Official proposes nuisance, mobile home ordinances

PORTALES — A proposed solution to county properties kept in sub-standard condition drew both supporters and skeptics at Tuesday's Roosevelt County Commission meeting.

No consensus was reached.

Geographic Information Systems Manager Johnny Montiel said during his department report that he has received complaints about mobile homes encroaching into the county's right-of-way and becoming nuisances to other county residents.

After receiving the most recent complaints, Montiel met with staff in other counties, who suggested he create an "abatement nuisance ordinance" and a "mobile home ordinance."

Commissioner Dennis Lopez pointed out that what the county may view as addressing a nuisance could encroach on someone's way of life.

"What's a nuisance to probably me is a normal way of living for a lot of country folk, and here's the thing: That's a subject that I would rather avoid," Lopez said, recalling when the county attempted a similar ordinance and met resistance several years before.

Roosevelt County Sheriff Malin Parker disagreed, citing the number of complaints he has received as "triplefold" since the ordinance was last mentioned.

"Some of (the trailer houses) are so sub-standard that they're a danger for the people occupying them, and then, the stuff that they drag up with it and put up makeshift pens for animals and that kind of stuff," he said.

Montiel told commissioners he didn't want to zone the county, but wanted an ordinance with "teeth," that would encourage residents to better maintain their properties.

"We're just saying, 'Hey, let's clean this up a little bit,' because there are some people that are trying to sell their homes, but people don't want to buy it because of the area that they're in," he said.

While Lopez agreed with Montiel and Parker, he said the situation of many county residents was due to poverty.

"Whether we like it or not, we live in a very poverty-stricken, frontier, rural part of America, and it's hard to distinguish what's neglect, what's abuse, what's poverty," he said. "That's going to be a tough job for whomever has to enforce any type of rule or ordinance."

Parker conceded that many of the property owners are poor, but said the issue of public safety created by the properties couldn't be ignored.

"When you bring in a place like this, and you're pumping the raw sewage out onto the ground outside the house because you can't afford to set a septic tank, and you're hauling in all these animals, and you're building these pens, and you're not maintaining your property well enough that you're creating a public hazard to your neighbors or somebody else, that's what I want to be able to enforce," he said.

County Attorney Randy Knudson said that, in his experience, a zoning ordinance would never be passed in the county.

"It's a lose-lose proposition all the way around for a governmental body," he said.

County Manager Amber Hamilton said the ordinances will be brought before the council at a later meeting.

Also at Tuesday's meeting:

• Commissioners approved the appointment of two people to fill vacant positions on the Roosevelt County Special Hospital District Board: Virginia Clemmons and Doug Stone.

Roosevelt General Hospital CEO Kaye Green said the board had received no write-in candidates for the positions — the current members' terms expire at the end of the year — so it recommended the candidates for approval by the commission.

• Commissioners approved the Roosevelt County calendar for 2018.

• Commissioners approved a resolution changing Dora's polling place to the Dora Senior Center.

• A request by the Department of the Army to use several county buildings over the course of several months in spring of 2018 for a training exercise was approved.

• Commissioners approved a merchant processing agreement with Merrick Bank, which allows the county clerk's office to accept microchipped credit cards and web payments.