Magdalena Village Hall.

An application for funding an extensive street project was approved by the Magdalena Village Board of Trustees at its last meeting. Mayor Richard Rumpf said he was optimistic about being approved for the money through the New Mexico Transportation Project Road Fund.

“This is a new TPF funding stream,” Rumpf said. “It’s a really big thing. We’re requesting $3,543,524 and we should get it.”

He said the plan involves improving Kelly Road and Tenth Street both of which are prone to drainage problems.

“Tenth Street will be chip sealed from Spruce Street to Highway 107,” he said. “And putting concrete culverts over the Hop Canyon arroyo that comes in there by Main and Tenth. This will correct the drainage.

“And then, re-grading Kelly Road, correcting the drainage and chip-sealing that from Highway 60 all the way up to the first cattle guard,” Rumpf said. “Bohannon Engineering will take care of the application and all the permit fees and whatever needs to be done there.

“This is a 100 percent grant,” he said. “No matching funds by the Village are required.”

Future plans include the extension of North Spruce Street.

“We’re looking at another access to Riley Road by extending Spruce Street,” Rumpf said. “This will involve removing the trees, giving us a secondary road to get to Riley Road. We have a thirty-foot easement already, and we need an additional 15 feet to line the road.

“When we do our events on Main Street, we can close it down completely and make it a lot safer for people at the events,” he said.

At the meeting, the board also voted on the expenditure of $14,116 requested by Marshal Michael Zamora to upgrade body cameras and transfer station cameras. “The marshal’s been working with Motorola and Provelocity to make sure we get a good working system and get the best price we can,” Rumpf said. “The upgrading is to comply with law enforcement requirements. We want to make sure the officers have the best cameras and data capture.” Zamora said the upgrade will allow all data to be backed up securely in the cloud.

On other action:

  • The board approved an agreement with UNM Hospital to provide a physician advisor for ambulance inspections at $3,600 annually. “It’s mandatory that a physician come in and check out paperwork and make sure our ambulance is up to specs,” Rumpf said.
  • The board authorized $7,974 toward purchasing a front loader to be used with the recently acquired utility tractor. “I went and looked at it and it’s large enough to attach a loader,” he said. “This is federal money. It’s not out of our budget.”
  • The board accepted the reelection of Jeff Joseph as Magdalena Fire Department’s Fire Chief.
John Larson, El Defensor Chieftain