_edited.png)
Chief of Police Stands Up to Defend Animal Services Improvements
When the value of Animal Services was put to vote, debate sparked at City Council meeting. Councilperson J.P. Sanchez used emergency water and wastewater projects as rationale to deny funding for Animal Services improvements. “I’m not saying that this is unnecessary, but this is more of a luxury, this is an animal shelter, we need to concentrate on the important issues, which is our water and wastewater at this particular time,” said Sanchez. His motion to deny was seconded, but after nearly 20 minutes of back and forth, a motion to approve gained the majority vote.
This week the city council chamber was overflowing with spectators as hundreds more joined online. On Tuesday 2/25/25, a proclamation for Julios Chips was delivered. The city all together, with multiple rounds of applause, celebrated Julios for their renowned generosity and growth. Miguel Garcia humbly accepted the recognition with his family. They then tucked out of the meeting early but left behind a table of Julios Chips for the entire audience to enjoy.
Following the mayor's proclamation, a fully suited up Rob Williamson, Government Consultant from Evergreen Solutions, analyzed the city’s compensation plan. He told council that he made sure to consider the “unique forces that are impacting you here.” He complimented the staff that participated in the study, saying “you’ve got a heck of a team here, that obviously care about what they are doing.” A few concerns were raised. Most notably the concept of “inversion” how it is impacting the City of Del Rio’s most tenured staff, and that overall “2.9% of payroll needs raises to meet new minimum standards.”
Chief of Police Frank Ramirez was there too. He delivered an overall positive report on 2024 racial profiling study of the Del Rio Police Department, “to make sure we are not bias in traffic stops.” Their numbers appeared to match local demographics. Out of 4,800 stops recorded, only 1 person reported racial profiling. Ramirez highlighted that “99.93% of the time, physical force was not used.” After concluding his presentation, Ramirez took a seat in the audience.
Ramirez watched and waited patiently until a motion to deny Animal Services stirred things up. He reapproached the podium an hour and a half into the packed meeting. He stood behind the two city employees who were presenting the animal shelter project, Operations & Compliance Manager Scot Carcasi and Purchasing Agent Luis Menchaca. Ramirez proceeded calmly to defend the importance of Animal Services and offer solutions to work around budgetary constraints. The Del Rio Police Department absorbed Animal Services in the summer of 2024, making the Chief not only in charge of protecting the public, but animals as well.
Sanchez: “The city is in a financial situation with our water and wastewater, and right now, its not the time to proceed with a new animal shelter. I just, it would be financially irresponsible for me, and I’m just talking about myself, to go ahead and approve this project. We asked [our financial advisors] if it was okay if we could give some of this money back without hurting our bond ratings and what not… and they said we could give this money back! We need to keep ourselves as liquid as we possibly can, we don’t need to be borrowing unnecessary money.… And it is imperative to the citizens of Del Rio that we keep our water wastewater issues as a priority.”
Sanchez: “I’d like to make a resolution to authorize and direct the city manager to cancel this budget altogether and return the money back.”
Deny, table, postpone? The council wanted clarity. “I make a resolution to deny it,” said Sanchez.
Sanchez: “Remember what happened to us with the city hall, we ended up paying 200 almost 300 thousand dollars for plans that we will never utilize, and those funds are lost.”
Menchaca: “At this point the resolution is only to negotiate the funding, it is no longer stated that it is a new building, so we are able to use it for the existing building or we can go into a new building.”
Sanchez: “Right now is not the time to be spending money on this… our priority is to service the citizens, water, and sewer.”
At this time, Chief of Police Frank Ramirez stood up to help defend funding for animal services improvements.
Ramirez: “It’s not going be a popular thing, but Mr. Sanchez, I agree… I understand that we are having financial issues, and that it’s a lot of money [$4,266,200.00]… It was a lot, as far as the building and the way they wanted it… So, I started looking, talking to Austin Pets Live and Best Friends Society. They started working with us and I realized pretty quick that they consider us, and the literally said this, in the nicest way they could, we are possibly one of the worst shelters in Texas.”
Ramirez: “There are shelter designs out there that are more basic than the ones that we were looking at, and a whole lot cheaper. It is barn, big giant metal building, and they will fix the outside, they will make it really nice all the way around, and on the inside, they’ll put the runs for the dogs and cats… and they then chop off a little piece of the building in the front make that a reception area, the area for the little veterinarian clinic and all. Everything is actually integrated, where they drive in, take the animals out, and put them in the shed. Now that’s not something we all talked about but it’s something that I brought up to the City Manager… So, with this, we can use the old facility… for a fraction of the price, and revamp that, so we can have more places for the animals, we can have the services. And with this, as I just found out, I’ve got all the resources now, once we get our kill rate down, which we have been doing well, we’ve been getting it down already, we’ll be eligible for a lot more grants.”
Ramirez: “The other shelters are trying to help us and give us money… Science Diet will give us .18 cents a pound for food as opposed to the way we are buying it in full. A lot of these different retail suppliers now, with our kill rates low enough, they will give us the food for free. There is a lot of incentives out there, the only thing is, we’re so high of a kill rate, they won’t touch us.”
Sanchez: “We were looking at spending over a quarter million dollars in purchasing more property to try to utilize this as an animal shelter”
Sanchez expressed his concern that additional spending may be needed on top of the already acquired 4.2 million in debt. Ramirez retorted that architectural plans can be reworked, eliminating the need to purchase more property. He hopes to instead utilize the existing shelter and adjoining property already owned by the city.
Ramirez: “I don’t think we can go without doing this, it’s already terrible over there, it’s only going to get worse, if we put this off again, it’s going to get worse… We almost didn’t pass our state test… With the adoptions, there is something wrong with that, and if you go in there, you can see its horrendous, you can’t take the smell for 3 minutes, it’s just that bad”
Ramirez: “I think we can get this price down to something that you look at and think ‘we can deal with this’… We need something, we can make it work. We can put the [new] facility right next to [the existing]. It would be right up to the property line…. We would turn it facing Gibbs and that would be the storefront, instead of that offroad, we could actually have parking and everything there too. So, it would be something that would be more pleasing to the eye, and it would be easier for us to get people in there, to get the adoptions, make it more professional. Right now, it’s a complete mess. We are going to do our best to fix it and at least get us operational, we are not there right now.”
Sanchez: “Right now the priorities are water and sewers.”
When Sanchez continued to insist on denying support, Assistant Finance Director Roxy Soto interjected from the sidelines. She said, “I do just want to remind the council that this is property tax supported, so its not included as part of any water project or wastewater projects, and we can’t use these funds or water or wastewater or any enterprise funds.”
Sanchez: “I do understand that, but by giving this money back, it drops our debt, and we can go back and ask for another CO if necessary to attack our water and wastewater issues. I don’t want to spend any more money than what we have to. We have our priorities.”
Carcasi: “I would like to tell council that Ms. Burkhart, myself, Chief Ramirez… We met and went over plans, right, and how to shrink this down, and one of Ms. Burkhart’s concerns was the cost. We have the plans that Chief Ramirez looked at, and it’s a very simple metal building, and that’s something that our intention is to bring forward to whatever architect we engage. And Ms. Burkhart one of her primary focuses was ‘what is the absolute minimum that you need for animal services to function.’”
Council asked for clarification once more, “If we approve this resolution, we aren’t committing to anything, so we aren’t spending any money right?”
Menchaca: “No, it’s just to negotiate [with architects], but once we have a contract that has been agreed to by both parties, if we both agree that its fair and reasonable, we can bring it back to city council to be considered for approval”
Finally, the motion to deny went to vote. The motion did not pass. Immediately following, a motion to approve was proposed. The motion passed. Mayor Alvaro Arreola applauded the verdict, saying “thank you team!” Animal Services gained council support. Once the architect gives the city a price, they will have a chance to negotiate and value-engineer the price down to meet budgetary constraints. After negotiations, the council will be presented with another opportunity to vote.
.png)
Comments