Update from the County Commission
County Commissioners
Veronica M. Serna Joy Ansley
Commission Chair County Manager
Johnny Trujillo
Commission Vice-Chair
Frank Maestas
Member
Progress with Mora County Complex
The Mora County Commission, in conjunction with the Mora County GO Bond Advisory Committee would like to update the public on the status of the County Complex improvements. There has been a lot going on in the County! There are currently construction dollars in place to complete the unfinished rooms in the developed part of the complex, as well as the ‘North Section’, which has been dedicated to the Sheriff’s Department. Design is under way and we hope to have a contractor in place in June to begin construction. Once that part is finished, the County will vacate at least one of the portable buildings! A key element included in this initial finish work includes a safe and secure storage area for Mora County documents. (perhaps there is a better way to phrase this)
The ‘South Section’, or the un-remediated part of the building is also seeing some action. Un-remediated means that there were some structural issues with the initial construction of the building that need to be addressed before anybody can be in the building, much less conduct business there. The voters of Mora County approved a General Obligation Bond, in the amount of $3,500,000 in the November 2020 election to address this portion of the building. The bonds sold to the New Mexico Finance Authority (NMFA) and the project has been approved as of April 29th. The County will authorize the sale to NMFA in June 2021 so that funds can be available by July. The expected interest rate is expected to less than 1% (one) and be is fixed rate for the 15-year term.
In the meantime, the County has been working with an architect and structural engineer to begin the design for the remediation of the ‘South Section’. We are using a Mora County native as part of the engineering team. Chris Romero PE, Principal Partner, is a structural engineer with Chavez-Grieves. Romero is a Mora native and graduated from Mora High School. He was involved with the initial remediation of the ‘Middle Section’ of the complex and drafted a report on the structural integrity of the initial building. The County is excited to have Romero on board and we hope that having a “son of Mora” work on this project will help build the trust of the voters and tax payers.
Along those same lines, our architect is Kevin Balciar with SoleilWest, a small-business owner, who has designed and built many projects in Mora County, including most of the fire departments, the Community Center in Watrous, multiple projects with Mora Independent School District, and various other government/public projects throughout the state of New Mexico. He is currently working on the sheriff’s portion of the facility as the on-call County architect which will be presented for design approval in May.
After bond funds are available in July and the design is complete, the County will find a contractor to complete the remediation. While it’s being remediated, design of the interior finish work of the ‘South Section’ will begin. This could happen as soon as Fall 2021. That means that finish work of the inside of the building could take place as early as the beginning of 2022. We truly hope that the bond proceeds will pay for most of this work and Mora County will be closer to a finished building!!
The Mora Empowerment Stewardship Committee is hard at work to identify matching funds which may benefit the County Complex. The Commission and the GO Bond Advisory Committee are monitoring each other’s progress to see if synergies exist.
As progress is made, we will provide updates. If you have questions, please contact the County Manager.
P.O. Box 580
Mora, N.M. 87732
Phone (575)387-5279
Fax (575) 387-9022