MERCEDES — Prisoners here will continue to be housed at the Weslaco city jail after the Mercedes City Commission approved a one-year extension to a memorandum of understanding between the Queen City and its neighbor.
The contract extension came during a meeting of the city commission Tuesday evening, but not before one commissioner tried to shorten the length of time the contract would be in effect.
“Mayor, I want to make a motion that we just extend this for three months, instead of making a contract on it. That’s my motion,” Place 3 Commissioner Jose Gomez said.
Gomez said he preferred the city find a new police chief before making any additional big decisions about the police department itself.
“We’ve had three police chiefs and an interim right now, and we’ve had the same issue. So, to continue moving forward, I feel that we need to have a police chief to tackle these issues and save the citizens some money,” Gomez said.
Gomez was referring to the three police chiefs the city has hired since the retirement of longtime Chief Olga Maldonado in the summer of 2019.
Since then, the department has been led by Dagoberto “Dago” Chavez, Jose Macias and Roy Quintanilla, with the latter two resigning within months of accepting the post.
Currently, the department is being led by interim Chief Blanca Sanchez, who made city history in January 2021 as the first woman to be appointed assistant police chief.
However, the Mercedes Police Department has spent the last several years plagued by issues that go beyond the constant change in leadership.
The department has had to contend with a consistent shortage and turnover of officers, the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, a shortage of up-to-date equipment and low morale.
Too, the department hasn’t had a consistent place to call home after the city determined the downtown police station, which lies just one block from city hall, was unfit for occupation.
That determination came just before Maldonado retired in 2019, and it’s what ultimately led to the memorandum of understanding the city commission took under consideration Tuesday night.
With a building unfit for human occupancy, Mercedes was forced to look elsewhere for a place to house its prisoners as they awaited transportation to the Hidalgo County jail.
Mercedes turned to Weslaco, which agreed to house Mercedes prisoners for a term of six months at a rate of $54 per prisoner per day.
The understanding at the time was that Mercedes would convert its public works building into a new police department, in part, by adding jail facilities to the existing structure. It was a project the city estimated could be finished by the end of 2019.
But six months soon turned into 12, and one year has now turned into 2.5 years with little change to the status of the Mercedes Police Department and its jail.
The city has apparently abandoned plans to retrofit the public works building, scrapping talks it held in 2020 with architect Eli Ochoa, of ERO Architects — the same firm that designed the new Hidalgo County Courthouse.
Ochoa’s plan had originally estimated the retrofitment would cost about $2.7 million before the commission whittled down the estimate to just under $1 million.
However, after funding discussions on the conversion went nowhere, Mercedes reversed course and has decided to rehabilitate the old police building it once considered unsalvageable.
The rehabilitation is expected to take a year.
“We got information that it’s gonna take about 12 months for us to be able to utilize our jail here in the city of Mercedes. This will complement that effort,” Place 2 Commissioner Leonel Benavidez said, referring to the extension of the prisoner agreement.
Though others on the commission shared Gomez’s concerns over finding a permanent police chief, no one else joined him in voting to limit the term of the prisoner contract.
“I understand, respectfully, what Commissioner Gomez is saying. There has to be some type of solution to this, but I feel like in only three months, we’re gonna be back in the same issue with housing our prisoners again,” Place 1 Commissioner Jacob Howell said.
“We’re gonna come back like a hamster on a wheel, so I don’t think the three months will do it,” he said.
Gomez’s motion died by a vote of 1-to-4.
A few moments later, Place 4 Commissioner Joe Martinez motioned to approve the 12 month extension. That motion passed 4-to-1.
