Two public hearings will lead off Thursday's regular meeting

By Mary Alice Murphy

Tuesday's Grant County Commission work session addressed a two-and-a-half page agenda, every item of which will be approved or not at the Thursday, Oct. 8 regular meeting. The Thursday session will begin with two public hearings.

The first is consideration of an ordinance, No. 1505, to repeal the 1978 Grant County personnel ordinance, No. 78-6-19. The language of the repealing ordinance states personnel policies and union agreements now governing personnel matters, have replaced the outdated ordinance, which has not been applied for many years. The second ordinance, No. 1506, will repeal the 1984 employee relations ordinance No. 84-09-04. The repealing ordinance finds that the 2003 Public Employee Bargaining Act sufficiently covers labor matters.

County Manager Charlene Webb gave the financial report, which shows expenditures, since the Sept. 10 meeting, of $1,649,660.05, including large checks for aviation fuel, jet A fuel, vehicle fleet fuel, a payment to Silver City for fleet fuel, a payment of more than $83,000 to the state for the safety net care pool; and two payroll periods.

Under new business, Bianca Padilla of the Juvenile Probation Office will present information on the Grant County Continuum for the Strengthening Family and Community Youth Building programs.

Commissioners will approve or disapprove one applicant, Magdaleno Manzanares, to the Gila Regional Medical Center Board of Trustees.

Webb recommended that the applicant for the Grant County at-large position on the Lodger's Tax Advisory Board not be approved, as he did not meet the qualification of living in the unincorporated portion of Grant County.

Commissioners will likely approve the deletion of an old, inoperable Xerox copy machine from the Sheriff's Office inventory.

"We will add an agenda item to discuss writing a letter requesting clean up of a Pinos Altos mining area," Webb said.

Commissioner Gabriel Ramos said the same group requested a letter from the Eco-Watershed Group and from the Southwest County Commissioners Alliance.

Under contracts and agreements, commissioners will consider approval or disapproval of an annual renewal of an agreement between Summit and the Grant County Detention Center for food service. Detention Center Administration Mike Carillo said the jail has been happy with the service.

Commissioners will consider two agreements between Aging and Long-Term Services and Grant County for meals equipment at a cost of $33,670, for all county senior centers; and an agreement for vehicles for use county-wide, in the amount of $75,000. Commissioner Brett Kasten asked that the purchase try to stick with local businesses.

Also under consideration by the commissioners will be contract renewal for county manager Webb and for county attorney, Abigail Robinson.

Under bids, Webb recommended that the first, purchase of an ambulance for GRMC, be rejected, because of a change of personnel. "I recommend we reject it until the new EMS director has a chance to weigh in."

In a second bid, to be paid out of fire funds, the county will purchase for the General Services Department, a 2016 Dodge truck from Lawley Automotive in Silver City for $31,816.

Several resolutions will be approved or not, the first of which will designate the polling places for the 2016 primary and general elections.

Clerk Robert Zamarripa said he had two different resolutions to look at. Both would provide for mailing ballots to registered votes in Hachita and Red Rock, rather than setting a polling place for about 100 voters in each location. "We have purged voter rolls, and we will be sending out mail notices on the changes to five commissioner districts and what precincts are in each. We will be able to monitor the addresses at that time. In the first resolution, I have the Grant County Business and Conference Center as a convenience center for voting, but I'm not sure it will be ready. The second resolution does not have it as a convenience center. Either way, we will use the clerk's office as a convenience center here for the elections. We can also use Pinos Altos now as a convenience center, as they have Internet access and wi-fi. So we will have either nine or 10 convenience centers. I recommend we go with the resolution without the conference center as a polling place. We can always switch at the last minute with a court order. Voters will still have 30 days to vote in my office prior to the elections."

The second resolution authorizes a budget adjustment. And the third authorizes the county manager to enter into contracts with the Non-Metro Area Agency on Aging. Senior Services director Terry Trujillo said he needed approval to put in a request for proposal for a four-year renewal.

A fourth resolution, to be added to the agenda, will authorize a cooperative agreement between Grant County and New Mexico Department of Transportation to extend the deadline to Dec. 31 for the Duck Creek low-water crossing. Road Superintendent Earl Moore said he was still waiting on the permit from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service "since last August."

Webb said the date on the indigent claims is incorrect, so the item may not be on the agenda.

Carillo began the county reports and said he had no personnel vacancies at the jail. "We will be testing for a lieutenant promotion. We have two candidates."

He said the Tyrone Volunteer Fire Department would provide First Aid training to Detention Center personnel.

The average daily population since Sept. 10 has been 56, of which the high number of males was 61, and high number of females was 12, both down from the preceding month. The average stay is 11.4 days.

County Planner Anthony Gutierrez said he is working with the New Mexico Finance Authority on a colonias grant, for which he had to give a lot of information. On Oct. 14, an RFP bid will go out for Rosedale Road water lines.

"I attended a conference on the Waters of the U.S.," Gutierrez said. "Regular folks were there, along with representatives from the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers. They still don't have identification of jurisdiction on what waters. There could potentially be more permitting, but not much more for us. You can get online to determine critical habitat, so we suggested they use the same format to determine jurisdiction of waters to be impacted. The tributaries haven't been identified. The way to get permits hasn't changed."

He said he would be holding a conference call with the DFA on the Continuum of Care substance abuse treatment facility and whether it would be eligible for Community Development Block grants. "I can have it ready for the next meeting."

By Friday, he expects bids for the Loma Verde subdivision roads assessment district to be ready, with construction beginning in December.

Commissioner Ron Hall asked about the Wind Canyon flooding. "A person confronted me and said if it had already been done, the flooding wouldn't have happened. I said it was outside the area the county would be responsible for."

Moore said he thinks that area should be incorporated into the project.

Gutierrez said it would likely require a low-water crossing, which raises the price of the assessment district. "The area has 122 residences. It has taken a long time to contact everyone, but we should meet the Nov. 12 deadline."

Moore said the Road Department is getting caught up in patching. "We got the emergency road built from Fort Bayard Medical Center to Bataan Park."

Commission Chairman Brett Kasten commented on the Truck ByPass Road and that it was failing in places. "The detour (because of the replacement of the NM-90/Hudson Street Bridge) has had way more traffic than it was built for. It is causing subgrade failure."

Moore concurred and it seemed to him that NM DOT should rebuild it while "they're here." He said he would be discussing it with the bridge project manger, Brian Torres. "They are patching it regularly."

General Services Director Randy Villa said the water line had been repaired at Ace Hardware and the Conference Center.

"We will have training in Socorro for structure fire and vehicle extraction," Villa said. "The Conference Center is cleared out and ready for construction."

He noted the Corre Caminos public transit budget, as it is federal money, had just begun. "We will have a few route changes."

He said the Eco-Watershed Group wants to continue working on the County Wildland Protection Plan so it stays a living document. "I want to thank commissioners Ramos and Hall for the speaker system at the Shooting Range."

Villa will hold a conference call on the airport runway on Thursday.

"Make sure you get County Commission approval for inventory deletion before bringing it to me," Villa cautioned.

Ramos said he had received a call requesting that the Corre Caminos route to Columbus be earlier to fit the schedules of about 13 workers.

"It's based on the budget," Villa said. "We want to make sure it serves the people of Grant, Hidalgo and Luna counties."

Ramos also said he would like to see the county get an administrative fee for the services it provides for Corre Caminos.

Kasten noted that the cash match is not enough to run the service properly.

"We are trying to find options to find more cash match," Villa said. "We got a new bus, but we still have buses with a lot of miles, so maintenance is costing a lot. If we can find a way to equalize the cash match, it would help. I don't want to divert funds back."

Sheriff Raul Villanueva said the fair has been successful, with just a few problems at the dance. "I thank the reserve deputies for volunteering. We still had problems with radio communication. We have set up a tower on Signal Peak, but we're still working on improving the communication."

He said the department was having its annual required training for certification, using in-house staff. "The vault is coming along. I'm looking forward to the day for moving stuff in. We will move one bin at a time, and make sure everything is accounted for."

Kasten recommended taking inventory both places. Villanueva confirmed that the system was up-to-date.

Assessor Raul Turrieta said he should visit the Courthouse basement for records from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Kasten said the topic had come up at the New Mexico Association of Counties, which recommended digitizing the documents.

Turrieta said parcel mapping is being done by Tracey Burnsted. He introduced the three appraisers, who are out in the field—Brawn Aguirre, Gabriel Grado and Matthew Meyer.

Turrieta reported his office has worked on the Silver City tax-increment financing project and is working on the Santa Clara TIF.

"I have sad news," Turrieta said. "The SQL database migration on Tyler has been a disaster since 2013. It's the same in most of the counties."

He reminded those that the tax freeze applies to homeowners 65 years of age and older with a combined household income of $32,000 or below.

Treasurer Steve Armendariz said his office had requested a delay for the database migration, but it had to be done. "We had 25 checks returned by the bank because of the issue with the migration. We caught it right away and contacted the people to explain what happened. There is still an issue where people cannot access their accounts through the Internet. "

"We will have a state tax sale next Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 10 a.m. here," Armendariz said. "The state red-tagged 86 properties, but only 41 showed up on the list. Twelve have been marked as paid."

Kasten noted that the sale is "buyer beware," because the properties often have other encumbrances.

The final 2014 tax collection rate shows a 92.1 percent collection. "Our 10-year average is 96 percent," Armendariz said.

He noted that only three properties delinquent since 2005 are on the list. "There are a lot more than that. We will lose at least $10,000. We desperately need tax reform in New Mexico. I hope we can move ahead with the NMAC to get the issues corrected."

"Hopefully, we can get the tax bills out," Armendariz said. "They will be due Nov. 10 and delinquent Dec. 10."

Zamarripa said he would send his staff to the NMAC clerk's affiliate training, getting ready for elections next year. "We will send out information on the new districts, once the decision is made next month."

Webb said the town of Silver City would be holding a public meeting on the Ridge Road sewer project.

"We got the final budget approved, with a cautionary note on copper prices," Webb said. "We got the amended gross receipts tax, but it was less than expected and we had to pay some loans that are supposed to be paid with gross receipts tax proceeds. We do not get answers when we ask why. We need tax reform in that area, too."

Kasten noted there is precedence for claw back.

"We need discussions with our legislators," Webb said. To a question about the audit, she said the auditors were in and out in a week. "Things went smoothly. I will follow up on the Conference Center to see when things are getting underway."

Hall said he would attend an NMAC meeting in Socorro on Oct. 16. "Get your issues to me in writing and I will bring them up there."

The commissioners went into executive session to discuss a personnel issue—the county manager's goals and performance.

The regular meeting will take place at 9 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, at the Grant County Administration Center.

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