By Alexis Rico

The City of Bayard Council met for a work session meeting followed by a regular session meeting on August 24, 2020, via Zoom at 1:50 p.m. Present for the meeting were Mayor Chon Fierro, Councilor Charles Kelly, Councilor Eloy Medina, and Councilor Adrian Ortiz. Mayor Pro Tem Raul Villanueva was absent for the meeting.

The council began the regular meeting by approving the agenda for the meeting and the Consent Agenda.

The Consent Agenda consisted of:
• Approval of the minutes of the regular meeting on August 10, 2020
• Approval of the accounts payable report for August 24, 2020
• Approval of the police department report for the month of July 2020,
• Managing Up, Across, and Down: Multi-Level Organizational Interactions for Marlena Valenzuela on August 26, 2020 - $50.00.
• Train the Trainer - Emergency Vehicle Driving Adrian Romero - $100
• Train the Trainer - Defensive Driving Cody Dove - $100
• Resignation of Police Officer German Pena effective July 31, 2020.

For Old Business, the council discussed the possible acceptance of the 2021 Fiscal Budget approved by the Department of Finance and Administration received on August 13, 2020.

The next item discussed was the engineers' recommendation to reject all bids received over the available project funds for the Bayard Well #3 Rehabilitation Project. This was the second bid request on this project over the available construction funds.

"This is the second bid we have gotten on this project," Clerk-Treasurer Kristina Ortiz said.
"First time we got a bid for $2,000. The second time we received 2 bids that were within the $2,000 range, which is not enough to complete this project. The recommendation is to reject all the bids that were received and look for more options out to the open market."

The council agreed with the recommendation by the engineers and approved the item.

Mayor Fierro asked about the date of a meeting connected to the little league equipment.
Ortiz stated that she would provide a date when it is available.

For the Clerk's report, Ortiz stated that $750,000 was secured from the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Emergency Program for the influent line repair. Bayard now has $2 million for the repair project, dependent on the receipt of an Emergency Declaration from the New Mexico Environmental Department (NMED) or State Board of Finance.

"All I have is just to let everyone know that we did receive the CDBG funds," Ortiz said. "Now we have come up to the $2 million mark for the line repair. Now we just have to wait for the Emergency Declaration before we can move forward to the bidding process. It could be up to 100 days before we receive it. Hopefully, the individuals that were at the CDBG meeting know about our struggles and it won't take a second round of reviews."

Ortiz also stated that she had put in the order for the bucket truck. It will be a 2021 model.

"It will not be until October that we receive it," Ortiz said.

Ortiz concluded that she needed the council's ICIP (Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan) evaluation sheets.

"I still have a lot of work to do on the backside of the ICIP paperwork," Ortiz stated.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:14 p.m.

The next regular meeting will be held on September 44, 2020, via Zoom.

An ICIP Work Session will be held on September 1, 2020, at 2:00 p.m. for public input.