Steering / Technical Committees Joint Meeting - April 27, 2011

At 9:00am on April 27, 2011, the Steering and Technical Committees met at Weslaco City Hall to get an update on the progress of the regional study, discuss the evaluation criteria for the prioritzation of projects, and provide recommendations regarding changes in the Consultant's scope of work.

The agenda for the meeting included:  JointSteer-TechAgenda2011-04-27.

Attendance:    

       Technical Committee - 13 out of 18 members attended  / Steering Committee - 8 out of 29 members attended

Godfrey Garza, chair of the Steering Committee, opened the meeting, and immediately requested that Item VIII. Scope of Work Modifications be moved to the beginning as he had a schedule conflict and would need to leave the meeting early.  Sonia Lambert, chair of the Technical Committee, agreed, and there were no other objections.

The three discussion points under Item VIII are outlined in:  Attach D - Scope of Work Modifications 

1. Project Study Area - Starr County.  Representatives of Starr County requested that the project study area include all of Starr County, instead of just the Northeast corner.  There was much discussion, but in the end, the Committee declined the request.  The primary reasons being that Starr County is not a member of the LRGVDC, and the northeast corner includes watersheds of a major project in Hidalgo County.

2. Legal Assitance and Evaluation -  In past committee meetings, one of the issues that has come up through the development of the LRGV Regional EAP, is once the plan is delivered, what entity would ultimately facilitate, administer, operate, and maintain the LRGV Regional EAP.  Discussion ensued regarding the scope and fees of Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta LLP (BHDA) who were an original team member of the Consultant Team.  The Committee decided to table the item for further review of BHDAs fees and rates.

3.  Schedule - Final Plan is proposed to be delivered no later than October 13, 2011.  There was additional discussion regarding re-organizing the remaining public meetings (this item was also tabled for further review.)

At this point, Godfrey Garza left the meeting, and Sonia Lambert conducted the remaining items.

Previous meeting minutes were approved, and Leah Olivarri gave a report on the status of Public Outreach as shown in the following:  Attach B - Public Outreach

Bo Blackmon gave a presentation regarding an update on the Geographic Inventory System: GIS Presentation.  There is approximately 1.5 terabytes of information in the database.

Sharlotte Teague gave a status on Project Identification.  To-date approximately 320 projects have been identified in the raw project list:  (The raw project list is included in: raw project list.

Cameron County - out of 69 entities, 30 entities have identified 210 projects

Hidalgo County - out of 84 entities, 31 entities have identified 91 projects

Willacy County - out of 22 entities, 7 entitites have identified 19 projects

Starr County - out of 10 entities, 4 entities have identified projects that are outside the project study area

Danny Rios reminded everyone that this is a raw project list, and that the final project list will include no more than 3 projects for each category (small, medium, large) for each entity.  June 30, 2011 is the deadline for submitting projects to the project team.

Photo Gallery:

Please click on the link to see photos from Steering / Technical Committees Joint Meeting - April 27, 2011