Torrance County, Estancia in particular, dodged an economic bullet recently when the State Legislature let a Senate bill die on the floor that would have prevented the Torrance County Detention Facility from continuing to house immigrant detainees.
Janice Barela, county manager, told the commission last week that the bill passed two senate committees along party lines before dying on the Senate floor by a 21-18 margin.
“This was a bill that was introduced, basically trying to make sure Torrance County ends its contract along with two other counties (Cibola and Otero), with ICE for detaining immigrants,” she said.
The bill also would have prohibited the “selling, trading, leasing, or otherwise disposing of a building to facilitate such activities, or using public funds or assets, receiving per diem, or any other payments or otherwise taking any financial or other actions relating to good such activities,” Barela said, reading from the bill’s fiscal impact.
She credited Sen. Gregg Schmedes (R-Tijeras) with leading the effort to thwart the move, adding, “I was able to also work closely with other Republican senators on this issue, all of whom were very supportive.”
Shuttering the detention center, which is privately owned by CoreCivic, would have a big financial impact on the area, Barela said.
“I know in the past commissioners, as we talked about the budget, it has become a concern for you,” she said. “And what if this happens where we no longer have resources available, we have to begin transporting our inmates to another facility. We know from the past in 2017, whenever the prison closed down, it cost the county an additional $2.5 million. And so we do need to start looking at that in this current budget.”
What’s more, Barela added, this is likely just a reprieve.
“I guess the one real frustrating thing is I don’t think it’s a matter of if, but when this facility is gonna get shut down,” she said. “But you know, the one thing that’s really frustrating is the Feds put $2.8 billion in their budget to detain immigrants. And you can’t tell us we’re not we’re not addressing the issue of closing (the detention center), potentially, they will move those detainees to Texas, to Arizona, to Colorado in a heartbeat and destroy three communities in this state. And I could not believe that there were senators that were okay with destroying three communities in this state, knowing that they’re just going to move these detainees to another part of the nation. And so it was just very aggravating.”
In other business, the commission received two preliminary design proposals from Albuquerque-based firms Wilson & Company and Bohannan Huston for its planned, multi-million-dollar county administration building.
Wilson came in at $544,379, while Bohannan Huston was given $700,720 for work that would include such services as conceptual designs, schematics, construction documents and construction administration.
While staff sought permission to proceed with giving the contract to Wilson, the commission deferred a decision to study the proposals more in depth.
“In no way am I ready to approve today,” Commissioner Kevin McCall said. “I think we’re glad we’re having this discussion. This needed to happen.”
The commission also unanimously approved three expenditures of $31,000 each to purchase and equip vehicles for the senior centers in Estancia, Moriarty and Mountainair.
Additionally, they approved another $76,050 to continue repair and renovation work at the Mountainair Senior Center.
The commission also heard about plans for the renovation of a building it owns in Moriarty for use as an emergency management center and shelter.
“Right now, the building is primarily being used for storage, we have several vehicles with a mobile command and the sheltering equipment is in there,” said Samantha O’Dell, emergency manager. “This is a very rough, just estimated design conversation that we’ve been having about potential that could be used in the building.”
The idea is to have a site located near where the services are most used, she said.
“So the intentions based on this plan would be to have all of the emergency management equipment and personnel including safety there in that building,” O’dell said. “And that would allow us to have all the equipment storage items, mobile command, sheltering equipment, all of that there with our offices.”
Commissioners asked her to come back with more concrete numbers so they could make a more informed decision and will make a decision at the next meeting scheduled for Feb. 28 at 9 a.m.