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Med school starts in ‘14
Auditor examines now-closed sheriff’s checking account By JJ VELASQUEZ THE ZAPATA TIMES
A Zapata County checking account whose legality has been questioned will be audited by an independent firm, commissioners unanimously decided at a meeting Monday. Commissioner Jose E. Vela has said a sheriff ’s office check-
ing account, which has since been closed, was never authorized by the court and had been excluded from the county audit since 2009, when it was opened. Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez, however, has contested that commissioners approved the account and that he sent monthly bank statements to County Treasurer Romeo Salinas and County Audi-
tor Triunfo Gonzalez. The court awaits a report from firm Flores Auditing PLLC, based in Laredo, which Commissioner Eddie Martinez said would likely be available by next Commissioners Court meeting on Aug. 27. Martinez said the questions surround whether or not the account was included in the county
audit. “(The county auditor) seems to be of the opinion that it hasn’t been excluded from the overall audit,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s been included. We want to make sure that it is.” He added further that commissioners had been requesting the
Ideas included “a one-stop-shop so that people don’t — companies and businessmen don’t have to repeatedly fill out the same form over and over again,” he said. The discussions took place a month and a half after the Mexican presidential elections, which shifted power back to the Institutional Revolutionary Party after 12 years out of office. Arnulfo Valdivia, a representative of President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, said the border region could pio-
See COUNCIL PAGE 12A
See MEDICINE PAGE 12A
TRADE, SECURITY BALANCE
Photo by Danny Zaragoza | The Zapata Times
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Earl Anthony Wayne, right, answers questions asked by the media as he leaves La Posada Hotel in Laredo on Thursday afternoon during the Council of the Americas conference.
Former ambassador: Allow business more leeway THE ZAPATA TIMES
LAREDO — Former Ambassador John Negroponte told reporters Thursday that for the decade after Sept. 11, security has been the main focus of border policy. “That was probably most appropriate and quite natural under the circumstances,” he said. “We also need now to right the balance and focus also more on the issue of competitiveness, of facilitating commerce.” Negroponte met Thursday
with representatives from more than 30 public and private organizations from the U.S. and Mexico as part of the Council of the Americas. The group met in a roundtable discussion at La Posada Hotel for talks on how to facilitate U.S.-Mexico trade. The U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 1989 to 1993, Negroponte was based in Mexico during negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement. He said that in the two decades since, bilateral trade has quadrupled. Trade between U.S. and Mexi-
co totaled $500 billion last year, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Entities represented at the roundtable included the Laredo Chamber of Commerce, Chevron, DHL, the U.S. Department of Commerce, Wal-Mart de Mexico and Texas A&M International University. TAMIU business professor Tagi Sagafi-nejad said much of the discussion focused on streamlining the inspection process for goods.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
EDINBURG — The first class of medical students in deep South Texas will graduate in 2018, University of Texas System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa announced Friday. Cigarroa set an ambitious timeline for what until just recently seemed a long-fought for, but ultimately unfulfilled, goal in Texas’ border region. The first class of medical students in a dedicated South Texas track will be admitted in 2014. They will train their first two years at the existing UT Health Science Center in San Antonio before moving to the Lower Rio Grande Valley for their final two years. The students will graduate under the accredited San Antonio school. But by 2018, Cigarroa hopes the South Texas medical school will attain its own accreditation, which would make it a free-standing medical school where, in theory, students could spend all four years. “It is truly going to be a medical school that serves a region and not a city,” said Cigarroa, himself a doctor and Laredo native. The new school will be built around existing UT System health facilities in Cameron and Hidalgo counties, including the Regional Academic Health Center Medical Research Division building at the University of Texas-Pan American campus in Edinburg where Cigarroa spoke Friday, as well as buildings in Harlingen and Brownsville. In 2011, UT System regents voted to invest $30 million in science and health education in South Texas and in May, they endorsed developing new medical schools in Austin and South Texas. The first South Texas class is expected to have 15 students. But by 2018, Cigarroa said they expect to admit about 50 students each year. Already, there are about 100 medical students in various facilities around the Rio Grande Valley, having chosen the border to spend their final two years of medical school. University officials and local politicians who pushed the issue for years believe it will result in more doctors setting up their practices
See ACCOUNT PAGE 12A
COUNCIL OF THE AMERICAS
By ANDREW KREIGHBAUM
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
TEXAS WORKFORCE COMMISSION
Unemployment numbers increase in Valley cities ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN — The unemployment rate increased in the Rio Grande Valley and across the state in July despite continued job growth, according to state jobless data released Friday. According to Texas Workforce Commission figures for Valley metropolitian areas, unemployment rose in the BrownsvilleHarlingen area to 11.6 percent
from June’s 11.5 percent as in the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission area, where unemployment increased to 12.3 percent from the previous month’s 12 percent. In other cities along the Rio Grande, Laredo’s unemployment rate dropped to 7.8, which is onetenth of a percent from June’s 7.9 percent rate. El Paso’s unemployment rate also dropped, from June’s 10.2 percent to July’s 10.1 percent.
In other South Texas cities, Corpus Christi (7 percent) and Victoria (6.4 percent) remained unchanged. Commission figures show the state added 17,800 non-farm jobs in July. But that wasn’t enough to keep up with rising population, causing the jobless rate to tick up from 7 percent in June. Statewide, unemployment rose for the second consecutive month to 7.2 percent in July.
The reversal comes after Texas saw eight consecutive months of falling unemployment through April. Nationally, the unemployment rate is at 8.3 percent and also climbed last month. Despite back-to-back months of rising unemployment in Texas, state workforce officials touted July, marking two straight years of monthly job gains. “Our state holds the best promise of finding a job and
achieving success,” said Ronny Congleton, the agency’s commissioner representing labor. Education and health services accounted for seven out of every 10 new jobs in Texas last month. The leisure and hospitality sector took the biggest hit, shedding 6,500 jobs. Unemployment rates are adjusted for seasonal trends in hir-
See EMPLOYMENT PAGE 12A