CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Three candidates for Nueces County commissioner Pct. 3 are concerned about the county budget and have different approaches they'd like to see tried to help.
Democrat candidate Joe Ortiz said he'd like to see the county re-examine any agreement that would split development fees evenly with the county.
"The developers they build a subdivision within the city," Ortiz said. "What about if they build a subdivision outside the city? Who gets the fees from the development services within the city? The city does. But if you build in the county, they have a memorandum of understanding since 2004 that they were going to give half to the county. They haven't done that in over 20 years."
Republican candidate Larry Cantu said he would like to attract more business to county land for additional taxes.
"Our infrastructure, really focusing on our county roads, our drainage and our county parks," Cantu said. "To bring in business, development is definitely going to assist the county whether it's in the budget aspect or also just partnering with these businesses and bringing the development to our area."
Incumbent John Marez said a healthier budget isn't for luxuries but to keep good people working for the county.
"Yeah, we lose staff at the county all the time," Marez said. "Law enforcement and the civilian staff because they can go find better opportunities somewhere else, so we need a bigger budget so we can afford a good competitive salary package for these employees if they want to stay here. Or we can recruit others to come here, so it's all connected, but really the budget is what we need to focus on."
We reached out to the fourth candidate, Rene Cervantes, to ask for his input and we haven't heard back. The county republican party says they too have been unable to contact Cervantes.
To read more about the candidates, you can read the League of Women Voters candidate profiles by clicking here.
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