October 2022

The 2022-2023 academic year marks the 15-year anniversary for Borderlands Research Institute launched at Sul Ross State University in the fall of 2007. Since then, the organization has been a key player in collaborative wildlife research in the Trans-Pecos, while offering meaningful graduate projects for students enrolled in the Natural Resource Management program at Sul Ross.

The City of Alpine held its regularly scheduled council meeting on Oct 4 and plenty of debate and opinions were heard at the meeting regarding a replat issue with a proposed commercial retail development within city limits, a Dollar General. A large crowd of opposed citizens gathered in the civic center to show their opposition to the retail store.

The problem of uncollected hotel motel occupancy taxes has been a hot topic of much discussion in Brewster County, with many consequences on the line affecting both the county and hotel-motel operators. Having all hoteliers, including short-term rental/air-bnb owners pay their fair share of hotel motel occupancy taxes not only contributes to doing business the right way while stimulating the local economy, but it also trickles down to other county needs such as infrastructure, roads, and more that county residents need.