Last month the state Legislature put a freeze on capital outlay projects and Edgewood has filed paperwork with the state Department of Finance and Administration for reauthorization.

Of the $510,000 appropriated for the fields, $310,000 appropriated by the Legislature may be in the clear. Some $260,000 was brought in by Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort alone.

Of that money, $150,000 has already been spent to level the ground and for other costs associated with the field, according to interim town administrator Karen Mahalick.

The other $200,000 of the $510,000 was appropriated from a pot of state money that required building a structure, an athletic complex. So far, $35,000 of that money has been spent on engineering fees, Mahalick said.

In an attempt to get the athletic complex project going before the cash could be yanked away from them, the town scheduled a bid opening for Nov. 2. That was canceled because it turned out to be past the Oct. 30 freeze for outstanding contracts set by the state.

The next deadline was for the town to file documents requesting reauthorization for funds, Nov. 13. With the two appropriations for the playing field "tied together at the hip," according to Mahalick, and both may be in jeopardy if the town's case for reauthorization is not strong enough.

"I was pretty frantic," she said. "There's a lot of money out there."

The council has approved spending its own money in an attempt to create a field, an estimated $114,000 to build a turning lane into the fields off of N.M. 344 in July. Those improvements were requested by the New Mexico Department of Transportation to accommodate traffic headed into the proposed playing fields, according to town staff.

The tone councilors used to discuss the fields changed recently during a conversation about getting water to the fields, however. Councilor Brad Hill questioned the wisdom of pumping thousands of gallons of drinking water into the ground. Hill also noted that, despite assurances from Mayor Robert Stearley that the town could get water to the fields, the specifics of his plan were not clear.

Hill, Councilor Rita-Loy Simmons and Mahalick formed a task force to find water for the fields and have come up with a few viable options so far, according to Mahalick. The matter will be before the council at its Dec. 2 meeting.

Those options will be viable even taking into consideration a pending case before the Public Regulation Commission as well, she said.

The case involves a territorial dispute over which company — New Mexico American Water Co. or Thunder Mountain Water Co. — should serve some areas of Edgewood. There is also a breach of contract suit against NMAWC being brought by Estancia Basin Water Supply, which is the company in the middle of an agreement for NMAWC to pump 215 acre-feet of water every year to supply Thunder Mountain customers.

It adds a new level of intensity to the case, according to Evan Jacobs of NMAWC.

"It's suddenly turning into a fairly hot issue," Jacobs said.

As far as building the fields for water to be pumped onto at all, Mahalick had reservations about all the money from the Legislature coming through.

"The state doesn't have the money to fund what they have obligated," she said. "We'll make do. We'll turn around and look at what we have."