Roosevelt drafts new dispatch center plan
Oct. 16—After negotiations between the city of Portales and the Roosevelt County Commission reached a stalemate two weeks ago, the county came up with a new plan as to how to proceed at its Tuesday commission meeting.
The city and county have been trying to agree on the terms of a joint powers agreement to co-manage a regional dispatch center. A few weeks ago, the city told the county it did not want to have any more meetings and that the county has its final offer.
During the discussion at the meeting, Commissioner Tina Dixon said to Commissioner Rodney Savage that when he told the city the county's offer to pay $175,000 towards the cost of operating the center "it's more than I think you deserve," — that is what offended the city.
"For 29 percent, that doesn't buy us an equal say so," Dixon said, referring to the county's proposal to form a governing board giving the county and city equal control over the operation of the center.
"We need to make this about the people," wherever they live in the county, she said.
She then proposed the city pick two commissioners they think they can work with in negotiations and the county pick two council members in the city they think they can talk to, so "we can get somewhere because we're nowhere now," she said.
Savage said he was amenable to this as long as whatever the four work out together, the final decision has to be made by all commissioners.
The commission decided that Chair Shane Lee would contact the city with this proposal.
In other business, the commission voted to table consideration of a land use moratorium ordinance to the November 15 meeting.
The county's attorney, Michael Garcia, discussed at the meeting the legalities of passing such an ordinance.
The ordinance, in essence, would seek to prohibit any medical facility, the purpose of which was to terminate a pregnancy, from operating on any land in the county.
Garcia again explained the fact that the county "doesn't have a zoning code and has no zoning classifications throughout the county.
"(The land use moratorium ordinance) it's probably not enforceable,' he said. "It won't have the effect of keeping an abortion clinic out of the county."
He said he recommends the commission wait until after the November election to see the political "landscape of the state," he said.
This ordinance is "not the right way" to fight (against abortion clinics), he said. "Roe v. Wade gave the issue back to the state. Right now that is the forum, arena, where we have to have this fight," he said.
