Portales officials vote to prioritize health facility

The Portales City Council voted on Tuesday to place a regional behavioral health facility within the top five of the city’s Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan (ICIP) priorities for 2025 to 2029.

City Manager Sarah Austin insisted that the project be one of their top priorities due to several other local commission and councils placing the project as a top priority in their own ICIP request.

“That’s to be in collaboration with the other entities,” she said. “They are asking for that (the regional behavioral health facility) in their top five as well and we are trying to get regional funding and it’s proven that if you’re doing a regional project and you keep everything the same and unified then you will get a better chance to getting the funding,” Austin said.

Mayor Ron Jackson said the project will be placed in the fifth priority position of their list, pushing all other projects one priority level down. The rest of the council agreed with this push. Councilor Oscar Robinson said he was hopeful with this year’s request for the behavioral health facility, especially since the local communities seemed to be more united.

Portales Fire Chief T.J. Cathey advocated at Tuesday’s meeting for a new ambulance to be placed higher on the list because current service vehicles have “over 10-years-old and have an average mileage over 100,000.”

Robinson agreed with Cathey’s concerns and said the ambulance should be moved from the eleventh spot to seventh, replacing the request of a new boom truck. The rest of the council approved this relocation.

During Tuesday’s meeting some residents voiced concern about the city’s request to have pool improvements within the top 10 of the ICIP, despite the town facing water restrictions.

Portales resident Mavourneen Baca said, “Well it’s just that I didn’t realize there was this great big list and the pool seems to be ridiculous as to where it is. We’re under water restrictions right now, we have other things on that list that rank higher than a pool and if the pool is not bringing us revenue… We can’t even sustain the water that we have now for our citizens, the pool seems a ridiculous idea to have on the upper 10.”

Mayor Jackson said that the council will put the public’s concern under consideration, but movement of the pool improvement project was not discussed further at Tuesday’s meeting. The council voted unanimously to rearrange the list.

Below are the top five projects the council had agreed upon that should be placed highest on the ICIP:

• Wellfield improvements, requesting $60 million.

• Water storage improvements, requesting $20 million.

• Residential streets improvements, requested amount was not discussed or shown at the meeting.

• Impoundment improvements, requested amount was not discussed or shown at the meeting.

• Eastern NM behavioral health facility, requested amount was not discussed or shown at the meeting.

Austin said on Friday that cost estimates will be filled in before city officials send the ICIP to the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration to meet a Wednesday deadline.

Other matters the council dealt with on Tuesday included:

• Mayor Jackson presented a Five Year Service Award to James Baca.

• Community Services Director Kelly McClellan requested and received council approval for ratification of signature on an airport grant application. The grant application would replace the Primary Wind Cone and install precision approach path indicators on a runway for $98,991.

• Cathey requested and received permission for approval to sign a grant application for a new extrication equipment that is quoted to cost $114,604.56

• Councilors voted unanimously to approve the resolution for “time-barred” debt in the amount of $97,066.60.