Meetings watch: 7/15 Curry County Commission meeting

The following is a report on Tuesday’s Curry County Commission meeting:
• Special Events Center — Work on the SEC is approximately 86 percent complete, according to Project Supervisor Randy Kamradt. The contract value stands at $7.14 million with $5.27 million or 73.8 percent requested from the budget through the end of May.

Recent weather has been “more of an inconvenience than a delay,” Kamradt said, explaining the projected completion date remains Aug. 31.

• Property values — Curry County Assessor Randy Williams said the county has filed with the state and the taxable property value came in at $596 million, up about $50 million from last year, resulting in an increase of 9.21 percent.

Williams said taxable property values increased in part from new home construction and from the reappraisal of commercial properties.

• Tax collection — Curry County Deputy Chief Treasurer Bernice Baker said tax collection sits around $11.89 million and is on track with last year.
Thursday was the last day to pay taxes and letters were sent to residents who had not paid, Baker said.

Curry County Adult Detention Center — Warden Leslie Johnson said substance abuse programs at the jail are growing. She said the number of inmate groups grown from two or three to more than a dozen.

The jail is working on a contract to install cameras and security equipment. Bids will let in coming weeks.

Commissioners Albin Smith and Pete Hulder commended Johnson on the conversion of the jail annex to a female facility and smoothness with which the jail has been operating.

“We used to have 300 (inmates a month) and we were spending $100,000 a month to house them (out of county),” Smith said.

There are:
• 197 inmates at the jail
• 160 males
• 37 females
• 44 in alternative sentencing programs
• 8 juveniles, 6 males, 2 females

Curry County Fairgrounds — Manager Susan Ferrell said reduced vendor fees for the county fair have helped and there are only seven spaces left in the commercial barn.

She also said midway should be “pretty full.”

Ferrell also said fair exhibitor entries are being accepted online with credit card payments at fairmanager.com/fairs/currnm

For general fair information: www.currycountyfair.com

Curry County Finance Office — Manager Mark Lansford said the new budget is almost completed and a special meeting will have to be held before July 31 to approve it.

County Manager Lance Pyle — Some of the contracts presented by Pyle that commissioners approved:

• Ticket sales at the fair — Clovis Evening Lions contract at $8,000, an increase of about $1,000 from last year.

• Agreement for wildlife services from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for $7,500 and 250 hours per year.

• Global Spectrum — Acquisition of fixtures and furniture for the events center at $10,000 with a $2,000 travel budget.

Public input — Resident Gloria Wicker asked commissioners to have a conversation with city commissioners about a recent decision to remove city Dumpsters within a one-mile radius of the city.

Wicker said this will directly affect her neighborhood on the south end of Clovis, which borders rural fields. Wicker predicted with the Dumpsters gone trash will be thrown into bar ditches and will be blown throughout the area, collecting in yards and on fences.

“I’ve lived there 38 years... The little roll-around carts will just not be acceptable in the country. We’re entitled to have as clean an area as anybody else,” she said.

Claire Burroughes, the city’s legislative and community development director, told commissioners the city had decided to withdraw the Dumpsters in consideration of a private business.

Burroughes said the city was providing 70 Dumpsters to the area as a service but a private business will take over trash service.

— Compiled by CNJ staff writer Sharna Johnson