Silver City council continues to address the issues with the museum.

By Lynn Janes

The Silver City Town Council held a meeting September 8, 2026. Attendance to the meeting included Mayor Simon Wheaton-Smith, Nicholas Prince, Stan Snider, Victor Nanez and Angela Salaiz.

The council approved the agenda with the change of moving executive session before the vote on the MOU (memorandum of understanding).

Ceremonies

Bruce Coates was awarded employee of the month. Susan Middelstadt, community development director, wanted to recognize him for his outstanding performance, dedication and exceptional contributions to the town. His hard work, positive attitude and commitment had made a significant impact. Mittelstadt said he had been an incredible value to the team.

Council comments

Salaiz wanted to wait until everyone else had commented.

Nanez reminded everyone to vote and know what they would be voting for. This year they had more than elected positions and had other items. He has been working on two committees he wanted to comment on, and both had been doing an awesome job. The two he referred to were Downtown Action Committee and Lodgers Tax Advisory Board Committee, and he had seen great progress moving forward. At this point the public could not see the changes but would. He encouraged the public to attend the meetings, and they welcomed public comment.

Snider wanted to repeat what Nanez had said about voting and said same day registration would be done again. He looked forward to a high turnout. The next day they would be having a town hall for public input on the town manager search and encouraged people to attend.

Wheaton-Smith had a few comments. A council member said they had made a complaint about a committee member that used expletive words, while a member of the public had been speaking during public input. He had actually received two complaints. The request had been to remove that person from the committee. "I do not investigate but I did review with all available information. For many reasons I determined the two cases had too many flaws, so I didn't put the complaint on the agenda for the council to consider." He did agree the council should have the last say and he had provided the file to all council members and they could decide.

Wheaton-Smith had been attending a lot of events and has been impressed with how they had gone.

Salaiz started with some updates on some matters she had been working on. She had been working on looking into the status of the downtown tax increment financing funds. The funds are intended to support eligible redevelopment and improvements in the downtown area and why it had stopped. She had spoken to Randy Hernandez, business operations manager, and he will be taking the necessary steps to move forward.

Salaiz has been looking at the lodgers' tax revenues and expenditures. She has requested financial reports, contracts and other records concerning how the funds had been allocated. "I am particularly interested in ensuring the expenditures comply with the New Mexico Lodgers' Tax Act and the Lodgers' Tax Advisory Board and that the council have the information necessary to provide appropriate oversight." This will be ongoing, and she will report back as information comes in.

Salaiz wanted to update the public about the proposed temporary moratorium on data center development within Silver City. Planning and Zoning will be considering the proposal and will be bring a moratorium resolution to the council. The purpose will be to temporarily pause the processing of any application.

At this point she came back to the Silver City Museum and museum society. For 40 years the society had supported the town-owned museum through fundraising, financial contributions, volunteer services and community involvement. This relationship deteriorated following the town's termination of their agreement. On July 14, 2026, the council voted to retain town operation of the museum and pursue an agreement with the museum society. She had voted against this but respected the decision of the governing body. On August 11, 2026, she and Prince had been appointed to negotiate with the society on behalf of the town. They did not have independent authority. They had met and Salaiz had requested direction in writing several times from the town attorney with no response several times. Now they have a proposed MOU with the museum society, and they have some questions that need to be answered before they could move forward. She didn't even know if the museum society had seen the MOU. She continued with her concerns for a while and Prince's questioning of her responsiveness, initiative, independence and leadership. He had said she needed to rise to the occasion and lead. Salaiz went over the timeline of events concerning the negotiations.

She and Prince had met before the negotiations for a few hours, and he had dominated the conversation with little to do with preparing for the museum society discussion. When they met with the museum society Prince had again dominated much of that meeting, as well as repeatedly departing from questions and issues they had been appointed to address. Prince had also characterized the meeting as extremely negative, with  allegations of racism, hostility and threats. She had been there and did not remember any society member threatening to physically assault anyone. She addressed some of his other statements at a previous meeting.

In the meeting, the society had raised concerns about the museum adequately representing Silver City's Hispanic, Native American, mining and ranching heritage. "Asking whether a publicly-owned museum reflects the diversity of the community it serves is not by itself racism. Asking whether Hispanic residents are adequately represented and treated respectfully is not by itself discrimination and asking whether the history and culture of the people who built this community are appropriately represented is a legitimate question about the mission for a public museum. I heard no demand that the town discriminate against anyone based on race or ethnicity. I will not allow my presence at that meeting to be treated as a cooperation of allegations that do not reflect what I personally witnessed. Councilor Prince is entitled to his interpretation of the meeting."

Salaiz continued to address issues with employment laws, contracts, policies and ordinances pertaining to the meetings they had with the museum society. These matters had been some of the reasons she had requested guidance from the town lawyer who had not responded. She continued to address accusations made by Prince. "The issue was whether we could negotiate a lawful workable agreement between the town and museum society. It is where our attention should be." She continued to take exception to the statements made by Prince towards her. He could criticize her decisions but to publicly suggest she had been beholden to the society or incapable of exercising independent judgement had gone beyond disagreement. She would not quietly accept the insinuation that she had compromised her integrity. She continued to go over events and timelines with the negotiations. She encouraged the public to review her records and come to their own conclusions. She had sought guidance from a number of sources with no help.

The council approved the minutes from September 22, 2026, regular meeting and August 18, 2026, special meeting.

Public Input

Erin Griffith said she is a long-term resident of Silver City and had attended high school, and her parents were buried here. She had worked at the museum under Bart Roselli, the town of Silver City and museum society under Raul Turrieta. She worked at the museum starting around 2018 and had been an assistant to Jo Lutz doing education. At the time the museum had a totally different crisis having to do with accreditation. She went over the timeline of events during that time and the museum did not have any money so all chipped in. They had done some amazing things during that time but she had mixed feelings. She said Roselli had some anger management problems and what had been reported by another individual  had also happened to her. She had contacted the town manager at the time, Alex Brown, about the issue. She had been served a resignation letter when she had not resigned. In the end, she had been left without a paycheck and homeless. She had followed the protocol and guidelines yet still had to accept a letter of resignation. She added this could not be unraveled by the town or nonprofits, it needed to be done with  a forensic accountant who would not be involved from a state level.

Victoria Reece had come many times to speak on this matter with the museum. She had been the one Scott Zwiger, museum advisory group chair, had spoken disrespectfully to her last time she spoke in public input. He used a curse word, when she spoke about white male empowerment. She brought up the history of Roselli again and that he ran the budget over by $200,000. He had hired people he didn't need and his anger has been well known. She said Brown had ordered him to attend anger management classes and added so many things have been proven and factual. She said if the director had been a black woman, Hispanic woman or Native American woman they would not still be in charge. "It is a clear case of chauvinism and white make privilege."

Billie Turrieta had a lot she wanted to say but said Salaiz had said it better in her comments. She referred to a flyer people had received saying Raul Turrieta had driven the Silver City Museum into bankruptcy. She said he had not run the museum and had no control of them being over budget. "Every bit of this flyer is a big fat lie."

Chris Saucedo, attorney for the museum society, has been working with the town on a MOU. He would be continuing to work on it tomorrow. He pointed out that they all have been volunteers that want to support the community with their time and money. "They take a lot of criticism, and they do it for their community." Saucedo said he has been optimistic and felt when they came to the next meeting they would have something.

Barbara Bush called again for transparency and said they had never posted an agenda for this meeting. She spoke to the committees and public having all the information needed. Bush said she supported everyone opposing the museum in every different way. The budget for the museum would have ultimately been the responsibility of the town manager at the time, Alex Brown. This would also fall on the mayor and town council at that time for allowing it to happen. She posed some questions about the issue. She asked the council to make decisions based on facts. If they thought they might have a bias they should recuse themselves. "We all need to have very high standards for our government which means transparency, accountability, and ethical behavior of everyone."

Raul Turrieta came to speak about October being Domestic Violence Month. He also wanted to address he had been in the county assessor's office for the last 46 years and handled the people's property values in that time and done a phenomenal job. "I am proud to be a United States Navy veteran." He continued to speak about the veterans of Grant County and how he had gratitude for their service. Behind every service member a family also served. On October 17, 2026, they would be honoring these people with Walk for the Heroes starting at the Bataan Memorial Park.

Reports

Hernandez provided a finance report for the council for the period ending September 30, 2026. The general fund had a beginning balance of $1,601,253 and had an ending balance of $1,786,679.

Jacqui Olea, interim town manager, said they had begun the improvements at Penny Park and will be planting trees and grass on the west side. The funding had been provided by Southwest New Mexico Community Forestry Network. She went over several other parks and what they will be doing to address problems and make improvements.

The town will be implementing records management training provided by the New Mexico Commission of Public Records. Administrators from each department will be attending and being certified so the town will be properly managing, retaining and disposing of records. Five new patrol vehicles and one investigation vehicle will be leased for the police department. They had hired new commissioned officers recently.

Olea said they had applied for funding the completions of renovations to the interior of the Waterworks building. She thought they should know within a few weeks if they had been awarded.

She wanted to bring attention to the public input being conducted the next day for the search of the new town manager.

Police Chief Freddie Portillo had a brief report for the council. They had 23 frequent patrols, 6 downtown full patrols, 8 Big Ditch patrols, 11 citizen contacts, 7 traffic stops, 4 citations issued, and 2 arrests made. The month of September they had 42 downtown calls for service that included 1 domestic violence, 1 criminal trespass warning, 1 battery, 4 welfare checks, 2 citizen assists, 2 animal complaints, 2 civil standbys, 1 disturbance, 1 found property, 1 battery complaint, 1 parking violation, 1 graffiti, 4 suspicious activity, 6 unwanted subjects, 1 fight, 1 larceny, 1 medical, 1 unwanted suspicious vehicle, 3 suspicious persons, 1 criminal damage to property and 1 littering complaint. He wanted to thank the department including the civilian staff for their hard work they consistently do and especially in September. It had been a very busy month, and the officers remained proactive in policing, with increased visibility particularly in the downtown area.

Committee reports

Charmeine Wait, downtown action committee, had a report for the council. The chair had not been able to attend. The committee was made up of volunteers who have extensive business and economic development experience that have been charged with coming up with solutions to some of the issues affecting the downtown area. The committee has encouraged community members to attend, and it has been great feedback. They meet the second Tuesday of each month at 9 am in the upstairs city annex building.

In their first meeting, they had just brainstormed solutions to issues. Some of those issues were lighting. They had looked into it and found out they just needed to contact PNM. The bathrooms in downtown Main Street Plaza had been brought up. Vandalism has been an ongoing issue and common with public restrooms. The committee has strongly encouraged the town to resume open hours of 8 am to 4 pm. They hoped it would not be an extra burden. That would be the general time people would be downtown and at night would be at restaurants that had facilities. They had also been working with the departments to figure out a way to have them cleaned on a daily basis during those hours.

Downtown merchants had expressed the desire to have a clean and welcoming Big Ditch Park. A suggestion of placing cameras there had been made. She referred to the downtown funding that had not been applied for that Salaiz spoke to as a way to pay for the cameras. When Wait had served as the Silver City Main Street director they had utilized those funds for infrastructure projects. In her three years they had used them for 58 projects.

Merchants and citizens had concerns about noise and speeding on Bullard Street. The committee will be researching ways to improve this by looking at other Main Street communitas. "This is the heart of the community and not big box stores." She pointed out these businesses downtown are mom-and-pop and may be closed from time to time to take care of family issues, such as going to the dentist. "Give grace and please come downtown."

Alex McKenzie, treasurer of the Lodgers' Tax Advisory Board, said they had a large turnout for their last meeting. They will continue to focus on ensuring that their recommendations for the revenues be invested strategically, transparently and effectively to attract visitors, generate overnight stays and support local businesses. The board has four work centers with priorities. The first will be marketing and advertising. They have identified some signs that need updating because they have become dilapidated. The second will be lodging inventory and tax collection. He went over the numbers the town has, as opposed to those paying taxes. The third will be special event funding by strengthening the process for applications. The fourth will be board operations and accountability. "Our work depends on clear communication," and he defended responsibilities among the board, town council and town staff.

Prince and Wheaton-Smith discussed signs and the application process for some time.

New business

The council approved the ratification of the collective bargaining agreement for Local 2430. Olea introduced Elizabeth Barber, secretary for the union, who also serves as a firefighter and EMT. Barber said the agreement they had before them would be for one year and includes a $1 increase along with increases for food and clothing. It will also provide physical training outside of regular hours.

The council went into executive session.

The council came back into open session.

The council voted unanimously to table the MOU between the town and the museum society. Prince said he had been pleased with the current draft but thought they needed a little bit more time so the museum society could review it.

Meeting adjourned