Alpine
With a vote of three to two, the Alpine City Council took on $927,000 of city debt to move two city projects forward, and the only water project on the list is the city pool.
The money is set to pay for repairing the city pool and for improvements at Kokernot Park, including lighting at the sports fields and walkways, the scoreboard, and the lodge adjacent to the amphitheater.
The project at Kokernot Park will be done in partnership with the Alpine Independent School District, which will pay for half of the softball field improvements.
Work on the city pool is expected to begin within weeks and be completed by Memorial Day, said Alpine Mayor Catherine Eaves and Alpine City Manager Henry Arredondo.The city pool is currently closed due to a leak of more than 20,000 gallons each day and other issues. The pool will get a new liner that should last 10 years, new tile at the edge, a chair for people with disabilities to use, and other new equipment, Arredondo said.
The vote came at the April 7 City Council meeting, with Councilmembers Richard Portillo, Eva Martinez and Lucy Escovedo voting to take on the debt and projects. Councilmembers Robert Rückes and Rick Stephens voted against the effort.
While the Alpine Mayor does not vote, Eaves expressed strong support for passing the motion to take on the debt and moving forward with the projects. “It’s a matter of quality of life,” Eaves said during the meeting.
Stephens and Rückes also expressed support for the projects. However, they ultimately voted against the motion, saying they could not support it while the city was still behind in its financial audits and did not know exactly how much was in the city’s fund balance.
Answering a question from Stephens regarding when the audits would be completed or when information on the funds balance would be available, Arredondo said, “I can’t give you a date. When we are done, I will get it to you.”
Arredondo and an Alpine financial consultant did, however, assure council members that the city’s fund balance is strong, that the city has very low debt, and that it has the ability to pay the debt within its seven-year term, and possibly ahead of schedule.
Following the council meeting and vote, Eaves pointed to Arredondo’s knowledge and experience as a reason for her confidence in his plans. “We hired him for his expertise, and he had no problem with it,” she said. “He hasn’t even blinked twice, thinking about us doing this, and he’s the expert. So, when he gave his thumbs up and said that if he were sitting in my chair, he would vote for it, and our financial advisor did the same … They said, ‘This is what we need to do.’”
Rückes remained concerned following the meeting, including why the city was taking out a loan to pay for the pool repairs when it has the cash to pay for them and whether its priorities were in the right place when the city ran a deficit last year and does not know the exact amount in its fund balance.
“So in our last budget cycle, we passed a budget that was in a deficit,” he said. “We’re behind on audits, so we can’t go out for new revenues yet … Then you saw how Mr. Stephens had asked when we would have our fund balance. Our city manager couldn’t tell us. So my assumption is he probably can’t tell us when our audits would be caught up as well,” Rückes said.
“We are coming up on a new budget cycle. We have a utilities department that’s in a deficit, which is borrowing from our fund balance,” Rückes said. “We have our general fund that’s in a deficit, borrowing from our fund balance. We don’t know when we’re gonna be able to go out for new revenue … Not that I’m in favor of increasing our tax rate to begin with unless it’s a one hundred percent necessity … So just with all that, you know, my hesitation is why are we going to add.”
Texas law does not allow cities to increase their tax rates if their financial audits are not up to date.
Eaves addressed Rückes’ concerns, saying that the funds that had been set aside for the pool would be used in the park project and that it was important to move now to take advantage of the school district’s offer to pay for half and to act on a previous memorandum of understanding with Sul Ross University for the use of the amphitheater.
The school district has said that if the city cannot act to improve the softball field this summer, it will use its funds at another field.
The hope is that improvements to the softball field will bring tournaments to the city and summer concerts can be held at the amphitheater, both of which will increase business in the city, Eaves said.