The clash between the City of McAllen and its fire and police departments has gone on for over a year.
Thursday night, members from each group got to express their frustrations.
Members of the McAllen police and fire departments offered a weak applause when District Four Commissioner Aida Ramirez said, “Let’s act like adults.”
They say they're skeptical that anything will ever get solved.
Police and fire relationships with the city are strained.
Police and firefighters say they don’t understand why the city paid almost one million dollars for attorneys to negotiate their contracts.
They claim that money could have paid for salary increases.
Commissioners say they had no choice.
"You can't have a lawyer representing the union, that turns around and sues somebody personally, and then sit down and is supposed to negotiate with them,” said District Six Commissioner Jim Darling.
"You were asking for millions of millions of dollars,” said District Five Commissioner John Ingram, “We paid $345,000 to defend ourselves, and if we hadn't, we would have had to pay them the millions of dollars."
That money is something the city says it doesn't have enough of.
"Negotiations only stop when people stop negotiating,” said Commissioner Ingram, “So we can come to an agreement, but that hasn't been possible without some pretty ugly things happening."
Firefighters and police say they're only fighting for what's fair.
It’s unclear an agreement will be reached between the groups.
TV Station Profiles & Public Inspection Files forKGBT