Meetings watch: Clovis City Commission

The Clovis city commission met Thursday at the North Annex of the Clovis-Carver Public Library.

All commissioners and Mayor David Lansford were in attendance. Randy Crowder, also a state representative, participated from Santa Fe via phone.

Unless noted, items passed on 8-0 votes.

• The commission, by 5-3 votes, tabled a pair of ordinances that would have increased trash collection fees and rededicated a gross receipts tax that subsidizes the city’s sanitation department.

The increase, approximately $1.44 per month for residents, would have matched a gross receipts tax dedication equaling one-16th of a percent that generates $490,000 for the sanitation department. The money would have been reassigned for drainage portions of road construction.

“We’ve been taking money out of the road fund for drainage,” Lansford said. “It’s reduced the amount of roadway we can improve.”

Commissioner Bobby Sandoval said he didn’t see why the item couldn’t first go before the revenue review committee, as it always has. He moved to table the items until the committee met in August.

He was joined by Tom Martin, Sandra Taylor-Sawyer, Chris Bryant and Fidel Madrid.

Crowder, who brought the ordinances forth, voted in dissent with Gary Elliott and Juan Garza.

City staff noted for any gross receipts tax rededication to take place, it would need to happen before Sept. 30, or 90 days before Jan. 1. Lansford said the best course of action would be to convene the revenue review committee in late July.

• Martin, during the commission’s approval of prior meeting minutes, asked if it were a good use of city staff time to provide lengthy meeting minutes. He noted the Nov. 30 meeting was approved that night, five weeks after the meeting, because commissioners needed to read everything.

“There were some things that were put in the minutes, and some things that weren’t, that I thought were important,” Taylor-Sawyer said.

Martin asked if verbatim minutes were necessary, noting the four-hour Nov. 30 meeting took staff nearly 12 hours to properly transcribe. He felt it was a waste of city time, since videos of each meeting are digitally archived.

Crowder said his only concern was that written minutes are legal documents, and wanted to make sure the city used a proper standard.

City Attorney David Richards said the only requirement for minutes is that the actions, and how commissioners voted, are listed.

• City Clerk LeighAnn Melancon reminded the commission absentee voting begins Tuesday, and early voting Feb. 10 for the March 1 municipal election. The city approved a resolution establishing the election day polling places — Colonial Park Golf Course, the Youth Recreation Building, Roy Walker Community Center, Trinity United Methodist Church and Clovis Fire Department Station No. 5 — and approving of the poll workers.

• The next meeting is scheduled for 5:15 p.m. Feb. 4 at the North Annex of the Clovis-Carver Public Library.

— Compiled by Deputy Editor Kevin Wilson