La Feria City Council Looks Ahead to Drainage Improvements

The La Feria City Commission held it’s regular meeting on Tuesday night, June 11th.

The first item on the agenda that evening, a resolution approving the city’s cooperation with the Steering Committee of cities served by AEP TCC , was quickly approved.

The steering committee is being formed to review AEP Texas Central Company’s requested approval of an adjustment to its Energy Efficiency Cost Recovery Factor and the hiring of legal and/or consulting services to negotiate with AEP and direct any necessary litigation and appeals.

Aferward the next three agenda items were discussed at length with a presentation by city staff and led by Juan Gamez of Sigler, Winston, Greenwood & Associates, the city’s civil engineers, and City Manager Sunny K. Philip. These items included a review of bids for new flood control pump equipment, a review of bids for AN-49 Levee Crossing improvements, and a review of bids for paving and drainage improvements for Rabb Road with the contracts for all three projects awarded to the lowest, most qualified bidders.

These three projects are the culmination of work that began in 2008 with the aftermath of hurricane Dolly. The hurricane’s deluge caused severe problems with the city’s drainage system, leaving some areas innundated for up to 90 days, hindering access by emergency crews and preventing some children from attending school.

Funded by Texas General Land Office (GLO) and US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the city has raised over $18 million to help alleviate the situation.

“It’s really a matter of diverting water from one watershed to another to decrease flooding,” Gamez stated during the presentation stressing that the proper diversion of water during a natural disaster could eliminate most of La Feria’s flooding problems. Bids were awarded to RM Waldorf of Brownsville for the Rabb Road paving and drainage improvements and the AN-49 levee improvements and MWI Pumps of Deerfield Beach, FL for the purchase of two flood pumps and the construction of a storage structure to house them.

Following the awarding of the bids the Commission tabled moving into closed sessions, heard brief reports from staff concerning the status of current projects then opened to floor to public comments.

Retired La Feria school teacher Reva Ayala used the public comments to make a small presentation to raise awareness of a 5K Run/1 mile Walk to be held in October with proceeds to benefit The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. For more information on this upcoming event, please contact Reva Ayala at (956) 893-3488 or email [email protected].

The next regular meeting of the La Feria City Commission will be held June 25 at 6:30 p.m. in the City Commission Meeting Room at 115 E. Commercial Ave., La Feria, TX. The public is invited to attend.