City to buy paving machine

The Tucumcari City Commission Thursday decided to purchase a “hot mix” paving machine that city officials say will result in more permanent repairs of potholes in city streets.

The machine’s $94,000 price will come from city capital outlay funds, City Manager Jared Langenegger told the commission.

It will be able to combine aggregate rock with old millings and chunks of old asphalt to produce “hot mix” asphalt to repair potholes.

Langenegger said hot mix seals better to create a more permanent patch than “cold mix” patching material. The cold mix, he said, often will be “washed away in the next rain storm.”

The hot-mix machine, he said, will be able to produce a half-ton of patching material in eight to 15 minutes.

The commission also:

• Voted to spend $95,000 to install more than 1,000 feet of 8-inch sewer pipe under I-40 from a lift station near the KOA campground south of Interstate 40, to another lift station near Historic Route 66. The new pipe will replace one that collapsed, and will result in better water flow to the city’s wastewater treatment plant, City Manager Jared Langenegger said.

• Approved an $8,600 contract with Pacheo Construction to clean up soil at Date Street and East McGee Avenue after a sewer-drain backup July 31 caused flooding that contaminated soil near the intersection with petroleum products.

At a public work session before the regular meeting, the commission:

• Discussed demolition of abandoned houses in the city. District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya passed photos of houses in his district that he said should be demolished.

• Heard a proposal from Langenegger that the city establish special zoning for farmland and open field properties on the city’s borders as a way of avoiding the need to enforce ordinances that require clean-up of mesquite and other weeds. Langenegger said the zoning would be an alternative to “de-annexing” the land, which would remove it from city jurisdiction.