Serving the High Plains

Rockabilly will receive fee waiver

Please note: Mayor Robert Lumpkin's remarks about Rockabilly on the Route's impact on gross receipts taxes have been corrected.

Steve Hansen

QCS Managing Editor

The sponsors of Rockabilly on the Route received a waiver of fees Thursday for using the Tucumcari Convention Center from the Tucumcari City Commission. The second Rockabilly on the Route will be held from June 5 to June 8.

The decision came as a response to a letter from “Concerned Citizens and Lodgers of Tucumcari” that cited expenses the organizers will incur, including payment of performers and their lodging bills, sound equpment and other resntals, among others, at their own risk.

The letter also cited the success of the first Rockabilly on the Route event last year that brought about 1,000 visitors to the city for three days of music, nostalgia and special events.

This year’s event, the letter said, is adding another day, more headline rockabilly music acts and more events, organizers say.

In advocating the fee waiver, Mayor Robert Lumpkin said that if the event attracts 1,000 visitors to Tucumcari, it could add $4,000 to gross receipts taxes. If it attracts twice that number, he said, gross receipts taxes could double that number. Lumpkin added that the event will “add to our noticeability worldwide. ”

Commissioner John Mihm moved to approve the waiver, saying, “We have an opportunity to get some advertising for our town, get some people here and money into the community.”

Commissioner Ruth Ann Litchfield seconded the motion, and the vote was unanimous to waive the convention center fee.

The commission also:

• Approved acceptance of a $185,000 grant, which could increase to as much $186,000, from the New Mexico Municipal Fire Protection Fund, that will be used with previous allocations to purchase a rescue-pumper truck for about $400,000, according to documents filed with the request to approve the grant.

• Accepted an summer youth employment contract for the 2014 federal Youth Conservation Corps project. The city will pay $42,456.63 and provide $25,143.19 in in-kind services, which will be reimbursed through a grant from the YCC, according to Vicki Strand, director of Community Development. The YCC program has provided work crews in summer months to assist with park and cleanup projects, Strand said.

• Approved a zoning change for 424 E. Highland to allow a dance studio to be established at that address. The property was zoned for medium-density residential use but now is zoned for general commercial use. Christian and Krista Mericle, Tucumcari, requested the change.

•Approved two contracts worth about $43,900 for monitoring of both the city’s present sanitary landfill and its old garbage landfill site for groundwater contamination.. The contracts are both with Gordon Environmental, Inc. of Bernalillo.