Rio Grande Herald (Rio Grande City, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 41, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 29, 1982 Page: 1 of 8
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Community-
Roundup
• !
Citrus Ban
Imposed
A quarantine is being imposed on citrus
entering the country from Mexico. This is to
prevent the citrus canker, a disease not
presently found in the United States, from
spreading to the citrus in the area.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service ordered the ban at 3 p.m. July 23.
This includes all Mexican citrus fruit, being
brought into the United States.
"We have reason to believe that citrus ■
canker is present in Mexico and wer?
prohibiting all citrus fruit until such time as
we can determine what the situation is down
there," said Charles Hall, director for the
Plant Protection and Quarantine Service.
He said the bacterial plant disease would
not harm people who ate it, but is highly
contagious to citrus.
Only one Mexican state Colima was
producing the diseased fruit, and a Valley
shipper contends that lobbyists from
Florida and Washington were involved in
the ban.
Richard Gonzalez of the department of
Agriculture office in Roma wants everyone
to know that Mexican lemons and limes are
included in the citrus prohibition. He
suggests that visitors to Mexico not buy
lemons and limes, for they will be con-
fiscated for destruction at the border.
Window Vandals
llave liusy !\ight
July 23 was a busy morning for the win-
dow repairman. In the early hours of the
morning, seven windows were broken from
businesses in the area of Second St. and
Main.
Chief Deputy J.C. Gomez of the Starr
County Sheriff's Department said that in-
vestigators were unsure as to what kind of
instrument was used in the vandalism, but it
^ seemed to be some type of "blunt object."
A security guard inside one of the van-
dalized stores did not see the vandals.
There are no leads yet in the case.
Gomez relates that the department has
increased the patrol in the downtown area
and are at random working extra officers at
night. No more broken windows have been
reported.
(.rime Wateh Meet
® Sft l'or Tonight
A Program Building Committee meeting
will be held tonight at 7 p.m. in the National
Guard Armory at Rio Grande City.
According to Elva Yolanda Scrivner,
Starr County Extension Agent, they will
have an informative program dealing with
organizing a crime watch program in the
county.
Films will be shown and Dr. Michael
Patrick, community development specialist
^ with the Texas Agricultural Extension
™ Service will speak.
For further information call Scrivner at
487-2306 or go by her office at the Cour-
thouse.
(.onse real ion I slietl
Efrain Duran, director of the water
district asks that residents still curtail their
usage of water for all but the necessities.
He asks that lawn watering and other non-
a essential water usage be cut back for the
^ next few weeks.
The water district is trying to keep up with
the need by installing a temporary pump at
the river, but Duran emphasizes that the
consumer needs to do his part, and conserve
water.
(.ommittee To Meet
VOL XXXVI
No. 41 Thursday, July 29,1982
FIFTEEN CENTS
Bids Opened For Park
MM
' "r'' i ■'
Bids for the fencing and irrigation
systems for Fort Ringgold Park were
opened during a special meeting of the Starr
County Commissioners' Court, July 27.
The bids were opened by Jor^'e Perez,
consulting engineer for the project.
The bids for the fencing ranged from a low
of $25,485.50 by South Texas Utility of
Mercedes to a high of $50,000 from McMillan
Construction of Mission. The engineer's
estimate for the fencing was $62,250.
The bids for the irrigation system ranged
from a low of $28,336.56 given by Irrigation
Systems of Texas to a high of $36,825 by
Starr Equipment Co. Engineer's estimate
for the project was $38,375.
Awarding of the bids will come after
further study by the engineer and the court,
and should be announced in mid-August.
The project will start in the next 30 days.
The irrigation contractor will be given 45
calendar days to complete the project.
When he completes the job, the fencing
contractor will then take over and be given
30 days to complete his work.
Insurance was once again a heated topic
for the Commissioner's Court. But this
time, it was not the group health policy, but
the Family Cancer Plan and its life in-
surance.
During the discussions in previous
meetings about the new health insurance
carrier, it was argued that the cancer plan
was not necessary and simply a duplication
of services.
During last week's meeting, County
Auditor Jose G. Villarreal stated that his
office would no longer make the deductions
for the cancer plan from employee
paychecks.
Joe Rodgers of the American Family Life
Assurance Co., carriers of the cancer plan
came before the court to plead his case.
Rodgers said that 102 county employees
were subscribing to the cancer plan, paying
premiums ranging from $2.00 to over
(See 'PARK' Page 2)
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Gonzalez Named Acting Director
Noel Gonzalez has been named acting
director of the Starr County Housing
Authority after Dr. Bruno Trevino was
removed from the position, July 21.
According to Gonzalez, Trevino was
removed from the position because he was
"holdii. i more than one job." Trevino was
also interim director for the Starr County
Industrial Foundation.
HUD officials, had, on occasion, looked
for Trevino at the Authority and not found
him there, prompting a complaint. The
Housing Authority Board of Directors
decided to replace him at their regular
meeting, naming Gonzalez as acting
director.
Gonzalez had worked for the Authority
during the past year as assistant director
WEEDS HIGH AT PROJECT-Complaints have been heard about the overgrowth
of weeds at the He using Authority project in west Rio Grande City. New Acting
Director Noel Gonzalez says that he plans to put more emphasis on maintenance in
the future. (Herald photo)
Port Director Introduced
The South Texas Development Council
Advisory Committee on Aging will hold a
a meeting, July 29 in the STDC conference
room, 600 South Sandman, I^aredo.
Itiaz llasts Heeeftt ion
Pete Diaz, along with Ninfa I^urenzo of
Houston and Dr. Ray Santos of Lubbock will
host a reception for Lt. Governor candidate
George Strake, July 31, during the state
convention of the Mexican-American
Chambers of Commerce, in Fort Worth.
11 os/til a I Hoard
Meets I (might
The hospital Board will meet tonight, at
7:30 in the meeting room of the Starr
County Memorial Hospital.
/{(>( School Ititartl
Sets Meeting
A The Board of Trustees for the Rio Grande
City Consolidated Independent School
District will meet Aug. 3 at b p.m. in the
Multi-I'urpo.se Center at the school campus.
Waste llnming
To lie Discussed
Hearings on the burning of chemical
wastes in the Gulf of Mexico will be held in
the Fortress Room of the Ft. Brown Hotel in
0 Brownsville from 10 a.m. to noon and from 7
to 9 p.m. August 31.
These hearings are being conducted by
the Environmental Protection Agency, who
have tenative plans to issue a special permit
to incinerate chemical wastes on the Gulf of
Mexico.
The Environmental Impact Statement on
the Gulf Incineration Site and reports on
incineration at sea of similar wastes are
available for public inspection at the Corps
of Engineers office in Brownsville or at the
Q Pan American University Library
documents room in Edinburg.
If you think all customs officers are big,
rough and masculine, then Ann Goggins will
change your mind. Not only is she a pretty,
petite blond, but more importantly, she is
the intelligent efficient director of the port
of Rio Grande City.
Goggins was named port director June 14.
She is the first woman to hold the post here.
Although Rio Grande City is the first port
for Goggins to be permanent director, she
has filled in for other directors.
Prior to her post in Rio, She was a
supervisory inspector in the port of El Paso.
In these days of equal employment op-
portunities, Goggins feels that being a
woman did not enter enter into the decision
to name her as the 'boss'.
"I'd like to feel that they saw some sort of
ability and potential in me," she said. 'In
federal service, equal opprunity is very
much a fact. Many women are supervisors
and managers."
Although women in law enforcement is a
relatively new idea, women have been in the
ANN GOGGINS
y
customs service for a long time. In order to
search female suspects, a female agent
mast make the inspection. There is a
female agent that works at the Rio Grande
City bridge.
Goggins is not the only female port
director in the system of 300 ports of entry in
the United States. In fact, she relates that
the port director in nearby Eagle Pass is
also a woman.
As port director, Goggins is in charge of
the administrative side of the bridge
operation for Customs. She oversees the
officers who check daily for contraband
entering the country.
There are five separate agencies who
work together on the bridge. Besides
customs, there is the immigration service,
the Texas Alcohol Alcoholic Beverage
Control, the Department of Agriculture
(plant quarantine; and the bridge owners.
The customs officers alternate on the
bridge with the immigration officers,
screening cars for each other and for the
other groups. Goggins explains that there
are 240 different agencies governing who
and what comes across the bridge, with over
400 laws on the books.
With 1100 to 1200 vehicles crossing the
bridge, daily, the officers cannot search
everyone, but Goggins savs that "it is our
job to search as many as we can." Two to
three arrests per week are made by the
Customs officers.
Goggins has no difficulty communicating
with the Mexican citizens she comes in
contact with, for she does speak Spanish.
Goggins has nothing but praise for former
director James Van Nest. She had a smooth
transition into the job. "I found the place in
terrific sha^e," she said.
She appears very satisfied with herself
and her job. "Everything's running great,"
she commented with a smile. "I have a
good bunch of people to work v th. I'm
fortunate."
Goggins currently lives at Falcon Lake
with her seven year old daughter, who
she says enjoys a daily swim m the lake.
She would like to move to Rio Grande City in
the future.
and maintence director for their 44 unit
Section 23 project, located in north Rio
Grande City.
He cannot be named permanent director
until the position has been advertised for
two weeks.
There have been many complaints,
recently, about the authority and its
operations, and Gonzalez would like to
remedy these. In the 34 unit turnkey
project, in west Rio Grande City, tenants
have complained that some yards have been
mowed while others have not.
Gonzalez plans to keep a watch over the
maintenance of the dwellings to insure that
each tenant is treated a fairly. He also says
that the Authority has very little yard-
keeping equipment and that mowers, must
be borrowed from the county to do the job.
But he stresses that "each tenant must do
their share." They must report broken
screens, doors and appliances when first
notice; They must also make sure that
their trash does get into the garbage bins.
During his period as Authority director,
Gonzalez has plans to more efficiently run
the operation. He intends to bring ail
delinquent rents up to date, taking action on
.hose tenants whose rent is more than two to
three months behind.
HUD regulations state that one month
delinquency is cause for eviction.
He also plans to regularly re-compute the
rents, doing this "at least once a year."
Gonzalez wants to be "more selective" in
regards to the people chosen to move into
the housing. This should eliminate ..some of
the destruction and delinquent rents.
He also wants to put more emphasis on
maintenance fixing the leaky plumbing and
other areas of the apartments that are in
disrepair.
He wants to do away with tenant
destruction. One way to do this by regular
inspections, which he plans to conduct each
quarter. This would include checking each
unit for torn screens, broken windows, bad
plumbing and holes in the walls or other
destroyed fixtures.
Currently, Gonzalez and the Authority is
in charge of a 44 unit apartment complex, a
34 unit complex and 8 Section eight houses.
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MORE WATER COMING, BUT CONSERVATION NEEDED-Workmen are busy
hooking up an auxiliary pump at the river to help the shortage of water in Rio Grande
City. But, officials stress that conservation is still needed. (Herald Photo)
Ceballos To End
Ambulance Service
Unless something is done, after Aug. 31,
Starr County will no longer have ambulance
service.
Ceballos Funeral Home has been
operating the ambulance service for 21
years, and owner Richard Ceballos wants
out of that end of his business.
"Too many people won't pay," he says,
and unlike most other areas of the country,
the county does not subsidize the business.
He is paid by insurance companies for
those calls the ambulance makes to clients
with insurance, and Medicare does pay for
an ambulance call-but not all of it.
Medicare only reimburses $6 to $8 of the
$45.00 call.
Ceballos has furnished the people of the
county with reliable, certified emergency
medical technicians (EMT), trained in
lifesaving skills, and with a $30,000 am-
bulance, stocked with over $22,000 of
equipment.
He must pay his personel to be on call 24
hours a day, whether someone needs an
ambulance or not. He also must keep the
ambulance gasoline tank full, which adds up
when the vehicle only gets six gallons to the
mile.
Then there's the cost of fresh linen,
oxygen and the wear and tear on the am-
bulance, itself, which must be kept in
perfect running condition.
"Without the funeral home," Ceballos
commented, I couldn't make it."
Collecting payment for the ambualnce
rides has not been an easy nor profitable
task for Ceballos, who is "tired of not being
paid."
It is hard to collect from a Mexican citizen
or from an indigent person who simply does
not have the money. It also costs $7.00 to file
against a person for non-payment, with the
justice of the peace. And then there's no
guarantee of payment.
Ceballos has suggested that the hospital
take over the running of the emergency
ambulance service in Starr County, but
hospital director Bill Watt is not that
anxious to take over the job.
About two months ago Watt got together
with the hospital board, tbe medical staff.
County Judge Bias Chapa and the com-
missioners' court to discuss the problem.
At that time, they decided to form a
committee to work out a solution, since
Ceballos had told them that he was getting
out of the business, soon.
No committee Has been formed at this
time, and no action has been taken.
Chapa is speaking with County Attorney
Alex Gabert about the feasibility of the
county taking over the ambulance service.
The county "cannot be without services,"
said Chapa.
Ceballos currently averages about 250
ambulance calls per year, and might keep
on with the sevices if it was subsidized. He
has presented this to the commissioners
court without a favorable response.
He is also prepared to lease or sell his
emergency module to the county, hospital or
whoever takes over the service. He would
also be willing to keep his medicruiser, a
normal size ambulance, for use in transfer
calls.
Transfer calls are when a patient must be
transferred from Starr County to hospitals
in McAllen, Harlingen. Houston San Antonio
or Corpus Christi.
What will happen Sept. 2 when Ceballos is
no longer taking emergency calls? If it's a
real emergency, Ceballos says that "I can't
turn my people down."
It is only a matter of time until he has to.
GTE Gets Increase, Makes Refunds
The Public Utility Commission of Texas
approved $46.8 million in new revenues for
General Telephone Company of the South-
west during final hearings July 14 on the
company's $110 million rate filing.
The final order, officially signed July 19,
sued by the commission will result in most
customers receiving refunds ranging from
10 to 40 cents per month. The refunds are
the result of the company placing new rates
for most services in effect June 4 under
state law, subject to refund of the difference
between the June 4 rates and the final rates
approved by the commission July 14
Reductions and Refunds
The only changes from the June 4 rates
are reductions ranging from 10 to 35 cents in
all local basic service rates, and a five-cent
Garceno Still Without Water
liick of water is still a problem in the
Garceno area, but the future does look
brighter.
Roma city officials have stated that the
new booster station is almost completed and
will be in full operation, soon.
July 20 a hearing was held to bring
Garceno's water problems to officials of the
county. Although no permanent solution
was brought forth, the meeting did open up
the posibility that the various water systems
in the county could h?lp each other.
A petition has been circulated in the area
which could bring these problems to higher
government officials who might be able to
offer aid
"It's a little better," said Maria Bowers,
Garceno res'dent "We have water most of
the day." But between 6 and 10 p.m., there
is no water.
"It happens every summer," she said,
"But this is the worst." Bowers has been
persistent in her first fight to get water.
Every time she has been without water, she
has called the city or water office to tell
them.
Hortensia Ijent has also been persistent
One of the organizers for the petition and
meeting, she has been vocal about her
feelings. ' This is a Starr County problem,
she said. We have to look at the entire
area."
I>ent and her husband Thomas own a
trailer park and grocery in the Garceno
area.
She plans to persist until the problem is
solved and not wait, as it was suggested to
her, until September for the rains.
She does feel optimistic, and says that
Roma officials Irma Yunes, mayor, and
Antioco Canales, city manager; have been
"helpful."
The future looks optimistic, but there is
still the present problem of no water.
Bowers related that a few days ago she put
clothes in the washing machine and before
the washer could reach the rinse cycle, she
was out of water.
Her solution was an inconvient laun-
dromat in town Bowers, who has "retired"
her dishwasher, hopes the problem is solved
before she must return to work as a school
teacher, in August
reduction per month in some business rates
for extended area sen.1 ice (EAS) or toll-free
calling to neighboring exchanges.
Customers who did not have increased
rates under bond will not receive refunds.
This includes customers in Denton, Kilgore
and Del Rio, and one-party business
customers in San Angelo, Bryan, College
Station and Texarkana.
The rates placed in effect June 4 for
services other than local basic service and
extended area service did not change under
the commission's final order and are not
subject to refund. These include optional
extended metro service in the Dallas Fort
Worth and Houston areas; mobile telephone
services; miscellaneous services and
equipment including monthly telephone
instrument charges: and air port telephone
service, as well as other services used
mostly by business customers.
New Charges
In addition to these changes, new charges
became effective July 14 for some services
which were not placed ui effect under bond
June 4 These services include directory
assistance charging, late pay charge for
business accounts and returned check
charges.
The charge for director} assistance will
begin Aug 1 Customers will have a
monthly 10-call per line allowance with a 25-
cent charge applying for each call that
exceeds the allowance.
The late charge will begin for business
customers Aug. 1. The charge will be a 5
percent fee for the unpaid balance if not
(See "GTE" Page Z)
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Mathis, Dora Barrera. Rio Grande Herald (Rio Grande City, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 41, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 29, 1982, newspaper, July 29, 1982; Edinburg, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth194882/m1/1/: accessed April 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rio Grande City Public Library.