CCFD battle fire on Lynch and 19th St<\/a><\/p>\nThe city\u2019s new 10-to-15-year master plan would eventually move eight departments \u2014 including streets, stormwater and traffic operations \u2014 into one centralized location. Public Works Director Ernie De La Garza says the move could improve efficiency and emergency response.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo public works we have three groups: our stormwater group, our streets team and also our traffic team,\u201d De La Garza said. \u201cWhat this building will do for us is put all of those teams in one building. So you\u2019re looking at 75 to 100 people. Currently we\u2019re spaced out at City Hall, a portable building, sharing the solid waste building and the parks department. We\u2019d like to get ourselves co-located so we can function more efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n
City officials say the new complex would be designed to withstand a Category 4 hurricane \u2014 allowing critical staff to shelter in place and respond immediately after a storm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Hurricane Beryl came, we were preparing for that weather event,\u201d De La Garza said. \u201cWhat this building will do for us is help us all shelter in place and as soon as the storm comes through, we are able to mobilize to start putting the city back together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The plan also includes moving Public Works\u2019 stockpile yard \u2014 currently located behind Animal Care Services \u2014 to a new site across from the landfill transfer station. The relocation would free up land for Animal Care\u2019s future expansion.<\/p>\n
But not everyone on City Council is convinced the project should be a priority. District 5 Councilman Gil Hernandez questioned the need for new facilities, saying remote work and technology have already improved communication across departments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith all of the remote working and connectivity with phones and laptops, it seems like that\u2019s going backwards,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if that\u2019s the best way to describe it other than someone wanting a new building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hernandez also noted that funding the project will require tough choices about what to prioritize.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe building kind of stuff for us, or even City Hall \u2014 it\u2019s nice to have, right? But you need to make sure you\u2019re taking care of what\u2019s important for the city,\u201d he said. \u201cWe still have lots of roads we need to fix. It\u2019s a balancing act.\u201d<\/p>\n
City Manager Peter Zanoni told Council during its Tuesday meeting that the project would likely be funded through future bond programs, done in phases over the next decade or more.<\/p>\n
Each department that could relocate to the Civitan site will still need to submit individual plans before any bond money is appropriated for construction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City leaders detailed the long-term plan to consolidate public works at the Civitan site \u2014 but questions on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-45821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}