Alice council weighs drought, development and finances in busy session

Water pressure, a new subdivision request and the city’s spending rules all landed on the same Alice City Council agenda Tuesday, putting the daily stakes of taps, neighborhoods and public services in one room. The April 21 session came as Jim Wells County remained under severe drought pressure and Alice pushed to keep pace with growth without outrunning its water supply.

The drought piece was the most immediate. The council moved to extend and revise the city’s mayoral declaration of local disaster, first issued April 14. Jim Wells County was listed as 100% affected by drought, with 40,838 people impacted. Drought.gov also ranked February 2026 as the 15th driest on record and January through February as the fifth driest year to date over the past 132 years, with sorghum, cotton, corn and cattle all taking hits across the county.

Water planning in Alice is now tied tightly to that broader regional strain. City Manager Michael Esparza said Alice’s brackish desalination plant began running with one well in June 2025 and that the second well was about 30 to 45 days from coming online. He also said half of the city’s supply still comes from Lake Findley. Nearby cities, including Orange Grove and Agua Dulce, have approached Alice about water resources, even as city leaders say they do not intend to become a regional provider.

The council also weighed growth pressure. A public hearing was set on rezoning 905 Ave. C, in Story Addition Block 2 Lot 18, from R-1 Residential to R-6 Mobile Home Subdivision. That kind of land-use decision matters in Alice, where the city’s own planning functions cover infrastructure, land use, drainage and public utilities. The city operates under a home rule charter adopted in 1949 and uses a council-manager form of government.

Finances were the third leg of the meeting. Council members considered a budget amendment tied to hot-funds use for branding, marketing and renovations connected to the storage and cement water tower at Heldt Park. They also took up financial policies and procedures for federal grant contracts, with authority for the city manager, finance director and deputy finance director to carry them out, along with a status report on March 2026 month-end financial statements and check registers.

Alice has already tightened water use before this meeting, updating Stage 3 drought rules on Jan. 11 to ban routine lawn irrigation for most customers while still allowing limited watering of edible gardens and fruit-bearing trees by hand. Tuesday’s agenda showed the city trying to do three difficult things at once: protect water, manage growth and keep its books ready for the next round of spending.