Portales City Council postpones vote on water contract

PORTALES -- The Portales City Council on Dec. 5 voted to postpone a vote to approve a water contract with the Roosevelt County Water Cooperative until the next meeting.

On Nov. 1, the council voted to increase the rate it charges Roosevelt County Water Coop customers by 75%, starting in January.

City Manager Sarah Austin in an email last Wednesday said the Coop “will start paying $5.85 per 1,000 gallons … and right now they currently pay $3.34 per 1,000 gallons.”

This is the first increase since 2016, Austin said.

City Councilman Jim Lucero made the motion to table approval of the proposed contract so, he said, the city and the coop could have “one last talk on this.”

The vote scheduled for the Dec. 5 meeting was about approving the final language of the contract with the RCWC and not about the rate increase that had already been approved at the previous meeting.

In the same vote on Nov. 1, the council also approved water rate increases for city residential customers at 8% for each of the next four years.

The WCRC rate is set to increase by “75% this year, 25% next year and then 12% each year after with a yearly evaluation,” Austin wrote in an email.

During the discussion of the RCWC contract, Mayor Ron Jackson asked why their attorney had not responded to the city attorney who sent them the proposed contract.

In an interview on Thursday, The News spoke with RCWC board member Larry Levacy.

Levacy said their attorney had not yet responded because he had been out of town.

Prior to the motion, the mayor asked if any of the representatives from the coop had comments.

“I think it’s unfair,” Levacy told the mayor. He also said he didn’t think the rate was “what it ought to be.”

It costs the city $16.68 per 2,000 gallons to provide water services, Austin said in an email. This number was also discussed at the meeting.

Explaining the city’s reasoning for the rate hike, she told The News, “the city, just like all other businesses/organizations, have had to raise their prices due to inflation. We have not raised our rates on water since 2016 and our refuse since 2012.”

The News asked why the city increased the RCWC water rate by 75 % and the city residents’ rates by 8 percent.

“Because the COOP has paid and been paying less than city residents,” she said.

The city plans to schedule a meeting with the RCWC to discuss the matter further before the vote. A date has yet to be set.

Ursula Parker, general manager of the RCWC, said the city has its own wells from which it gets the water it sells.

The News asked for an average bill a customer will pay under the new rates.

Austin said that “it is hard to provide an average bill before the rate increase comes up. I can tell you that the average percentage increase will be about 6% over the entire bill but that includes: Water, Sewer, and Refuse.”

The RCWC customers only purchase water from the city.

Wesley Pool of the Pool law Firm, who represents the RCWC, could not be reached for comment.

In other business, the council chose Roosevelt County Commissioners Tina Dixon and Dennis Lopez as their choice of delegates from the county they would like to work with during negotiations to create a joint powers agreement to manage a proposed regional dispatch center.