By Mary Alice Murphy

After the review of the regular session's agenda to be addressed at the Thursday, Feb. 26, regular meeting, commissioners heard reports from county officials.

Brian Cunningham, Gila Regional Medical Center Chief Executive Officer, led off the reports.

"In December, we had our first negative balance of the year, which is not unexpected, because of the holidays and physicians taking vacations," Cunningham said. "We had a negative bottom line of 63,000, but year-to-date, we are still at 1.1 million to the positive. At the end of December, we also had 149 days of cash."

He said fiscal year 2014 had been dedicated to cleaning up processes to create a financial cushion.

"This year, we will upgrade our electronic medical records, which has a lot of cost involved," Cunningham said. "We will also have a lot of expenses going into the infrastructure processes, but I think we still end the year with a positive bottom line."

He reported the Board of Trustees, during its annual election of officers, had retained the same officers-Chairman Charles Kelly, Vice Chairman Pam Archibald, and Secretary/Treasurer Jeremiah Garcia. The medical staff also held its annual election of officers and chose Dr. Gregory Koury as chief of staff, Dr. Nate Williams as vice chief of staff and Dr. Joyce Troxler as secretary/treasurer.

Four months ago, he said GRMC went with Tri-State Air Ambulance service for its right of first refusal. Because of a long transition time, "we have decided to move back to Native Air for the right of first refusal, as of last Monday. When Native Air is already out, we will still work with Tri-State."

On March 2, Dr. John Stanley and Nurse Practitioner Cynthia Moreno will open a family practice as part of GRMC. "It is important to the future of the hospital."

"We are in the early phases of six months of assessing space in labor and delivery and in the surgery recovery room," Cunningham said. "We need more space in both. As we grow our physician practitioners, which, right now, include cardiology, pain management, psychiatry and now family practice, we are looking at establishing them as separate non-profit LLCs."

He said the hospital's government relations committee is actively involved at the legislative session.

Chris DeBolt, Grant County Community Health Council coordinator, thanked the commissioners for their support of funding for the state health councils. "Your voices make a difference. House Bill 2 has funding for $200,000, which is less than we asked for, but to be expected. A hearing will be held on the issue today or tomorrow. Sen. (Howie) Morales sponsored Senate Bill 79. We hope he can get enhanced funding, and we hope there is no veto pen for the funding this year."

Detention Center Administrator Mike Carillo gave his report, dating from Dec. 27-Feb. 20. "We have one temporary vacancy and two potential applicants." He said he had sent three corporals to first-line supervisor training. Carillo, Deputy Administrator Joe Andazola and Lt. Aguirre had attended crisis intervention training. They used a law enforcement curriculum set up to be more appropriate for detention centers. Seven officers will attend Department of Corrections training in Las Cruces at no charge.

He said the Inmate Support Program bill was progressing through legislative committees.

"We recently hired Officer Mary Dominguez, and because of her excellent work, she has been nominated for officer of the month," Carillo said.

The average daily population was 62, with a high population of males at 61 and of females at 15, all increases over the prior month. The average length of stay was 9.58 days. Carillo thanked the Sheriff's Office for helping with 91 transports.

County Planner Anthony Gutierrez said in January, he submitted two Colonias Infrastructure Fund applications-one for Tyrone to make sidewalks ADA-compliant and one for North Hurley for road and drainage improvements. "We are doing the latter in three different phases for a $3.2 million total. This one requests $825,000. We are also working on an application to the Economic Development Association to add to the funding we have for the Business and Conference Center. We got the grant agreement for Rosedale Road. We do have a lot of in kind match, and we will go out to bid for the paving. We also received the grant agreement for the Bataan Veterans' Memorial."

For the two assessment districts recently approved by commissioners, he said the county has to serve the residents with notice of the public hearing for 30 days in advance, of which his newly hired replacement for Dolores Dominguez was not aware.

Commissioner Ron Hall said he has appreciated help from the mapping department on the site search for the substance abuse treatment facility.

Gutierrez said he would be going to Santa Fe to the ISC meeting this week. "The Gila/San Francisco Water Commission has requested to be the Central Arizona Project entity to oversee the design and construction of a potential New Mexico Unit to use the Arizona Water Settlements Act water and funding. I will present to the ISC. The process is moving forward."

Commission Chairman Brett Kasten said he noted the ISC has a newly appointed director.

Commissioner Gabriel Ramos said he appreciated Gutierrez "taking the bull by the horns with the ISC. I know there is a small loud minority opposed to it."

Road Superintendent Earl Moore said his department is almost done with installing culverts on Separ Road. When it gets warmer, personnel will get back to patching. "I attended the Hudson Street Bridge meeting the other evening. Because of comments made, I have ordered a sign that no commercial traffic will be allowed on Market Street. There will be a lot more traffic on Truck ByPass, and Ridge Road will be a mess. I have signed an agreement with the NM Department of Transportation that they will maintain Truck ByPass during construction and will put a three-inch overlay on it, when the project is done."

Ramos said he would like to see a decrease of speed limit at 180 and Truck ByPass.

"I have mentioned that the speed limit should be lowered before Western Drive, because of school buses," Moore said. "Drivers will have to be patient."

General Services Director Randy Villa said the rural fire chiefs went over emergency responses at their recent meeting, because of the traffic changes that will occur. "Maybe we can use the Wind Canyon station to stage equipment. It's going to be hectic."

"I encourage people to attend those public meetings," Villa said. "So they know there will be lowered speed limits and other issues that will arise.

"Fire season is upon us," he continued. "We had a small fire in the forest last Wednesday, probably human caused, but we aren't sure. The Pinos Altos Volunteer Fire Department assisted the Forest Service. I want to make sure people are diligent about being careful with fire."

He noted the House Bill 474 is trying to take funding for apparatuses from the Fire Fund. "We are against it. The State Fire Marshal's Office opposes it."

Villa said the fuel service at the airport is going well, with having received its third fill of aviation gas. "We still have a few issues, but the Forest Service will have a SEAT airplane. Boutique Air is buying fuel from us. Justin (Reese) and his crew are working hard out there. We finished the Shooting Range project."

Ramos said he had gotten calls from pilots saying there was no pilots' lounge.

"We are working in there," Villa confirmed. "But there will be a place for them."

Hall suggested there should be flashing lights on Hudson during the bridge construction. "It's something to think about."

Sheriff Raul Villanueva said his office had 5,437 calls for service in 2014-a 7 percent increase over 2013. "It's been busy the past couple of months, too. Crime is steady, and there is more violent crime. I thank the prisons elsewhere for housing some of our more violent offenders. We put on 15,000 miles in transports for 118 transports and issued 6,000 papers. We are dealing with a lot of juveniles. Luna County and Doña Ana County juvenile facilities are full. We are now having to go to Gallup."

He said he looked forward to the vault being doing, but "now I have a concern about the parking area. When it's wet, it's just mud."

Kasten said he had hoped to have enough left over from the vault costs to fix the parking area, but there wasn't going to be anything left over.

Treasurer Steve Armendariz said he served on the New Mexico Edge Committee on treasurer certification.

"We have collected $3.6 million of the county's portion of taxes, and have $2 million plus to collect," Armendariz said. "We are working with the assessor's office to find delinquent mobile homes. The treasurers' offices are now authorized to serve liens on mobile homes through the motor vehicle division. The state has now corrected the glitch in the property owners not being notified of liens."

Clerk Robert Zamarripa said March 9 would be the purge of voter rolls. He said Sen. Morales is doing a memorial to see if voting convenience centers are working.

"When we administer an election, there are lots of things going into place," Zamarripa said. "The voting center has to be ADA-compliant and have Internet access. With construction at the Business and Conference Center, I think the primary may be a problem in 2016."

As for complaints about the convenience centers, Zamarripa said: "When people want to vote, they will vote. They can vote during the 28 days prior to the election, we can send them absentee ballots, and they can vote on Election Day. We send absentee ballots to Mexico and Europe. For people to say there are not enough places to vote, there are plenty of opportunities to cast their vote. I have trouble getting election workers, many are retired, and some cannot get the day off work from their employers. Maybe we should draw up something to require the civic duty, like jury duty."

County Manager Charlene Webb said Jacob Zamora passed "with flying colors" the public procurement officer certification. "We are working on the conference center, on the substance abuse treatment facility and soon on the Courthouse renovation. I am watching more than 100 pieces of legislation that could impact the county. I have been here almost six months. I want to thank the directors, department heads and everyone who has made the transition easy."

Ramos, in his report, said Silver High School took second in wrestling at state and Cobre, third. Cobre had three state champions and Silver, one. Tonight is the Cobre-Silver District championship game in Deming. "I've been participating with the Eco-Watershed Committee, which I chair, the Parks and Rec group and with the Southwest County Commissioners Alliance."

Hall said he would defer his report to Thursday.

Kasten said it had been extremely slow at the Legislature. "House Bill 1, the feed bill, is the only one to pass both houses. There's a new dynamic up there." To Webb, he said: "I think you were the one to make the transition easy."

Kasten bragged on his daughter Zoe, who has been admitted to the joint NMSU-UNM doctorate program in pharmacy.

Ramos asked for the week after the next commissioners' meeting to be proclaimed to honor the winning wrestling teams.

The commissioners went into executive session to discuss the county manager's short-term goals.

The regular meeting will take place at 9 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, at the Grant County Administration Center.