Weslaco Mayor David Suarez delivered State of the City Address

As originally published by Texas Border Business newsprint edition March 2018

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Mayor David Suarez delivered the City of Weslaco’s 2018 State of the City Address on February 28. Stepping up to the podium, he said, “Good afternoon.  Thank you, Johnny, for the introduction and thank you all for being here for what is now our third annual State of the City event.

This is a small stage, but truly there are so many with whom I share it.  Rather than call on everyone, one by one, if you share the dais with me and serve as a City Commissioner, please stand and be recognized. If you ever served on the City Commission, please stand. If you serve in any elected capacity anywhere, especially our County, our State Legislature, a neighboring jurisdiction, or our own School Board, please stand. If you serve in an appointed capacity on any of our other boards, like our EDC, P&Z, Weslaco 100, please stand. If you serve with any other service organization that supports our community—Rotary, Lions, Elks, Knapp Community Care Foundation, even our Chamber of Commerce—please stand. Last, if you support me in my service as Mayor, if you are related to me by marriage or birth, please stand. Actually, for good measure, if you attended a Commission meeting, contacted your Commissioner, or voted in an election this year—if you helped to put us here and hold us accountable here – please stand.

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I am not surprised to see that nearly every person in this audience stood at some point in the introduction. It does not surprise me the level of engagement across our community represented in this room. On the contrary, it invigorates me. Our civic participation makes us who we are, demands our energies and resources toward what we want to be. And as I have learned recently, our level of civic participation is part of who we have always been in Weslaco.  It is part of the brick and mortar, the very foundation of our community.  Literally.

Last year, if you were able to join our State of the City, we had what we referred to as the “tiny Tinacos” as centerpieces.  This year we unveil the next installment in our collectors’ series, our cupola.  This is our humble plastic tribute to the dome that adorns the top of our historic City Hall, constructed of brick, mortar, and civic grit.

Planning for that City Hall started in 1927 with a $35,000 bond issue; construction was completed in 1928.  Ah, for the good old days, when a municipal facility cost just 35-grand and had a one year turn around.  Granted, some things never change because the actual cost of construction was $45,000, about 29% over budget.

The colorful mosaic tiles, called “azulejos,” were shipped from Spain to embellish the construction; they alone cost $2,200 – $31,000today adjusted for inflation—and I quote, “had been inadvertently omitted from the estimate.”  That is almost my favorite part of this whole story.

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The roof finials and other ornamentation are made of cast stone sculpture, which is this very labor-intensive process from clay-crafted molds, that within just fifty years was already a lost art in the United States.  Look carefully and find mythical creatures, like gods and gargoyles, and symbols of government, like balance scales and crowned kings.

Architect R. Newell Waters stated the style and ornamentation were patterned after seventeenth century Spanish Renaissance buildings. It was immediately declared among “the most beautiful and complete buildings in South Texas,” and served to inspire the Spanish motif in the new main street construction in the new City of Weslaco.

Indeed, our historic City Hall and its ornate cupola are beautiful, in as much form as function. The function of the cupola, of course, was to house the fire bell.  This was an immediately practical purpose, as Weslaco’s beginning downtown was destroyed by fire the winter of 1922-1923—allegedly arson, supposedly at the hands of disgruntled neighbors at the next train stop.  I suspect the City Hall was meant to assure for its citizens the safety and security of a fire house and to assert for its neighbors a certain defiance in an immoveable structure of brick and mortar.

I suspect, too, that the lavish tiling and other ornaments were a certain act of political defiance.  Weslaco was the first city in Hidalgo County other than McAllen to adopt a home rule charter, establishing its financial independence from the courthouse.  Perhaps there was some posturing that the City would spend its own money in its own contracts; after all, Weslaco citizens used the new City Hall to hold strategy meetings to successfully challenge boss rule culture at the courthouse.  I told you civic engagement was a part of who we have always been!

About the same time our City Hall was built, Architect Waters designed a traditional, red brick English style City Hall at the next rail stop.  There was joking speculation the blueprints intended for the two towns were switched at birth. But Waters insisted the architecture for Weslaco was deliberately Spanish, which successfully blends “Mexican and Anglo-American features, symbolizingthe ethnic plurality of this bicultural Rio Grande Valley community.”  And that is my favorite part of this story.

It is simply profound to me, as a man born in Weslaco but raised in and apart at the Labor Camp, that the founding fathers of this City always meant to reflect me, as much as any person of Weslaco, when designing the building meant to serve us. They knew in 1927 they were not simply constructing a building, but building a community.  They embraced in its construction the plurality of cultures here and asserted the role Weslaco played within the greater Rio Grande Valley community. In 2018, we honor that legacy, mindful that in all we do, we build community.

Many of you were present last month when we affixed our signatures to a steel beam to be installed during the construction of the UTRGV Center for Innovation and Commercialization.  We are preparing to radically renovate a building, so for the first time, we will have a Ph.D. program in Weslaco.  We also just secured the construction of apartments to house them, so doctoral students will actually be in residence in Weslaco, living less than two blocks away from the center.  And in so doing, we reimagine the potential for our downtown and the prospects for our students and innovators.

In partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce (EDA), the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and our own Economic Development Corporation, we are building a learning laboratory, the first of its kind in the Rio Grande Valley: a business incubator space that will create a community for academics and entrepreneurs [to cultivate creativity in patents and processes that accelerate the modern economy]. We are excited for the dynamic energy that will charge this space, and the ingenuity that will be fostered in it.

Earlier in the year, we built out another existing facility in Weslaco to create the Mid Valley Regional Communications Center, a state-of-the art dispatch facility.  With grant assistance through the Development Council, we deliberately overbuilt the center so that no desperate call to 911 goes unanswered, not from Weslaco, not anywhere in the Mid Valley.  In the few months it has been open, Weslaco dispatchers already have responded to calls from other cities, even serving as the backup for state law enforcement radio traffic.  Now there is consideration of moving other jurisdictions entirely into our facility. And we are proud to offer our building, in partnership, to expand the community of emergency response capabilities. After all, the spirit of expanding community is not just in the buildings we make, but in the work we do.

Sometimes, there need not be a building at all.  We sent our fire trucks to Progreso, our ambulances to Mercedes, and our ambulance bus to Houston—we will go where we are needed, to share what we have, because we believe that is the spirit of community. I am very proud that our firefighters and paramedics were the ambassadors of compassion and professionalismacross the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Harvey and the spotlight article on them in the New York Times was much deserved.

So too is their ISO upgrade received just this month.  The Insurance Services Office (ISO) provides statistical information on risk, rating community fire departments on a ten-point scale with “1” being the best. To determine a Public Protection Classification, they assess everything: distance between hydrants, training hours per firefighter, age of the pumper truck. For decades, we were stuck at a rating of four; this month, following their field survey, they assigned an upgrade of class three, placing us in the top 6% of fire departments nationwide.

But as much as we appreciate the prestige, we like the money even more.  Some insurance companies rely on the ISO to calculate premiums for buildings.  This ISO rating increase may translate as a cost decrease for insurance policies on your home and business in Weslaco.

Sometimes, it doesn’t have to be our building in Weslaco to foster community with compassion and professionalism.  Already eight nights this cold winter the City opened a warming shelter in partnership with First Baptist Church.  They host it and staff it; we set it up, secure it, and clean it. We thank Pastor Parker and his church community for their gracious hospitality; in the words of Isaiah (25:4), “For you have been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm.”  Because sometimes, as community, we must simply huddle together to stay warm.

Other times, we joyfully huddle up to play on the field.  I am so proud of the improvements we made this year to our parks, with new trails and courts to complement diamonds and gridirons, making play spaces for our community to actively connect.  And the best is still to come!  In partnership with the Knapp Community Care Foundation, we are adding a splash pad to Isaac Rodriguez Park for the summer.  And again,with their generous support, as well as assistance from Hidalgo County Precinct One, we will jump right into building out another park complex on Mile 11, where the City already purchased 48 acres and cleared the land.

But we don’t have to have to wait for either survey or stake to make more playscapes more accessible to the community.  Borne of a recent joint meeting with the Board of Trustees of the Weslaco Independent School District, we have created a partnership to open two school playgrounds—one at Memorial, one at Clecker-Heald—on nights and weekends to the extended community.  Sometimes it takes coming together to see what is in plain sight, like an empty playground ready for use.

Sometimes, in working together, we even see what is invisible to the naked eye, like internet connectivity ready for public Wi-Fi.  WISD is willing to extend some of their fiber strands to light up our parks with free public Wi-Fi, empowering our park users to connect to the infinite online community.

WISD will extend additional fiber strands to help buttress our economic development efforts, giving us one more quiver in our arrow in the pursuit of business investment.  The WISD Board and Administration recognize with us that fiber infrastructure is the competitive advantage when striving to expand the community of job opportunity for their students, our emerging workforce.

Some of those job opportunities will come from Ci Logistics, recruited this year to our Mid Valley Industrial Park.  They are building a 210,000-squarefoot cotton warehouse, from which they will turn the currents of modern trade, shipping the raw goods of American agriculture through Mexico to Vietnam for manufacturing.  Soon we can boast that global commerce starts in Weslaco. After all, since 1927, that has been part of who we are as Weslaco, creating community and asserting our role within a larger one… even a global one.  But most certainly a county one.

Our library was instrumental in raising half a million dollars, taking the lead this year in the creation of an EBook Library for all the citizens of Hidalgo County.  We already had the largest electronic book collection in South Texas, and among the highest visits per capita in the State, but in the spirit of community, we are taking what we do well and sharing what we have.

I have to give another shout out to our Library because they made our cupola centerpieces for today’s event.  Using a 3D printer,they received through a grant last year, they started a 3D Print Club to get kids excited about learning and using this new technology.  On your table is their talent.  I am as proud of their craftsmanship in plastic mold as I am the clay molds of the cast stone original.  If you don’t get to take one with you today, please consider buying one from the Library later . . . the proceeds will help to underwrite that club and other Library activities that foster a community of literacy.

Fostering a community of youth engagement is not limited to our Library.  Our Fire Department held its second annual RGV Youth Preparedness Camp, drawing young adults from across the Valley in a week-long summer program to train in disaster response, community involvement, and leadership.  As a real-world practicum, the youth helped install 550 smoke detectors in Weslaco homes.  Their volunteerism, and our own Fire Department that harnessed it, was recognized as one of eight in the nation with the 2017 Thomas Carr Community Service Award. Congratulations to them.

The essence of community is not what we do for them, but recognizing with humility what we do for each other.  We brought in these kids to teach them about disaster response, but they are teaching us a thing or two about how to use technology to do it.  We added a drone to our collection of modern tools this year; I think inspired by our youth, we put it on an engine company.  Weslaco’s Fire Department is now one of the first in the State of Texas to respond to all emergency calls with a bird’s eye view, with a certified FAA Drone and Pilot on board.  We can use that drone to capture a 360-degree view of our cupola, as we watched together earlier, or to investigate from overhead—and out of harm’s way—the source of a brush fire, for example.

Yes, our youth are teaching us all about technology. If you want to know how to use our new app, I’m convinced they can install it with three strokes of a finger. The City launched a new mobile application in December.  Available for iPhoneand Android download, the MyWeslaco app allows users to report an issue with just point and pic!  Take a photograph from your mobile device; a GPS pin then locates the issue.  When City crews respond to it, users can monitor the progress by a uniquely assigned work order number.  Already we have had 700 work orders submitted, so I think it is not just the kids who have taken to it.

That seems like a lot of work to do, and for a growing City, there should be.  There will always be potholes to patch and streets to pave, fire hydrants to replace and water lines to repair, new retention ditches to dig and old debris to haul.  But we bring new technologies to do those things smarter, and new initiatives to do them sooner.

We stair-stepped the ditch at Las Brisas Subdivision; installed an oversized equalizer pipe at Quail Hollow Subdivision; and acquired property on Westgate for a new regional detention pond to alleviate future flooding around the City.  We created a Recycling Task Force and expanded our Neighborhood and Clean Sweep programs, developing the partnerships to collect 338,000 pounds of recycling material, 157 tons of abandoned trash, and 728 dumped tires.

We continue to take to the streets initiatives for a cleaner community, but also those for a safer community.  By combining new initiatives in programs and interdictions, our Police Department continued to drive down crime in Weslaco. Year to date, violent crime is down 21.2% and property crime is down 12.6% for an overall UCR Part 1 crime reduction of 16%.

And recognizing their exceptional response rate, we equipped them with the tools they need when they arrive on the scene.  Our officers are trained and ready to put handcuffs on offenders as well as defibrillators on the victims of cardiac arrest.

The Weslaco Police Department became one of the first in the Valley this year to put defibrillators in each patrol car on the road.  Volunteers from Knapp Medical Center donated twelve of these medical devices, which can be used to shock a person’s heart back into beating normally after a heart attack.  By carrying them in their patrol cars, our officers can help save more lives each year.

We can do these things by the generosity of so many partners across the community, trusting us through their philanthropy in service to the community.  We can also do these things by our own exacting financial stewardship.  We closed the water treatment plant lawsuit last month, taking back from the engineer $1.9 million thatwe knew, and the courts agreed, belonged to the citizens of Weslaco.

We are putting that money back in our coffers, back to work in the five-year plan we laid out in our financial report—a comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR), I might add, that also received national distinction this year, earning the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada.  This Certificate of Achievement is the highest form of recognition in governmental accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents meeting the highest standards of a constructive “spirit of full disclosure.”

So,let me disclose now how we will invest that money, your money, in the coming year.  Having strategized like our forefathers to take back what we knew was ours, like our forefathers we invest that in thecommunity, combining those settlement funds with self-funded initiatives and other revenue enhancement programs.  It seems fitting that the money derived from an injustice at the water treatment plant in part be invested in parity in our water billing system.  So,we are purchasing and installing new digital meters to make sure every water account pays its fair share and only its fair share.

We are rebuilding the roads that connect this community.  In partnership with the County, we widened and repaved Milanos Road from Mile 6 to Business 83 and Sixth Street connecting to it.  Next, in partnership with the City of Donna as well as Hidalgo County Precinct One, we will repave Midway Road from Mile 6 North to Business 83. And we already put our deposit down on the widening and repaving of Westgate Drive from Mile 9 to Mile 11.

And we hired the architect to draft the plans for a new firehouse, the City’s fourth since our ornate one of 1927.  It may or may not have its own cupola, but it will serve to address the plurality of our community—not the 1927 consideration of demography, but our present-day consideration of geography. Our growing city is now divided by an interstate and our north side, quite frankly, is underserved.

So,we will build a firehouse, again, to assure for our citizens’safety and security together. We will build with it a park, where we can play and connect together. We will honor our legacy as we build the future, the community of Weslaco, together.

The State of our City in 2018 is proud of who we have always been and capable of what we want to be.  Weslaco is accessible and accountable, stable and solvent. Thank you to all who by your continued engagement demand it; thank you to all who work with and for the City to deliver it.

May God bless all of you.  May God bless Weslaco.”

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