Wastewater Treatment Plant Number One: Council Sets Five-Year Infrastructure Funding List
The council planned what Cloudcroft projects need outside financial help, and ranked each project by urgency and its odds of landing funding
The Cloudcroft Village Council voted unanimously on Thursday, June 25, to adopt a six-project Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan (ICIP) for fiscal years 2028 through 2032, ranking water and sewer system replacement as the village’s top funding priority.
The ICIP is a five-year planning document that municipalities use to help request state and federal capital outlay funding.
A project’s placement on the list doesn’t necessarily reflect the village’s top priority; it signals where the village needs outside funding help.
The Ranking
The council approved Resolution 2026-19 with the following priority order:
1. Water and sewer infrastructure replacement project, a package wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), estimated at $15 million
Mayor Dusty Wiley later told the Reader about the project:
“That’s the wastewater package plant. That’s the whole plant. It’s brand new, out of the box.”
“That’s the one that, I think, in either September or December, they’re supposed to have just the engineering done on it. And so once we have that, our next step would be hopefully—the state, whoever it is—says, yeah, that’s good.”
“They give us whatever they give us, then we have to go out to the Water Trust Board, and that’s who has real money, and see if we can get money from them. And if they believe in trusting us to get it done.”
“Usually, there's going to be matches. And then we'll have to find other grants that will allow us to use them as part of our match to make that money. I mean, there's no way a small village like us can come up with that kind of money.”
Wiley then described phasing out the oldest part of the WWTP and relying on the newer membrane bioreactor (MBR) filter system, which is “20-30 years old,” while the brand-new system would be brought online.
The $15 million water and sewer ask would be for the WWTP project, not for existing water and sewer pipes or other infrastructure in the village, according to Wiley.
2. New water storage tank, intended to add holding capacity ahead of high-use tourism seasons
3. Purchase of property for a parking lot
4. Pedestrian bridge and crosswalk
5. Community center and public library renovations
6. Road improvements
Trustees Keith Hamilton, Danny Hardwick, Matt Willett, and Gail McCoy unanimously approved the list.
Clerk Jini Turri explained that ICIP placement carries real weight with certain funding agencies.
The council also considered an informal rule requiring ICIP projects to have a useful life of at least 10 years. That standard shaped the debate over road improvements, which dropped to the bottom of the list.
The Water Table(d)
The council ranked a new water storage tank second on the infrastructure funding request list to increase holding capacity for busy weekends in Cloudcroft.
In recent years, the village has had to haul water when production didn’t meet demand, whether due to usage or leaks. Read more on that here: https://www.cloudcroftreader.com/p/water-coverage
The council discussed water rights and drilling at length. Trustee Hamilton said, “We have the water rights. We just don’t have the land to drill.”
Turri added, “I remember what I saw in the past was the purchase of property for a water well, and all the studies that we had showed that the table was very low in all the places that we looked. I think that’s probably a huge project that would need to be researched and brought back to the table.”
Mayor Dusty Wiley said, “But the property way outside of Cloudcroft didn’t have water. Then you’d be trucking the water yourself. Have to have water trucks and haul it up to here because you’re not going to be able to afford water lines.”
Watch the full water discussion at the Village YouTube livestream archive, @CloudcroftNewMexico.
Gaining Purchase: Parking, Pedestrian Bridge, Wastewater Treatment Plant
The council ranked the purchase of the parking lot property ahead of a pedestrian bridge project.
The plan is to create a parking lot across Highway 82 on already-village-owned land and connect the lot to Burro Avenue via a pedestrian bridge.
Willett, who serves as chair of the Parks and Recreation advisory board, said he plans to resume talks with the Sacramento Mountains Foundation grant writer to seek funding for the community project, now that “our ducks are in a row.”
“In regard to the bridge, I mean that’s 13.5 acres. Whatever happens with expansion, whether it’s a community center or rec center or parking, restroom, extra parks, that 13.5 could handle all of that.”
“And the bridge, we wouldn’t have to have it, but it sure makes it a whole lot safer, and it gives people an excuse to utilize that, and then walk over and clear up some of the congestion downtown,” Willett said.
Turri clarified that, for this discussion, a property acquisition listed for parking wouldn’t require the council to specify a site in advance.
In the discussion of land purchases, Turri informed the council that the village was “in the final stages of that purchase” regarding the Lincoln National Forest parcel on which the wastewater treatment plant sits.
Read more about that spend here: https://www.cloudcroftreader.com/i/194626744/no-manual-no-permit-no-land
Staff Changes, Proper Procedures
The council voted unanimously to promote Barbara Garcia from administrative assistant to finance clerk, with a $3-per-hour raise.
Mayor Wiley said the raise is offset by savings from the resignation of former Finance Director Sylvia Hall, whose position will not be refilled.
Turri explained that Cloudcroft’s size has never supported a full-time finance director role, and that the village will continue operating with a single finance clerk position.
“Historically, the Village of Cloudcroft has always had a finance clerk. Barbara has the years of local government experience. And, the finance department only requires one position, a finance clerk.” Turri said.
Wiley told the board that a recent parliamentary procedure training that he and Trustee Hardwick attended revealed the council hasn’t been following proper motion protocol. Starting next month, a formal resolution will require that all main motions be seconded before any board discussion can begin, and only one main motion may be on the floor at a time.
He also clarified two commonly confused procedural terms: a motion to “postpone” pushes an item to the next regularly scheduled meeting, while a motion to “table” simply sets an item aside within the same meeting, to be revisited before adjournment.
What Didn’t Make the Cut
A proposal by Public Works Supervisor JJ Carrizal to add highway dumpsters and a village-operated dump truck was removed entirely from the list, rather than ranked lower.
Carrizal’s plan was to purchase a village truck to help offset the overloaded dumpsters during high-traffic weekends, which frequently spill over.
He told the Reader that the public works crew, who all hold CDL licenses, could empty the full dumpsters and containers in Cloudcroft until their truck is full and make occasional trips to the basin dump, in addition to the garbage service currently contracted through Southwest Disposal.
Carrizal said, “We wouldn’t hire anyone; it would be all in-house.”
Trustee Willett said, “The problem lies in the three-day weekends when [Southwest Disposal] doesn’t do the Monday dump.”
After the board’s discussion, the trustees cited both cost and logistics to remove the item from the list.
Elevation Park improvements, floated earlier in the meeting as a potential addition, were held for next year’s ICIP cycle instead. The board didn’t have firm cost estimates in hand.
What’s Up Next
Today’s Lodger’s Tax Advisory Board meeting was canceled. Here are other July village meetings:
Monday, July 6, at 6 p.m., the Parks & Recreation advisory board meets at the village chambers.
Tuesday, July 7, at 9:30 a.m., the Planning & Zoning Commission has a workshop plus their regular meeting, also at the village chambers.
Wednesday, July 8, at 6:30 p.m., the Fire/EMS Board meets at the Fire Station at 1100 James Canyon Highway.
Tuesday, July 14, at 6 p.m., the Village Council holds its regular meeting at the village chambers.
See you there.
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