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Daily Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas

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Wednesday, July 22, 1998

Sex ordinance vote scheduled by City Council


Town of Pecos City Council members will vote on an ordinance
to regulate adult entertainment within the Pecos city limits
during their Thursday morning meeting .

Council members were asked by a roomful of local religious
leaders and their parishioners during their May 14 meeting
to draft the ordinance, following the April 24 performance
of male strippers at Club Suavecito on South Cedar Street.
It was the first show of that type in Pecos since 1986,
which also resulted in similar protests.

A petition containing 350 signatures in support of a
"community standard of decency" in Pecos was presented by
Abundant Life Church pastor Matt Williamson to the council,
which urged the creation of an ordinance that would make it
illegal to sell or display any "adult books or magazines
with pornographic sexual content, including nudity, partial
nudity and/or obscene language, films and videotapes with a
rating of X or NC 17. Exotic dancers, strippers, etc. who
perform in the nude or partially nude."

Questions were raised at the meeting about possible first
amendment violations resulting from a extremely strict
regulations, and as drafted, the proposed 36-page ordinance
would require the operator of any sexually-orientated
business to pay an annual $500 fee for a lisence. The money
would be used to "offset the cost of administering the
permits and inspections."

The operator must be more than 18 years of age, states the
proposed ordinance, and not have been convicted of a crime
of a sexual nature involving prostitution, sexual assault or
indecency with a child, among others.

The proposed ordinance would also prohibit
sexually-orientated businesses from being established within
800 feet of churches, schools, residential districts, public
parks, convention centers, shopping malls, or within 1000
feet of another sexually-orientated business.

The ordinance needs two readings to be adopted. The first
reading will be given on Thursday.

Also to be considered:

* Reserving Maxey Park for a "Back to School Rally"

* Appointment of an officer to calculate the effective and
rollback tax rate

* Appointment of a part-time grant writer

* Demolition project for unsafe structures

* Closed session to discuss the duties of the city secretary.

The meeting will begin at 7:30 a.m. in the Council chambers
at City Hall.

Cabrera show set for PHS on Thursday


Christian music recording artist Patty Cabrera is scheduled
to perform in Pecos Thursday night at the Pecos High School
Auditorium.

Cabrera and her band will perform beginning at 7:30 p.m.
Admission is $5 per person.

Fans have found that Cabrera is more than just a passing
figure on the Christian music stage. Empowered by energetic
Latin- and popular-styled rhythms, her music makes you want
to get up and dance.

Having been picked up while still in college by Dayspring,
Cabrera had to bounce labels several times to secure the
right to define her own sound. She has also taken time away
from the stage to secure herself on a satisfying spiritual
path.
"When I was 24 or 25, I got to the point in my life where I
started realizing how empty life was," Cabrera recalled. "To
me, there was nothing satisfying. I got to the point where I
just didn't want to get out of bed in the morning because
nothing was filling me up. I just felt so empty and so
broken."

This low emotional point became a crossroads for this young
artist.

"I finally realized that either you choose Christ or you
choose eventual death. I knew that if I did not decide to
live a life pursuing Christ, I was going to die a very
unhappy, bitter person."

Cabrera performed in Pecos last Labor Day, at the Son Shine
'97 concert in Windmill Square. This year's tour boasts a
full band and new and old songs alike.

Board seeks to cut summer energy usage


By ROBERT RAMIREZ
Special to the Enterprise
Pecos Housing Authority board members discussed methods of
reducing utility costs for tenants during their Tuesday
night meeting, and went over their monthly income and
expense reports.

Board members discussed ways of educating tenants on using
cooling units correctly and insuring proper installation.

PHA members also decided to hold workshops over the next two
months which will be designed to help reduce overall utility
costs. The board recommended "air handlers" combined with
evaporated air cooling for tenants in PHA apartments.

According to the board's income and expense report, the
agency ended June with $182,664.55 in the bank. June
accounts payable totaled $22,229.25.

Board members were also told that the July occupancy report
indicates that 92 out of 130 apartments are currently
occupied. Of the remaining 38 apartments, 15 are being kept
empty for CIAP '96 renovation work.

Chavez seeks plea deal in feds' drug case


By GREG HARMAN
Staff Writer
Tony Chavez, a prominent Odessa defense attorney, has
decided to enter a plea bargain agreement with prosecutors,
in connection with federal drug indictments returned by a
grand jury last month.

Chavez announced his planned plea bargain to Federal Judge
Lucius Bunton in U.S. District Court in Pecos, during a
pre-trial hearing held on Tuesday.

Chavez, along with 24 others, was named in a 42-count sealed
indictment in federal court in Pecos on June 11. The charges
range from conspiracy, aiding, abetting and counseling
others in an on-going drug smuggling operation that lasted
from 1995 to 1997, conspiracy to manufacture with intent to
import controlled substances, to possess with intent to
distribute, distributing controlled substances and use of
communications facilities in the commission of these
offenses.

Chavez's decision to plea bargain has shocked area
attorney's who knew him as a professional and respected
lawyer.

A trial date has been set for August 3 in Pecos federal
court, at which time Judge Bunton will decide whether to
accept Chavez's offer to plea bargain.

Terms of the plea bargain agreement were not released, and
prosecutors were unavailable for comment this morning.

After military and police service, Chavez graduated with a
law degree from Texas Tech University in Lubbock in 1978. He
worked in the Ector County district attorney's office for
two years before going into private practice. Chavez has
worked as a defense attorney in Odessa on mostly
drug-related charges.

Pipeline project moving through area


By GREG HARMAN
Staff Writer
With the intention of moving gasoline product through an
18-inch buried pipeline from the Gulf Coast to El Paso,
Longhorn Pipeline, a transportation company, has brought in
Driver Drilling Company to burrow under area highways and
byways in the quest for petroleum profits.

Two weeks ago workers sent the pipeline through a tunnel
under the Pecos River. More recently, the line passed
beneath U.S. 285 north of Pecos and the front end of the
pipeline team is already located west of Toyah, while the
tail end is just crossing the Pecos from Barstow.

Driver employee Jesse Vega paused after connecting line that
tunneled under Farm Road 1216, to explain how the
construction crews worked.

"The first team comes along and opens fences," he said, "The
second builds the right of way."

Building the "right of way" consists of clearing brush,
roots and rock. This team is followed by the ditch-digging
crew, he said, which makes the ditch for the pipeline.
Another crew follows, laying out the actual pipe on wooden
blocks.

The drilling team burrows beneath roads and rivers, and one
last gang welds it all together. They are followed only by
the "clean-up crew," Vega said, which picks up refuse and
repairs damaged fences.

"Sometimes it goes easy. Sometimes (it's difficult) to space
the pipe. It all depends," said Vega.

The pipeline company continues to expound on the benefits to
consumers the line represents -- ultimately bringing pump
prices down around Odessa and El Paso, they say.

Meanwhile, in Odessa, the impending arrival of the pipeline
has inspired Equilon Enterprises LLC -- a 28,000 barrel a
day refinery -- to close its doors. The cost for
transporting gasoline from the Gulf Coast refineries by
pipeline is less than continuing Odessa operations, the
company said last Thursday.

The shutdown will affect 65 Shell employees and 35 contract
laborers. The company said most would be given opportunities
at other company locations.

Longhorn Pipeline, a limited partnership between Amoco,
Exxon, and Williams pipeline companies and Beacon Energy
Investment Fund, hopes to begin transporting gasoline
product to West Texas consumers by the end of the year.

"There will be benefits down the whole way," said spokesman
Michael Patterson, speaking of the project. Terminals to
sell gasoline product will be set up in both Odessa and El
Paso.

The underground line will connect with an existing line that
runs between Houston and Crane. It will initially ship
72,000 barrels per day, down from officials' estimates of
80,000 made last year, is cutting through northern Reeves
County and several area farms. Patterson said the capacity
may one day reach 200,000 barrels per day.

Carter Montgomery, Longhorn's president vowed that the
company has the shipper volumes committed "to provide
economic viability of the project."

The Longhorn Partners Pipeline, beginning at a GATX company
terminal, will be the first western branching pipeline in
the terminal's existent fan of petroleum lines currently
moving product to the northeastern United States. However,
the line which begins in Galena Park, about 10 miles
southeast of Houston, faces a legal dispute.

A group of Texas landowners object to the older line,
stretching from Houston to Crane, being used to transport
gasoline product through their land without Longhorn
performing an Environmental Impact Study to assess the
hazards of potential leakage.

The 700 mile line will connect in El Paso will a longer
series of line, one moving north to Albuquerque and another
to Tucson, Phoenix and beyond.

"The southwest markets are among the fastest growing in
North America," said Roger Williams, Amoco's vice president
for distillates and asphalt. "In an environment of
rapidly-changing fuel specifications, Amoco will provide
marketers and large end users the quality energy products
they need to compete in the new millennium."

Officials concerned over dropout rates


By PAUL SHEPARD
Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA -- Its hard to discern which of the gloomy
statistics in a new report on lagging academic achievement
in the Hispanic community is most disheartening.

Is it the one showing a 30 percent drop-out rate among
Hispanic youth compared to 8 percent among whites and 13
percent among blacks?

Maybe it's the one indicating that just 21 percent of
Hispanic 3-year-olds were enrolled in pre-primary
educational programs compared to 40 percent for whites and
41 percent for blacks.

Perhaps it's that school suspensions for Hispanic students
have increased by 103 percent from 1988 to 1994 compared to
a 69 percent increase for blacks and a 37 percent increase
for whites.

In any case, it is easy to understand why leaders of the
National Council of La Raza said Latino education is in a
crisis state in releasing its report on education Tuesday at
the group's annual national convention.

``Yes, we face a serious crisis in Hispanic education but we
don't have to accept this education gap as a permanent
reality,'' said La Raza President Raul Yzaguirre.

The problems stretch across an array of educational areas
including early childhood education enrollment,
participation in gifted and talented programs, drop-out
rates and school suspensions.

``One of the most troubling findings of our research is that
from the very beginning, Hispanic children seem to start on
an uneven playing field,'' Yzaguirre said.

The 110-page statistical analysis says that while Hispanics
have made some small gains in the past decade, education
levels from pre-primary school to higher education are
insufficient to be competitive in the current economy.

Implications of the poor academic attainment reach far
beyond the nation's 29 million Hispanics, who make up about
11 percent of America's population.

Projected to overtake blacks as the nation's largest
minority group by 2005, Hispanics are employed in 40 percent
of the jobs created since 1992, the report stated.

``If we fail to close this educational gap, our economy will
face the crisis,'' Yzaguirre said.

Raul Gonzalez, La Raza's education policy analyst, said the
economic realities and the increased immigrant population
combine to make the drop-out situation difficult to tackle.

``Many migrant workers don't get the chance to go to school
because they have to work,'' Gonzalez said. ``A strength of
our community has been our high workforce participation but
in this case, it comes at the cost of our education.''

The study said that if Hispanics reached the same levels as
white students, about $10 billion would be added to the
economy in tax revenues annually.

Despite the gloomy picture, hopeful messages exist.

Anthony Amato, a public school superintendent in New York
City's heavily-Hispanic Washington Heights neighborhood, has
seen reading tests scores soar from last among the city's 32
school districts to 19th. Math scores there increased from
last to 13th over the same 10-year time period, Amato said.

But any similar turnaround takes a no-nonsense devotion to
getting the best from students on the part of teachers,
administrators and parents, said Amato, a La Raza education
task force member.

``We don't accept any exceptions or excuses because we know
they can learn even if they come to us not knowing a word of
English,'' Amato said.

Despite a 95 percent poverty rate in his school district,
Amato said parents pay $35 per month so students have access
to laptop computers.

``It has taken some years but we are all on the same page,''
Amato said. ``We have a target that these children will
learn and that is our only focus.''

Bonilla backs farm bill; gets award


U.S. Representative Henry Bonilla was a co-sponsor of
emergency farm legislation last week, while receiving an
award this week for his Congressional votes from a food
service trade group.

Bonilla (R-San Antonio), who has represented District 23 in
Congress since 1992, was a co-sponsor of legislation that
would allow the early release of $5.5 billion to farmers to
help the ongoing drought crisis in Texas and other Southern
and Plains states. The money would come from Agricultural
Market Transition Act contract payments for fiscal year
1999, and would be paid out in October, instead of December
of January as originally scheduled.

House Sparker Newt Gingrich and House Agriculture Committee
Chairman Bob Smith were also co-sponsors of the legislation.

"The problems farmers face are two-fold," Bonilla said in a
news release. "THe drought in Texas is leaving farmers with
dried out crops that won't sell, and low commodity prices
are driving down the value of those crops that can be sold.

"Farmers in Texas are struggling to survive. This will make
a big difference for some farmers on the brink of
bankruptcy," said Bonilla, who added he wants to see
President Clinton use the Export Enhancement Program to
secure foreign markets for U.S. agricultural produce.

Meanwhile, Bonilla and 214 other representatives, were given
an award on Tuesday by Food Distributors International
(FDI), a trade group representing more than 260 companies

FDI awarded today the Thomas Jefferson Award for his
"support of sound fiscal policy, minimal government
regulation, and other free-market principles crucial to the
health of the food distribution industry" The award was
given to those Congressman who voted for over 75 percent of
the issues the industry considers "critical."

"The Thomas Jefferson Award is our opportunity to recognize
these members of congress who have shown their support of
business and have worked to create a government that allows
our industry to prosper," said Robert Stauth, FDI chairman.

The award program was inspired by the philosophies and
writings of Thomas Jefferson, who is his first inaugural
address noted that "a wise and frugal government . . . which
shall leave men otherwise free to regulate their own
pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take
from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."

OBITUARY

Clabe Eugene Wicker


Clabe Eugene Wicker, age 63, died on July 20, 1998, in a
New Mexico hospital. Funeral Services are incomplete and
will be handled by Strong-Thorne Mortuary.

Visitation will be held Thursday, July 23, 1998, from 2
p.m. to 8 p.m. MDT at Strong-Thorne Mortuary, 1100 Coal
Ave. SE in Albuquerque.

Wicker was born in Pecos, He was a longtime professional
engineer. He retired from Bradbury and Stamm, and was a
resident of Albuquerque, N.M.

He is survived by his son, Joseph E. Wicker of Fort Bliss;
his stepmother, Mary Wicker of Dripping Springs; his three
sisters, Barbara Jean Wall of Renton, Wash., Nancy Enderud
of Ponca, Okla., and Mary K. Bivens of Vancouver, ~Wash.;
one granddaughter, and numerous nieces, nephews, aunts and
uncles.

He was preceded in death by his son, Billy Wicker.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to
the American Cancer Society, 580 Lomas Blvd. NE,
Albuquerque, NM, 87110 or to a charity of your choice.



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Pecos Enterprise
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324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 915-445-5475, FAX 915-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net

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Copyright 1998 by Pecos Enterprise