Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
In effect, the Roosevelt County Commission held two meetings, one on Tuesday and one on Friday, to complete a single agenda.
On Tuesday, the commission on a 3-2 vote decided not to take action on action items because, as Commissioner Tina Dixon told the board on Tuesday, commissioners had not had time to review meeting packets adequately before the meeting.
Dixon moved to suspend action items, and the motion passed with Dixon and commissioners Dennis Lopez and Roy Criswell voting to suspend action and commissioners Paul Grider, the commission chair, and Rod Savage voting against Dixon’s motion.
At the end of that meeting, the commission voted to set a special meeting for Friday to act on the action items.
Public service negotiations with the city of Portales was discussed without action on both days.
Criswell said Friday he and Dixon had recently met with the city councilors to speak on the last proposal involving police, fire and emergency medical service fees.
The city, he said, offered a new proposal, which Criswell said “hopefully will be a complete washout. They’ll (the city) have to meet and come up with something at their next meeting.”
Criswell added, “We already pay for dispatch. I’m hoping we get the ball rolling, and we can get into negotiation.”
On Tuesday, Lopez said he was frustrated about the lack of progress in negotiations with the city, which he said have always been problematic.
Dixon said an opinion from the attorney general on agreements reache will be the largest obstacle to agreements between city and county.
On Friday, the commission voted to continue discussions for the next commission meeting scheduled Sept. 19.
The commission on Friday approved New Mexico Department of Transportation capital outlay funding of $854,960 for a variety of road improvement projects
The projects include work on South Roosevelt Road (SRR) O, SRR 7, SSRAB, North Roosevelt Road (NRR) AP, SRR 1, SRR U, SRR 10, SRR AE, SRR G, SRR 4, SRR 20, SRR3 and SRR T.
In other matters, the commission:
• Approved mill levy property tax rates for the county for taxes applied to 2023. Residential rates range from a high of of $25.779 per $1,000 assessed property value in a portion of the city of Portales to a low of $15.760 per $1,000 in assessed property value in Elida. It was unclear whether tax rates represent higher, lower or unchanged tax bills.
• Donated a set of bleachers to the city of Fort Sumner for use at a baseball field. County Manager Amber Hamilton said the bleachers were going to be thrown away if they had not been donated to Fort Sumner.
• Approved a continuation with Local Government Law, LLC, for legal services to the city at rates ranging from $180 per hour for senior attorney, to $130 per hour for junior attorney time, to $75 per hour for paralegal services.
• Approved an agreement with the New Mexico Public Education Department by which the education department will contribute $100,767 to the county’s 2023 Summer Intern program.
Approved purchase of a new backhoe loader for $192,755.00 to replace one the county had owned since 2012 for which, discussion revealed, repairs would cost more than the purchase price for a new loader.
Steve Hansen of The News contributed to this report.
