Meetings watch — April 8

Portales City Council

The following were actions taken at the Portales City Council meeting Tuesday in the Memorial Building:

• Councilors recognized the recent efforts of Portales students at the Destination Imagination competition in Albuquerque.

Katrina Prince with the Gifted Program at Portales Schools explained that seven teams from the program traveled to Destination Imagination. One team took first place, two teams took second, two came in third, one came in fourth place and the youngest team came in seventh out of nine.

Rae Ruiz, of the first place team, LAZER Squared, spoke about her experience at Destination Imagination.

“We learned a lot at D.I. We learned that working as a team is a good way to get things done, and it’s just way funner that way.”

• Councilors approved the appointments of councilors to committees by Mayor Sharon King.

King recommended Michael Miller to the local growth management committee, Veronica Cordova to workforce development, Chad Heflin to Eastern Plains council of government and Jim Lucero to public safety.

• Councilors approved two contracts for outside city utility services connections.

Public Works Director John DeSha said that Comcast Cable Corporation is requesting approval for water and sewer service for their dish farm near the Yucca housing additions at the end of Avenue I.

The second request was for Antonio and Kayla Duran, whose personal well went dry. Their contract was for water only.

• Councilors approved a request for the city to act as the fiscal agent for a capital outlay request by the Community Services Center to purchase two reach-in freezers and two meal delivery vehicles.

Vonnie Banther, executive director at the CSC, explained that they are in the process of completing a capital outlay request for the 2017 fiscal year. One of their current meal delivery vehicles, a 2011 Ford Ranger, needs to be replaced, said Banther. In addition to a replacement vehicle, she said that the CSC wanted to purchase a second vehicle for the second part of the meal delivery route.

“We’re not really approving whether they buy the freezers or the vehicles; we’re simply approving whether we will take care of the business end of it and pay the bills. Then we would bill for reimbursement,” King said, adding that since the CSC cannot act as its own fiscal agent, the city will fill that capacity.

• Councilors approved a contract with WHPacific for planning and design services for the fire department substation.

“Everybody’s in agreeance,” said Chief Procurement Officer Carla Weems of the final contract.

• Councilors approved a motion to enter into contract negotiations for lift station rehabilitations in Portales.

Accord to DeSha, the next step is to review proposals sent in by engineers and negotiate a price for the rehabilitation.

• Councilors approved an ordinance amending which entities may qualify as an economic development project.

According to Standefer, the change would be made to help market the Portales Inn.

“We have an ordinance that outlines goals and objectives, and one of them said ‘affordable housing.’ We wanted to change it to broaden that scope, because it might be a hotel, it might be some other type of business. We really are just asking to take the ‘affordable housing’ portion off of that,” said Standefer.

— Compiled by Staff Writer Eamon Scarbrough