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Struggle For Control Of Water District Nears Full Boil: Struggle for Control of Water District Nears Full Boil

Posted on: Monday, 8 May 2006, 09:10 CDT

By Marc B. Geller, The Monitor, McAllen, Texas

May 8--McAllen wants to take charge of county provider

By Marc B. Geller

Monitor Staff Writer

McALLEN -- First, the city tried negotiating. Then it tried pursuing legislation. Now, the power struggle between the city of McAllen and the water district that provides most of the city's water has come down to who controls the district's board of directors.

Hidalgo County Water Improvement District No. 3 provides McAllen with about 95 percent of its water, said City Attorney Jim Darling. He said the city must participate more in managing its water supply.

McAllen's leadership also wants to stop paying delivery fees for the water the district pumps from the Rio Grande and wants to improve some of the district's infrastructure to increase service reliability, Darling added.

But the district's newly elected board chairman, Othal Brand Jr., said the city's rationale for taking over the district is ill-founded. He said the district provides water more economically than the city would be able to provide it.

"We have people that understand water," Brand said. "We're not taking the approach that we've got a problem with the city or we've got a conflict. We're trying to resolve any issues they have."

One of the city's issues is the composition of the board, which has opposed the city taking over the district.

According to state law, anyone who owns land subject to taxation in the district can be elected as a director by other landowners.

Municipal employee Jeff Teer, the city's deputy emergency management coordinator, began serving on the five-member board in June 2004 and was the sole director who supported the city's takeover aspirations. He claims the other board members illegally removed him after he questioned the exclusion of certain properties -- and therefore director candidates -- from the district.

State law allows a water district board to exclude land from the district under certain circumstances. Generally, this happens when the landowners don't want to be included or don't care if they're excluded.

Usually, it's because the land is not irrigable, the landowners no longer intend to irrigate it or that the land is designated for nonagricultural use.

Teer claimed that when three of the seats on the board were coming up for election recently, the other directors began illegally excluding land to disqualify city-takeover proponents -- including former McAllen mayor Leo Montalvo -- from being eligible candidates.

Teer said that when he objected to the exclusions, the other directors removed him on the grounds that he had sold the land he owned in the district and was no longer eligible to serve on the board.

"Even though I am statutorily qualified, because I was elected properly and I'm able to serve in a holdover capacity until my position is declared a vacancy or I'm elected out of office, I just went ahead and found interest in other piece of land," Teer said.

Brand disputes Teer's claim and said the exclusions were on the up and up.

"It was done legally according to our attorney," he said.

He maintains that the district began excluding land -- for the first time since its establishment in 1921 -- on the recommendation of general manager Tito Nieto and district counsel Glenn Jarvis.

"The exclusions that we did, we had been working on for months before the election," Brand said.

He said Nieto and Jarvis advised the board that there were many people whose land was in the district but who didn't have service and didn't want service.

"If you want water from our district, you have to pay to get the connection," Brand said.

Over the past year, though, a "bunch of people" told the district they didn't want to pay the flat rate, he said. Brand said the district even excluded McAllen's municipally owned properties after city officials said they didn't want any more water from the district.

"When we published the exclusion, we had several people who came and said, 'No, we want to stay in the district.' And everybody that came to that board and said, 'Leave us in,' we left. We put them back in and we went ahead and excluded the rest."

Darling, the city attorney, acknowledges there's a valid case to be made for excluding properties, but he said the timing of the exclusions was questionable.

"We were very suspicious of the way they excluded properties right before the election," he said. "There's a logical reason for them doing it, but they never had, and then all of a sudden, two weeks before the election, they excluded all this property, and we thought there might have been an ulterior motive for that."

Among those whose properties were excluded was Montalvo, a former two-term mayor who twice beat out Brand's father, former mayor Othal Brand Sr., for the city's top elected office and then backed current Mayor Richard Cortez, who beat the older Brand in last year's mayoral election.

"There was some rumors that I might run for director of the district, just like there were rumors that other people might run," Montalvo said. "And then all of a sudden, 30 days before the deadline to file, you've got resolutions excluding property from the district with virtually no notice to the members of that district."

Montalvo said two of his properties -- his personal residence at 710 Orange Ave. and his law office at 900 N. Main St. -- were among those excluded. Both are within a few blocks of where the district office is located at 1325 W. Pecan Blvd.

"I've had other property interests in the district which were not excluded," he said. "They were not in my name, and I suspect that that's probably the reason that those were not identified."

For now, at least, it appears that the status quo will prevail.

Initially, five people filed to run for three seats; directors serve four-year terms and are elected at-large. When two people dropped out of the running, it left three contenders for three seats, and the board cancelled the election.

By default, longtime director Bill Moschel, who was up for re-election, keeps his seat on the board. The two other seats -- longtime directors Glasscoe Doyle and Dick Moore decided not to seek re-election -- will go to Montalvo and Chris Burns.

Burns, who manages his family's farming operation, Burns Farms Inc., will be the sole agriculture representative on the board. He said he is inclined to oppose a city takeover of the district unless he can be convinced otherwise.

Unless the board reinstates Teer at this week's meeting, Montalvo likely will end up being the sole director in favor of a city takeover after he and Burns take office next month.

That would be an unwelcome outcome for Darling, who worries that the board may fold Hidalgo County Water Improvement District No. 3 into United Irrigation District.

"It's a real concern with us," Darling said, noting the Hidalgo No. 3 board already hired United general manager Nieto to run Hidalgo No. 3.

Darling's main worry, notwithstanding Brand's assurances to the contrary, is that McAllen would lose what limited control it has over its main water source, potentially leading to problems for the city in water consumption.

Brand, on the other hand, worries not only that the city would run the district less economically if it gained control; he also worries that its takeover aspirations may be motivated in part by municipal greed.

"Based on some numbers that I've been given, the water district holds probably about $3 million to $4 million worth of water rights, about $2 million cash in the bank and assets in excess of probably $6 million," he said. "A coup like that would be good for anybody, right?"

Teer agrees the district "is in good fiscal shape" but disputes this hand-in-the-cookie-jar characterization of the city's motives.

"It is running well as a business, but in the grander scheme of things, $3 million to the city of McAllen ain't that big a deal," he said. "There is absolutely no intention for a cash grab by the city. The city simply wants to be able to have a little bit more say-so about who it's buying water from and how that water is being managed."

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Marc B. Geller covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4445. For this and more local stories, visit www.themonitor.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Monitor, McAllen, Texas

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Source: The Monitor (McAllen, Texas)

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