Beeville may not get its own crosstown bus service after all.

Beeville Economic Improvement Corporation members voted Wednesday evening to table a decision on awarding $48,000 to the Bee Community Action Agency to help establish regular bus service in the city.

The decision came after board member Jessy T. Garza questioned the legality of approving the grant.

Garza told BCAA Transportation Director Alex Rodriguez that the laws governing the use of 4B sales tax funds changed in April and he did not yet fully understand what those changes will mean.

Board member John Fulghum told Garza that an EIC subcommittee, on which he served, had approved awarding half the request, $24,000, for six months to see how the program would work. The intent, Fulghum said, was to provide the rest of the requested funds later.

The subcommittee gave that approval when it met in April.

“Under what section of the law was the request approved?” Garza asked.

He said changes in the law now require 4B money to be spent only on land, buildings, equipment, facilities, targeted infrastructure or improvements.

Fulghum said the subcommittee gave the approval based on the creation or retention of jobs. He said that was an eligible expense under the law in effect at the time.

Rodriguez, who is heading up the project for the BCAA, told the Bee-Picayune on Tuesday that the $48,000 grant from the EIC would go towards fuel for the two 18-passenger buses and personnel costs.

“We’re going to go ahead and place a purchase order for the two buses on Monday but if we don’t get the grant from the EIC we’ll have to fold the two buses into our van service,” he said. “Without that grant we may not be able to go through with our original plans to establish a full-scale bus route in the city. We may have to scale it down.”

The BCAA already provides van service for the elderly and infirm. That service requires the passengers to contact the BCAA transportation service in advance. Riders pay $1.

The BCAA was considering offering crosstown bus service at 50 cents or 75 cents for one way trips. One of the buses, which will be able to transport wheelchair bound riders, was expected to travel down Washington Street and the other bus was to travel ona generally east-west route along Houston Highway.

Rodriguez said the crosstown buses would stop at all the major shopping centers, stores, government businesses and medical offices along those routes.

“We’ve gotten a lot of phone calls from a lot of people who are excited about this bus service,” Rodriguez told the Bee-Picayune. “We’re getting calls every day by people who want to know when the buses will be running and where they will stop and pick up people.”

At Wednesday night’s EIC board meeting, Garza asked Rodriguez if he knew yet what the demographics of bus service customers would be.

“The issue is not whether it’s working,” Garza said. “It’ll be on demographics and business development.”

Garza asked if riders of the buses would be people who don’t have cars, people over 65, younger people going to school or others.

“It may be a variety,” Rodriguez said. He admitted that the BCAA will have to evaluate ridership on a weekly or monthly basis after the service begins to see who is taking advantage of the program.

“I don’t see how it creates new or expanded business,” Garza said. He told Rodriguez he had spoken to an attorney who is an expert on the 4B sales tax law and he was told that no section of the law allows using the money on a project unless it creates new or expanded business.”

“The case now cannot be made,” Garza said. “I don’t see how this can qualify.”

Rodriguez had said earlier that the BCAA had been awarded a $427,500 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation and part of that money would be used to buy two buses.

He said that without the $48,000 in EIC funds, the agency would continue with the program but would likely scale down its scope.

Garza then assured Rodriguez that he wanted to work with him to see if there is a way a case can be made for approving the grant.

“I don’t know,” Garza said. “But I do know that I need to go to a seminar.”

Garza said seminars are scheduled in the future to educate 4B tax organizations on the changes in the law and he urged all board members and city council members to make an effort to attend some of them.

“We don’t want to do anything that violates anything that’s in place,” Rodriguez said.

In other business, the board voted to:

— Elect member Jody Alaniz as its president to replace Jim Crumrine. Crumrine resigned from the board earlier.

— Appoint Garza, Fulghum and board member William Shroyer to a subcommittee to draw up a job description for a person to administer the EIC’s business facade program.

— Discussed ways to improve the corporation’s annual budget process and appointed a subcommittee to draw up changes. Alaniz, Garza and Interim City Manager Joe B. Montez will make up that subcommittee.

— Accept a report on the progress of the renovations on the Rialto Theater project in downtown Beeville.

— Create an economic coordinating committee that will facilitate communications between the EIC and other organizations involved in economic development in the community.