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Pecos $15M Bond Put on Hold
Pecos $15M Bond Put on Hold 9/25/12
jsamp@cbs7.com
CBS 7 News
September 25, 2012
Pecos, TX - To this close knit circle of friends, the senior citizens center is a place of good company and crochet.
“There's really no gossip.”
“Right.”
“Really, its just a place to get away from home,” said Pecos Senior Citizen, Jackie Tollet, “It's just home away from home.”
As comfortable as they look, the women say their true home is at the condemned building down town, it was closed a few years ago after the building became too run down.
“This is a very nice building it's a wonderful place,” Tollet said, “But it's not home it doesn't have the same feeling.”
They say they're missing out on programs that were available when they had that space.
“We used to have a hearing aid man come up and check with people’s batteries,” she said, “But now there is no place to put them.
The city had plans to renovate their old senior center with money from this year's sales tax, but at Monday night’s City Council meeting consultants found a tax problem with a bond passed eleven years ago that's keeping them from moving forward with a new bond for $15 million and forcing them to use that money for other things.
“We were relying on the certificates of obligation to help fund this year,” said Pecos City Manager Fred Reyes. He says the additional sales tax money will now fund projects with immediate needs, like building a sewage and water line south of Interstate 20 where new oil field housing and a truck stop will be built.
“We're trying to be proactive,” he said, “Determining priorities is probably the toughest part.”
To the senior citizens of Pecos, the old building is where memories were left behind.
“Old doesn't mean bad,” Tollet said, “We were there so long it was comfortable and it's just what you think of a senior center.”
Reporters with the Pecos Enterprise who attended Monday’s meeting say the IRS is questioning if a $2.3 million bond from 2001 was tax-free. That bond funded the city’s police station and the detention center.