April
27, 2006
The Lost Sewer Pipe
Caper
By
Jack D. McNamara
What was lost is
found.
After several weeks’ search, we have found a sewer extension which is
the last project of the $250,000 west side water and sewer boondoggle
here in Alpine.
It is only 80-plus feet bored under U.S. Highway 90, part of more than
8,000 feet of sewer line from west Alpine to the Border Patrol station.
But it is costing us more than $4.00 per month each to subsidize the
federal government.
The original deal was secret so we are a little touchy.
At the Alpine City Council meeting of April 18 there was an agenda item
for providing city utility services to the Chinese restaurant on the
far west side of town about 300 yards beyond the Ramada Inn. The
restaurant is logically in the complex of businesses which were a mile
outside the city limits prior to the annexation of a strip of Highway
90 to include the Ramada. This has been over 10 years in the making.
When Ike Sung came to the council on April 18 he was accompanied by
contractor Joey DeHart, who was prepared to bore under Highway 90 again
for a sewer connection to the line serving the Border Patrol station on
the north side of the highway.
Wait a minute, said Ward 1 Representative Avinash Rangra, why drill
under Highway 90 again when there is a bore already on the south side
at the Ramada Inn and Shotgun Grill?
Both contractor DeHart and City Manager Chuy Garcia were puzzled.
Neither was aware of a sewer line extension from the line to the Border
Patrol to the Ramada Inn.
Garcia is new to Alpine City Hall and perhaps does not understand our
ways. He relied on DeHart and Utility Director Terry Sykes. But with
Rangra’s contending opinion about the physical presence of a sewer line
the item was postponed for further study.
Mayor Mickey Clouse commented that the Ramada did not pay sewer fees.
On August 4, 2003 the city council voted 3-2 to extend a line off the
8,000-foot sewer line from west Alpine to the new Border Patrol station
funded by the secret agreement for $1.35 million in revenue bonds passed in March 2003.
Katie Elms-Lawrence and Avinash Rangra voted AGAINST the agenda item
and Nancy DeWitt, Joe Portillo and Kachoo Valenzuela voted for the
extension. The purpose of the extension under Highway 90 was to provide
service to the Ramada Inn and the Shotgun Grill.
The extension cost $10,000-plus and there was no doubt for whom the
city bored. Border Patrol Agent David Durant did not appear before the
council to ask for the extension.
The Nimby News wrote a complete column on this particular issue
(“Christmas Comes Early for Mr. Durant,” August 7, 2003, the Big Bend
Sentinel, page 5). We wrote then that “The key vote … was that of Mrs
Nancy DeWitt, Ward 5 representative …” and directed readers to our
website for a complete file of the correspondence between us and Mrs.
DeWitt.
The minutes of the city council meeting clearly support the fact of a
“change order” for the project voted that night.
The Alpine Avalanche reported on the August 7 front page, “The council
approved change orders for the west side sewer line improvements
totaling $10,706. … They also approved $9,906 for the addition of a
line that will serve businesses on the south side of Hwy. 90, including
Ramada Inn.”
On Friday, April 21, Katie Elms delivered a stack of documents to
Garcia, her records as a city councilperson in August 2003. The records
detail the “change order.”
On Friday also, Garcia called Alpine’s former engineer, Steve Dennis of
GSWW. Dennis told Garcia, of course there is an extension under the
highway to the Ramada and it is “stubbed out;” that is, waiting for the
businesses to connect to the sewer line.
And finally, on that Friday last week, Garcia directed the old hands of
the city utility crew to look for the sewer line on the south side of
the highway, $10,000 of depreciable assets installed three years ago.
Hola! The city’s senior utility men located the sewer.
That is the way we do things around here. Ike Sung of our only Chinese
restaurant — perhaps our only Chinese restaurant ever — comes to the
city because his septic tank is failing. Among other things, this is a
health problem. He agrees to be annexed even though he is more than a
mile outside the traditional city limits. Annexation would be absurd
except for the fact that his next-door neighbor, the Ramada Inn, is in
the city by virtue of a prior strip annexation which was probably
improper in several respects. Everyone pitches in and tries to solve
Mr. Sung’s problem.
A Nimby News reader who grew up in Alpine, is familiar with the
historic neglect of the south side, and who has followed this issue
from Washington, D.C. wrote us: “If the issues weren’t so
serious, the
pain on the Alpine taxpayers would not be as comical. In my mind the
last true Mayor that served the city so well was Dr. Lockhart. Now,
those were the days when wheeling-and-dealing behind closed doors was
serious. He served the entire city well, but especially the south side
— the doctor is a HERO.”
All ends well,
doesn’t it?
But after all the skullduggery in 2002 and 2003, a question remains,
Why wasn’t the Ramada Inn connected to the sewer?
The Ramada Inn may prefer their septic tank. According to a tattered
document from the city, Alpine co-signed a note with David Durant and
his partners for a loan of $29,750 on September 27, 1995. Some of the
loan may have been repaid by the city.
The entire sewer line, west Alpine to the Border Patrol station, cost
about $250,000. As a sweetener, the Border Patrol agreed to pay
$200,000 over several years in sewer fees “as a monthly surcharge over
five years", according to a letter of December 10, 2002 from INS to
former City Manager Bill Lewis. “These payments would commence in the
first billing cycle following construction of the systems and
initiation of the services … commencing no later than September 2003.”
Is the city receiving sewer fees from either the Ramada or the Border
Patrol?
The fact that the Ramada Inn never connected to the sewer was not
reported to the Alpine City Council by either City Manager Bill Lewis
(two months) or Karen Philippi (24 months).
At this point it is quite possible that the sewer extension south of
Highway 90 was never intended for the Ramada Inn. We can’t ask Agent
Durant because he doesn’t answer questions from the public.
Perhaps the sewer extension is intended for something else entirely.
A Wal-Mart, maybe? •
(Also
published by the Big Bend Sentinel of Marfa, Texas April 27, 2006.)
|
Archives