Residents raise concerns about traffic near Highland

CLOVIS — The school year is off to a fast and furious start — a little too fast and furious for residents near the new Highland Elementary campus.

The president of the Sandia neighborhood watch group addressed Clovis’ public works committee Wednesday morning hoping for some type of relief.

Valerie Landrith, speaking on behalf of the group that meets monthly, said traffic frequently goes through the 100 to 300 blocks of Sandia instead of making its way through the traffic light at Manana and Thornton.

“We are the bypass,” Landrith said, “and now that school is open we’re a big bypass.”

Landrith, who works from home, said she observes many drivers simply going too fast along the narrow street and recently watched a car go into a neighbor’s yard as that person was doing yard work. She’s also set up a wide proximity alert on her video doorbell, and frequently sees drivers in excess of the posted 30 mph limit. She said drivers already treat the stop sign as scenery, but felt lowering the speed to 25 mph would send motorists a message and the neighborhood would pay for speed bumps if necessary.

Public Works Director Clint Bunch said he could do a traffic study on the area, which would give a count of motorists and their speeds. City Manager Justin Howalt said he would look at installing a speed trailer in the area, but would do it after the traffic study to avoid skewing traffic study results.

In other business at the Wednesday meeting:

• Landfill Superintendent Oscar Macias and Bunch updated committee members on the city’s recycling program efforts, and Bunch said he intended to add another series of recycling bins.

Bunch said he was considering adding recycling bins — basically repurposed trash bins marked for plastic, tin and cardboard disposal — at Roy Walker Recreation Center. The city has stations set up in parking lots for the 21st Street Post Office, Albertsons and Walmart.

The recycling program proceeds are somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000 based on Bunch and Macias estimates — $300-$400 monthly in metal recycling, $600-$700 a year in plastics recycling and $600-$800 in cardboard recycling (based on 3 cents per pound and 10 to 12 tons recycled monthly).

Running the program takes almost all of the hours of one full-time staffer, Macias said, with sorting and transporting the goods to recycling centers locally and in Albuquerque.

“Recycling doesn’t generate a lot of money,” Bunch said, “but what it does is save a lot of air space in our landfill, which is saving money.”

Bunch is also looking into a an “e-cycle” kiosk at the landfill to help people recycle electronic goods that take up landfill space and have recyclable components that aren’t easily identified.

• Howalt said he met with Daniel B. Stephens and Associates on Monday regarding its petroleum plume investigation near the intersection of Commerce and Prince Streets, and reported most of the wells for the project are completed.

The New Mexico Environment Department, working with DBSA on the project, plans to remove the petroleum from the water and put the treated water into the city sewer system, where it can be repurposed as effluent water.

• Bunch updated committee members on a Monday meeting he had at the New Mexico Department of Transportation District 2 headquarters in Roswell.

Many projects are coming to the area in the next few years, with the first project to be renovations to U.S. 60/84 from Wheaton Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The $2.912 million project will go out to bid in October, with construction beginning either in December or early 2020.

• The next meeting is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Sept. 25.