I’m a lifelong resident of Willacy County, and have been living north of Raymondville for nearly 5 years now. In that time we've seen several commissioners take office, however our newest Commissioner Eliberto Guerra has failed to deliver the much needed improvements needed to this area. You see I live down Lopez County Road (Formerly known as County Road 200), and we've always had a problem with the road conditions, primarily because we have no proper drainage system in place. With that being said, Caliche Roads must be maintained on a regular basis. Mr. Guerra sends the maintainer out here every few months, but continues to remove what little Caliche is left on the road. The road is narrow, barely allowing oncoming traffic from the opposite direction, and to make matters worse there are two blind spots on two curves, one of which is right in front of my house.

After much complaining the commissioner stated that the “s” shape that the road makes with the two curves would turn into actual corners with stop signs. This project was started last week, with the maintainers attempting to level out the roads, and removing top soil from the curve right in front of my house. They made an absolute mess of the road, and entrance to my house... only to stop after an hour of removing dirt and have yet to return. They’ve made an already bad situation worse! It has only made a slick caliche/clay mixture into a mud pit with the recent rains. On occasion I’ve had to call the school bus driver not to come pick up the children because of the road conditions prior to the “Improvements,” and I've had to do this again this morning for fear of getting the bus stuck.

Commissioner Eliberto Guerra refuses to mow the grass because the land is too “steep” yet Commissioner Cantu or Tamez’s crews never had problems... so he’s spent tax dollars purchasing roundup to spray grass that needs to be mowed as it is creating blind spots. The grass which is in some areas up to 5-6 feet high is very dense and dry, and with the holiday fireworks, will only create a fire hazard and a rodent problem. I really don’t know what to do about all this, and I’ve talked to Aurelio Guerra about all this who has been helpful with mediating but I fear that no one will move on this and not sure what to do anymore. We all know that anyone who holds public office hates being in the media, and it's usually because they’ve failed to do their jobs, so I will continue to be a squeaky wheel until someone does something.

Sonia R. Garcia

- - - Ms. Garcia,

One of the most important things this newspaper does is to allow readers to express their opinions about elected officials. But, right now we have pot holes in town and many county roads are a mess because of the recent 4 inches of rain. It may be that Mr. Guerra is waiting for your road to dry out before he resumes work on this project. We invite him to explain his intentions in next week’s newspaper.

The editor