Curry officials talk fire departments, infrastructure

CLOVIS — With four meetings in July, the Curry County Commission had already knocked out most of the business it otherwise would have tackled in its first August meeting on Tuesday morning.

With a light agenda, commissioners spent most of the 40-minute meeting discussing rural fire departments and infrastructure concerns.

After some back-and-forth during the virtual meeting, the commission unanimously voted to approve a 45-day extension to Griego and Sons for work on the Ranchvale Fire Department building.

County Facilities Director Ben Roberts told commissioners the contract originally had a completion date of June 29, but the company had a handful of delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the weather. Roberts thought a 45-day extension was excessive, and the construction company offered to remove debris and caliche the parking lot.

Commissioners Chet Spear and Seth Martin had varying degrees of disagreement with the extension process. Spear questioned the rationality of COVID-19 delays for a business that’s been essential the entire pandemic. Primarily, he said the caliche work amounted to $15,000 by Roberts’ estimates and the extension comes at a $20,000 cost to the county, and he didn’t understand why somebody should receive $5,000 for finishing a project late and feared the county would set a precedent.

“We write these contracts,” Spear said. “We don’t like amended work orders. We don’t like delays. We always get them and we let people get away with it.”

Roberts and County Manager Lance Pyle shared Spear’s concerns, but believed the agreement was within reason. Pyle noted Griego and Sons has done numerous projects with the county, and has a good track record.

Martin noted Griego and Sons made a similar arrangement for a delay in road barn construction, and he believed that established some semblance of a pattern.

“This may not be the opportune time to (address such a pattern),” Martin said, “but we may want to look at that during future contracts.”

Martin did counter that the debris removal was a significant amount of work that Roberts didn’t assign a value too, and he anticipated that work would mostly close the gap. Spear said he could go along with that reasoning, noting lot cleanup won’t be cheap at the site.

Before moving for approval, Commissioner Robert Thornton noted that just because a business is essential doesn’t mean it’s immune to pandemic-related delays and said he’s had difficulty getting basic materials for his business the last few months.

County Fire Director David Kube, earlier in the meeting, gave a brief update of county fire operations. He said the Pleasant Hill Fire Department should receive a new truck soon, after a combination of the pandemic and trouble locating parts delayed the delivery about eight months.

“We paid $193,000 for this vehicle,” Kube said, “so we want to get it in service as quickly as possible.”

He said the Ranchvale department has held off an insurance rating evaluation until the building is complete, and said not having the building ready got the department dinged on an inspection because onsite record keeping was impacted.

Kube also noted he’s looking at creating a new fire district south of Clovis, and so far has plenty of buy-in from residential and commercial property owners in the area.

Kube said 12 people, four with significant firefighting experience, have told him they’re willing to serve in the department, and he believes he could get a privately donated building.

In other business at the Tuesday meeting:

• Spear publicly thanked Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham for classifying youth livestock shows as permitted outdoor recreation activity, and said he appreciated Pyle’s constant dialogue on the matter with the governor’s office.

• Commissioner Bobby Sandoval again noted the importance of wearing face coverings.

“I hear a lot of people complaining about not being able to go out to eat and have a beer,” Sandoval said. “A lot of people blame the governor and say she’s not meeting us halfway. Are we meeting her halfway? In short, I say, if you’re not wearing a mask, you shouldn’t complain. You’re not a part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

• In his report, Pyle noted the Melrose health clinic reopened Tuesday morning, and would be open 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays on an appointment-only basis.

Pyle also said he’d spend much of the week working on an application for part of $150 million in CARES Act grants issued by the state. The county would have to spend anything it received by December, and the large amount of federal money may require a special audit of the county down the road.

• The next meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. Aug. 18.