Ports to Plains Update, New Lining at Lamar Landfill, City-County Funding Agreements

Lamar City Councilwoman, Bev Haggard, briefed council members on the Ports to Plains annual meeting she recently attended in San Angelo, TX.  Haggard is the city’s liaison to Ports to Plains, and said representatives from Alberta, Canada to Mexico were on hand for regional progress reports on highway construction on the multi-million dollar project, intended to build a four lane highway, north/south between Canada and Mexico.  She said attendees learned about issues impacting energy and agriculture businesses and the best means of promoting highway transportation to increase job growth along the corridor. 

Haggard said the gathering was informed the Texas Transportation Commission will fund $230 million in projects on the corridor, constructing a series of Super Two highways along the corridor route, as far north as Amarillo.  She said a completed project is a new reliever route around Boise City, OK.  The entire corridor will be 2,300 miles long when completed, and will make use of highway 287/385 through eastern Colorado. 

In other city of Lamar developments, the plans to line a new portion of the landfill with two feet of clay will be helped along with the use of Prowers County trucks.  City Administrator Bill Pfeilsticker reported that $50,000 worth of clay will be hauled from land owned by Rudy Torres.  Recently Mayor Stagner and Pat Mason, Lamar Street and Sanitation Supervisor, negotiated the loan of the trucks with the county commissioners.  They anticipate about 50 loads of clay a day will be transported, at a weight of 22 tons per load.  That project should take about ten days to complete. 

The city and county met October 12 regarding shared budgeting interests for various community services, a continuation from an earlier discussion.  In the meeting on October 12, the city of Lamar agreed to continue their annual payments of $30,000 to help fund PATS, Prowers Area Transit Service.  The city and county agreed to fund $25,000 each to cover expenses to the Lamar SOS Center on East Olive Street.  Any remaining portion of the funds will be placed in a reserve account.  The county commissioners agreed to increase their funding to the ambulance service by $15,000, as well as increase their portion of funding beyond the current $90,000 a year to the E911 Authority Board.

By Russ Baldwin