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EYE ON PECOS: County and City End Years of Bitter Litigation 11/4/09

Eddie Garcia
CBS 7 News
egarcia@cbs7.com
November 4, 2009

Pecos, TX - The mayor and county judge say they're making good on a campaign promise to end a disagreement about water rates in the county but the solution could bring price hikes.

"All it did was hurt the city and the county and it was hard to sit down and work together on projects when you knew you had something like this litigation laying behind you," said Pecos Mayor Richard Alligood.

It's the end to years of bad blood.

With help from a moderator in the State's Capital, the agreement boils down to this: county residents will now pay city water rates and the Reeves County Detention Center, which uses 20 percent of the entire water supply, will also be locked in to city water rates until 2016.

It's a move that could increase residents’ overall bill.

"It's already planned to have rate increases in there and we will review those and work with the county on those as we go by," said Alligood.

Back in 2000 a similar agreement was reached but quickly fell apart leading to lengthy litigation but this time around officials believe it's watertight.

"This is more specific it lays down what both sides are looking for so there is no opting out as to us not following the agreement," said Reeves County Judge, Sam Contreras.

"There's nothing to read in between it there would be no confusion for the people who come work behind us to work with this on up to 2016," said Alligood.

Now both entities look toward the future.

"What can we do now going forward and working on other projects together without this hanging out there," said Contreras

County commissioners and the city council must approve the agreement; if they do it will go into effect in January 2011.

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