Year in review: Portales city manager given three-year contract; COVID-19 closes schools

Dec. 27—Big stories of 2022 in Portales begin with the city council unanimously approving a three-year contract for City Manager Sarah Austin.

Austin took the job on a probationary basis in June 2021, coming to Portales from Milan, near Grants in Cibola County where she was village manager.

Austin replaced Sammy Standefer, who retired in May 2021 after 29 years with the city, six of those years at the top post.

COVID-19 was still a concern in the early weeks of 2022 as demonstrated by cases and quarantines continuing seemingly unabated among residents.

The Portales school board voted to approve a slate of early release days citing the time-consuming issue the coronavirus was creating.

The early release days were suggested by Superintendent Johnnie Cain to help teachers achieve professional development and create lesson plans.

Also at the first school board meeting of 2022, two new board members were sworn in: Braden Fraze and Jimmie Standefer.

The COVID-19 story continued in Portales through January as the highly contagious Omicron variant created a spike in cases statewide and the closure of Portales schools on Jan. 21.

Cain wrote in a letter to parents and guardians the closure was "so that custodial and maintenance staff can deep clean each of the schools."

Schools re-opened Jan. 24.

On Jan. 21, long time prosecutor Brian Stover was named Ninth Judicial District Attorney, succeeding Andrea Reeb who would retire March.

Stover, 48, said he received a call from the governor's office informing him of the appointment.

Stover, an Eastern New Mexico University graduate and Roswell native, had been assistant district attorney in the Clovis and Portales area since 2006.

By year's end, Stover's status as the region's top cop was in question. He failed to register as a candidate in the November election, which meant the governor could appoint a new district attorney. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham had not selected a new DA by Christmas.

At the February meeting of the Portales School Board, Board President Randy Rankin resigned.

Rankin's resignation was accepted by a unanimous vote of the school board members.

Rod Savage, the board's vice president, said Rankin wrote a letter to Superintendent Cain but would not divulge the letter's contents.

Cain said Rankin was leaving his job at Baptist Children's Home and he and his wife would be moving out of state to be closer to their children.

Savage was named board president after receiving a unanimous vote from board members.

Apparent misinformation spread by social media regarding a Portales High School teacher's Feb. 18 resignation resulted in about three dozen students from the school walking out in protest Feb. 25.

Superintendent Cain said the teacher, Kelly Cradock, resigned in writing on Feb. 18, giving 30 days notice. "We were able to fill the position sooner, so we did," Cain said in an interview with The News in February.

Students on social media alleged Cradock was fired and complained she was unable to "say goodbye," reasons given as to why they were unhappy with the situation.

Cradock declined to comment to The News on the matter and Cain said he was limited in what he could say as the situation was a "personnel matter."

About two months later, Portales attorney Eric Dixon announced a civil lawsuit was filed against Portales Municipal Schools in connection with the February events. In the lawsuit, it's alleged Cradock told students her job was in jeopardy because she taught from a book "The Hate U Give." The book is about a Black teenager who witnesses the death of a childhood friend at the hands of a white police officer.

Dixon filed the action on behalf of two student plaintiffs who have only been identified by initials due to their juvenile status. The lawsuit alleges Cradock "turned the other students against these two" during discussion about the book.

The most recent action in the suit happened Oct. 3 with Ninth Judicial District Judge Ben Cross ordered a mediation.

In June a GoFundMe page was started in Cradock's name with a goal of $25,000 to help her relocate from the Portales area.

As of this week the page had raised $1,430 from 14 donors.

Portales Mayor Ron Jackson, as a member of the Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority board, along with other members of the board noted their appreciation of $30 million that was announced as being put into the coffer of the authority from the state toward construction of the Ute Water Pipeline.

2022 was also when, in April, the project would receive $177 million in federal dollars to push the project closer to completion in the 2030s.

Representatives from Portales joined with about four dozen other representatives of public safety, public health, behavioral health, non-profit agencies and elected officials from the region for a March 4 Clovis meeting to brainstorm ideas for a regional mental health facility that would serve Curry, Roosevelt, De Baca and Quay counties.

The session was billed as a town hall organized by Initium, a public benefit healthcare company based in Denver that is conducting a feasibility study to learn if and how a central behavioral health facility can be established to serve the four-county area.

The city of Portales on March 15 became a "safe haven," where a baby less than 90 days old can be surrendered anonymously and without criminal prosecution, and provides for installation of a device into which a baby can be placed safely and will notify first responders and adoption authorities of the baby's presence.

The city council gave the safe haven ordinance final approval after a public hearing in which Angie Smith, president of the Roosevelt/Curry Right to Life Committee, and Monica Kelsey, founder of the Safe Haven movement, spoke in favor of the ordinance.

Recreational cannabis went on sale in the state April 1. In Portales a ribbon-cutting was held that day for Oso Cannabis Company in the city.

Oso Cannabis, operated since 2021 as a medical cannabis dispensary, started selling recreational cannabis with the legalization.

In June it was announced an Eastern New Mexico University graduate donated $1 million to launch a new co-teaching project between ENMU and Portales municipal schools.

ENMU alumna Gay Su Pinnell, of Dublin, Ohio, previously funded a $310,000 grant to the ENMU child development center in Portales.

The co-teaching project is designed to recruit, train and retain teachers.

2022 was also the year Portales schools approved free lunches for students starting in the 2022-23 school year.

At the school district's June board meeting Superintendent Cain recommended that the board approve the free-meals option on an experimental basis, even though it meant school nutrition programs would continue to run deficits.

"We can try it for a year and see if it works for us," Cain told the board. In the meantime, he said, the Portales district could cover the deficit with cash reserves.

Some Portales residents showed they had feelings about national issues when about 100 people showed up for a demonstration in Portales' City Park June 26 to protest the U.S. Supreme Court's nullification of Roe vs. Wade, a 50-year-old decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.

Despite differences of opinion and a few spirited exchanges as pro-choice protestors walked past the pro-life demonstrators at the rally's end, the rally and counter-demonstration were peaceful.

Various points of Portales' water rates began to come up for discussion in city council meetings with a July 26 session where the city's "punitive water rates" came up.

The punitive rates are for commercial and industrial users who consume above a base water allocation in an effort to conserve the city's water resources.

The change came up when the council addressed a request by a cannabis producer to get a manufacturing/industrial resource service permit to operate a business in Portales.

In September, area residents including residents of Portales, learned shipments of spent, or used, fuel from nuclear power plants to a proposed interim storage facility in Lea County would require routing the spent fuel by rail to Clovis and on through Portales and Roswell to reach a rail line that is the only access route to the Lea County site.

Shipments could begin in 2026 when Holtec International, a firm that specializes in spent fuel storage and nuclear power plant site decommissioning, would begin operating the interim storage facility in Lea County.

In late September Portales schools received news the district would receive about $1.1 million in public school capital outlay funding as part of an appropriation to schools statewide in Senate Bill 212.

Cain said the requested money, in order of priority, is to put a new roof on the junior high school, for a new roof on the high school agricultural building and for a heating and cooling system at Lyndsey-Steiner Elementary School.

Portales City Council at the Nov. 1 regular meeting approved a schedule of rates that will up the cost of water, sewer and garbage services in town.

City clerk Joan Martinez-Terry said the schedule will raise rates 8% per year for each of the next five years.

Martinez-Terry stressed the increase is only for water, sewer and garbage. She said council asked for the rates to be reviewed annually.

Portales' issues with the city's water system lines came to light with an early morning Nov. 3 break in a major 24-inch line in the vicinity of Bryan Street that required the system to be shut down citywide.

Portales City Manager Austin said the line likely broke because of rocks rubbing against the PVC pipe as cars passed over the buried line.

Water service was restored by 3 a.m. Nov. 4.

As the last month of 2022 began sickness in the schools became a news topic again.

Due to an increase in respiratory illnesses including RSV, the flu and COVID-19 and the resultant shortage of staff, Portales Municipal Schools administration decided to shut down all campuses for Dec. 8 and 9.

School resumed on Dec. 12.

During the days of closure and that weekend Portales Municipal Schools custodial staff worked to sanitize all schools.

Legal marijuana sales since recreational cannabis went on sale April 1 brought in more than $1.1 million to Portales in 2022.

The average recreational cannabis transaction in Portales was for $49.

Notable crime stories in Portales in 2022 started off with two Portales men charged with kidnapping and extortion in January.

Pedro Marquez, 30, and Erik Pina-Martinez, 26, are accused of holding two men for ransom Jan. 30. In at least one instance, "firearms were used to hold at least one victim against their will," according to a criminal complaint.

The incident was "motivated at least in part by a monetary debt owed by one victim to Pedro Marquez, who was attempting to collect on the debt," the complaint alleges.

In March Portales resident Jesse Lujan, 35, was sentenced by District Judge Donna Mowrer to 20 years in prison in the stabbing death of his cousin, Roy Courtney Lujan, 41, in Sept. 2021.

Four juveniles were charged with second-degree murder in connection with the June 5 beating of a Portales man.

Portales police said five juveniles were involved in the altercation with James Roper, 37, behind a Portales convenience store. Roper was critically injured in the incident and died in a Lubbock hospital.

In July a Portales grand jury indicted two of the juveniles on adult charges of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery with great bodily harm in Roper's death.

Portales resident Armando Jimenez, 26, was charged on April 26 with voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Justin Banks, 42.

District Attorney Stover said Jimenez turned himself in to authorities.