Area News

McAllen residents will see five potential school board newcomers vying for two contested seats in the May election after the board’s longest serving member dropped out of the race last week and another candidate did the same Thursday.   That potential newcomer, McAllen Education Foundation board member Jennifer Collins Stone, had filed to run in…

The La Joya school district is already planning the budget for the next school year, which includes a projected $10.4 million deficit and loss of about 900 students — meaning La Joya ISD has their work cut out for them to achieve a balanced budget. At the February school board meeting, Chief of Business and…

The three Sharyland ISD School Board trustees whose terms expire this May all filed to run for their seats again and none drew any challengers, meaning the district will cancel its May election.   Those trustees are Hector Rivera, who holds Place 5, Dr. Noel Oliveira in Place 6 and David Keith in Place 7.…

Police arrested a University of Texas Rio Grande Valley football recruit last year after he allegedly filmed himself having consensual sex with a woman who didn’t know he was recording her.     University police arrested Tristan Compton, a 19-year-old long snapper from Buda, on Oct. 10 and charged him with invasive visual recording, a…

A judge Thursday morning extended a temporary restraining order that prevents Sullivan City from employing a special counsel attorney, though that order appears poised to be dissolved when someone on city council signs a contract for that lawyer.   Last month Sullivan City’s council authorized its city manager to negotiate a contract with Frank Garza…

Shary Municipal Golf Course director Michael Fernuik hopes the city-owned course can benefit from an improvement project that would include the installation of lighting on nine holes for night play and the repair greens and fairways.     “There would be nothing else down here like it,” Fernuik said. “You can go to places like…

Insurance consulting company ESC-100 Executive Consulting Services sued Peñitas last month alleging the city failed to pay it tens of thousands of dollars for work performed last year.   According to the suit, the city of Peñitas hired ESC-100 Executive Consulting Services in August.   The company, which is owned by Raymondville ISD Superintendent Stetson…

Agua Special Utility District Board President Adriana Villarreal sued La Joya ISD last week claiming that the district had persisted in illegally banning her from its facilities and events despite protests from her that included a suggestion that Agua SUD would reclaim land it allows the school district to use.     Villarreal’s suit claims…

In the middle of an interview last year, just after the Texas Education Agency finally decided to replace La Joya ISD’s leadership, Commissioner Mike Morath took a moment to stop chatting about the district’s troubled past and its prospective new future to speculate on what could have been.   After significant resistance, the TEA had…