County OKs events center bid

The Curry County Commission awarded a contract for architectural services for a county special events center at its Tuesday meeting.

The contract went to LPDJ Architects of Bountiful, Utah, but is contingent on the successful negotiation of a contract between the county and LPDJ and on approval of technical language in the bid by the state Purchasing Division, said County Attorney Steven Doerr.

At the meeting, the commission also voted to terminate a contract with Bullock Smith and Partners, an architectural firm that had served as a consultant for the special events center project.

In other business:

-- Amelia Carter, chief juvenile probation and parole officer for the 9th and 10th Districts, told commissioners it would cost more than $2,000 to move the division’s office from the Curry County Courthouse to Bruce King State Office Complex at 7th and Thornton streets. She said a move also would interfere with the work of the juvenile probation officers, who need to be near county courts and the sheriff’s office.

The County Clerk’s Office has been looking for extra office space to store voting machines for the June 2004 primary and had asked Carter to consider moving.

-- Curry County Detention Center administrator Don Burdine told the commission he is sending a bill to the state Department of Corrections for the housing of prisoners who should be in state jails. Burdine said in July alone housing state prisoners cost the county $346,121.94. Burdine said the New Mexico Association of Counties has asked county detention administrators statewide to start sending bills for state prisoners to the Department of Corrections as a way of raising awareness of the problem.

Sheriff Rodger Hatcher said he will introduce a resolution opposing the housing of state prisoners in county detention facilities at a meeting today in Santa Fe of NMAC’s Sheriff’s affiliate and will discuss the issue further at meeting of the National Sentencing Commission Aug. 10-13 in Seattle, Wash.