The Española City Council approved its capital improvement plan Sept. 25, by 7-1 vote, with Councilor Pedro Valdez casting the lone, nay vote. Valdez said he was in support of the plan, in general. However, he did not agree with the rest of the Council’s ranking of projects.
The city of Española annually updates its five-year Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan, which serves as an index of yet-to-be performed city projects ranked according to the administration’s appraisal of the city’s needs.
The Council, at its Sept. 19 work session, discussed adding new projects to the plan, as well as re-ranking some of the projects previously added to the list.
“It is a tool, a ranking system,” Planning Director Russell Naranjo said Sept. 19 about the plan. “It forces municipalities (to rank projects) that they intend on seeking funding for in the next five years.
“At this point, you can add projects to the list and you can prioritize them,” he said at the work session last week. “That’s what I’m asking you now. Do you want to change the way they are ranked?”
Naranjo last week said the Council, while reviewing the current list, should bear in mind the relevance of each project’s rank.
“It’s important to take into consideration your top five rankings,” he said.
State agencies will likely provide funding for the projects that are ranked highest, he said. Once a project is added to the list, it will remain there until it has been fully funded.
“We can’t take projects off the list,” Naranjo said at the work session. “We can add them. A project will be on there forever and ever until it gets funded.”
Naranjo said the projects previously added to the list were done so through past administrations and via discussions with various department heads.
Councilor Peggy Sue Martinez last week suggested adding construction of a regional jail facility to the list and ranking it as a top priority.
“A jail is critical and we should be seeking funding from every direction for that purpose,” she said.
Martinez then questioned why the city has focused on building a new library while ignoring plans to erect a city jail.
“It is a critical issue for the entire community,” Martinez said Sept. 25.
Councilor Robert Seeds, while suggesting the Council leave the regional jail facility ranked as No. 1, claimed the city spends $500,000 each year on transporting prisoners to be housed at other jail facilities.
Mayor Alice Lucero then supported the idea of ranking the library tech center as the top priority.
“I think it behooves us to invest in our youth and allow them to avoid jail,” she said.
Councilor Eric Radosevich agreed with the mayor.
“I would rather see 10 libraries in this town than one jail,” he said.
The Council originally ranked construction of a regional jail as No. 1. However, policy dictates that if a project has received previous funding, as is the case with the library tech center, then that project must be ranked as the top priority. So, at the Council’s Sept. 25 meeting, the Council agreed to switch the top 2 rankings, setting the library tech center at No. 1 and the regional jail at No. 2.
The city must submit its Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan to the Department of Finance Authority by Oct. 1 or it will risk losing the opportunity to receive funding this year for designated projects. The top 10 highest priority city projects, according to ranking on the capital improvement plan are listed below. The figures in parentheses reflect the total expected cost of each city improvement.
1. Library technology center ($5.75 million)
2. Regional jail ($13.3 million)
3. Fairview Fields recreation center ($230,000)
4. Riverside Drive water utility upgrade ($3 million)
5. Municipal water purification system ($9.1 million)
6. Veterans Memorial drainage and amphitheater ($1 million)
7. North Prince Drive access of Highway 84/285 ($1.95 million)
8. North Prince Drive sewer line ($3.5 million)
9. South Coronado/Don Felogonio streets ($1.43 million)
10. Sewer line extension SR 76 ($1.02 million).
The capital improvement plan features a five-year payment breakdown for each item. Typically, the largest payments are made in the second half of the five-year plan; in this case, the payments tend to pile up in 2016, 2017 and 2018.
For example, according to the improvement plan payment schedule, if the city were to approve financing for a regional jail facility and any second major improvement – such as city water purification system – then the city would have to acquire funding to cover $8.5 million in construction expenses in 2016, $8 million in 2017 and $4 million in 2018.
To cover construction costs of a regional jail and a less-prioritized project further down the list, like building a fourth fire station, then the city would still take on $5.5 million in new expenses in 2016, $5 million in 2017 and $4 million in 2018.
In other business, the Council:
• Approved lowering the age restriction for lifeguards at city pools to 15 years old;
• Approved a $300,000 budget adjustment for the Library Department to plan, design and construct a new public library;
• Approved a $54,000 budget adjustment for the E-911 Department to account for an increase in Rio Arriba County gross receipts tax funding;
• Approved a $10,000 budget adjustment for the Senior Center to account for acquired grant funding from the New Mexico Agency on Aging.