By Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
The Raton City Commission heard from its auditing firm that the city has received an unmodified audit report for the FY2018 at its Tuesday, March 26th regular meeting.
Alan Bowers of Carr, Riggs and Ingram, LLC. informed commissioners that the FY2018 audit looked very good and received an unmodified report. He went on to tell commissioners that the five-year trend shows consistency with assets increasing by $421,000. The city has also seen debt decrease by over $3 million. Due to the amount of the federal grant for the airport improvements a single audit was performed on that spending and it also received an unmodified report. Commissioners then accepted and approved the audit report.
Commissioners reappointed Mark Morris to the Water Board and Ron Schuster, Janis Schrumpert, Joe Rodman, Harold Brewer and Carol Woodworth to the library board. Commissioners also approved the MOU with the Raton Little League with all commissioners congratulating the board members for stepping up and keeping the league going.
After some small wording changes, commissioners approved the economic development agreements with Hi-Bay Enterprises and the Center for Innovation. Commissioners then heard from Jared Chatterly who brought forth a proposal for Raton to participate in a huge Outdoor Retailer Trade show in Denver. Chatterly noted that over 26,000 people attended the show last year in Denver with numbers expected to reach closer to 30,000 this year. The New Mexico Partnership has asked if Raton would be interested in participating with them at the show and all the commissioners felt like it was an opportunity that we shouldn’t pass up. The commission approved the initial $4,000 request for the booth space and registration costs to get Raton’s foot in the door.
Commissioners approved a sub-grant agreement with Homeland Security for the purchase of new hazmat suits ($10,360) and radiation testing equipment ($18,284) to help mitigate possible problems with the WIPP transportation through the county. According to Assistant Chief Anthony Burke the Raton Fire and Emergency services have only had to respond to two hazardous chemical spills in the past few years. RFES is the on-call hazmat team for the northeast region of the state.
Commissioners then heard about the loan for the transfer station and refinancing the loans for the Aquatic Center which will save the city about $590,000 over the life of the loans. Part of the savings will come in the form of disadvantaged funding with 0% interest rates. The 0% interest rate will apply on 10% of the Transfer Station loan of $650,000. The city will refinance the outstanding principal on the Aquatic Center loans with lower interest rate loans. The principal to be refinanced on the 2007 Aquatic Center loan is $1,800,000 and the 2009 loan will refinance $2,050,000. Simply put it will be replacing older debt with new lower cost debt. Commissioners approved the introduction of the ordinances approving the loans.
Commissioners approved the disposal of a 1997 Ford Pickup that was involved in an accident. Farm Bureau PCIC will pay Raton $5213.67 for that vehicle.
Commissioners approved the February 2019 financial report that included the small cities assistant payment in the amount of $390,276 which is $190,276 more than was budgeted. However, the GRT was down by 1.6% or $42,756. (Link to Feb 2019 Financial Report)
Commissioners also approved FY2019 Budget Adjustment #12 which City Treasurer Michael Anne Antonucci noted was mostly line items transfers to help close out the end of the year as this is the end of the third quarter. (Link to FY2019 Budget Adjustment #12)
In his report, City Manager Scott Berry noted that after five tries, the lead abatement at the National Guard Armory south of Raton is complete and the Armory Board will transfer the building to the City of Raton at their next meeting in about three months.
Berry noted that Water Works General Manager Dan Campbell informed him that Raton will be pulling all of its water out of Lake Maloya in April as they are expecting water to become too dirty in the Cimarron River to be able to pull from there.
In their reports, Commissioner Lori Chatterly said the branding committee is working on new signage to direct tourists in the right direction around town and Commissioner Ron Chavez noted in his water board report that Lake Maloya is spilling over and continues to fill. (Link to the New Signage New Signage)
Raton City Commissioners will have a possible quorum at the NM Municipal League meeting in Las Vegas on April 10th. The next Regular City Commission meeting will be on April 9 at 6:00 p.m. in the commission chambers.
