Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Quay County will receive more than $1.6 million worth of capital-outlay projects from the New Mexico Legislature, barring any line-item vetoes from the governor.
State Rep. Randy Crowder (R-Clovis) provided Clovis Media, which owns the Quay County Sun, a list of capital-outlay requests for Quay, Curry and Roosevelt counties approved by the Legislature.
For Quay County, the projects approved were:
• Tucumcari Senior Center renovation, $60,565;
• Tucumcari water storage tank improvements, $226,000;
• 10th judicial district attorney child safe interview room, $21,000;
• Mesalands Community College improvements, $350,000;
• Quay Road 63 and Quay Road AP improvements, $750,000;
• San Jon water storage tank improvements, $200,000.
The requests remain subject to approval by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Previous governor Susana Martinez often vetoed to projects she deemed wasteful when the state faced a tight budget. However, the state now sits on an estimated $1.2 billion surplus, much of it from oil and gas revenue.
Kimberly Hanna, director of public relations at Mesalands Community College, said it would use the money for an integrated renewable energy program.
“In addition to wind energy technology, Mesalands will cover topics such as solar energy, transformers, micro grid controllers, smart buildings systems, etc.,” Hanna stated in an email.
Tim Rose, district attorney for the 10th Judicial District, explained why his office wants a safe-interview room.
“Many cases of suspected child abuse of tender-aged children should involve a trained and certified forensic child interviewer,” Rose wrote in an email. “This bulk of the money would allow our office to equip and furnish a room in our office specifically for these forensic child interviews (often referred to as ‘safe-house interviews’). It would allow our office to purchase recording equipment that would capture good-quality audio and video of children that are often extremely soft-spoken and/or use facial expressions and nodding to answer. Currently Quay, Harding and De Baca counties do not have effective equipment to do this.
“In addition, it would allow the purchase of child-friendly furnishings for the interview room,” Rose added.
San Jon Mayor Billie Jo Barnes stated in an email the village would use the money to repair its elevated water-storage tank.
Emails to officials with the city of Tucumcari and Quay County Road Superintendent Larry Moore on their capital-outlay projects were not answered.