ODEM, Tx — Odem city leaders discussed the possibility of bringing back the city's own police department and renewed an interlocal agreement with San Patricio County for animal control services during Tuesday's city council meeting.
One of the most debated topics was whether Odem could bring back its own police department and hire a police chief. Mayor David Maldonado acknowledged the idea but said the city's finances make it difficult to move forward right now.
"I'm not against it, but I do wanna make clear that myself, our financial advisor and city administrator have looked, and we just do not have the revenue to sustain a police department at this time," Maldonado said.
Maldonado also noted that having only one officer creates gaps in service.
"Just having one police officer, the DPS will no longer help investigate traffic accidents within the city limits. So we would need a second officer to help approve accident reports," Maldonado said.
In February 2024, the city retired Odem Police Chief Gerardo Ochoa. Since then, bringing back the police department has been discussed at other city council meetings. However, with the city still working through its financial challenges, council members have not taken a vote on moving forward with the idea.
City Attorney Epi Ysassi urged caution before making any hiring decisions.
"At this point, I think we really need to, to kind of step back and, and see what those new regulations are before we jump in and, and start hiring people," Ysassi said.
Isaac Dominguez, who holds Place 3 on the Odem City Council, said the recurring discussion needs to lead somewhere and suggested a city marshal model could be the path forward.
"It keeps coming up because we don't, we're not doing anything either, either it's gonna die or or, or you have maybe we go to a marshal type service like y'all are talking about something that is still we're still able to take care of our citizens we're still able to go forward with it and we can still get serviced by the county and, and we're all working together," Dominguez said.
No action was taken on the police department discussion. Council members said they wanted to explore a city marshal option, similar to other Coastal Bend communities. The council then moved forward with renewing its interlocal agreement with San Patricio County.
Gabriel Arroyo, San Patricio County's director of environmental health, described both the scope of the renewed agreement and the work that goes into responding to calls.
"So it's not just, 'Oh, we're gonna go address this call. I mean, it's from like day one to day 10 and even after day 10. So it's a lot of leg work, you know, coming multiple trips to, to the city, and it's specifically just for the bite calls and like I said, you know, we do some dog calls out of courtesy, you know, that we have done before that's not part of the agreement," Arroyo said.
Arroyo also clarified the agreement's limitations.
"But this new agreement is strictly the continuation of human bite calls only," Arroyo said.
Following previous reporting on residents' concerns about roaming dogs — after some neighbors said their pets and livestock had been killed — Maldonado said addressing the problem is now one of his top priorities.
"We will see over the next year or so, see if what the county is doing for us is something that we can fiscally take on with the responsibility and hire an individual to handle these kinds of situations," Maldonado said.
