County approves memorandum of agreement with FEMA

The Quay County Commission on Monday approved a memorandum of agreement with a Federal Emergency Management Agency program that would send alerts to every cellphone, television and radio in the county during a mass emergency.

The system is part of FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System program.

County manager Daniel Zamora, who previously was the county’s emergency manager, said such mass emergencies would include wind-blown wildfires threatening a town, train derailments involving hazardous chemicals, or an accident on Interstate 40 involving a large truck carrying nuclear materials.

On a related note, the commission also approved a sub-recipient grant agreement with the New Mexico Department of Homelands Security to cover one-half of the county emergency manager’s annual salary, or $21,228.

Quay County is without an emergency manager after the previous holder of the office since June, Alan Shelton, resigned effective last Thursday. Zamora said Shelton told him he “wasn’t cut out for a desk job.” Zamora said he would write a “more accurate” job description in coming advertisements to fill the position, noting it requires many administrative duties.

The commission also approved a grant application with the state’s Homeland Security Department for $41,016.94 to install a radio-system repeater on top of a mesa near mile marker 311 of Interstate 40.

Zamora said the device would create more radio coverage for first responders in the far west side of the county.

According to the application, the equipment would be installed and functioning by late 2022.

In other business:

• C. Renee Hayoz, administrator of the Quay County Family Health Center, said all employees at the clinic must be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Dec. 1 or be fired.

She said two employees at the clinic are unvaccinated, though medical or limited religious exemptions are available.

• The commission approved Chairman Franklin McCasland as the county’s designee to the Local Workforce Development Board. The board provides job training and unemployment benefits from $21 million to $29 million in federal funds given to the state each year.

The state board is going through a reorganization where its four regions will be changed to two. One proposal has one region being the Rio Grande Corridor and the rest of the state. The other proposal has I-40 as the dividing line between regions. The governor has the final say for the reorganization.

• County road superintendent Larry Moore said his department has completed only three-tenths of a mile of work on Quay Road AF because three broken-down trucks and other equipment problems. As a result, the county road department is running just two trucks for the project.