MARFA — In the days following Presidio County’s decision to defund the Marfa Golf Course and Vizcaino Park effective October 1, County Commissioner Deirdre Hisler, whose precinct includes the facilities, is vowing to keep the parks open with the help of the community.
“Just because it’s defunded, it is still a public asset. I have no intention of locking any gate,” Hisler said. “In the interest of doing the right thing, I’m going to come up with a plan.”
She said she is in contact with several entities including the Marfa Golf Association, Marfa ISD, Los Yonke Gallos de Marfa sandlot baseball team and the City of Marfa about next steps. Figuring out who is going to pay water and electricity bills to keep the facilities maintained until a lessee can be located is the most pressing need, Hisler said. It was previously stated by County Attorney Blair Park that a request for proposals (RFP) process for a lease, or leases, would take at least 5-6 months to properly execute.
“We — as a community that want to preserve the investment that’s already in Vizcaino Park, that’s already in the golf course — have to come together to figure out how we maintain that asset,” Hisler said.
Hisler, a previous regional director with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, is in the process of locating individuals who are willing to put electric accounts in their names and pay bills. She also plans to approach the Marfa City Council to request water bills be waived for a year. So far, annual water costs from October 2024 to August 2025 for the golf course and Vizcaino Park are $1,150 and $760 respectively. There are also county-owned wells in the area. Annual electricity costs are coming in at $17,700 for the golf course and $3,600 for Vizcaino Park.
Hisler and County Commissioner David Beebe voted against defunding the county-owned parks during budget discussions last week, while Commissioners Margarito Hernandez, Frankie Ortiz and County Judge Joe Portillo voted in favor, arguing that tough cuts had to be made considering the county’s dire financial situation, and they just couldn’t justify the expense to South County taxpayers in Presidio and beyond.
“You have to, at some point, start to ask yourself, do I need it, or do I want it?” Judge Portillo told The Big Bend Sentinel this week, a sentiment he previously expressed during a lengthy budget discussion. “I recognize more than anybody that this isn’t going to win me any support, but I stand by it’s the right thing to do.”
The county has been losing money on the facilities for years, with specifically the golf course’s expenditures exceeding revenues by around $97,000 in 2023, $77,000 in 2024 and $64,000 in 2025. The county’s 2026 proposed budget anticipated around a $215,000 loss from both parks.
But Hisler — after learning the parks could be on the chopping block — identified, with the help of golf course stakeholders, several glaring areas where the business could be improved, including updating membership fees that had remained stagnant for 12 years, turning the cash-only facility into one that accepts credit cards, putting a formal concessionaire contract in place and other key revenue-generating changes. She noted in Commissioners Court that revenues had increased over the past three years — from around $55,000 in 2023 to $79,000 in 2025. But her request to have a year to turn things around was ultimately denied.
Several Marfa residents spoke to the importance of the 1960s-established golf course as a valuable recreational space for individuals and families as well as a community hub that raises funds for scholarships and locals’ medical bills. The decision to defund the parks effectively put three county employees, including David Francis, the caretaker of the entire North Park area, out of work. Golf course employees Ernest Villarreal and Mario Ontiveroz are eligible for retirement, Hisler said, and she has urged them to meet with the county’s human resources director. But both have expressed interest in working on a volunteer-basis for the time being, Hisler said.
“I respect both of them for saying, ‘How can we help you to make sure that this golf course does not die?” Hisler said. “Those are public spaces, and my position is that we will keep them open on volunteer efforts until I can get into a lease agreement.”
Beebe said that while there is no denying the fact that the county is broke and can no longer afford to provide public services that don’t provide a return on investment, he strongly disagreed with Portillo’s process of suddenly “taking a machete” to the parks with no subsequent plan in place, rather than slowly sunsetting the operations or maintaining the asset’s value while seeking a lessee.
“It’s really disrespectful to the community. It’s really disrespectful to the employees, to the history. It’s disrespectful to the county,” Beebe said. “I mean, honestly, it’s grounds for dismissal.”
“There’s operational deficiencies,” he added. “But the fact that Deirdre has not been given the chance to remedy those eight months into office when she actually has a plan that she’s been working hard on is also highly disrespectful to her.”
Many Marfa residents who spoke out on social media in the wake of the defunding decision, and several people that spoke to The Sentinel, said they took issue with what appeared to be Judge Portillo’s leveraging of the “Marfa versus Presidio” approach. People were quick to point out that Marfa contributes more tourism and higher property values to the county’s economy. Others noted in letters to the editor that parks seemed to be concentrated in Marfa and not spread out equitably across the county.
In a City Council meeting on Thursday, Marfa Mayor Manny Baeza said he was “disappointed” that no one reached out to him to ask for help keeping the facilities afloat, and what he saw as “frustrating” EMS inequities were on his mind.
“I hate to say this, but everything seems to benefit South County,” Baeza said. “It’s not Marfa versus Presidio, but their EMS gets $120,000. We get $65,000. We go all the way to Elephant Rock. We intercept a lot of patients from Presidio. We cover a lot of territory, but we’re not treated equally.”
He argued that the Marfa Golf Course brings money to the city because players travel to compete in big tournaments, thereby staying in hotels and visiting restaurants and shops. Baeza said he is willing to assess the city’s finances to see where it can help with the two parks.
“We can’t let that go, so let’s see what we can do,” Baeza said. “Because once they stop watering and everything else they’re going to lose millions of dollars in that asset.”
When asked about the “Marfa versus Presidio” argument, Portillo reiterated that the decision to defund the parks was primarily driven by the “need to tighten our belt,” but brought up that North and South County do have different demographics he is considering; Presidio is lower-income, and the area is made up of several smaller communities including colonias, Candelaria, Ruidosa, Shafter and Redford, communities he didn’t imagine wanted to pay for a golf course over an hour away.
“If I were to go to Redford and I were to tell them, ‘Congratulations, this half of Redford, everybody south of the River Road, all your taxes went to a golf course –– so my advice to you is, go play golf,’” Portillo said.
He said he “applauded” the recent Bull Barn lease that the county entered into with Ballroom Marfa — to turn the unused auction barn into an event venue — and he sees that as a viable direction for the Marfa Golf Course and Vizcaino Park.
“You had an asset that was sitting there abandoned then you have a nonprofit that comes and says, ‘We have a vision.’ I think the same can be done with the golf course and with Vizcaino Park,” Portillo said. “It should be in the hands of a group that is passionate about either playing baseball or playing golf, and let them determine what it looks like and make a very generous lease for them to take a swing at it.”
But those volunteer-run organizations — namely the Marfa Golf Association and the sandlot baseball team Los Yonke Gallos de Marfa, which started in 2007 — told The Sentinel that they both disagreed with and felt blindsided by the decision to defund the public facilities they utilize. Even in Hisler’s best case scenario of securing a lessee, the previously publicly-run parks will likely be turned over to private management.
Felipe Cordero, president of the Marfa Golf Association, said Portillo failed to recognize the golf course as “a wellness program for the community,” rather than a profit-generating enterprise, and his actions will be on everyone’s mind in Marfa come next election cycle. In the meantime, the association is working with Hisler and generating fundraising ideas to keep the bare minimum going at the course, he said.
“Maybe he’s got a plan, but I still think you gotta keep everybody in mind,” Cordero said.
“When you’re from Marfa, you learn to be resourceful,” he added. “As long as we keep working at it, we will sustain it.”
In a statement Gallos team managers Jerram Rojo and Cody Bjornson said the team was disappointed to hear that their practice field had been defunded by the county “especially after receiving the new scoreboard, which is one of a few park improvements we intend to address as primary users of the park and baseball field.” County funds, in addition to a donation from El Cosmico, made it possible for the baseball team to buy a new scoreboard this year to replace a long-inoperable one. It has been delivered but has not yet been installed.
The Gallos have practices and games scheduled for the remainder of the baseball season which ends in early November, Rojo and Bjornson wrote, but “as of right now there isn’t a concrete plan as to how Vizcaino will operate.”