What to Know from Cloudcroft’s August Council Meeting
A retirement, water bill update, new police chief rolls out new programs, Parks + Rec. gets a mission statement, our new community calendar, and a wedding
Last night’s lengthy Village Council meeting held information plenty—let us break it down for you.
Mayor Craig Turner began the August Village Council meeting with his mayoral report, announcing that the village fire restrictions are lifted and that our water restrictions are lowered to Level One.
Long-time Village Attorney Resigns
After 53 years as the Village attorney, Jefferson Rhodes is retiring. Mayor Turner announced that Rhodes’ tenure would last until the end of the year.
The Village Reports
Turner reported that Public Works is working on the village’s unpaved roads, saying,
“J.J. and his team continue to do maintenance on the roads, the dirt roads that we have. They've done Wren, Columbine, Apache, San Juan, Mexican [Avenues].
They're doing that, of course, with recycled material and milling base. They're still going to work on Rainmaker, Coyote, and they'll continue to work on these.”
The council announced that Thursday at 10:00 am, CDM Smith, the Albuquerque-based engineering firm, would present a report on the PURe Water Project.
Turner said the firm would be “going to be giving us a preliminary engineering report on the PURe Water Project. You might ask, why wasn't that done 18 years ago? But they're going to be giving us an update on that with the report, and I'm excited to hear what they have to say.”
Next, the happy news that Judge Mark Tatum had performed his first wedding as a village judge. Village Clerk Julie Pinson said, “Two locals, and he's got their pictures up in his office.”
Police Chief Roger Schoolcraft said in his report,
“We're still trying to find good, qualified applicants for the police department."
“[We] taught the very first D.A.R.E. class at the elementary school today.”
“One of the things I've been talking to some of the folks that are here is if you have problem areas in the village or have them consistently speeding, let me know what the vehicle looks like, what time of the day you're typically seeing them come through there."
“The thing about it, if you find a vehicle that maybe one of your neighbors is consistently speeding, even though I don't catch them, I can go to their house and make contact with them and say, look, we're having complaints about your teenage son or whatever.
And then we can address it that way even though we don't necessarily catch it.”
He continued,
“The Neighborhood Watch Program is still kicking off. We've got two more block captains.
In your neighborhood, if you're pretty much a full-time resident here in Cloudcroft and you'd be interested in signing up for the Neighborhood Watch Program, you can get in with me at the commission meeting. Right now, we have five, but we can never have too many.”
Village Grant Writer Lauren Groesbeck reported on upcoming grants. She said,
“The opportunity that we're working on right now is a ‘Safe Streets For All’ action plan, so we are going to try to coordinate with the county to really start addressing some of the safety and traffic concerns that we've got with pedestrian traffic and bike traffic being at the top of mind.”
“I conducted a tally today. We applied for about $1.6 million in funding so far, and we're on track with tentative awards on about $800,000 of that.”
The Community Calendar
New Library Director Karen Sonnenfelt announced that she now serves as point of contact for the village’s Community Calendar, which can be found here. To add your event, you can email her at ccvillagelibrary@cloudcroftvillage.com.
Here are a few upcoming:
The Cloudcroft Ultra trail race, now in its sixth year, returns on Saturday, August 17th. The 53k, 9.5k, and 4.75k runs begin and end at Zenith Park, and the event includes a 1-mile Kid’s Dash. You can read more about the trail races and register online through the end of the day.
The High Altitude Classic, a mountain bike race that dates back to the 1990s, will be held on September 8th. The popular course has a few changes this year, including more single-track trails.
Cloudcroft Bears’ Cross Country Team sports new Hokas, provided by proceeds from the High Altitude Classic The Endless Downhill is no longer available for public use due to endangered species management fencing for the Sacramento Mountains Checkerspot Butterfly. You can read more about the USA Cycling-sanctioned and New Mexico Off-Road Series event and register online. The races include 19.5, 15, and 10.5-mile laps.
Sponsored by the Friends of the Library, the Second Annual Tiny Art Show will take place on September 7th at the Michael Nivison Public Library. Works of all mediums and ages are accepted, as long as they are 7 inches or less on any side.
The Library hosts a Homeschool Symposium on Saturday, August 24th, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Participants will discuss materials, resources, and more—both parents and children are welcome.
Lumberjack Day and Heritage Day Vintage Car Show at Zenith Park are September 14th and 15th, respectively. Lumberjack Day includes axe throwing, chainsaw competitions, and a PVT-sponsored halftime kids’ event.
The Volunteer Fire Department is hosting its annual Fire Prevention and Safety Awareness Day on September 21st at Zenith Park.
Parks + Recreation
The Village Council approved the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board mission statement, which reads as follows:
“Maximize the enjoyment and utility of public spaces within the village by fostering community input and engagement.
Develop proposals and assist in identifying and securing funding opportunities.
Advise on recreational projects to meet the intended desires of the residents and visitors of Cloudcroft.”
At the Friday council workshop meeting, Mayor Turner said of the mission statement, “This group has been trying to get that approved for two and a half years.”
Also in parks news: the Village Council announced at Friday’s workshop that they are aware of the new pickleball court’s disappointing “dead-spots” issue.
The council said that two brand-new basketball backboards and hoops were donated and can replace the current defunct frames at the tennis courts. A plan to clean up in and around Deer Park is underway.
Parks + Rec. Chairman Matt Willett said,
“I guess the most exciting thing we have going on, Lauren, we've been working with her with a grant called the City Park Improvement Program grant. And $7.5 million is available.
We are shooting for Lauren's recommendation to go for about $300,000 to $400,000 in this grant. We're focusing on the ball field area because that was in the big wish list from the city.”
“Our main thing on that would be to plan and design the whole project, everything from here to the future, what we want to keep adding on year to year.
Trailhead, parking, fencing, perimeter road, and then eventually the ball field. Kind of once those key infrastructure things are in place, then we'll go for the ball field. On that list, last on that list would be installing the sprinkler system in the ground before we start doing all the other stuff.”
Chamber Board President Debra Spears gave the Chamber Report, announcing that the organization had recently hired new Chamber Manager Angela Daniel.
Questions: On-Going Projects
While discussing village projects, Trustee Gail McCoy asked, “Do we have any locations now where the new fire hydrants are going?”
Mayor Turner replied,
“We'll see if we can't make that a priority to get that done. But I know Erich's been busy, and of course, J.J.'s been busy, too. And they haven't come in yet anyway, so once they come in, we'll get talking to them on that.”
Fire Cheif Erich Wuersching said,
“So there's a standard that we go by, National Fire Protection and the American Water Works Association. They have standards, and that's 600-foot spacing in residential and 300-foot spacing in commercial.
However, that said, if you see a fire hydrant in your area or anywhere that you think we should look at, or if you feel like there's not a hydrant that’s not close enough…”
So, the money that he's talking about is not only for hydrants but potentially also some money can be spent on infrastructure, which you can imagine if there's no hydrants, we're going to have to lay pipes, big trenches, and a lot of work like that.”
Citizen Adrienne West asked about the recent water billing mistakes.
Last week, The Village website and Facebook page announced to Cloudcroft residents, “Please note we have encountered an issue with the billing that went out today, and we are actively working on it.”
The reason for the announcement? Inaccurate water bills, upwards of “$2,800,” according to one village source.
Village Clerk Julie Pinson replied to West, saying, “My understanding is they removed what was initially sent out, and they're sending out new bills.”
There will be no late fees assessed this month.
Contracts, Grants, and Floating Our Water Options
The council voted to contract MWE Enterprises, the local business affiliated with Shauna Kropp. They also approved the lease of a Caterpillar Motor Grader for public works.
Grant Writer Lauren Groesbeck was appointed to the Lodger’s Tax Advisory Board.
The council unanimously voted to approve the request for a $1,032,000 grant to improve the village’s water storage tanks.
Chad Tompkins, brother to Nathan Tompkins of Black Bear Coffee, presented to the council on WTC, or West Texas Consultants Inc., the Tompkins family engineering firm.
Trustee and Mayor Pro-tem Jim Maynard asked, Are engineers registered or licensed?” to which Tompkins replied, “I might be the only one that's both. I know there's lots that are licensing in both states, in either engineering or land surveying, but I'm not sure about both.”
Maynard asked, “And as an engineer, what type of engineering are you licensing?”
Tompkins said,
“Well, I'm a professional engineer. I can do anything that I feel capable of doing, competent to do. That's the law. We have a land survey practice that does a lot of boundary work, a lot of land survey work, and a lot of oil and gas-related or pipeline-related work. But our engineering practice is mostly municipal.
We do some private work, some land development, or some site civil stuff.”
“So these are some of the project types and some of the expertise that we have. We have quite a list, a big resume of wastewater treatment projects. And then along with that comes wastewater collection systems. We do a lot of stormwater and drainage projects. Water treatment and storage. Water treatment is a big deal these days.”
Trustee Tabitha Foster addressed the crowd, “when we were in the budget retreat, we had talked about, and then when the call came, we had talked about having an engineer that really had the village's best interest at heart, not somebody that, you know, wants to redo our plans every time we get grant money and it eats up half of our grant money.”
Questions arose about the proper procedure for grant-funded projects in New Mexico that are required to go out for bid. No definitive statements were made.
The council seemed more than receptive to retaining WTC as an engineering consulting firm. They asked Tompkins to zoom in on the 10:00 am Thursday morning meeting with CDM Smith so they could call and ask for their professional opinion after the meeting.
Cloudcroft Reader will attend—you can look forward to our follow-up report.
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Great read! Thank you for the updates
Good job, very informative!