In addressing many years of neglect of its infrastructure, the City of Truth or Consequences is faced with a herculean task not unlike building the pyramids.
The capital projects pipeline is long, with big projects taking five years or so to fund, design, bid and build. Of course the people’s part–paying off debt–takes up to 40 years.
City Manager Gary Whitehead and Assistant City Manager Traci Alvarez gave a brief update–just a list, really–of capital projects the city has on the books that are already funded and capital projects it hopes to get grants and financing for at the Feb. 11 city commission meeting.
The city has nearly $68.5 million in funded projects, of which nearly $54.3 million is grant money, $3.4 million is cash match the city had to come up with and nearly $10.8 million are loans or city debt.
Whitehead pointed out that the city’s nearly $70 million in currently funded projects exceeds Las Cruces’, which has $53 million in capital projects on the books. “And they have two more people in every department,” Whitehead said, highlighting the city staff’s big and ongoing effort to land funding, launch projects and keep up with their administration. Alvarez said each department is conferring and meeting with engineering firms on capital projects in addition to their normal operations work.
The update list includes a section on “recently completed projects,” which total $17.6 million, of which $10.2 million was grant, nearly $611,000 was the city’s cash match and nearly $6.8 million was loan or city debt.
On the same page are “pending and future applications” for capital projects funding, which total nearly $26 million, of which $24 million is grant, nearly $1 million cash match and nearly $1 million loan.
The city is also the fiscal agent for T or C Main Street’s Foch Street project, which is a 100-percent grant of $2.85 million. The city is also the fiscal agent for Sierra Joint Office on Aging’s projects, which are also 100-percent grant funded and total nearly $296,600.
For maps and descriptions of many of these city projects, please go the this page on the city’s website: https://www.torcnm.gov/develop/city_blueprint/index.php