[Editor's Note: This article will be as accurate as possible with some word-for-word reporting and some paraphrased answers. Some of this was transcribed, so it may sometimes seem awkward.]

By Mary Alice Murphy

The last candidate forum hosted by the Silver City Daily Press featured questions to and answers from the incumbent Grant County District 3 Commissioner and Democrat Alicia Edwards and her Republican challenger Kyle Brown.

As usual, Daily Press Publisher Nickolas Seibel moderated and asked questions received from audience members watching the forum, and Reporter Geoffrey Plant asked questions from the newspaper.

The forum began with opening statements.

Edwards: Thanks to the Daily Press and everyone here and to Kyle for running. I also thank everyone who has stopped me in a public place or come to my office hours and brought me your ideas, your concerns, your fears and more. The evidence shows that change is inevitable. You can choose to change. I prefer creative adaptation and finding balance. There is a huge difference between running and governing. After being elected, we have a huge responsibility to every citizen in Grant County. For instance, continuing to have conversations about diversifying our economy does not make me against mining. It means I understand that mining cannot be our only source of economic security. I truly believe we can talk among all of us about diversifying to prepare for what we cannot change. The pandemic is a great example. Covid-19 is a complete realignment of everything we believe in, but once in a lifetime paradigm shift that we can see as unlimited opportunity or reason to see deeper into our fears about the future. As community leaders we're going to have to be creative, innovative and courageous in figuring out what's next; that's where our leadership is vital, leading with help, not fear. My first job was in my mom's pharmacy where customer service was the most important thing, and my summer jobs growing up included sorting pearl onions, making copper plumbing parts, and driving a combine. From there, I served in the U.S. Navy, I was the CEO of a very large retail business and have run two of my own businesses. The last 15 years, I've been deeply immersed in community building, here in Grant County, focused on seniors, kids and their families, who are struggling with food insecurity and all of the related challenges and creative solutions. Nearly four years ago, I brought a wealth of knowledge, relationships and community service to the job of Commissioner, along with my belief that we all have something of value to contribute, and the more we honor that concept, the more equitable the solutions will be to the varied challenges we face. I think this commission is a great team, and we've accomplished a great deal in the last four years, I have been truly honored to serve this community as a county commissioner, and will be honored to serve another four years should you choose to elect me to do so. Thank you very much.

Brown: I want to thank everybody for tuning in tonight. This is kind of novel for me, I've never really done something like this (referring to the virtual call). Again, the pandemic has forced some of this, I want to be your next Grant County commissioner, District 3. I'm a fourth-generation family resident, living here in Grant County, a former rancher and a former employee of Freeport McMoRan, so I fully support and understand the importance of mining and ranching in Grant County. As a small business owner, over the past 14 years, I also understand how important mining and ranching is to community and benefits us all. All my life, I have strived for common sense, ethical beliefs, upholding the traditions of our county, and I will continue to do so when elected. I also support our Second Amendment right, and I will work hard to uphold the Constitution to protect our American freedoms. My goal is to unify Silver City and Grant County with positive and straightforward communication. I want to be your next county commissioner. I hope that I get that chance.

Plant Question: If elected or re-elected, will you work to re-open the behavioral health unit, even if it's never profitable?

Brown: Reopen the Behavioral Health Unit? Yes, I think it's needed. I do, even if it's not profitable. I think we can make it work. The hospital needs to have it. I know it's a non-profit, but to me, it needs to be run as a profit, if we just break even at the end of the year. If you can make the money on one side to be able to help that side, I think we need that help. We have people, local people that need that kind of community support, and I believe it is needed in the county.

Edwards: We are in fact working on finding a way to re-open the BHU. Those services are needed in this community. The behavioral health unit does not actually have a history of losing money. Although it has in recent years, that is not how it has always been. We have had three preliminary conversations with Dan Otero at HMS about some creative ideas on how we could partner with HMS to re-open the BHU in a profitable way. We're also looking at whether the current or the most recent configuration of the behavioral health unit is what the community needs, or if there could be some adjustments to that. It hasn't in the past served adolescents, so, is there a way we can do that? We're looking at geropsych. We know that there are issues in our senior community, so there's a lot of possibilities, and we are certainly pursuing those. It is not a matter of making profit. It either needs to break even or if we are making more profit in another area of the hospital that can support the BHU, then that's what we need to do. It is a needed service in this community.

Question: Let's talk about hospital governance. The hospital, of course, historically had been governed by a board of trustees that was appointed by the County Commission, and in fact, previous county legal representation had told the commission that it was not legal under the Hospital Funding Act at the state level to directly control the hospital as county commission. Obviously, there's been different legal advice. Is the current situation of the commissioners directly controlling the operation in the hospital a long-term solution? If you're elected to the Commission next month, would you look at re-appointing a board of trustees, or how do you think that the hospital should be governed in the long term?

Edwards: I don't think the Commission running the hospital directly as the governing board is a long-term solution. There are basically three options open to us: appointing a board of trustees, becoming a special hospital district or becoming a 501c3 non-profit. All of those options have pros and cons. I think that it is critical for us to have additional conversations about that structure and how it would work in the future and how it would best fit the needs of this community. I think it's a complicated situation because we have relatively limited options, but I also feel like at the moment, the structure is not the number one topic of conversation, because there are other things that we need to be paying attention to right now in terms of what's happening at the hospital. But that conversation is ongoing. And one of the important things needs to happen around that is opening that conversation up to the community, we have a lot of expertise in the community, and we have expertise with HealthTechS3, and so I think there's a lot of room for discussion on how that might work. I personally think I would like to have the CEO search completed and the CEO in place, the permanent CEO in place before we make any additional changes.

Brown: I believe we need to reinstate the governing board. As far as a timeline, I think it needs to happen relatively soon, as soon as we can find competent people that we can trust to put into that position, that we know will do the best justice for Grant County. And keep Grant County's needs and wants at their foremost. What has to happen before the CEO is found, you know, we can't wait around forever. It may take a while to get someone into that position. So I think one of the first things you need to try to do is get a governing board, get the commission to step back a little bit from it and be more at a 30000-foot level looking at it and overseeing it, and not being up there trying to run it on a day-to-day basis. Again, that's what the governing board should do and they can be helpful in picking and vetting a new CEO, I feel.

Question: What are your ideas for future economic development in Grant County, and how do you see that being accomplished?

Brown: We have some business parks located throughout the area, at the airport, around Bayard and Santa Clara. It's always looking for something that'll come in. I don't know if it's advantageous to offer some kind of incentive that would drive people into us, that would give us something more than what we have now. I mean, what we have now works, but we've got to keep growing, and so we need to be looking for something, some kind of business. We at one time had Stream answering center come in here. That was a pretty good boost, I think, and helped a bunch of people out and then we lost them, so it's something that it's always looked for, and it's just a matter of keeping your eyes and ears open and gain attention.

Edwards: A couple of things. I think that one thing is that we are partnering with the town of Silver City and their Better Cities grant that is working on an EDA grant to... with one of the pieces of that grant would be a community development specialist. The way that would work is very similar to how the COG (Council of Governments) works, where you would have the different communities participate in that, so you'd have a paid person that would work on behalf of Bayard, Hurley, Santa Clara, Silver City, and Grant County. The other thing that I would say is, I think we need somehow, and I don't necessarily think that it should be seated in the county, particularly, as it it could be an independent office, but an office of economic vitality that recognizes the value of our current economy, small businesses, mining, ranching, is focused on the unlimited potential of outdoor recreation, plus ideas yet to be considered. I think at the same time, we have to understand that people can't live on low wages to work, we have to be committed to understanding that the long term, what the long-term impacts of poverty have on the community's capacity for economic thrivability. I think we need to be really thinking about equitable solutions that take into consideration that we have a very broad population of broad skills and possibilities, and there's a lot of room for creative solutions, I think.

Question: This is a decision that the county and operating the hospital has already made essentially, but I think it's good to hear this from both of you. What is your opinion of contracting with an outside company, with the CEO of Gila Regional, such as in the past with Quorum and now of course, with HealthTechS3?

Edwards: I think that the advantage of contracting the CEO with HealthTech is that it brings to bear on the search and the subsequent hiring and management of that CEO, a lot of expertise. I think healthcare is extremely complicated, running a hospital is extremely complicated at this moment, and I think one of the advantages that we have in doing this through HealthTech is that we have a comprehensive national search happening. That does not mean that if we had somebody in our local community that was qualified, they wouldn't be considered, and in fact, I really hope that if there is anybody in our community that is qualified to apply for that CEO position, they will. There are a couple of very specific advantages. If we make a mistake, and that has happened in the past, if we make a mistake in hiring the CEO, HealthTech will help us undo it and do another search, we will be able to search until we find a CEO that is an appropriate fit for our community, so essentially what HealthTech will do is all of the formal vetting of the candidates, and then we have put together an advisory board that can work with the governing board to make sure that the person we select is an extremely good fit with our community.

Brown: I tend to agree. I think an outside contracting company could be very beneficial to us. It's going to be be more of a, if you will, a world-wide search, not just a local search that Grant County itself puts on. We could draw somebody from who knows where, and again, after helping them, helping vet this candidate for this position, I think they would be able to find more qualified candidates and then be able to explain our situation and these people come in would have more of an open eyes of what's going on. And if they offer us, again, like Ms. Edwards said support on the back side, that if for some reason, in other words, they somewhat guarantee this person, this candidate, that they come in here and if they, for some reason it doesn't work out, they help us find a better way to cancel or negate their contract.

Question: The state has completed a taxpayer-funded study, and it's clear, according to the study that New Mexico will save a billion plus dollars on any scenario that would put in place a state health care plan via the Health Security Act. This would allow a guaranteed annual budget for each hospital in the state from funds collected through three streams of revenue detailed in the act; the act would also pay for guaranteed healthcare for 99% of New Mexicans. Do you support the Healthcare Security Act in the State legislature that would deliver a guaranteed budget to the Gila Regional Medical Center?

Brown: To me, that sounds like a really good idea. If they're guaranteed more of a budget and they have more to work with here that are not just dealing or depending on walk-in people, they can hire better doctors, hire better nurses, they have more of a budget that they know is going to continue, say year after year as long as this type of plan is in place for us. So I think that sounds like a real good idea, especially if we can increase coverage for healthcare across the New Mexico up into the 99% reach.

Edwards: I think Mr. Brown said it exactly. What a great idea. I think the Health Security Act is a win-win for hospitals and New Mexicans. It is very hard for rural communities in this state to provide health care to their citizens in the hospital because of the payer mix. When you have a significant mix of low-income people on Medicare and Medicaid in your hospital, that payer mix means it is very difficult to make a profit, that's what's happening to rural hospitals all over the country. If we can solve that in New Mexico by having an income stream that supports the hospital, does all the things that Mr. Brown said and support having 99% of New Mexicans have insurance, why wouldn't we?

Plant: If you could pick one constituency or a group that you feel is under-represented in your district of the county, what group would that be, and what would you try to do to better represent that under-represented group?

Edwards: Wow, that's a good question. In my district, I think the underrepresented constituency would be Hispanics, and I would... I do and would continue to make every effort to do outreach to people in my district that feel under-represented. I think that making myself more available to people maybe in areas that I don't normally go to—activities, things like that would increase my ability to do outreach to underrepresented people in my constituency. And I guess what I'm going to say is that at some level, it's hard to pinpoint who is under-represented, under-represented in any constituency, because when you really think about it. There are lots of people who are represented in our government, and we need to make a collective effort to represent everyone in our districts, and the way that we can do that is be available publicly and to be really conscious of what their concerns are and how do we represent them? So, meeting people where they're at. That's the ticket.

Brown: If I have to pick one, there's a bunch of them. But I think if I had to pick one, I think I might go with homeless and soon to be homeless. Some of them... I wonder if they even know what date it is, and that we have a general election coming up, and even though you're homeless, you can still vote. You don't have to have residency to vote, everybody can walk into the voting place and vote. With this Covid pandemic there's a lot of people that are bordering on homelessness. They may not be there yet, but again, that's something we, I think need to address. What the solutions are, that's like in Pandora box, we open it up because everybody has a solution and some work, some don't. So, I think it's that the under-represented to me would be the homeless and the soon to be homeless. I don't have the option of knocking on their door and asking them to talk to me. It's a matter of getting downtown and finding them. Again, it's a very tough situation. It's a matter of getting out and finding these people and talking to them, and again, it's how can we best help them. Some want help; some don't want help. I think there's a lot of issues. It's very complicated. So, finding these people, talking to these people might be the most straight-up answer.

Question: Why are you more qualified to serve as a county commissioner than your opponent?

Brown: Why am I more qualified? I believe I'm more qualified. I've lived here longer. That's not a unique qualification. I've lived here, I know I talk to people every day, I hear what their concerns are. I'm out in the community. And I feel like I understand a lot of what they're going through, having grown up here, and seeing things change over the last 50 some odd years. I'm not going to give away my age just yet, but having seen things change over here and change the better, and sometimes change for the worse, and being able to be approachable— being a family person, a business owner, a worker having worked different jobs, I think I can relate to people and why they're bringing these concerns of theirs. To me, and how then I can address them in Grant County and knowing Grant County and its resources and knowing what's out there.

Edwards: Why am I more qualified? I think that I have a different kind of experience in this community than Mr. Brown does. I have spent most of the time that I have lived here working on community building. I have a lot of experience with working with low income families, primarily around food security and the issues that are connected to insecurity. And as a result of that, what I bring to the table is perhaps a different kind of relationships. I know a lot of people in this community. I've worked with many people in this community. I've had lots and lots of collaborative partnerships, have been able to leverage those partnerships to I think do a lot of really great work at the county. I am extremely committed to community service and community building, I do understand that Mr. Brown and I will have a different perspectives because I have not lived in this community all of my life, but I don't think that makes me more or less qualified to be a County Commissioner. I think it makes me different with a different perspective.

Question: If you're elected to serve four years on the county commission, how will you go about seeking to represent people that may not be like you, so in your case, Ms. Edwards, for instance, specific people that have been in Grant County for generations, how do you reach and listen to those people and make them feel as though you also represent them as well?

Edwards: Well, I think number one, by being available, and that means being in the public where people can see me, talk to me, where I can talk to people and listen to them. I have had open hours every Tuesday since I got elected. Anybody can come into my office and talk at any time. I think meeting people where they're at is really important. Not making any assumptions about who they are or what they believe in, or what is troubling them, or what their concerns are. I think that listening carefully and acting upon what you learn is a really, really important piece of that, and I can honestly say that in the last four years, I've gotten to know more people that weren't like me, than I have in possibly the whole rest of my life because of being a commissioner, and one of the things that I think is really, really important... An important part of being a commissioner is, yes, we are divided into districts, and as I said earlier, being elected is different than governing, and once you are in there, you don't just represent people like you, and you don't just represent your district. A Commissioner is on the dais, working for everyone in the county, and in order to be able to do that, has to at least make the attempt to understand what everyone's issues are.

Seibel clarified the question for Brown: as a county commissioner, how do you represent everyone, and I guess in your case, it would be the opposite side, there's an awful lot of folks that have moved into the community in the last five years, the last 20 years, a lot of people looking to move here right now, how do you as a County Commissioner, how do you represent everybody... How do you go about doing that?

Brown: I'm trying to liken it to my job every day, and it's called active listening. You've got to understand your constituents and listen to them with your mouth closed, take notes, try to get some information from them, ask some pointed and detailed questions, and then let them talk about their questions they're asking similar to what we're doing here tonight. You're asking questions, and we're answering them to best of our ability. You need to try to drive in, drive down, if you will, to what is their concern? What's really their concern? And is it something to do with a fear issue, a safety issue, is it something they have a beef or gripe with something that's going on in their life? And why is that bothering them. It's to me something I deal with every day, of course, with cars and tires, but it's something I deal with every day. I feel like you've got to listen to them. And a lot of it is, I call active listening. And a lot of active listening to me is letting the people talk, let them talk to you, and if they have come up with something that you don't know the answer to, be honest about it and tell them, let me research this and let me get back to you. I don't have the answer right now, let me get back to you and give your contact information and theirs, whether it's a phone call or email, and then get back in touch with them and give them the answer. The answer may not be the answer they want to hear, but you're getting back to the person that asked the question. You have to follow-up.

Question: A pandemic is impacting our community in many ways. What is or what should be Grant County's role in Covid response? For example, how can we ensure that community members are connected to emergency relief and other needed services?

Brown: Okay, so related to the Covid pandemic, I believe it's very real. I believe everybody has been touched by someone somewhere or know somebody that has or know somebody that's been affected by it. I believe people out there right now that don't have any idea they even have it. As far as testing, I think we need to get tested. It's hard sometimes to get tested, especially if you don't feel any effects, why would you want to go to get tested if you don't even have as much a sniffle, but again, I think it's something that needs to be taken care of. We need, I think, more ways to get tested. If they would develop some kind of a better easy test, where it's something you can even pick up in your supermarket and inexpensive enough that you be testing yourself once or twice a week, and if that test comes back positive, then you go into a health clinic and get a more accurate test. I think we need to support each other, come together as a community, figure out how we can best address this before it becomes more of a pandemic and we have more issues with it.

Seibel: I'm curious, do you see opportunities for county level government or the Commission to interface with other levels of government, for instance, either the municipalities within the county to help in some way there with Covid response or with the legislature, the Governor's office, that sort of thing. Are there things that you'd like to see the Commission do that they aren't doing currently?

Brown: Again, that becomes a tough question because I'm not directly affected, not directly involved with this right now. I think there's something we can do that's already something you can do if it's as simple as offering up to a business a county building for access for testing or even storing supplies. And it's something that can be done to help out with this.

Edwards: In terms of making PPE and that type of thing available, the county has done that. Gilbert Helton, our emergency manager, has been very involved in making sure that PPE was available to people who needed it. We have partnered with the town on the things that they're doing. I think this is a really complex question—it involves testing, it involves what is the county doing about what's happening economically? One of the things that we have done is we passed the resolution requesting that the governor consider a county-by-county reopening process, because what applies to a county up north may not apply to us, considering what level of positivity we have. I do think that the county has a responsibility to communicate with the other municipalities and the other areas of the county to make sure that we have a coordinated response. there is a structure in place to do that through the Emergency Management System. There's also a significant amount of things happening within the community, for example, the coronavirus Grant County Coronavirus update, Grant County is a part of that. It's a website that people can go to get resources. We have to do everything we possibly can to communicate resources, resource availability to our constituents. And I think we've done a pretty good job of that.

Plant: Do you believe that it was the right decision to declare Grant County a Second Amendment sanctuary county?

Edwards: I do not believe that we should be a sanctuary county. I don't think that it was necessary. The county has not taken any action that I'm aware of that would take anyone's guns away. I do think that what has precipitated things like declaring sanctuary counties is a lack of communication around the issue of guns. Mr. Brown said something earlier that I thought was really interesting, and that is, listening with your mouth closed. And I think that what has happened a great deal around the gun issue is that we are not listening to each other about what our concerns are, and I know a lot of people out there that are really very concerned about their safety in an environment where it feels like there are guns everywhere. I know that people who feel very strongly about the Second Amendment are genuinely concerned that the movement to what I would characterize as implementing things that make people feel safer around guns feels like a movement to take guns away, but I think things like declaring the county a sanctuary county is pouring gas on the fire and not giving us an opportunity to find a community solution, and I use the word community very broadly, county, the state, bigger than that.

Brown: So, sanctuary Second Amendment, Ms. Edwards makes a point, maybe we didn't need to do that, but it's also to me a very great stance to stand up and say: 'We're going to do it.' She's right, people start feeling threatened that they're going to lose their guns and they want something done, and sometimes sitting back and doing nothing... It feels just like that. Sitting back and doing nothing. Most gun owners, they're not gun slingers, they're not walking down the road with a gun hanging out, although the State Mexico has open carry, so that is perfectly legal. They abide by the rules and regulations and carry prudently, if you will. Everybody, I wouldn't say everybody, because that's a generalization, but I believe it was a good move to let people know that if you're a gun supporter, if you support the Second Amendment right to own and use a handgun or any other kind of gun that Grant County is going to stand behind you.

Seibel: And I'm fascinated, I guess, by political dynamics, because I think everybody is kind of exhausted right now with politics. I don't think that that's an exaggeration, but certainly there have been the wielding of wedge issues. That is something that's gone on in American politics for a long time, but we sort of reached a maximum point of that it feels like almost where we just throw things at each other and never actually try to have a conversation about anything anymore, and in the county commission-based election four years ago, I felt very strongly as though that had sort of come to Grant County politics, and it was unfortunate. This time around, in these forums, in particular, listening to candidates on both sides, I've been impressed at the interest in dialogue that's out there on both sides. I think we've got some fantastic candidates this time around. At the same time, if you go on Facebook, you will see plenty of supporters on both sides turn around rhetoric that always the Democrat in this race wins, he's going to shut down the mines and if the Republican in this race wins, then we're going be damming up the Gila next week, and I think... I wonder what your thoughts are about this place that we're in right now, and about your supporters and some of the things that are getting thrown around out there that you aren't saying, but other people are. So again, I think dialogue, talk to people... Facebook, you talk about Facebook, that can be a good thing, that can be a bad thing

Brown: Some people take it wrong, just like texting, it's a tough and trying time right now... Nobody wanted this Covid, and we've talked about that. And that was something that was thrust upon us. Again, I don't even know how to describe it because everybody is affected by it differently. We've got to be open-minded about it, but when you represent people, that's one thing I'm trying to do, is represent people, you've got to do what the majority of the people ask you to do, it may not be something you're truly okay with, but if the majority of the people that you talk to, good and bad, that's what you're getting elected to do, and not put it to a public vote anytime anything comes up. And again, getting back to that, this listen with your mouth closed theory, that you've got to talk to people, and that's what I think a lot of this is, and then you've got to govern and do our job of deciding what's right for the Grant County community.

Edwards: Well, what you said about wedge issues and throwing these wedge issues at people and saying all this stuff and this absolutely like, yes, that the Gila was going to be dammed tomorrow, or we're going to take your guns away or all that kind of stuff. I think it is very, very hard for people today to speak in something other than a sound bite. And I feel like we are asking everyone to talk to each other in loud voices whether it's on Facebook, whether it's in public, whether it's protesting, no matter what it is, we're shouting at each other. I think that we have to find a way to have respectful collaborative relationship building dialogue. It's possible, I've done it many times. I know that we've all done it, and we have to, I think, make a commitment to each other that respectful dialogue and careful listening will be part of our future. We can't keep going the way we are. We have to find a way to listen to each other with open hearts and to respect the dialogue and the actions.

Question: Should Wildlife services, which is taxpayer funded, be made non-lethal? Taxpayers pay about $60,000 of the $83,000 annual contract to kill coyotes and mountain lions to protect cattle for ranchers in Grant County, and this is something that has come up and been controversial every year for several years now.

Edwards: Wildlife Services provide services on both public and private land. We've had a lot of conversation about what should happen on private land and what should happen on public land. There is a point at which what happens on private land affects the public, and an example of that if an M44 is used to kill a predator, a raptor can die, too. I do not believe the Wildlife Services should be using lethal methods for their services. Where I am a little more gray is the public-private land piece. We were successful in getting the M44 bombs banned on public land this year. I think is a really good example of a very clear dialogue happening around Wildlife Services. In the time that I've been on the commission, we have moved in that dialogue, I think, to a more clear understanding about why people want lethal methods to control predators for their cattle.

Brown: If it's totally on-lethal, how will we deal with the predators? What are you going to do with them, catch them and release them somewhere else? That becomes somebody else's problem. Cattle are the way some people make a living and they need to protect their living as best they can. It's no different than me locking my store up at night and hoping nobody breaks in and steals my tires, so Wildlife Services is out there protecting these ranchers' and farmers' livestock and their cattle and the way they make a living. And predators can have a devastating effect. I understand that sometimes, the predators can just kill to kill and they need to eat, and I understand they need to eat, but sometimes there has been reports of 220 sheep killed in one night, and they're not eating, they're just killing for fun.

Question: More than 15 years and $16 million dollars has been spent by the New Mexico CAP Entity on planning for a Gila Diversion project. The Interstate Stream Commission defunded the NEPA process in June, that's the National Environmental Policy Act process in June, because the draft environmental impact statement determined the cost exceeded benefits and the water would have been unaffordable. There is $70 million in the Mexico Unit Fund that can be spent on community water projects in Southwest New Mexico. What do you think should happen now that the diversion has been taken off the table?

Brown: We've got money that communities can benefit from this kind of money improving their water supply, improving their water distribution. It can be used to upgrade irrigation systems, upgrading their wells, maybe doing new wells. Maybe as simple as buying them a new backhoe to help them with their water projects. I've not been privy to how that money can be spent. Maybe they can link communities together to somehow provide water if only temporarily to another community. We've got this money, and I feel we need to spend it some way. If the diversion is completely off the table and there's no way to retain it, then we've got to move forward with this one. If the diversion can be brought back, we're talking about a lot of water—14,000 acre-feet of water, which equates to about a half-billion gallons of water a year. I sure don't want to see the water going down the river, because once it's gone, we can't get it back. If we ever need it, we will have to pay a lot for it.

Edwards: Well, let's address the last part of that first, which is the diversion off the table or not... For a long, long time now, a lot of experts out there have been saying exactly what the draft EIS says, that the cost of the water is more than the benefit. So, there is that. The second piece of that is the 14,000 acre-feet of water belong to New Mexico, and can never be taken away. The issue is the money to get that water into our communities, that's where the cost-benefit analysis comes in and whether it's a really cost-effective to do it. I think there are three big factors in this, one is what we should do going forward. I would like to see the CAP Entity go away and have a new organization that is more representative of the population of the four counties than it is now. Secondly, there is $137 million worth of water supply demand projects on current ICIPs, so there are a lot of water projects out there that need to be done, and the last part of that is... I think we need to think about this in terms of the 62,000 people that live in the four-county area versus the 130 to 150 irrigators. I am not saying that the irrigators don't need water projects done, but we have to find balance around that, we can't just spend all this money on the irrigators. There are 62,000 people and lots of people moving in that are going to need water.

Question: Do you support restructuring the NM CAP Entity?

Edwards: The answer is yes, I do. I feel like the current CAP entity is not representative of the diversity of water users in the four-county area. We need to have other kinds of water users in that organization other than the irrigators. Should irrigators be on there? Absolutely. Should municipalities and counties... Yes, should other types of water users like Hanover, for example, the water association and the PA Water Association, irrigators that aren't doing cattle, that are doing other kinds of agricultural production, there we are going to be facing a tremendous complexity of water-related issues, and we need to have a diverse collaborative, creative group of people that are, again, having a dialogue rather than a punch fest. We have to stop fighting over things like this and begin to have constructive dialogue that meets the broad cross-section of needs in our community about this and about many other topics. Dialogue is really, really key, in my opinion, and the current CAP is not the structure to have that constructive dialogue.

Brown: More representation is always good, although you can be sometimes over-representated and have too many people and nothing gets done. That could be part of it. Look who's in their sectors to be represented, and again, yes, there are other communities that if they're not representated, they need to be, because if they're going to benefit from this water or this entity, then they need to have a voice and all four counties that are affected. If not everyone is represented, you need to invite those and create a board that can move forward and proceed. You need to get things moving and get projects done that benefit everybody, because everybody needs water and it is very important. It is very vital, especially in the Southwest area we live in. Water is vital.

Plant: Last year, the County Commission did away with their in-house attorney and hired a law firm. Would you like to see a contractor or an in-house attorney for the county?

Brown: I would definitely want to look at the money involved in it, and do we really need a full-time attorney when we can actually save money or have better representation by having a contracted one. But at the same time, you need to look at if it's an attorney that lives in Silver City, they might have better insight into the current issues you're dealing with, and I say Silver City, but that person can live anywhere in Grant County. But at least then they're here and they know what's going on, and they can respond quickly. So, it'd be kind of a look-see if you would, to see where the best bang for the buck would be whether we're being adequately represented by the firm or under-represented.

Edwards: I've been in the commission long enough to have experienced both an in-house attorney and a contracted firm. My comments are not going to touch on the quality of service from either in terms of it, does one give better legal advice over the other? I think there's a few considerations. I actually sat down with the bills from our contract attorney and analyzed them because there's been a lot of conversation about how much it was costing the county to have the hospital work that we needed to have done being done by this contract attorney. And I'd be happy to provide you with the numbers if you like, at some other point. But the county, even with the hospital work, did save a significant amount of money by having a contract. The second piece is, while I recognize Mr. Brown's logic in saying that somebody local has their finger on the pulse of the community, what I have come to really appreciate is exactly the opposite. I see the advice that we get from our attorney is extremely objective. This is, I think, especially important when it comes to sensitive topics that the county has to deal with. A great deal of what we deal with legally is employee issues, and it is much less complicated to have an attorney from outside giving us advice, and what I mean by that is there is always some area of subjectivity, and in this case, with an outside attorney, it is more objective.

Question: Do you support a Wild and Scenic designation for the Gila River? Why? And if not, why not?

Edwards: Yes, I do support the wild and scenic designation for the sections of the Gila River that have been written into the bill. There are two primary things that I would say about this. The first one is, I do think that it's important to preserve wild places, this county and this area of the state has a long history of culture, and both ancient and contemporary river culture, hunting, fishing, recreation, all of these kinds of things that I think are really worth preserving on the river. Our world is becoming noisier and crazier by the minute, and I think we really, really need wild places to retreat to, so I think it's worth preserving the river by doing wild and scenic. The other thing that I would like to comment on is I know that there has been a lot of conversation around private property rights and the impingement of wild and scenic on mining rights, all those kinds of things. It is very clearly written into the bill that the federal government cannot in any way, shape or form have the authority to take private property, and the second part of that is that it is very clearly spelled out that all the existing rights, Private Property Rights, water rights, all of those kinds of things that you're currently doing on your private property that are legal in the federal system will not be affected by wild and scenic. I think it's a win-win for everybody.

Brown: I do not support this. I don't feel it's a good deal. Anybody I've talked to, if they're vested in this where this is going to happen, they don't want it to happen, and it may be a small minority, but again, we're talking with people that are located on these rivers. And they don't want this to happen. They're afraid they're going to get trampled on if this passes. Now, if you can say that it's not written in it and it's explained explicitly, but I know these people, again, the same thing, they don't want it to happen, whether they believe that or not, they don't want it, and I feel like we're shoving something down their throat, whether they like it or not, and I don't think it's a good deal. I think there's other ways around it There's a lot of wild and scenic places, and we don't have to be doing these designations on private property against the property owners' wishes.

Question: Do you believe that the drought and fires we are experiencing in the country are related to global warming? What can county government do to collaborate with state and federal governments to attack the problem?

Brown: As a county government, do I believe that global warming is affecting the drought or has something to do with it? I don't, truly. I think the world is the world, and we're living in it, and we're seeing a phase... If you believe we're warming, it's been happening for millions of years. There's been places that have been studied and they said there were fewer green valleys way before man, so I don't believe global warning has raised the temperature. I think it's something that's just happened to our world. What can we do to collaborate again, forest service is here, there's got to be ways we can work with them to minimize wildfires, although we need to let them burn, it's been minimized too long, and that's why we have some of these explosive and extremely damaging wildfires. Before we got here, Mother Nature took care a lot of it, and things burned without anything hampering it, and I know there were times that were probably pretty black in certain areas, but it's all come back, and so I think there are things we can do.

Edwards: There is a difference between global warming and climate change. I think that our climate is definitely changing. At least, I think it was totally attributable to mankind, but that said, are there things that we can do? Yes, there are... We should be taking it seriously regardless of what the cause is. We are having catastrophic fires; we are having severe drought; that's going to affect us tremendously in the future. I don't know that at some level we have to argue over the cause, but we do have to recognize is that it's happening. How can a county partner with the state and other entities? I think that we have to recognize, we have the WUI, for example, wildland urban interface. We have to work on those kinds of things to mitigate the damage to people's homes, etcetera, like we have to be really conscious about where we're building, I think we do need to recognize that poor forest management is a factor in how catastrophic the fires are. I think we have to recognize that if we don't do something, that we are going to be spending all of our money on fighting climate-related disasters, not just fire and drought, and in fact, we are now. A good deal of our available money is being used to mitigate climate disaster. There's lots of things we can do, we need to be an active partner, in collaborative conversations, dialogue and insist that things happen.

Question: Would you support a serious all-out county-wide effort in pooling money, both public and private to create renewable energy projects with good paying living wage jobs and excellent training programs to turn government buildings and residences alike into green solar and/or wind energy users?

Edwards: Yes, absolutely. Where does that money come from? As you think about using public and private money, where would the public part of that come from? Well, at some level, we are going to have to figure out how to manage the changes that are happening, I know that people are really, really anti-tax, they don't want to be taxed for that kind of stuff. The county budget is flat, the revenue side of the county budget is flat, the expense side is growing all the time, so I think we need to be really creative about how we find revenue to do projects like what you're talking about. There are lots of creative ways that we could raise that much—maybe there's a surcharge on certain kinds of things. We have to find ways to creatively address these changes, and it requires some kind of tax increase or surcharge, but I think we need to look at that, but I'm going to go back to something that we have said multiple times from both sides. We need to have a conversation. What is the dialogue around that, what are the kinds of things that we can do? It doesn't have to be all or nothing all the time. There's a lot of creative people out there, and I feel like that if we have community dialogue around these kinds of issues, we could come up with a way to provide the public money to make these kinds of things possible.

Brown: Renewable energy? I believe it's on the horizon. I believe we need to embrace it, and as Ms. Edwards said it doesn't have to be all or nothing. I think you could ease into it a little bit at a time to figure out ways to come up with creative funding, there's grants or some kind of money out there. Not knowing what the county budget is myself, she says it's flat. That's probably true, but as you start creating some of this and start creating jobs, hopefully that will help out with some of that flat budget. There's ways around it, there's always ways. If you're willing to work on it. As far as renewable energy, I understand it costs more, but sometimes, I think the benefits, you know, is that if you fit opinion so much on things the way they are, and you move into an area that is better and help people out.

Plant: If elected, would you support the county moving to having two work sessions and two regular meetings per month, or would you rather stick with a once per month schedule?

Seibel: I will append to this as I always do. Right now, the County Commission meets in the daytime. How would you feel about moving one or both of those meetings to an evening meeting?

Brown: Well, less is always better. And if we can get business done in one meeting, I think that's the way to go. If there's more that needs to be addressed, I say, maybe we call a special meeting. As far as holding them in the evening, I would not be opposed to that. Sometimes that's better for people's schedule, they can come home, they can watch it live. If we ever get back to where people can show up in person and people aren't at work, they can actually show up to these meetings. And again, I would say one and one. If we could get to that and be handling county business efficiently. If it's needed that we need more meetings, I would say on an as needed basis, with noticing that, I know you have to have have these county meetings and put notices and all that stuff up, and I understand that, but as needed, go to maybe a second meeting.

Edwards: I am in favor of one work session and one regular meeting per month with special meetings as necessary. I'm totally open to the idea of meeting in the evenings. We have discussed this a number of different times. We discuss it every January when we do the open meetings resolution, because that sets the meeting times for the next year. The feedback that we have gotten from county staff is that people don't attend evening meetings, and so I think there's a bit of a bigger question there, and that is what can we do to encourage people to actually attend county meetings. Things that I have been quite surprised by is how many people actually watch them even before Covid. A lot of people watch it on CATS (Community Television Silver City) and people are paying attention. Maybe it's more comfortable to do that in the comfort of your own home rather than going down to the county building. I'm not really sure, but I do think that we should accommodate the public. That's what we're there for is to do business on behalf of the public, and so if it was demonstrated that evening meetings were better, we could. I have suggested in the past that we do half of them during the day and half of them in the evening, so I think we could be creative.

Question: All of the research shows that increases in minimum wage, health economies where those wages are increased, even in the time of pandemics, people need jobs and money. If special temporary state or federal subsidies were available to help out small businesses who are struggling right now, for instance, helping small business owners pay the current difference between what they're paying and the increased minimum wage, would you support a county-wide resolution for $15 an hour minimum wage?

Edwards: Good question. Tough one. I think the conversation about much higher minimum wage, $15 an hour minimum wage, living wage is more complicated than a yes or no answer. Let's just say we start the minimum wage, the amount of the time that it would take for that to percolate through the community, and small businesses would have enough increased sales in order to be able to support paying that, etcetera. It takes time. I think it's one of those things that we should be thinking about how to do it. It is definitely true that people cannot live on what they're making right now, you can't live on $10 an hour, $15 is really the bare minimum, on the other hand, we can't just drop a $15 an hour minimum wage on small businesses, so there has to be a creative way of making that happen. The other thing that I think is really important to consider necessary is what are the expenses that the $15 an hour minimum wage is paying for child care, tuition, all of these other kinds of things that people need to have basic economic security. Is there some way that we can address the basic economic security needs in some sort of gradual way of increasing wages? We need to get a grip on this. I definitely agree with that.

Brown: A minimum wage resolution that there is going to be a $15 minimum wage, I think would be not in our best interest. If you're going to do something like that, you've got to work into it, but it's going to drive up costs. If I was forced as a business owner right now to go to a $15 minimum wage, prices are going to go up. Most of my guys already make that anyway, or are close to it, so it's not a big jump, but there's a lot of people out there that are not making close to it, and when you just go up with wages, everything else increases, too. And I know everybody wants to get paid more money. But then the cost of doing it is falls on the local store, things get more expensive, and there's a balance there, so it's got to creep up as demand and supply creep up. In my opinion I believe business owners do need to be paying more where they can pay more and where they can support their employees, and do that without a resolution forcing it.

Question: I'm going to ask a question here about the Covid-19 restrictions. The question is about restrictions in general, restrictions on schools and sports in particular, how do you plan to work with or against such restrictions on the county level?

Brown: You're talking about restrictions on the state level, which are already in place, and with restriction that the city has, which is already in place. I see no reason to do more. If we're not covered by the state, we're covered by the city as far as working with it, I mean, there's some definite rules in place and definite resolutions in place, both by the city and by the state. And we have to abide by those rules, just like we have to abide by speed limits. You know you've got to do what has been put in place for you to abide by.

Edwards: I agree, the restrictions are in place for a reason, we need to abide by those restrictions, I don't know that there's a lot more that the county could or should be doing, although I will say I did vote in favor of the county-by-county reopening plan, and the thinking behind was they're using a graded system on opening school districts, depending on what the positivity level is in the community. It determines at what level schools can be operating, and I think there needs to be some consideration around those kinds of things. So often a broad-brush solution doesn't work for everyone, and in this particular case, the kinds of restrictions that are really necessary in another county may not be that necessary in Grant County. Now that said, we would certainly, if that were to happen, then we would have to do our part to make sure that our positivity rates, etcetera, didn't go up, and so there's got to be some kind of incentive there, so for example, if there are more green and yellow levels, and you could do this green, this a yellow. And is it red? And if we're in the green zone, but then suddenly we're in the yellow zone and you have to cut back on those with having more restrictions. That makes sense. It gives us the responsibility of continuing to do the things that keep our people in our county safe.

Question: What do you think is the most critical issue facing Grant County right now?

Edwards: I think it's our economy. I think our economy is impacted by Covid, by the pandemic, by low wages, by the uncertainty of the times, there's all kinds of things that are affecting our economy right now. We have to figure out how to address those issues. I talked earlier about some of the ways that the county is moving forward in partnership with the other communities in the county, the Better Cities, the EDA grant to get community development in here. When we think about it, the traditional model of thinking about economic development is, any job is a good job, but that really isn't true. We have to be thinking about what it takes, what kind of employment does it take to have basic economic security, and when we think about revitalizing our economy in this county, it needs to be two parts. One is to recognize and empower our current economy, the things that make up our current economy. We need to support what's happening now, and we need to find ways to improve what's working. Diversify is the word that I was really looking for, and I think one of the ways that I am really, really looking forward to working on that is in outdoor recreation. I think it's something that we can all get behind. It has unlimited possibilities and people sure want to be outside more than ever right now.

Brown: There are multiple issues facing Grant County right now, but the most critical? I'm thinking it's education of our kids, with schooling the way it is, they're back and forth, there is not in-person learning. Right now it's all remote. There's a lot of concern about these kids and they're not interacting with other kids and how that might affect them sociologically. I think right now is the interest in getting them back to school. I don't think there's a lot of debate going on around whether you can have them go back safely and if they are going to spread it, have hotspots. Are we going to make this Covid what we've got now worse because they're doing in-person schooling? But I do think that's one of the biggest issues for me anyways. And supervision of the kids. People want to work, believe it or not, and what a school does is act as somewhat of a baby sitter to send your kids off in the morning, you don't have to worry about them until late that afternoon, you can get up and go to work a job, and the kids themselves are not that unsupervised for working parents.

Seibel: So in about the 40 seconds or so, we've got left in your time, are there opportunities as a County Commissioner for you to help address that problem right now?

Brown: I don't see it, unless the governor lets us go county by county. And if we open the county but if we're going to continue to be shut down by the state whether by the education department or the governor, whom I assume we're being shut down by, I don't see how. Unless we all of a sudden just say, Okay, here in Grant County, we're going to open schools up against everybody's ruling.

Question: Can you share with us what public service you have been involved in that has benefited our community?

Brown: Public service? Starting at the nuclear core, I'm a parent, I'm a grandparent, I'm helping my daughter and my granddaughter, fixing to be 13 years old with her online schooling, so I started real close to home here. I've helped out as a local business owner, donating to Cliff, Silver and Cobre high schools for their athletic programs and help out and fundraise for the Mule Deer Foundation, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, donated and attended and donated to our local Cowbelles and senior citizen organizations, again, going to some of their functions and supporting them. I wouldn't call it public service but helping them to help themselves as far as the Lion's Club flag program, all of it, a lot of it, monetary donations to be able to help them to get out and do public service themselves. And there used to be a lot of things that happened in this county, but things this year are very different, all those things have been canceled because of Covid.

Edwards: I was the Executive Director of The Volunteer Center for 12 years, focused on food security and all of the related issues with that. I was a founding board member of the Grant County Community Foundation, served on the Health Council, the Grant County Food Policy Council, in the Southwest Regional Food Policy Council. I was an advisory board member of the No Child Goes Hungry statewide program. I am currently the Healthy Kids Healthy Communities Coordinator for Grant County. I work in all nine elementary schools with kids around food security and health, nutrition and physical activity. That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Question: The level of divisiveness in our country has reached a fever pitch. As a county commissioner, how will you bring people together for the benefit of our entire Grand County community?

Edwards: I think that we have talked a lot about this already. Dialogue, collaboration, being active, meeting people where they are, listening with your whole heart, taking seriously what people say to you as a commissioner, when they voice their concerns, their fears, acting on them to the best of your ability. I think we can set an example, and I think we do actually set an example currently as a commission about how powerful dialogue can be. We're a group of five very different people, and I think that we have actually done an amazing job on the work that we have done. I think the hospital is an example of that. It happens because we have worked really hard on respectful communication and listening, and we can set an example for the whole community, continue to do so regardless of who is elected or re-elected. We can set the example for the community by continuing that open dialogue, respectful listening. Acting on what we know and learn.

Brown: You know, I really wish I went first on this, because a lot of Ms. Edwards says is very true. It's that listening, that paying attention to people that... Let's get back on this, I don't have your answer right here, let me get it for you, it may take me a day or so, but listening to everybody and everyone. It doesn't matter where you come from, where you are, I want to be able to listen to you and get to your root problem and see if it's something I can solve or not. To me that is what we're in this for. It can only be boiled down to listening. There are going to be some things I can't do, and I realize that, but I can also listen to what they have to say and see if it is something I can do and take care of. And as the saying goes, pick it up and run with it.

Question: The Time Machine question. So let's imagine for a moment that you are victorious on November the third, and you spend the next four years on the Grant County Commission, four years from tonight, we are, hopefully, we're at the university, some place like that, and a big auditorium, lots of folks packed in, breathing the same air and shaking hands and hugging each other, but at that candidates' form where you're just finishing up your first term... My question to you is, what is the single accomplishment that you've made as a Grant County Commissioner that you are most proud of, and why?

Brown: Single most important accomplishment—that's really tough. I would think maybe the hospital, having the hospital packed away, having it solved, so where we're not worried about a CEO, we're not worried about if we've implemented a Board of Trustees, we've gotten that solved and that issue is off the table, there is no more issue with it, so if I had to pick one, the other one would be the water issue, we've got that solved, we've got something going on. To answer your question, it's really tough, I think I'm going to pick the hospital on this one.

Seibel: At least, it's one you actually feel like you might be able to solve.

Edwards: Now see, I wish I would have gotten to go first on this without a doubt. What I would say is that what we have done is choose a CEO that is absolutely knocking it out of the park. That this person has a sincere and genuine interest in our community and is out there every single day in every way, making sure that our hospital is the absolutely best it can be for a rural hospital, and really gets what we need in this community and is doing everything possible to make sure that that hospital is the absolute gem that it has been, that we know it can be, and that we know it will be again.

Closing Statements:

Brown: I appreciate everybody that tuned in tonight. I wish I could have seen who was here. That's one of the things that is missing in this kind of a virtual meeting, you don't get to actually see people. I hope people could come into my shop to say they saw me. Say they either like me or they didn't like me. And why? To give me that chance to actively listen to them, and I think this has turned out very good. I think it was interesting and it was informative for me, so I do appreciate you hosting this event tonight. I have an email that can be reached at BrownKyleNM@yahoo.com. I also have a home phone number, 575-388-5907. If I'm there, I'll answer it; if not, please leave a message. I try to check those messages daily. Sometimes I don't, because of my hectic schedule, and I will try to get back to you and visit with you if nothing else. I do appreciate the time to visit with everybody out there and field some questions, so people get to know more about me, and I thank you for this event.

Edwards: I would also like to thank everybody for tuning in. I really appreciate it. I know that these are really tough times when you have to do something this important on your computer. It is really a challenge to not be able to mingle with people and talk with them and that sort of thing in an event like this. I think that this election is tremendously important, as all elections are. I encourage people to vote your heart, vote your beliefs. You can find my campaign at www.aliciaforgrantcounty.com . You can email me at aliciaforgrantcounty@gmail.com, or call me at 575-313-3371. I would love to hear from you. And I just want to say that I thought the questions were great. But even more so, I thought the dialogue was great, I really enjoyed hearing Mr. Brown's views. I think this was very constructive, it was a good learning experience, and I hope that the audience got as much out of it as I did, and once again, I really appreciate everybody's active participation in local government.