Council will consider Sunland reimbursement request

A fairly light agenda for the Portales City Council meeting at 7 p.m. tonight at City Hall includes two items of business involving possible money for Sunland Inc.

City Manager Tom Howell said the business north of Portales is hoping to be partially reimbursed for building a sewer line to connect its plant with the city lines.

Howell said Sunland is requesting $60,698 from the city’s Economic Development Tax Fund to offset part of the sewer line construction. Sunland has already received $52,000 from the city and $156,000 from the state Economic Development Department for the project, Howell and Sunland CEO Jimmie Shearer have said.

“What ended up happening is that he (Shearer) got an engineer’s estimate on the cost of the sewer line before they started,” Howell said. “By the time they went in with the sewer line, there were some additional expenses that weren’t anticipated — like they had to go deeper and move some other lines.”

The Portales city manager added that the city did have a total of $655,257 as of Aug. 1 in the tax fund that could be used for expenses such as the Sunland request.

Other items on the agenda include a resolution calling for a regular municipal election of city officers to be held March 2.

Council members are also expected to approve overtime reimbursement for Portales city police officers in the form of a grant from the New Mexico Department of Transportation.