purchase of a third ambulance as a reserve unit to guarantee two functioning ambulances on the road at all time, board treasurer, Juan Zamora, made known his concern that allowing Allegiance to operate ESD4 owned equipment without some compensation to the district may violate state procurement laws. The current contract “shows favor to Allegiance, especially if we are now burdening ourselves with additional cost and (Allegiance) are charging the same rate (while using) our units, our equipment which saves them money, unless they’re paying us back at some rate I don’t know.” “In effect, operating under an earlier contract negotiated with the intention of Allegiance providing its own ambulances unfairly grants them more profit,” Zamora said. The board never reconsidered that issue after the decision earlier this year not to operate its own ambulances as planned, but to continue under the existing contract with Allegiance. Beck noted that the agenda item under discussion called for considering the purchase of a third ambulance, not the renegotiation of the Allegiance contract. “We need to put that on another agenda,” Beck said. He then made a motion that the board not move forward with buying the third unit. Seconded by Zamora, that motion to table was approved unanimously. The board did approve the purchase and installation of storage organizers in the district’s new Ford Expedition command vehicle. Plastix Plus in Houston was the winning bid at $4,600. The storage organizers are for the protection of emergency equipment carried in the command vehicle. Board president, Anthony Martin, explained that the command vehicle is for the use of the district’s EMS director, Jason Miller, in emergency situations. Comm. Beck said Miller should not take the vehicle home and the policy should reflect that. “Jason responds to calls when they are going to wait 15 or 20 minutes for another unit to respond,” Martin said. The board tabled the purchase of a lawn mower for the Devine station after Beck and others asked for time to reach out to local landscaping contractors. Beck and others also asked the board to table action on plumbing work at the station to move the washer and dryer located in the ambulance bay. In a lengthy discussion on district job descriptions, Bourcier addressed the board on the disciplinary chain of command for employees under the current Allegiance contract. “We have an open relationship where if Jason comes to us with a problem, we’re going to solve it to whatever extent satisfies the district,” Bourcier said. Allegiance has gone as far as removing employees under those discussions. Miller verified Bourcier’s assessment. “The agreement with Allegiance and the attorney was that if there was an incident or personnel issue, that I would bring that to Pat’s attention and Pat would take it to his leadership and then do whatever Allegiance decides to do with that employee.” No action was taken following a closed executive session to discuss personnel matters. ESD Coordinator, Chrissy Merendon, confirmed for the board that applications had been issued to board members George Moralez, Jerry Beck, and Viola Potter, all of whom have terms expiring in 2025. After several exchanges with board treasurer Zamora during the meeting, one on payroll liabilities on the October balance sheet and one on leases for new emergency medical equipment. Regarding the renegotiation of lease agreements for ventilators and auto pulse devices to equip the new ambulances, Zamora said that the district administration is only authorized to approve purchases affected day-to-day operation to a threshold of $2,000 to $3,000. He also pointed out that the monthly bank statements were not provided again as he requested. “I can’t remember voting on changing the terms of the leases?” Zamora said, Merendon pointed out that the leases were approved by action of the board in September. She later asked to make a statement to the board, stressing that she has always made it a point to issue paperwork regarding the meeting agendas at least two to three days before each session. “So I’m asking the board to look at your paperwork before you get to the meeting, so when issues come up such as the treasurer’s report or any of the other stuff, it can be discussed, so it’s not discussed here to make somebody look like a fool.”
By Catherine Richard Over 5,500 are expected to compete in the Spartan races on Nov. 23 and 24 at Sandy Oaks Ranch in Devine, with the majority coming in for the Saturday race. Spartan is a national organization which creates competitive, physically challenging events. They are best known for their obstacle course races. People are expected to arrive from all over the state and even from different countries for the first Spartan race to take place in Devine. At Sandy Oaks Ranch there will be three different competitions, spanning roughly 200 acres of land. The Sprint is a 5K with 20 obstacles, including monkey bars, mud pits and climbing walls. The Super is a 10K with 25 obstacles of greater intensity, including rope climbing and more demanding climbing walls. For these races, groups of 250 will compete at a time. There will also be a set of children’s races, which take into account the child’s age and physical abilities. This category has 1km races for ages 4-6, 1.5km races for ages 7-9 and 3km races for ages 9-14. There is also a special 1km race for kids with physical or mental challenges. Children must be accompanied by their parents and have constant adult supervision.
The water rate hike was approved by Devine council to qualify for state funding.
By a 4-1 vote, the Devine City Council approved a water rate increase ranging from 21.5 percent for low-end residential customers to 38.8 percent for high-end commercial users, effective January 1 as a first move in putting the utility back on a paying basis. Mayor Butch Cook said that in his 18 months in office he has heard more complaints about the proposed rate increase than any other action by the city council during that period. “It’s a balancing act from hell,” he said. District 4 Council Member Josh Ritchey was alone in opposing the motion of the water rate proposed, he approved of the sewer rate. Throughout the meeting, Richey expressed his concerns that the rates should be even more than the current motions to fulfill the financial obligations. The motions were taken during a special session held Nov. 7. Council approved a 37.1 percent increase in the city sewer rate. Council approved a 21.5 residential to 38.8 percent increase for high-end commercial users in the water rates. The water rate increase is part one of a two-step plan that would see the lowest level water rate increase 38.14 percent by October 2025 to move forward with obtaining $11.5 million in financing from the state to cover the mandated replacement of lead water lines serving Devine homes.
“If the city does not put the water utility back on a financially solvent basis it will not qualify for that financing,” Cook said. “The state is offering a pool of money,” he said. “If we don’t qualify, we’re not going to get it. We’ll be on our own facing the same mandate that everyone else is facing, which is substantial.” For low-end residential customers equipped with three-quarter inch water meters, the monthly water bill will jump from the current $38.14 to $47.33 in January. If the council proceeds with the second step in the rate increase, that monthly bill will jump to $56.52 next October. At least 827 customers out of the 1,700 accounts served by the water utility receive the lowest rate of service. The rate varies based on the size of the meter and the tier of service the customer receives. The lowest tier, ranging from 1,000 gallons to 5,000 gallons monthly, pays an additional fee of $5.50/per thousand gallons. Commercial customers ( currently there is only one- Walmart) served by 8-inch meters will see a rate increase in January from $911.64 a month to $1,351.05 a month.
Levon Ramirez was welcomed home by his two boys Rylan and Regan and wife Roxanne last week. Ramirez is in his 10th year of service after graduating in 2013 and enlisting in the Army the following year.
SGT Ramirez was coming home from a 9 month deployment in Europe. Levon is stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado. Proud parents are Carol & Victor Maldonado.
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