HARLINGEN — Federal grant money will be used for street improvements, swimming pool repairs, construction of low-income housing and assistance to local nonprofit organizations.

It’s part of the Harlingen Community Development Department’s new one-year plan aimed at pumping $1.01 million in grant money into the community.

Last week, city commissioners approved the plan required by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The city department will use $330,728 to improve seven streets southwest of Interstate 69, Director Tammy DeGannes-Jackson said yesterday.

She said the department also will use $89,000 to replace an old pump and filtration system at the Victor Park swimming pool, the city’s only Olympic-sized pool.

Meanwhile, the department will work with the Brownsville Community Development Corporation to use $215,417 to build homes for low-income buyers.

Jeremy Stremler, the Brownsville nonprofit agency’s associate for resource development and strategic planning, said officials plan to use the money to build two homes.

“It’s definitely a start,” Stremler said.

The Brownsville Community Development Corporation will begin to work with the city after replacing the Harlingen Community Development Corporation, which was found in noncompliance last year.

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PORT MANSFIELD — One of Willacy County’s most popular fishing piers may reopen soon.

Last month, a storm damaged the old pier at Fred Stone Park, where local anglers have boasted some of the best redfish, flounder and trout fishing on the Texas coast.

So officials closed the pier that for decades has helped draw crowds to the park on weekends.

Thursday, county commissioners will consider repairing the old pier.

The storm broke the pier’s frame, Amos Prado, the county’s code enforcement officer, said yesterday.

“It broke it up pretty good,” Prado said. “The boards came up. It’s a safety hazard.”

John Sterling, vice president of the Port Mansfield Chamber of Commerce, said anglers are driving south to the county’s new $1.8 million park that features a 500-foot fishing pier at the Laguna Point Recreation Area.

“Everybody’s going down there now,” Sterling said. “It’s pretty full, even during weekdays.”

While they figure out what to do with the old pier, county officials are planning a bigger project at Fred Stone Park.

For years, the park’s fishing pier and restrooms have fallen into disrepair.

The South Texas sun and the Laguna Madre’s hyper-saline waters have frayed some of its old planks.

So last month, county commissioners applied for a $686,610 grant under the Restore Act to try to revive the park.

The Restore Act was funded through penalties paid by oil companies found responsible for the April 2010 wellhead explosion off the Louisiana coast that led to the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

The county plans to build a 630-foot fishing pier, restrooms and a parking lot at the park on the northern edge of the fishing village.

Officials plan to use non-degradable material to build the park’s proposed pier, said Oralia Cardenas, a grant writer with GrantWorks in Austin.

Sterling said the improvements would draw more anglers to the park that has long been a favorite family picnic spot.

County spokeswoman Sally Velasquez said she did not have information on the date officials will announce whether the county won the grant, referring the question to Cardenas, who could not be reached for comment late Monday afternoon.

PORT MANSFIELD — One of Willacy County’s most popular fishing piers may reopen soon.

Last month, a storm damaged the old pier at Fred Stone Park, where local anglers have boasted some of the best redfish, flounder and trout fishing on the Texas coast.

So officials closed the pier that for decades has helped draw crowds to the park on weekends.

Thursday, county commissioners will consider repairing the old pier.

The storm broke the pier’s frame, Amos Prado, the county’s code enforcement officer, said yesterday.

“It broke it up pretty good,” Prado said. “The boards came up. It’s a safety hazard.”

John Sterling, vice president of the Port Mansfield Chamber of Commerce, said anglers are driving south to the county’s new $1.8 million park that features a 500-foot fishing pier at the Laguna Point Recreation Area.

“Everybody’s going down there now,” Sterling said. “It’s pretty full, even during weekdays.”

While they figure out what to do with the old pier, county officials are planning a bigger project at Fred Stone Park.

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MERCEDES — Esteban Flores is a natural-born leader.

The 18-year-old senior at the Science Academy of South Texas in Mercedes created a summer leadership program several years ago as a means of assisting a nonprofit organization, the Rio Grande Valley Family Leadership Academy, in preparing incoming ninth graders for public speaking.

His efforts have yielded the assistance of his fellow classmates, which began with five and grew to 25, and have garnered him praise from educators as well as the attention of Ivy League schools, of which he’s been accepted to seven.

“Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, and Dartmouth,” Esteban said on Thursday, listing the higher learning institutions where he’s received acceptance letters. “I have pretty high grades and scores, but I think what made me stand out was the program; having my own staff of high school students and running it ourselves, with the exception of one adult.”

The program, referred to as IDRGV, accepts eighth grade students from throughout the Rio Grande Valley through an application and recruitment process. In this its third year, Esteban said participants meet every Sunday and often during the weekdays to engage in public speaking exercises and critical thinking as it relates to leadership development.

Among such exercises is a mock trial which, as the program’s creator explained, has helped produce a more confident freshmen class.

When considering that a curriculum was designed for the program at the time Esteban was a sophomore, it’s evident why many are impressed with his efforts.

“It’s a lot of hours of working one on one with them,” Esteban said of the program’s scope. “The program is pretty much based on public speaking as a form of leadership, because it doesn’t matter how great your ideas are if you can’t communicate them. So we help them if they have the skills and abilities to do that. We do a lot of team activities in the program. There’s a wide-variety of different activities we do to help them develop those skills.”

Before the program launched, Esteban said he researched online resources and spoke to professionals, such as attorneys, in an effort to evaluate the exercises that make up the program today.

“The nonprofit organization we work with wanted an eighth grade program because we have a ninth grade one, so I took it upon myself to tackle it,” he added. “We recruited and did all the logistical work, too.”

Now that he’s chosen to attend Harvard, Esteban plans to hone his own leadership talents notably exhibited during his work to build the program from scratch. And although he hasn’t settled on a major, he’s considering physics, math, political science and philosophy.

With regard to the impact of the program he’ll leave behind, Esteban recalled, “The first year we did it, there was this really shy student who, in the beginning, wouldn’t say a thing and would just stand in the back. Our program concentrates on public speaking exercises, so it was pretty tough on her. But we worked with her, and when had a mock trial she ended up winning a competition to see who would be the attorney. Now, she’s on the school’s mock trial team as an attorney. That was important to see … how kids can really improve themselves.”

BROWNSVILLE — Physicists at the Brownsville campus of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley will share in a $3 million Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics awarded for the first detection of gravitational waves.

The historic discovery, which occurred in September at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory in Livingston, Louisiana, was made possible by an algorithm developed by two UTRGV physics professors, Soumya D. Mohanty and Malik Rakhmanov, working in collaboration with faculty from the University of Florida.

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Thomas Jefferson and many other respected leaders have stated the first step in enslaving people is to take away their firearms. In response to the killings by young students in our schools, our government is considering whether this should be done in America.

Perhaps, we should take a more analytical look at the root cause of these senseless murders.

Instead of being taught to respect guns and use them responsibly, little boys are given guns among their first playthings. Then, they graduate to computer-generated virtual reality. Parents buy their sons computer games that simulate battlefield conditions. They kill their “enemies” for hours every day, and engage in “street shootouts” until their minds become numb to killing.

How many girls are there that play with guns and simulated war games? How many girls have committed murder on school grounds or in the streets?

The answer to the problem is not taking guns from responsible citizens, leaving them victims of crimes and helpless to protect their homes and families, but in putting some legal restraints on the industry that is getting rich on the training materials that comprise their school for murder.

Parents, before you shell out for their curriculum, remember this: “Raise up a child in the way we should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Joanne O’Brien Harlingen

SAN BENITO — Cameron County commissioners have made a commitment to invest $1.3 million toward the construction of a new animal shelter.

The new shelter, which will be more than twice the size of the current one, will provide some much needed space to accommodate the influx of animals the Cameron County Department of Health and Human Services deals with daily.

It will be located in the same area as the old one at 1390 W. Expressway 83 in San Benito, and it will be 5,121 square feet.

“If you go out there and you look at the building — I don’t want to even call it a facility — it’s much needed,” said David Garcia, county administrator. “We need a place in the county where our employees can work that is helpful to them when they’re dealing with animals and keeping them in a safe place.”

The new shelter will include 34 large kennels (including 10 quarantine), with separate cat and dog isolation kennels, puppy kennels, cat kennels and 10 large exterior kennels for temporary relocation.

The site also will have mechanical equipment mezzanines and on-site wastewater treatment.

The current shelter is approximately 2,079 square feet and was built in 1990 as a rabies quarantine facility.

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SAN BENITO — A fire that broke out during a Mother’s Day gathering yesterday destroyed a family’s home.

No one was hurt in the blaze.

A family member said the family was gathered at the home on FM 510, near Stenger Road, yesterday afternoon when they noticed smoke and then fire.

Black billowing smoke could be seen from as far away as Harlingen. The fire burned for more than three hours before it was extinguished just after 5 p.m.

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The San Benito Fire Department requested assistance from the Los Fresnos and Harlingen fire departments.

“It looks like a total loss,” said Interim San Benito Police Chief Michael Galvan. “The Red Cross has been notified.”

The American Red Cross was at the scene with its emergency response vehicle providing water and other refreshments to emergency crews.

A family member said there was no water at a fire hydrant near the home.

Fire Chief Raul Zuniga said they had “plenty of water.”

He said a fire engine with 1,000 gallons of water was backed up by a water tanker with 3,000 gallons. A water supply was established with a 5-inch hose connected to the fire hydrant in front of the house, which supplied an engine feeding four firefighting lines, he said.

“We had plenty of water and we were never low on water,” Zuniga said.

At the scene, a 5-inch, yellow water line could be seen attached to the fire hydrant.

HARLINGEN — A fight that broke out in the middle of a residential street over the weekend ended in a stabbing.

Police have arrested a suspect, Adalberto Gurriven, 25. He was in the city jail last night awaiting arraignment on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, police said.

No other information about Gurriven was available yesterday.

Police were called to the 100 block of West Wilson Avenue shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday. The caller said “several” people were fighting in the middle of the street.

When officers arrived, they found that one man had been stabbed in the stomach.

He was taken to a hospital for treatment. But his identity and condition were not available.

Police said their investigation led them to believe that Gurriven had done the stabbing and they obtained an arrest warrant.

Gurriven was found and arrested later that day.

Residents who were out yesterday said they did not know anything about the fight. But they described the area as a nice, quiet residential neighborhood.

It is located a short distance from C.B. Wood Park and an entrance to the Arroyo Colorado Hike and Bike Trail, where families were enjoying an afternoon in the park for Mother’s Day.

“I grew up here and we’ve never had any problems,” said one man, who did not give his name.

LYFORD — Longtime City Commissioner Wally Solis lost his seat as he, three incumbents and a political newcomer wrangled for votes in Saturday’s at-large election.

Five candidates vied for four open seats on the commission.

Solis, a retired military officer, fell short with 110 votes.

Albert Cavazos, a former police officer first elected to a one-year term in 2015, was the election’s biggest vote-getter with 152 votes, while Tony Chavez, an accountant who has served on the commission since 2006, pulled 137 votes.

Commissioner Maggie Quilantan, a retiree first elected in 2014 after being appointed in 2012, and newcomer Rick Salinas, a teacher and coach, each took 123 votes.

Solis, who was first elected in 1995, served until 2009, when he was deployed for military duty in Iraq.

In 2010, Solis returned to office, going on to win election in 2012 and 2014.