Paul Casias took the reigns as mayor during a swearing-in ceremony Monday night, with a packed house of family and friends looking on. Casias was sworn in as mayor after winning the June 20 runoff election by 41 votes. The vote for mayor went to a runoff after there was no majority winner among the four initial candidates.

With the passage of the homerule charter in November 2022, the mayor will serve a 3-year term and will have a vote on items considered by the city council, whereas the mayor did not previously have a vote.

Former mayor Joe Chris Alexander presented Casias with the Certificate of Election.

“Congratulations, sir,” Alexander said as he presented Casias with the certificate.

“I want to thank everyone for their support, especially my wife, our family, my friends, council, (city secretary) Nina (Cantu) for everything she did, James for running, as well, appreciate that,” Casias said after taking the oath of office. “I will do the best that I can for the citizens of Fort Stockton, and we’ll continue to grow and move forward.”

The first duty Casias performed as mayor was to present Alexander with a gavel/plaque for his years of service to the city. Alexander was elected to the city council in 2010 and was elected mayor in 2015.

Alexander reflected on his time on city council and as mayor and the projects the city underwent under his leadership.

“Every council does projects, but I think we hit some really major ones because we had – I call it – a perfect storm when we came in,” Alexander said. “Like zero money and a water pipeline that was blowing apart on us about every other month or so.”

Five days after he was sworn in as city council member, the city experienced its first “major blowout” of the water pipeline and was forced to shut down the city’s water system.

“It took us several years to get it all wrapped up and put together,” Alexander said, noting that Fort Stockton was one of five cities statewide that did not have water issues during the 2021 freeze. “That was our main goal, let’s protect our water first and get it where it’s going to work.”

Alexander also noted improvements to the public works department in terms of new equipment and vehicles because of issues related to the water pipeline break.

“We bought probably a million-and-a-half dollars’ worth of street equipment so our guys could do our streets and quit having to rely on whenever somebody else wasn’t using their equipment, we got to borrow Theirs,” he said. “We got a new PD building, state-of-the art dispatch; when I took over, we had one working emergency siren. We now have five working sirens in our community.”

Alexander also mentioned park improvements over the last eight years, the new convention center, the new landfill project, voters choosing a home-rule charter and the legislature changing Fort Stockton’s elections from May to November, as well as how the city survived the Covid-19 pandemic, including providing free water during the summer of 2020.

“Because we had a fund balance and we said we can do that,” he said. “We’re the only city that did that for their citizens, in Texas.”

Finally, Alexander noted how the city has gone from being financially strapped to having a fund balance of $11 million today.

“That did not come easy,” he noted. “Last year we lowered our property taxes, we’re the only entity in Pecos County that lowered their tax rate.”

Alexander concluded by saying the city staff is the greatest asset.

“That’s what I’m going to miss the most is working with the staff,” he said.

“Mayor Casias, the city is in good hands with you.”

*495 votes were cast in the runoff election June 20, with Casias receiving 268 votes and James Warnock receiving 227 votes.

*The mayor serves without an established salary but may choose to receive $125 per month to offset out-of-pocket expenses incurred during their duties as mayor.