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Newspaper and Travel Guide
for Pecos Country of West Texas
Friday, November 6, 2009
School board continuing superintendent interviews
Finding a new superintendent for the Pecos-Barstow-Toyah ISD is proving to be a difficult task.
“We have a lot of good candidates and it’s just making it a little harder,” said interim superintendent Wayne Mitchell.
Mitchell said that he was really impressed with all the candidates that have applied for the position.
“We had over 20 applications and it was a good group of applicants,” he said.
“The board has a tough decision to make, but I’m sure they’ll make the right one,” said Mitchell.
The board was to meet at 5:30 p.m., Thursday in the Technology Center to finish the round of interviews.
“There are six more candidates to interview and then they will narrow the list to two and come to a decision next week,” said Mitchell.
“Second interviews will be held next Tuesday and then they will pick a finalist” said Mitchell.
He said that he was going to put the item as an action item on Tuesday, so if the board wanted to make the announcement that evening they could.
The district is currently looking for a new superintendent following the resignation in late July of Manny Espino, who had been with the district for the past three years.
Board members had agreed during an earlier meeting to proceed with Arrow Educational Services in their search process for a replacement for Espino as superintendent.
“They can either make the announcement Tuesday evening after the special session, schedule another special meeting or on the regular board meeting on Nov. 16,” said Mitchell. “But maybe they’ll just decide Tuesday and make the announcement then.”
Mitchell said that after they make a decision, the board will still have to wait three weeks before formally hiring the individual.
“They can’t take a final vote until 21 days after they pick out the person,” said Mitchell. “It’s the law.”
PEDC approves supporting rural heath clinic land deal
Pecos Economic Development Corp. board members approved a recommendation to the Town of Pecos City Council on the sale of land to the Reeves County Hospital District for their new rural health clinic.
Attorney Scott Johnson said the proposal would have the city turn over Block 2, Lots 4-7 in the West Airport Addition to the PEDC, which would then sell the land to the hospital district for the new clinic. The motion was made and seconded by board members Dick Alligood and Joseph Torres, the city’s mayor and city manager, who will take the proposal before the full council next Thursday, during the council’s 5:30 p.m. meeting.
Board member Leo Hung, who is also a member of the hospital district’s board, abstained from voting on the proposal.
“After here it goes to the city council and if that goes OK it will be done,” said hospital CEO Al Larochelle, who was at the meeting for the decision, following a 15-minute executive session.
He said after that, the hospital district board still has to approve the funding mechanism for selling the bonds for the project. “Nothing’s getting done until we sell the bonds,” he said.
The board discussed but took no action on the bond sale plan at their meeting two weeks ago, since two of the five board members were not at the Oct. 26 meeting. LaRochelle said the board’s next meeting will be on Nov. 17, a week earlier than usual due to the Thanksgiving holiday, and one day after the PEDC board will hold their regular monthly meeting.
The new plan on the sale of the $5.64 million in revenue bonds that will mostly go towards construction of the new clinic involves using an option though the federal government's stimulus program passed earlier this year to help sell the bonds.
LaRochelle said at the Oct. 26 meeting the federal program is designed to allow non-profit groups better access to the bond market, at a time when banks have been reluctant to lend money after last fall's financial crisis. It rebates part of the bond interest payments to the hospital, and allows them to be sold at a 9.04 percent interest rate, about three percent higher than the original rate offered on the bonds.
Propositions approved by both local, state voters
Reeves County voters joined voters across Texas on Tuesday to strengthen their private property rights as enshrined in the state constitution, though the last of 11 propositions on the ballot passed more narrowly in the county than it did in the state overall.
A total of 345 ballots were cast in the Nov. 3 election, with the 11 amendments to the Texas Constitution the only items on the ballot. All the propositions passed statewide, after all 11 had to win two-thirds passage in the Legislature to go before voters.
Proposition 11 would prohibit governments from taking private property for private economic development to increase a tax base. It also limits the Legislature's power to grant eminent domain authority to a governmental entity.
That proposition passed by a 62-38 margin in Reeves County, with 194 voting for the proposition and 118 against it.
Statewide, Proposition 11 , backed by the Texas Farm Bureau, Gov. Rick Perry and Perry's Republican rival, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, passed by an 81-19 percent margin.
The small turnout for Tuesday's election provided an easy first test for the county's new ballot counting equipment.
“We are happy to announce that due to the Model 650 which tabulates the ballots we were done with the elections by 8:45 p.m.,” said Reeves County Clerk Dianne Florez.
“I would like to thank the Reeves County Judge and the Reeves County Commissioners for the approval of the purchase. This purchase was done through HAVA (Help America Vote Act) Funds,” said Florez.
Voters in the county and across the state also backed an amendment that aims to create a national research university fund out of $500 million in existing state money. The measure was narrowly approved in Reeves County, with 162 voters for it and 155 voting against it.
Currently, Texas has three top-level research universities: the University of Texas at Austin; Texas A&M University and Rice University. It lags behind other big states like California and New York, proponents said. Seven other Texas universities are vying to achieve so-called Tier One status.
An amendment to guarantee public access to beaches also sailed through in Tuesday's poll, taking 77 percent of the vote.
``Texans have always supported open beaches, but now they have given public access to beaches an extra level of protection by putting that right into the state constitution,'' said Ken Kramer, Sierra Club state director.
All the ballot propositions had to win two-thirds passage in the Legislature to go before voters.
Truckers' long detour ended with U.S. 285 bridge repairs
Fourteen months after they were first imposed, load limits restrictions have been removed from two bridge class box culverts on U.S. 285 between Pecos and Orla, the Texas Department of Transportation announced this week.
Repairs have been completed on the large concrete box culverts at Sand Bend and 4-Mile Draw, which are located on U.S. 285 between the State Highway 302
intersection and Farm to Market Road 652 at Orla, according to Glen Larum, TxDOT public information director from the Odessa District.
TxDOT made extensive repairs to both structures, which were built in 1932 and widened in 1959, after they were found to be structurally unsound in September of 2008. The bridges were limited to 11,000 pounds maximum weight per single and tandem axle, forcing heavy trucks traveling between Pecos and Carlsbad, N.M. to make a 60-mile detour around the bridges, through Kermit and Jal, N.M.
Reece Albert Construction of San Angelo handled the repair work over the summer, which involved closing one lane of traffic at a time and the installation of traffic control signals on the two single-lane bridges.
City, county outline details of water suit settlement
Water uses on the Town of Pecos City's lines but outside the city limits will see a reduction in their water bills, while the city will receive help from Reeves County on city infrastructure projects involving areas outside the city limits, as part of the water lawsuit mediation both sides agreed to last week.
Reeves County Judge Sam Contreras and Pecos Mayor Dick Alligood outlined parts of the agreement in a joint press conference Wednesday afternoon at City Hall. The mediation agreement settles a suit filed by Reeves County against Pecos and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality relating to water and sewer rate increases approved by the Pecos City Council in December of 2005.
“This is something that took place under the previous administrations, before Judge Contreras and I were elected to office,” Alligood said. “Both of us ran on a platform that this was something we were going to try and resolve while in office.”
“It had lingered on for quite some time, and everybody was in agreement that this needed to be resolved,” Contreras said. “Going through the court system would by costly for the taxpayers.”
The agreement, which is to run through 2016, still needs to be approved by Reeves County Commissioners, during their regular meeting Monday morning at the Reeves County Courthouse, and then by city council members, when they hold their regular meeting next Thursday.
“I feel very comfortable the council will accept it and the commissioners will,” Alligood said.
The agreement fixes the price of water the county will pay at the Reeves County Detention Center for the next six years, while lowering the rate paid by water and sewer line users outside the city limits but inside Reeves County to the same rate as city residents currently pay.
“They have long-term contracts they have to work out,” Alligood said. “They have contracts where they want to know the costs for several years.”
The agreement to lower the cost doesn't affect the price of water to non-city residents in Ward County, including the Barstow area.
Contreras said the county will try to help the city out with both infrastructure projects being sought by Pecos but are outside of the city limits, along with possibly some financial assistance with the final 10 years of payments on the South Worsham Water Field.
Reeves County assumed the first 10 years of payments on the $8 million project back in 2001, as part of the initial mediation between the city and county over water and sewer rates. Pecos assumes the final 10 years of payments starting in 2011, but the city's water rate consultant, Nelissa Hedding said last month the county has been paying about $400,000 a year, but the annual payment started below that level and is now above it. She said the rate will climb to over $600,000 when the final payment is made by the city in 2020.
Hedding was one of a number of people at last Thursday's meeting. City manager Joseph Torres, finance director Ysidro Renteria and attorney Scott Johnson were the city's other local representatives at the mediation, while Precinct 1 commissioner Roy Alvarado and county attorney Alva Alvarez were the other local officials with Contreras representing Reeves County.
The two said the language in the new agreement is more specific than the 2000-2001 deal that fell apart five years later. “If it's black, it's black' if it's white, it's white,” Alligood said. “There's no confusion for the people coming behind us to interpret this agreement.”
Contreras said along with the water-related issues, the county will work with the city to set up a new vote on the hotel-motel venue tax for the Buck Jackson Rodeo Arena. The original venue tax was approved by city voters in 2005, then held up for three years due to the litigation. A board was set up in early 2008, but officials later learned the plan violated state law, because part of the arena was outside the city limits and voters in the rest of Reeves County had not been allowed to vote on the 2 percent venue tax.
Alligood said during that meeting that officials also had met with Texas Railroad Commission officials while in Austin about one of the city-county projects, the Texsand intermodal rail yard two miles west of town.
“I feel it was a fairly successful meeting getting the Railroad Commission off the square,” he said, adding that the city has worked with State Sen. Carlos Uriesti and Rep. Pete Gallego on infrastructure improvements in the area, including the creation of a rural rail district, which will have to be requested through Reeves County.
“They understand we are a pilot project out here, and we may get a classification as a pilot project,” Alligood said.
Pecos Enterprise
York M. "Smokey" Briggs, Publisher
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 432-445-5475, FAX 432-445-4321
e-mail news@pecos.net
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