The City of Socorro will be taking on the management of the Socorro Senior Center, but whether or not the city will also manage the Veguita center is still undecided.

At their April 4 meeting, the Socorro City Council passed a resolution that would allow the mayor to sign forthcoming contracts with the North Central New Mexico Economic Development District and the Area Agency on Aging to manage the Socorro center for the next three months.

The fiscal year ends in June, so a new contract for a longer term will have to be considered separately.

“I want to tell the public that we’re going to ask the county to come up with a match of what we are also putting in,” said Mayor Ravi Bhasker during discussion of the contract.

The city will slowly rebuild services at the Socorro Senior Center, he said, in part by utilizing existing city departments and personnel like the library, recreation, and transportation departments.

“We have a lot of resources that we can enhance the senior experience, but we want to have low expectations and build on that,” he said.

Who will manage the Veguita center is still undecided. During discussion, Bhasker said that when the city tried to get into the Veguita office, their personnel were told to send an email to the county manager to explain what they wanted to do in the building. The Veguita building is owned by Socorro County.

“We said, well we won’t even consider Veguita until, if, the county turns that building over to us completely, if they’re interested in turning it over to us, and we would then be the sole proprietor of that building and not have to go through an email trail every time we did something,” Bhasker said. “So at this point, we’re not going to do that.”

After the city council approved the agreement, the Non-Metro AAA can take that approval to Socorro County and request the transfer of titles to equipment for the centers, Monica Abeita, the executive director of the North Central New Mexico Economic Development District, told the city council. Socorro County removed equipment like computers from the Socorro Senior Center after its contract with Non-Metro AAA was terminated.

In other business:

-The council updated the city’s uniform traffic ordinance and penalty assessments, which had not been updated since 2018. The municipal court and the city police will now have the same penalty schedules. The updated traffic ordinance is current with state law.

-Approved an ordinance amendment that restricts fireworks use late at night, outside of specific time frames around New Year’s and the 4th of July holidays. The ordinance amendment says that fireworks can only be ignited during the same timeframes that fireworks sales are allowed. Fireworks cannot be ignited between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m. except on New Year’s Eve and Jan. 1, when fireworks can be ignited until 1 a.m., and July 3 and 4, when fireworks can be ignited until midnight.

The next Socorro City Council meeting will be Tuesday, April 18, 6 p.m. at City Hall.

Cathy Cook | El Defensor Chieftain Editor