Rep.-elect Dominguez to hold town hall

LAGUNA VISTA — District 37 state Rep.elect Alex Dominguez continues to do something several city managers say their cities have never had before.

As Dominguez continues his preparation for the legislative session, he has been working on his goal to visit every city in his district and hear feedback on issues that are important to every community.

District 37 is comprised of Brownsville, Rio Hondo, Port Isabel, Los Fresnos and South Padre Island. So far, Dominguez has attended town hall meetings in Port Isabel and South Padre Island. Laguna Vista will be the next city he visits during his town hall meeting tour.

Members of the community can bring up any state regulated issues or topics they want at the informal meeting. School financing, state budget decisions, local control issues, tourism, transportation and the second causeway to South Padre Island are topics that residents have been talking about with Dominguez in his previous town hall meetings.

Dominguez said one of the things the city of Port Isabel has asked for help with is allowing better interaction between them and Texas parks officials and to determine the future of the lighthouse.

As for Laguna Vista, he said members of the community want some assistance with finding funding for an allinclusive park that kids of all physical ability levels or development levels can use.

“Improved job training, a better development of higher education facilities and coastal restoration for South Padre Island” are some of the issues Dominguez would like to work on for the district.

“South Padre Island loses about 10 feet of sand every year,” Dominguez said. “At the rate of erosion without nourishment, we could really start seeing the Island coast be drastically reduced.”

If that happens, he said we will probably see fewer and fewer tourists coming to South Padre, which potentially means many people who work in the tourism industry could lose their jobs.

Protecting sea turtles is another reason why the state representativeelect wants to work on Island coastal restoration.

“Our sea turtles come back every year and we want to make sure that they’re not endangered or moving somewhere else where they are not as protected because we’re losing so much sand,” Dominguez said.

The soon-to-be Texas state representative thinks town hall meetings are the best way for a community to get to know him and be able to interact with him before the session gets started in January.

Dominguez described himself as being very approachable and mentioned that this will not be the only time members of the community will be able to get in touch with him. However, he hopes that community members can attend the meeting and get to know him.

Dominguez won the seat in May in a runoff election. He will be replacing longtime state Rep. Rene Oliveira, who had been representing the district since 1981.

There is no Republican challenger in the general election. Dominguez will take office in January.