Year in review: 2021 was a year of transition for Clovis

CLOVIS - The 2022 Clovis municipal election will have one of the most loaded ballots in recent years, even with the mayor's race still two years down the road.

A year of transition for the city, through commission actions and transitions, means voters will have a March 1 ballot with six races and four potential changes to the city's founding documents.

Coming up in 2022, voters will be asked for up-or down votes on four changes to the charter:

• Increase the signature requirement on a recall petition from 20% of the prior election's voter turnout to 33 1/3%. Based on turnout from the 2020 election, a recall effort would require 900 signatures from registered Clovis voters to recall the mayor or municipal judge. Recalls of commissioners require signatures from the respective district - 345 signatures in District 1, 156 in District 2, 115 in District 3 and 265 in District 4.

• A requirement for a recall petition to include the reason for the recall effort. Members who served on the charter review committee did not want taxpayer-funded recall elections rooted in petty reasons. No Clovis elected official has been successfully recalled, and nobody has faced a recall election since 1999.

• Elimination of an unenforceable section on term limits for city offices, as the New Mexico constitution does not allow term limits for any elected offices except the governor and county positions.

• Editing the charter to read gender neutral, including eliminating instances where a commissioner is referred to as "himself."

The ballot will also include five commission races, with both District 1 positions on the ballot. Those seats belong to Juan Garza, who was re-elected in 2018, and James Burns, who was appointed to the position in October following the resignation of Leo Lovett. The election of Burns' seat will be for two years, as Lovett won the election in 2020.

Also up for election in March will be the municipal judge position (currently held by Vicki Kelley) and commission spots in Districts 2 (Gary Elliott), 3 (Fidel Madrid) and 4 (Megan Palla, who was appointed in February following the resignation of 2018 winner Rube Render).

The District 1 races and the District 4 race are expected to have broad candidate slates. Seven people ran for the District 1 seat won by Lovett, and all four who applied to replace Lovett said they intended to run for the seat in March. Palla was among five applicants on the District 4 seat; she and two others said they intended to run for the seat in 2022.

In other 2021 highlights for the city:

• Citizens approved a city question that went on the general election ballot, allowing the city to expand its usage of Local Economic Development dollars to include retail. The measure received 73% support, with 954 voting in favor and 349 voting against. Thanks to Senate Bill 49, which Clovis Mayor Mike Morris helped push through the Legislature, communities over 35,000 would be allowed to incentivize retail businesses. Once the bill was signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the city then required voter permission to amend its specific LEDA provisions.

• The city said farewell to longtime Wastewater Superintendent Durwood Billington and hello to new Airport Manager James Harris. Billington was praised in a January commission meeting for his decades of expertise. "I don't think I know anybody else around," Public Works Director Clint Bunch said, "that knows more about their field than Durwood does. It's not all math, it's not all science. There's a touch needed, and Durwood has it."

Harris has been on board for various changes at the airport, including its change from Clovis Municipal Airport to Clovis Regional Airport. In July, the airport added Transportation Security Administration screening, which saved Clovis passengers time on connecting flights. In November, Denver Air Connections began to offer roundtrip flights between Clovis and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

The airport had been without service to DFW since May 2020, when DAC took over with Denver International Airport as its primary hub.

• Russell Hooper was brought aboard in March as the city's new parks and recreation director. Hooper, who came to Clovis from the Dallas area, filled the vacancy created by the 2020 retirement of Mark Dayhoff.

• The Friendship Senior Center reopened in April, following more than a year of being closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the facility was closed, meals from the Curry Senior Residents Meal Association were offered as carry-out and programs were done either virtually or in the center's parking lot with COVID-safe protocols.

• The animal control task force was reorganized, with the primary purpose to find ways to offer low-cost spaying and neutering as local veterinarians faced pandemic-induced backlogs with their private customer bases. The task force did enter into an agreement with the Best Friends Animal Network, and is on hiatus until Best Friends provides complimentary site visits and policy reviews.

• The commission is scheduled to tackle another testy issue in its Jan. 6 meeting, with an ordinance covering sign codes expected to be on the agenda. The 20-page ordinance, which was introduced in November, includes definitions and rules on signs, with references to yard signs, political signs, business signs and billboards. The ordinance makes no references to sign content, but has a series of limitations on sign sizes, heights and setbacks, depending on whether adjacent roads are residential, collectors, arterials or state highways. The Clovis/Curry County Chamber of Commerce has created a Jan. 3 meeting to discuss the ordinance, with early discussion centered on compliance requirements when a business changes owners.