Clovis City Commission Meeting: New Website, Behavioral Health Program, Short-Term Rental Regulations – March 19, 2026
Clovis City Commission Meeting Summary – March 19, 2026
The Clovis City Commission met on March 19, 2026, to hear updates on the new city website and the Curry County Substance Use and Behavioral Health Program, and to consider a range of resolutions and ordinances including regulation of short-term rentals and lodgers tax.
Presentations & Communications
- New City of Clovis Website: Marketing and Events Coordinator Nicole Holcomb presented the new website at ClovisNM.gov, built with Civic Plus. The site is mobile-friendly, features rotating photos, and allows users to sign up for email or text alerts for calendar items and news. Existing visitors to the old Clovis.org are automatically redirected. Commissioner Porter asked about the ability for the public to subscribe to meeting agenda postings; Holcomb indicated she can manually push updates but it is not automatic. Commissioner Garza noted that Granicus may have a notification feature that could be activated. Commissioner Porter also requested adding a quick link for live meetings, which Holcomb agreed to add.
- Curry County Substance Use and Behavioral Health Program: Bethany Brasowski (Program Manager) and Melissa Gomez Williams (Program Coordinator) presented an overview of their SAMHSA-funded five-year grant (year three, ends September 2028). The program focuses on preventing marijuana use, opioid use, and mental health issues among youth (ages 11-17) and young adults (18-24). Initiatives include: annual chalk walks for Suicide Prevention Month; Brew Awareness campaign (23,500 stickers distributed in a 12-day period); free lock boxes (55 given since December) and medication destroyers (163 given since June); free overdose prevention training with Narcan; mental health first aid; and a "Hidden in Plain Sight" trailer simulating a teenager's bedroom to help adults identify hiding places for substances. The trailer is staffed so that youth do not go through it. The program also administers the New Mexico Community Survey; Curry County had the highest response rate in the state in 2025. Brasowski invited commissioners to a Behavioral Health Reform and Investment Act meeting on April 6, 2026, as part of a regional partnership (Region 9) including Curry County, City of Clovis, Portales, and Roosevelt County.
Consent Calendar
- All 13 items were approved unanimously. Items included: conditional use for a group child care home at 1001 Mora Street; conditional use for a short-term rental at 148 Park Drive; replat of blocks in Pheasant Run Unit 2; application for the FY27 New Mexico Grown program; parks capital improvement list; quarterly lodgers tax disbursements; hazard mitigation grant application ($43,500 for police department backup generator); scope and fee with CDM Smith for landfill closure; maintenance agreements with NMDOT for Cameo Basin Pond and for signals/lighting/flashing beacons; scope and fee amendment with Stantec for Lie Belt Channel Trail Design; temporary construction easement for EPCOR; application for 2026 New Mexico Clean and Beautiful Grant.
Discussion Items
- Ordinance to Allow Alcohol at Clovis Regional Airport: Introduced and approved unanimously. The ordinance amends city code to permit alcohol consumption and sales at state-licensed premises within the airport terminal, in advance of an upcoming RFP for a restaurant operator. Currently, alcohol is prohibited at the airport except once airborne.
- Unsafe Building at 406 East 10th Street: Resolution 3367-2026 authorizing demolition was adopted unanimously (8-0). The residential structure suffered a fire, compromising structural integrity, and was deemed a public safety threat.
- Unsafe Building at 212 Diamond Head: Resolution 3368-2026 authorizing securing (not demolition) was adopted unanimously. The building has unsecured entrances and windows, leading to trespassing and complaints.
- Introduction of Ordinance Amending Lodgers Tax (Chapter 318): The ordinance would allow the city to collect lodgers tax from short-term rentals (defined as stays of 29 days or less). Discussion focused on ensuring equal treatment with hotels/motels regarding stays longer than 29 days—state law may exempt both hotels and short-term rentals from tax after 30 days if classified as "temporary lodging." Commissioners agreed to work on clarifying language before final adoption. The introduction was approved unanimously.
- Introduction of Ordinance Regulating Short-Term Rentals: City Attorney Morris presented two options: a permit process (no neighbor input) and a conditional use process (neighbor notification and potential hearing if objections). Planning & Zoning Commission did not recommend the conditional use option. Key proposed regulations include: 24-hour contact, insurance, occupancy limits (2 persons per bedroom, excluding children under 15), noise/quiet hours, fire extinguishers/smoke alarms, and ability for city to revoke permits. Discussion included removing the occupancy limit (Commissioner Paula argued it is over-regulation) and adjusting the annual permit fee ($75 vs. the standard $30 business permit). The item was introduced and will be further refined before final adoption.
Key Outcomes
- Unanimous votes on all consent items, unsafe building resolutions (8-0), and introductions of ordinances (lodgers tax and short-term rental regulation).
- Directives: Staff to clarify the application of lodgers tax for stays over 29 days to ensure parity with hotels; staff to explore automating meeting agenda notifications on the new website; staff to add a "Watch Meetings" quick link; staff to review fee structure and occupancy limits for short-term rental ordinance before final adoption (scheduled for a future meeting).
Meeting Transcript
March 5th are adopted and yes, votes will be recorded for each of the members of the commission. We uh certainly want to recognize our our visitors and the guests in the meeting chamber uh this evening. Thank you for um what each of you uh are bringing this evening, whether it's an agenda item or input uh during public comment or presentation. We're grateful for uh your being here and for your interest in uh tonight's city commission meeting. We do not have any planned uh proclamations, awards, or presentations, so we'll we're moving into receipts of petitions and communications or often referred to as public comment, and we have two planned communications uh this evening. The first is an update regarding the new City of Clovis website, and Ms. Nicole Holcomb, um our marketing and events coordinator is going to share with us about the website. Is that right? Yeah, all right. Well, Ms. Holcomb, thank you for being here and uh the little bit that I've looked at it, it sure looks nice, and so we're excited to hear uh about the new website. The floor is yours. All right, I'm gonna share my screen. Hopefully. Unfortunately. Um, all right. So a long time in the making. Um we worked with Civic Plus, and they um with our input built this whole new website. Um we have got when this is our home landing page. Um we've got photos of the city, and those are all interchangeable. Right now we've got it set um so that I believe every time you go to the page, it will show you something new. Um it'll rotate through. We kept um our navigations, they're pretty similar to the old site where you can hover over and you can see different things that you might want to go to. Um we didn't make too many changes on what was readily available from the old website to the new website. We've got our lovely buttons here that when you hover over, you can see exactly which one you're over, and it'll take you directly to those um items. So far, this is what I've found people are looking for the most. Um always open to feedback. And if anyone thinks there's anything missing or that people might be looking for, we're gonna keep an eye on that and we can always interchange those with what we need. So right now we are on our meetings tab. So the calendar for March shows you exactly when meetings are. If we help go to our events, we'll go over to April. You can see what we've got going on, our community Easter egg hunt, Great American Cleanup. So we can put all of those things in. So anytime we post on the city Facebook page, it goes directly to there. And that's the same with all of our department header packages, which would be our airport, CATS, fire, police, emergency management, all of those have department header packages. I'll click on one just to show you real quick. It has its own color, its own logo. So it's still within the same theming of the main city website, but we're able to give those departments that have kind of their own logo and colors, the ability to do that in their own links, their own calendar, all of that. And then there is one big thing I wanted to show you guys that we're also very excited about. If you go into the popular links and you hit this middle one that says notify me, there is now the ability that you can create an account. You do have to create this account, it's just your email and you make a password, and then you can sign up for either email. And if you choose to use your phone number, put your phone number in there too, you can get text alerts about the calendar items when new calendar items are added, as well as our news and update, which is where the any press releases that go onto the website. People can, if they're subscribed, whenever I send one out, I'll also include a notification, and anyone who is subscribed will get that notification so they know what is going on. So those are my big things I wanted to touch on. Not sure if any of you guys have looked at the website, have questions, have feedback. I'm open to that. Well that's great. I agree with you on the calendar feature. That is really handy. And then being able to sign up for notifications, that's uh that's a very useful tool.
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