Neon sign ordinance rejected

An ordinance designed to encourage preservation of Tucumcari’s neon-lit Route 66 history was rejected before it could receive further consideration Thursday as Tucumcari City Commissioners voted to scrap it without first publishing it and holding a public hearing.

The ordinance was rejected on a 3-2 vote, with District 5 Commissioner Todd Duplantis, District 4 Commissioner Chris Arias and District 2 Commissioner Amy Gutierrez voting to reject the ordinance. Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield and District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya voted against the rejection.

Duplantis moved to scrap the ordinance after a motion from Moya to publish the ordinance died for lack of a second.

If approved after a second reading, the ordinance would have imposed a 160-day delay on sales of historic signs to allow the city an opportunity to match the sales price and keep pieces of Tucumcari’s history in Tucumcari.

Duplantis, who owns the Cornerstone Deli and the Kix on 66 restaurants, said the ordinance as proposed would give the city ownership rights on private property.

He also said an ordinance that relies on businesses to volunteer their signs to be designated historic “isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

Duplantis said the state’s criteria for historic designation should be adequate. According to the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, any person or group can nominate a site for historic designation, but owners must be notified.

Arias wondered how the cash-strapped city would come up with money to meet a competing offer.

Gutierrez said the ordinance could subject the city to fraud from fake offers to buy historic signs.

Litchfield and Moya said the common interest in preserving Tucumcari’s historical signs should carry some weight in the discussion.

Moya said, as an owner of property on Route 66, the value of his property would be reduced if signs that contribute historical value disappear.

Litchfield said she favored keeping the ordinance as presented because the city should have better opportunities to preserve historic signs than it does now.

City manager Britt Lusk said the ordinance was drafted in response to the sales of a few historic signs that were removed to other locations, and word that an Albuquerque firm was aggressively seeking old Route 66 signs to buy.

Capital outlay requests

In a work session before Thursday’s meeting, state Sen. Pete Campos suggested to commissioners the city should seek capital outlay funding for a single high-priority project from the 2020 New Mexico Legislature.

The 30-day legislative session begins Jan. 21.

Campos said legislative funding for other city projects, such as resurfacing of streets, is likely to be available through other sources, since the legislature has $1.25 billion more for one-time projects to work with than in previous years due to increased oil and gas production, which raises extraction tax revenues.

Campos said he would work with state Rep. Jack Chatfield and state Sen. Pat Woods to secure funding for local projects from allocations to the state’s Economic Development Department and the Department of Transportation, among others.

Campos’s 8th District includes a corner of northeastern Tucumcari, as well as Logan and Ute Lake in Quay County. His district includes all of Guadalupe, San Miguel, Colfax, Mora and Harding counties.

Commissioners have suggested the city should place more emphasis on the city’s streets. Lusk said street-resurfacing costs can be as high as $138,835 per city block for paving, ”and that’s without replacing utility lines under the street.”

The cost drops to about $84,000 per block if streets are chip-sealed, Lusk said.

Commissioners noted chip-sealing does not last long enough to be worth the effort.

Commissioners seemed to agree on seeking capital outlay funding only for repairing leaks and upgrading wastewater systems on the city’s east side to prevent expensive damage to the city’s wastewater treatment plant from gravel and other debris.

Litchfield said wastewater system repairs should have more urgency than streets because of the cost of repairs at the wastewater treatment plant if gravel leaks are not corrected.

In its infrastructure capital improvement plan, the city would seek $550,000 per year from 2021 to 2025 to finance the $2.8 million wastewater system project.

The wastewater project ranks fifth in priority among listed projects, but as Lusk pointed out, funding is in place for projects listed higher on the priority list.

Those projects include the wastewater reuse project, reconstruction and paving of Second Street in downtown, water line replacement on the city’s northeast side and preparing a new cell for the city’s waste landfill, which can be delayed, according to Alex Arias, superintendent of streets and sanitation.

Other business

In other business, the commission:

• Approved $3.2 million in state transportation department grants to recondition runways, turnaround areas and taxi areas for aircraft at the Tucumcari Municipal Airport.

• Approved a change in purpose of $129,000 in grant money to the airport to accommodate design of a new fuel storage and dispensing facility there.

• Approved a word mark agreement with Al Patel, owner of the Riyana 66 Outlaw company in Tucumcari, to allow the business to use “Tucumcari Tonite” in T-shirt designs.

• Approved budget adjustments that netted $1,771 for October and November for a budget of $308,807 for the two months.

• Received a report from city Finance Director Rachelle Arias the city has accumulated favorable variances in city accounts that total a net of $294,539.16.