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SFDRCISD CITY OF DEL RIO City election runoffs

School board
delays decision
on field turf
expenditure
BY MEGAN TACKETT
megan.tackett
@delrionewsherald.com
A decision to improve
a playing field at a
local middle school was
postponed last week,
during the school board’s
meeting, due to budget
concerns.
The meeting’s agenda
included an item to cover
Del Rio Middle School’s
football field with artifi-
cial turf, a $562,212 proj-
ect, that would be carried
out by Field Turf U.S.A.
Some San Felipe Del Rio
CISD Board of Trustees
members, including
board president Ray-
mond Meza, opted to de-
lay the project’s approval
to assess the budget.
“It’s short notice for us,”
Meza said. “I’d like to first
have a budget workshop.
I really need more time to
look at every specific item
in regards to this expense.
It is quite big.”
SFDRCISD Super-
intendent Carlos Rios
reassured trustees that
the budget could easily
accommodate the project,
along with other upcom-
ing expenditures, and
anticipates an additional
$4 million in revenue
next school year.
“By making this com-
mitment, there’s still
sufficient money in excess
City runoff elections pushed back
New municipal runoff
elections slated for
June 23
BY KAREN GLEASON
karen.gleason
@delrionewsherald.com
A new date has been set
for runoff elections for two
city council positions.
The Del Rio City Council
on Monday picked June 23
as the new election date.
U.S. AIR FORCE
Capt. Chantal Mortezaee takes off in a T-1 aircraft at the start of Laughlin Air Force Base’s 2018 “Fiesta of Flight” open house and
air show. Mortezaee was the only pilot in the show from Del Rio.
The council on May 21 set
June 9 as the date for runoff
elections for the Council-
person At-Large, Place C,
and the Councilperson,
District II, seats.
Early voting in the runoff
elections begins at 8 a.m.
on Monday, June 11, to 5
p.m. on Friday, June 15.
If a petition is presented,
there will be additional
early voting from 7 a.m. to
7 p.m. on Saturday, June
16. There will also be early
voting from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
on Monday, June 18, and
Tuesday, June 19.
All early voting will be in
the Kennedy Room at the
Del Rio Civic Center, 1915
Veterans Blvd.
Val Verde County Clerk
Generosa “Janie” Ramon,
who was contracted by the
city to conduct its 2018 mu-
nicipal elections, told the
council Monday when
See RUNOFF Page 3A
Contributed photo by the U.S. Air Force
rescheduled
n COUNCILPERSON At-Large Place
C, and City of Del Rio District II
Councilperson early voting will be-
gin at 8 a.m. on Monday, June 11.
n EARLY voting will go on until
5 p.m. on Friday, June 15. If a
petition is presented, there will be
additional early voting from 7 a.m.
to 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 16.
n THERE will also be early voting
from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday,
Photo by Karen Gleason
Del Rioan Mary Alice Go- June 18, and Tuesday, June 19.
mez speaks to the Del Rio n ALL EARLY voting will be in the
City Council during Mon- Kennedy Room at the Del Rio
day’s special meeting. Civic Center, 1915 Veterans Blvd.
CRIME
Convenience
store robbed
at gunpoint
BY MEGAN TACKETT
megan.tackett
@delrionewsherald.com
A masked man robbed a
local convenience store em-
ployee at gunpoint Sunday
night, making off with an
unknown amount of cash,
according to a report.
The man entered Stripes,
1602 Veterans Blvd., at 10:28
p.m., exposed a handgun
and demanded cash from a
male employee, according to
a Del Rio Police Department
report. The suspect fled on
foot with an un-
determined
amount of
money, said
DRPD Lt.
Paul Hurley.

drhs grad
funds balance should we DRPD
have to allocate something so all of the students here Officer Jorge
toward insurance as we are T-1 students,” Morte- Aguirre re-
did last year,” Rios said zaee said. sponded to the incident
during the meeting, ref- As a member of the 86th and made contact with the
erencing a previous turf Flying Training Squadron, employee, Hurley said. The

project at Walter Lever-
mann Memorial Stadium.
Athletic Director Ric
Smith said during the
meeting that although
the turf project would
require an expense, it
would also cut costs on
watering, sodding and
other efforts maintain the
existing field.
“What it takes yearly
for upkeep by putting turf
down over six or seven
years, we would recoup
that money and have a
much safer field,” Smith
said during the meeting.
Contractors will need
to complete the project by
August, Rios said, when
the 2018-2019 school year
begins. The project must
begin within a specific
timeframe, otherwise the
field will need re-sodding.
Representatives from
Field Turf said the project
would take 40 to 60 days
to complete, Smith said.
FLYING HIGH
BY KAREN GLEASON
karen.gleason
@delrionewsherald.com
A Del Rio High School
graduate has found her
dream job — for now — as
an Air Force pilot and
instructor of pilots.
Currently, USAF Capt.
Chantal Mortezaee is
stationed at Laughlin
Air Force Base, where
she works as a Phase III
instructor pilot. Morte-
zaee was the only pilot in
Laughlin’s recent “Fiesta
33.3%
40.4%
she is also a member of the employee reported the man
47th Operations Group, was wearing a black mask, a
and above that, the 47th gray hooded sweatshirt and
Flying Training Wing. black pants.
Mortezaee was born and “During the commission
of Flight” air show and raised in England. of the theft the subject took
open house who calls Del “My stepdad is Ameri- out a handgun, pointed it
Rio home. can, so he and my mother at him and demanded he
“Phase III is the ad- got married, and we moved put the money into a black
vanced phase of pilot train- to Panama for a year-and-a- backpack,” Hurley said.
ing, so the students have half. We moved to Laughlin The suspect fled the scene
already completed academ- when I was in sixth grade, on foot out the store’s back
ics, which is Phase I, and so this is my American door after the robbery, the
T-6s, which is Phase II, and home. Before coming here, report states. The clothing
now they’re here in Phase I’d never lived in the U.S. was later recovered in an
III, and we’re on the T-1 Capt. Chantal Mortezaee, a before,” Mortezaee said. area behind Manuel’s Steak-
side, which is the cargo/ flight commander and T-1 in- She attended middle house, three blocks away
tanker track,” Mortezaee structor pilot at Laughlin AFB. school and high school in from the Stripes, according
said. Del Rio. to the report.
She is also the command- the 86th Flying Training Mortezaee is a 2006 The employee did not pro-
er of I Flight, “Iguana” Squadron at Laughlin. vide a physical description
Flight, which is part of “That’s the T-1 squadron, See FLYING Page 3A of the suspect.
Conservative
program
Conservative program
The Fourth of July fest, sponsored by the City of Del Rio, is just over a month away,
and the citizens of Del Rio are expressing their preference toward a conservative
26.3% and budget-friendly program.
According to an online poll posted by the Del Rio News-Herald at delrionewsher-
Top of the line ald.com the most-voted option was a conservative program, with 40.4 percent of
artists the votes cast. The second most popular option was a full blown program with top
of the line artists regardless of the cost, garnering 33.3 percent of the preferences.
Those voting to leave the organization of the fest in the hands of nonprofits, rather
than spending taxpayers’ money on the event, garnered 26.3 percent of the votes.
We thank you for your participation. Your opinion is very important to us.
Leave it to This week we posted a new poll asking for your favorite things to do over the sum-
nonprofits mer break. Visit our website at delrionewsherald.com and vote!

WEATHER OBITUARIES THE NEWS-HERALD ONLINE

Del Rio
Vol. 88 No. 106
Copyright 2018
WED. THU. FRI. Maximiano ‘Chano’ Montalvo, With graduation around the corner and the Del Rio News-Herald
87 summer almost here, what is your favorite
activity during the school break?
Visit our website at delrionewsherald.com and
vote!
103° 75° 102° 74° 106° 78°

Page Two 2A Opinion 4A Sports 6A Entertainment 6A Comics 7A Business 8A Classifieds 9A

WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2018
FLYING
From Page 1A
graduate of Del Rio High
School, where she played
soccer for the Queens and
was a track standout, a
member of the 1600-meter
relay team that set a school
record in 2005.
Mortezaee said she
believed she received an
excellent education in Del
Rio’s public schools, one that
prepared her for both the rig-
ors of attending a world-class
university and pilot training
in the U.S. Air Force.
“I think that Del Rio
definitely has its challenges,
but so does every town. I
can’t say specifics, because
I wasn’t a teacher here, but
I’m not the only Air Force
officer from Del Rio High
School, and the U.S. Ma-
rines have a ton of people
from Del Rio High School.
“The education here is
great, I think. The teachers
here really work hard, and
I have a lot of friends that
are teachers here. I think
my education definitely
prepared me. The schools
here offer you the same great
opportunities that you can
have in other schools. I took
RUNOFF
From Page 1A
she reviewed the election
ordinance the council had
passed on May 21, “there
was a concern on my part
regarding the time available was called ... when Ms.
that I would have to mail out Ramon is talking about a 45-
the required applications
for ballots by mail.”
“... The required time is election date that’s set. It’s a
45 days from the date of the 45-day deadline that applies
election. Evidently, that was to federal people who want
not possible from the way
the (May 21) ordinance was and so the (state) election
worded. However, since
that time, I reached out to
the Secretary of State and
requested assistance in how voters within 45 days of the
I could meet this deadline,
since I knew I had a very
short time, and I wasn’t
going to be able to do it,”
Ramon told the council.
City Attorney Suzanne
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dual-credit college classes,
I took advanced placement
exams ... I think that you just
have to work hard,” she said.
After graduating fifth
in her DRHS class, Morte-
zaee attended and earned a
degree from the prestigious
Embry-Riddle Aeronauti-
cal University in Daytona
Beach, Fla.
Mortezaee said she con-
sidered a career in aviation
from an early age.
“My family’s really big
into aviation, and my dad
was in security forces here,
and my mom worked in
maintenance, doing lo-
gistics and records on the
flight line, and she’s really
big into aviation. My dad
was hard-nose enlisted,
and he said I couldn’t enlist
because he was enlisted,”
Mortezaee said.
Growing up in Del Rio,
she said she also remem-
bered the constant presence
of Laughlin aircraft in the
skies over the city.
“I’d see them flying really
close together and doing
really cool things. As a
high schooler, I’d see them
running around looking
stressed but also really en-
thusiastic about what they
were doing, and it really
West interjected, noting,
“The ordinance that was
done on May 21 was com-
pletely valid in every way.
It meets all the deadlines
that are required. There is
nothing illegal or improper
about the way this election
day deadline, that deadline
counts backward from the
to vote but are overseas,
code requires that those
mail-in ballots are supposed
to go out to those overseas
election. However, that’s
never going to occur on any
runoff.
“The reason why is that
the election code’s latest date
you could possibly do an
FROM PAGE 1A
seemed like an honorable
cause, as cheesy as that
might sound, and it sounded
challenging and cool, and
I wanted to do my part,”
Mortezaee said.
Mortezaee earned her de-
gree from Embry-Riddle and
instead of entering the private
sector, joined the Air Force.
“It was a combination of
things; seeing my dad in the
Air Force and seeing the
motivation to serve, that
was really the strongest
point. I already knew I want-
ed to be in the Air Force,
first, and then being a pilot
was the coolest job in the
Air Force,” Mortezaee said.
She said when she joined
the Air Force, she went
through a summer training
program while she was still
in college.
“If you don’t go through
one of the academies, that
counts as your basic train-
ing in combination with
your four years of ROTC
(Reserve Officer Training
Corps),” Mortezaee said.
She was assigned to
Laughlin Air Force Base
where she went through un-
dergraduate pilot training.
The return, she said, was
a homecoming of sorts, but
“it was different to be on the
election is 45 days after your
canvass. Yes, if you canvass
on a night and call your elec-
tion on that same night, and
do your deadline on the far-
thest date out possible, and
send your ballots out that
same day, you could hit that
deadline. Other than that,
you would never hit that
deadline on a runoff ... and
the Secretary of State is well
aware that it never happens
in a runoff,” West said.
She added that the previ-
ous ordinance passed by the
council “violated no dead-
lines.”
Ramon also noted, “In ad-
dition to that, we have no bal-
lots. The ballots have not been
ordered because you have not
had a ballot drawing, and I
don’t know what the order of
the candidates is supposed to
be on that ballot.”
Ramon said she and City
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other side.”
“I used to run on the track
looking up, using that as my
motivation to keep running
because I knew I would be
competing to get up there
with those guys (pilots).
To come back as a student,
I was really honored to
be here. It’s a competitive
process to be a pilot and not
everyone makes it through,
so it was like coming home,
but a completely different
side of home than I had ever
seen,” she said.
Mortezaee graduated
from pilot training in July
2012 and asked for an as-
signment to fly C-17s, huge
transport aircraft.
“The goal in pilot training
is to get us through as the
best aviators we can be, so
we all have to fight to be the
best, and when we get to
the end (of training) we are
‘racked and stacked’ and
assigned an aircraft based
on how we did. I lucked out;
I got what I wanted, and that
was C-17s,” Mortezaee said.
Asked to describe the
enormous aircraft, Mor-
tezaee said, “It’s my first
love,” then added,
“The C-17 isn’t the biggest,
but it is very capable. It’s the
Air Force’s combination of
Secretary Biatris “Susie”
Vela had a teleconference
with the Secretary of State’s
office on Thursday.
Ramon said she, Vela
and West then had another
teleconference with the Sec-
retary of State’s attorneys,
and West asked that those
suggestions be put in writ-
ing, and a detailed memo
was sent by the Secretary of
State’s office.
Councilman Alfredo
“Fred” Carranza asked
Ramon, “If the council
decides on June 23, does that
give you time to complete
all the tasks you need to
complete?”
After Ramon acknowl-
edged that it was, the coun-
cil moved into executive
session to confer with West
for about an hour.
After the council returned
to open session and Mayor
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strategic and tactical airlift,
so think strategic, like the
C-5, just big, taking things
into theater and then the
C-130, which is more tactical,
taking things intra-theater,
so maybe from one combat
base to another one. The C-17
is able to do a little bit – or a
lot – of both,” she said.
Mortezaee said one of the
things she appreciates most
about the C-17 is its culture.
“The community has a
mindset, so if you were to
go over to the T-38 squadron
(where fledgling fighter
pilots are trained), you’d
find a completely different
mindset than we have here.
Here we do crew concepts,
working together, interact-
ing with other people on
longer missions. There, it’s
more of a single seat mental-
ity. They fly in formation, so
they still have teammates,
but they’re doing everything
in the plane themselves. It’s
just a very different mentali-
ty,” Mortezaee said.
After graduating from
UPT at Laughlin, Mortezaee
was assigned to McGuire
Air Force Base in New
Jersey and flew C-17s for
nearly four years before
coming back to Laughlin
once again.
Bruno “Ralphy” Lozano an-
nounced no action was taken
in closed session, the council
began its consideration of the
new ordinance setting the
election date for June 23.
West once again remind-
ed the council that the ordi-
nance it had passed on May
21 “meets all the election
code and charter require-
ments.”
West then went through
the new ordinance up for
consideration, which listed
a number of findings by the
council, including “that
there is not sufficient time
for ballots to be sent out and
returned to the city in time
for the results to be included
in the runoff election on the
date previously set.”
“Lastly, the council finds
it necessary to move the
election to a later date, as
authorized by the election
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“I loved it while I was
there, and I love it here
now,” she said, noting that
she will probably stay in
Del Rio for about two more
years.
What’s ahead for her?
“Just riding the wave.
We’ll see where it goes,” she
said with a smile.
She added, “I love my
job here. Training pilots
is amazing. The students
are incredible. The base is
extremely supportive, and
we get amazing opportu-
nities, so if I’m this happy
going forward, then sure,
a career in the Air Force is
something I’d consider, but
you never know what life’s
going to throw at you.”
Mortezaee also said she
was very honored to fly in
the air show.
“There were some amaz-
ing aviators out there and
some really cool planes,
so I felt really honored to
demonstrate some of the
T-1’s capabilities ... also, the
Del Rio community is super
supportive of us and has
helped us out so much with
funding and support, and it
really was cool to fly a little
bit for them and say thanks
for enabling us to do what
we do,” she added.
code, in order to assist as
many voters as possible who
may need to vote by mail-in
ballot. Importantly, that will
include those that will mail
in ballots from overseas and
it also includes any disabled
or elderly voters in the local
area that need that capabili-
ty,” West said.
Councilman John Sheedy
made the motion to approve
the ordinance, and Coun-
cilwoman Diana Bejarano
Salgado gave the second.
Garza offered two amend-
ments, asking that the
ordinance include language
stating the runoffs could not
be held on June 9, because
of the time requirements
for drawing for a place on
the ballot and for testing of
voting equipment.
After additional comments
from the council, the ordi-
nance passed unanimously.
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