By MICHAEL PETTY
Special to the PRESS
On another balmy South Texas summer night, Tuesday, July 11, a fair number of public citizens and the City Council of Port Isabel gathered to discuss the important matters of the day. The meeting began cordially as the commissioners and various city officials came together to greet each other and the citizenry with effusive enthusiasm. With smiles and discussions of warm summer days placed on hold, the meeting began in earnest with the call to order and roll call. All commissioners were present at the meeting, with Commissioner Jeffery David Martinez attending via a digital platform. Then came the invocation, the recitation of the state and the national pledge of allegiance.
With the formalities concluded and no new agenda items from PI City Manager Jared Hockema, PI Mayor Martin Cantu called for the regular report update on current or completed city business. Hockema delivered a presentation outlining the closing of the baseball season and the success of the team’s closing ceremonies. He talked about his hopes for future contributions from the public in the form of coaches for the current teams and his hopes for the project’s expansion to include other sports. He explained the enormous success of the city’s Fourth of July celebration at the Lighthouse. He lavished praise upon the staff that put together the festivities and on the company that provided the fireworks to the city, noting the profitability of the celebration.
The tone grew more serious as Hockema described the current problems facing the city as the traffic situation has grown more desperate from the influx of tourists visiting the area. He stated that while the city’s sales have fallen this year, the traffic has only increased. Hockema draws a direct corollary between the increased traffic and the diminished sales. He explained a noticed change in the traffic patterns that have people trying to get to the Island earlier, which has begun to overwhelm current police resources. He explains that the police are contemplating adjusting their workforce to account for the earlier traffic delays through the implementation of mandatory overtime for officers, and they are evaluating their overall staffing requirements moving forward. In the interim, they are doing their best to combat the traffic and ensure public safety by slowing down the influx of traffic at the intersection with Highway 48, according to Hockema.
Port Isabel Chief of Police Robert Lopez was called upon to deliver his department’s bi-annual statistical report. He described arrests and other such activities have been far above average compared to previous years. He broke down the statistics based on a pool of 428 recent arrests; 66 D.W.I.s, 39 assaults, 52 thefts (mainly related to small-time shoplifting) and two burglaries. While the numbers may seem imposing, he stressed the significant success rate that two burglaries truly amount to, describing Port Isabel as a “safe place to live.” He further described the city’s downturn in nocturnal criminal activity, discussing an ongoing police-to-business outreach program wherein officers will leave slips of paper on a business demonstrating the late-night hours they patrol. He describes the business community’s feedback as highly positive, with their contributions to police-related activities having risen markedly in response. He hopes to keep this initiative in effect moving forward. He wrapped up his report by describing a well above-average increase in the total number of calls coming into the department daily, resulting in dispatchers being stretched too thin to be entirely effective. He called on the commission to consider adding two more dispatchers to the staff, noting that they can only staff two dispatchers over the busy weekend and a single dispatcher during the week. He described his team as overwhelmed and reiterated the need for additional staffing.
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