Retreat a chance for councilors to discuss issues

By ROB LARSON
Daily Press Staff Writer
Following the Artesia City Council’s Cloudcroft retreat last weekend, Mayor Phillip Burch said he was happy to see the councilors were able to get on – relatively – the same page and sketch out a road map of sorts for the next 12 months.
“When we first started doing the retreat a few years back,” Burch said, “we had just reached a time where the business issues at hand every other Tuesday night tended to give us an agenda for a meeting that would start at 7 p.m. and sometimes last until 11 p.m. or even midnight. So, this was an effort to talk about a lot of the issues at one time and at great depth to try and take some of them off the table.” … For the rest of the story, subscribe in print and on the web.
From Burch’s point of view, the two topics that took up the most discussion throughout the retreat were the infrastructure recovery program and housing.
“It will take us probably four to five years to complete, and we’re estimating it to cost around $22 million,” Burch said regarding the infrastructure recovery program. “It will provide the city with sewer and storm water capacity for years and years to come. It is absolutely critical in getting us ready for the future.”