City to act on nuisance property

Staff writer

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At their Tuesday night meeting, Portales city councilors approved a resolution to authorize the city to initiate a complaint in district court against a property owner and declare the property a public nuisance.

According to Planning Director Donna Rutherford, the resolution was related to a property on North Avenue B between West Nogal Street and West Maple Street.

“There’s two vacant lots there. We get numerous complaints every summer about the condition of this property. We’ve sent this lady numerous letters. She never responds to the letters, never calls us,” Rutherford said.

The city has accumulated almost $3,000 in mowing liens in order to keep the property maintained, she said.

According to City Attorney Randy Knudson, the resolution was brought to the city council so that it could authorize a complaint in district court to file a lawsuit to sue the owner.

“We will try to foreclose the liens, but we also want the court to declare a public nuisance, with the ultimate goal of having this property foreclosed upon with the city owning it, where at least we’re responsible for taking care of it in the future,” Knudson said, adding that the city would not realistically be able to collect remuneration from the owner, because she lives out of state.

The property owner could not be reached for comment.

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

• Councilors approved the ratification of bills for September 2016.

According to Finance Director Marilyn Rapp, the amount paid for September was $1.7 million.

• Councilors approved the first quarter budget adjustments for the 2016-17 fiscal year.

Several transfers were made, Rapp said, including $36,100 from the capital repair and replacement fund into expenditures in the general fund, an $88,000 increase in expenditures to the building capital projects fund (due to a state legislative grant) and a $40,754 increase to the water and wastewater fund as part of the city’s required match for the Community Development Block Grant project.

According to Rapp, revenues for the water and wastewater fund were increased by $1.7 million.

“The biggest part of that is a little bit over $1.6 million for the wastewater treatment plant reimbursement,” she said, adding that there will be a total net increase of $251,721 in all funds.

• Councilors approved a request to negotiate job order contracting for the city.

According to Public Works Director John DeSha, job order contracting would allow the city to call contractors that have already been negotiated with in case they are needed.

“You don’t have to necessarily go through the whole procurement process, because we’ve already done that in the past. It’s just a way to kind of do a little bit of streamlining of our process,” he said.

DeSha added that he planned on getting as many different vendors as possible, including plumbers, electricians and well drillers.