County sheriff’s office to aid Questa

The Taos County board of commissioners voted unanimously to allocate sheriff's office resources to the village of Questa after their police department fell apart in March, when police chief Nicolas Lamendola and his three officers resigned for unknown reasons.

Since then, Questa has been operating without a police presence, and the Taos County Sheriff's Office has been there to pick up the slack. Now, a new memorandum of understanding will provide Questa with two officers in exchange for $200,000 a year paid by Questa to Taos County.

With a population of just over 1,700 people, Questa is an important part of the county that requires police presence, and Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said it wasn't too much of a problem for his office to help the village until they are able to begin the development of a new police department.

In the meeting, Commissioner and vice-chair Candyce O'Donnell questioned whether or not the allocation of law enforcement resources to Questa would leave other areas of the county strapped for enforcement, and asked Hogrefe to provide crime statistics in the future to see where resources should be distributed.

Hogrefe responded that the attention given to Questa would not pull resources away from the southern part of the county, and that they had essentially already been helping Questa without the two officers they planned to add.

The memorandum passed unanimously, with Questa mayor Mark Gallegos, who is also a Taos County commissioner, recusing himself from the vote due to the conflict of interest.