By Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
Raton City Commissioners met Tuesday evening, November 13th where they agreed to join a lawsuit with six other municipalities in New Mexico against New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department alleging it is withholding gross receipts taxes and administration costs illegally.
The lawsuit brought by Albuquerque, Bloomfield and four other municipalities, claims that Tax and Rev has withheld gross receipts from New Mexico Municipalities and illegally increased the administration costs from just over 2% to 3.5%. The total amount estimated by the New Mexico Municipal League was approximately $158 million of which Raton’s share is $600,000. Albuquerque is claiming over $23 million is owed to them.
Mayor Neil Segotta told commissioners that it is expected that many other municipalities will join the lawsuit as well. He noted originally it was envisioned to simply fix what was broken but it has gotten out of hand when a penalty assessment was issued against the city of Eunice. The lawsuit has been filed by Gallagher & Kennedy, P.A. of Santa Fe. Segotta noted that the Municipal League has been working on this for several years and is out a large sum of money that they haven’t asked the members municipalities to help pay for.
Raton Water Works General Manager Dan Campbell gave an update on Raton’s water situation and told commissioners that in October that the city received about 40% of its water from the Cimarron River. Water Works is working to pull more water out of Eagle Nest Lake since Lake Maloya is about six feet below the spillway. So far in November the city has been able to pull more water out of the river and this should continue until spring rains or the monsoon next summer.
The big problem has been all the sediment that has been washed down the Cimarron River and plugged up the intake to the pipeline to Raton. Campbell noted that work crews have been down at the intake facility to clean out the intake almost daily. Several times this summer since the Ute Park fire the intake screen has been totally covered with sediment.
Commissioners introduced an amendment to the Animal Control Ordinance section 90.999. City Manager Scott Berry noted that Municipal Judge Roy Manfredi has dismissed several citations due to the wording in the ordinance that in Section B refers to the word misdemeanor and should be changed to petty misdemeanor. It also references the penalty for violations of any provisions of 90.105 which shall not exceed $500. (Link to Intro Animal Ordinance Amendment)
In other commission work they approved the Raton Main Street request for the Festival Lights on November 23. They postponed the Police Department Traffic Safety Grant as the city was waiting on paperwork.
Commissioners approved the Raton Water Works budget adjustment which transfer monies for the Filter Plant work. It is a requirement of USDA since the bids received was higher than budgeted. (Link to RWW Budget Adjustment #1)
They also approved the city’s budget adjustment which City Treasurer Michael Anne Antonucci reports moves monies around in the general fund and places money in the different funds from monies received for wildland fire fighting. (Link to Budget Adjustment #4)
Berry noted in his report that the Hospital Drive project is now complete and the Great Blocks project should last about four more weeks. City crews have been using the asphalt recycler which has been very helpful in repairing potholes.
New instrumentation is being installed at Lake Maloya to monitor the dam. The information will give the city information about the health of the dam, something they haven’t had before.
With that commissioners voted to go into executive session to discuss RFPs for business and economic development services and the lawsuit with Mark and Lori Van Buskirk over the landfill. Commissioners will meet again on November 27 for their next regular meeting and it will be broadcast on AM 1490 KRTN.
