Truth or Consequences City Manager Gary Whitehead and Mayor Rolf Hechler went to Santa Fe three times each and other city commissioners made trips as well to lobby state legislators and the governor for capital outlay money–the kind that comes with the fewest strings and oversight.
Kathy Elliot, the city’s lobbyist, who is being paid $18,000 this year, also did her part with local state legislators.
Whitehead and Hechler also made requests to U.S. legislators.
The result of their travels and lobbying is $3 million.
The city asked local state legislators Representatives Rebecca Dow and Gail Armstrong and Senator Crystal Brantley for $1.5 million and received $875,000, Whitehead and Hechler reported at the Feb. 25 regular city commission meeting.
New Mexico’s legislature held a 30-day session this year, which ended Feb. 19.
The city received $500,000 to design and repair the foundation of the Lee Belle Johnson Center, which is the amount the city requested.
The city received $375,000 of the $500,000 requested to engineer street, sidewalk and dam repairs to Marie Street.
The city also asked for $500,000 from state legislators for engineering and design of a recreation center/indoor pool, which was not given.
The city asked Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham for $1.5 million in capital outlay, but received nothing, unlike last year in which she gave $1 million to the city to fix the wastewater treatment plant weirs.
This year the city asked the governor for another $1 million for other repairs to the wastewater treatment plant and $500,000 to design a second electrical substation north of the golf course. Neither request was granted.
The city fared better with U.S. legislators.
U.S. New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich gave the city $1.075 million “for water system improvements,” Whitehead told the Citizen.
U.S. New Mexico Representative Gabe Vasquez gave the city $1.09 million to repair the Clancy Street sewer lift station, Whitehead said, which receives all city sewage east of veterans’ hill before it is pumped up to a higher plane and then gravity fed to the wastewater treatment plant.
State and federal grants from legislators together total $3.03 million this year.
The city has another $26 million in pending grant/loan applications to state and federal agencies, of which $24 million is requested grant money.