On Nov. 10, the Board of County Commissioners approved a balloon payment on the loan for the Alamo Industrial Park for $239,785.02.
The County bought the property from BLM about five years ago, and paying about $5,000 a month, but to date, no construction has begun on any of the property.
On Nov. 17, Commissioners again discussed the property because there is no infrastructure, such as water and sewer lines, electricity, paved streets, curb and gutter, yet in place. Engineering surveys and plans have been completed and submitted to the board and the planning commission, but no action has yet been taken.
Commissioners have discussed the possibility of selling the land, which does not seem to be going anywhere, but are also aware, any profit made on the sale of the land goes to the BLM.
The Commissioners voted to keep making the monthly payment while they consider various options of what to do with the land, ?either sell it as a whole piece or try to sell lots out of there,? Mathews said. ?But it seems to me that if you leased it you would have to do a lot of development as the owner,? And he, for one, does not think the County should be in the development business. ?The County should never take the risk to develop something, that?s what the developers are for,? he said.
He added the Commission has worked with consultant Dr. Mike Baughman and the Lincoln County Regional Development Authority to advertise the property for development, but no takers have come forth.
One of the main of the problems Mathews noted at the Industrial Park is one ?that is incumbent to the whole county as far as development: the power supply is insufficient to do anything on a large scale, on any heavy industrial things, i.e., welding or huge electric motors that had to run. Presently, the citizens of Lincoln County as it is constituted use about the amount of power that is brought in on the Lincoln County power lines. There is not a huge amount of excess or overage. There would have to be a tremendous amount of upgrade to the power lines down south to do anything of any scale there.?
Lincoln County has a little room for residential growth, but on an industrial scale, Lincoln County Power would not be able to do it unless they are able to begin to upgrade from 69KV lines to 138KV lines.
Mathews stated also that the Meadow Valley Industrial Park in Caliente is ?kind of in the same boat.?