Saturday afternoon thoughts

What a nice day to be in Presidio! It's the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the weather's about 69 F outside, and all is well. If there happens to be ANYBODY who reads this, you must be halfway interested in Presidio, Texas. (Hi-five!)

Other than what little you read about Presidio in the news, let me share a personal perspective on some things:

• Presidio Schools are currently in the somewhat controversial process of verifying where students and staff actually go to sleep at night. Thankfully, I think everyone can say they go to a permanent dwelling. However the issue is being raised as to whether or not a number of individuals may be residing in Ojinaga, but listing Presidio as their residence. This is a very delicate issue, but one worth staying on top of. Students who are attending our schools but reside in Ojinaga cannot have a means to for their parents to pay property taxes, i.e. generate revenue to operate the schools. It's somewhat of a dirty, thankless job to have to do this, but I agree with it. More on this as things unfurl.
• The school is also looking at a school calendar that contains four 9-week sessions with a Fall, Christmas, and Spring Break, in addition to a 7-week summer vacation. It sounds like it might be good for our students, in that they wouldn't have 11 weeks of little or no English exposure during the summer. The staff will have a chance to vote on keeping the current format or adopting the new proposal.
  
• The City of Presidio has been very fortunate as of late in receiving an enormous amount of money for infrastructure. Now it's time to think about parks for our kids. The time is right.
• The international bridge has been the scene of about 94 deportations of illegal immigrants per day since November 1st. So far the U.S. Border Patrol has not seen a rise in apprehensions, but only time will tell. Ojinaga is not big enough to absorb a large number of these individuals, and public safety could be compromised if there were a substantial number of deportees left to their own devices there. Again, we'll see.

A new stinky place for Presidio

The City of Presidio just received notification that the Obama administration's stimulus funds--to the tune of $12 million dollars--have been awarded to construct a new sewage treatment facility. Originally the city had planned to the fund the facility using a combination of grants and local funding, so the savings are enormous. The millions we would have spent on this project might now be possibly be considered for other needs, still many.

Typically the city receives approximately $250,000 in grants per year for community development. That normally goes toward water, sewer or streets (Oh, and we were the fortunate recipients of a $5 million dollar street paving grant, too.). So instead of inching along to provide basic services, Presidio vaulted--finally--into the 21st century.