[Editor's Note: The Grant County Commission work session on March 9, 2021 and the regular session on March 11, 2021 will be covered in a multi-part series of articles. This one begins the work session.]

By Mary Alice Murphy

During county reports at the beginning of the meeting, County Manager Charlene Webb said the Detention Center report was in the commissioners' packets.

General Services Director Randy Villa gave his report in person at the virtual meeting. "As far as maintenance, we are continuing to sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. That's what we're doing, as well as the volunteer fire departments helping out as traffic control and so forth at the vaccination site at the Health Department on Silver Street."

He said he is again applying for the Wildfire Protection Education grant, Ready, Set, Go, "which I do every year. I've been successful for five years, so that's more than $50,000, so people are ready when fire comes," he said. "We will put out radio and newspaper advertising, as well as do community meetings. We hope it will bring our third Firewise Community in Grant County to Indian Hills. We have one at Wind Canyon and another at Dos Griegos. With that and the county Wildfire Protection Plan, it gives residents options for federal funding to help them. All of us working together, so we and our communities will be ready if fire comes. Not if, but when fire comes to save as many homes and properties as we can." He noted the grant has a $1,000 county match, for which he does a lot of in kind, with use of the county chipper and such. Today and tomorrow are red flag warning days, so people are starting to clean up yards and please don't throw your ashes out. Make sure you follow all the guidelines."

Kim Dominguez, Corre Caminos director, said: "Corre Caminos is doing very well. We restarted all our routes, some on a modified basis. Our ridership so far this year is 9700. For a typical year it would be 38,000, so we're way down, but that's not a surprise. It's typical across the country for most transportation systems like ours. We are funded based on ridership, but the Department of Transportation for fiscal year 2022 and possibly FY 23 will use our numbers from 2019 so that we don't anticipate losing any funding. The two buses we ordered for last fiscal year have been stalled on the production line, waiting for chassis. We hope to receive them by September. We were awarded one hybrid bus at no cash match. It will potentially bring about 30 percent in fuel savings and 20 percent in carbon reduction. All of our Silver City employees who wanted the vaccine have had both shots. We are operating under TSA mask mandates, with no face shields allowed. We have had to deny a few riders or ask them to get off the bus, if they won't wear their masks, but it hasn't been too bad."

District 5 Commissioner Harry Browne asked if Corre Caminos provides masks. Dominguez confirmed that they do. "But we have had to remove passengers if they don't wear a mask. It's been maybe four or five between us and Deming. With the on-demand service or on call, we sanitize after every customer, where they were sitting and the surfaces they touched. On the routes, we thoroughly sanitize the entire bus every time they come into the depot."

Joe Grijalva, Road Foreman, gave the Road Department report. He said the department is working on a low-water crossing project on Gage Road, where they poured the slab last week and will be pouring the foundation on Wednesday "We are back to blade operation, with one operator out on leave for about three months. We have trucks carrying material to district 5 right now where we have some road issues with erosion."

He said he went out to Santa Rita Road and talked to Ty Bays about issues he brought up, such as speed, visibility and signage. "There may be some other things we can do out there, like striping. I'll try to get with Charlene on that. We're short an operator, but we're going to start training some new laborers and truck drivers to get back up to speed. We did a punch list on Airport Road and we're about done with that project. We hope to start patching next week, weather permitting and if we can get asphalt."

Browne asked for clarification on what road Grijalva had talked about near the mine. Grijalva replied that it's off the road between Hanover and Bayard and is the road to the main entrance to the Santa Rita Mine. "It gets a lot of traffic and a lot of speeding. Ty Bays asked that the signage be refurbished. I think we can improve some of the signage."

District 1 Commissioner and Chairman Chris Ponce said the road gets used a lot by residents, the truck drivers and employees.

Planning and Community Development Director Michael "Mischa" Larisch spoke next. "Five of the six landowners on Bandoni Road have signed the easement permission. Commissioner Edwards got a response from the sixth, so we're working on getting that last signature. The criticality is that it's a 60-day construction that we need to get it out to bid and constructed. I don't think we're in danger of losing the funds, but we run the risk of not having it done before the monsoon season comes."

He read from the report the engineers sent on Bataan Memorial Park saying they had found all the utilities, had discovered some conflict points with the storm drain, as well as increasing the number of potholes from four to 13. "Just an update to let you know it is moving forward with the geotech and the utilities, so we can make sure we have the best information before we go out to bid again, so we can tweak the design if needed."

Larisch said the steering committee for the old county jail was to meet that morning. "Groundwork Studio, hired by NMED (Environment Department), is in charge." He read off the extensive list of those participating on the steering committee.

District 3 Commissioner Alicia Edwards clarified that it was the first of several meetings to address the old detention center. "Is it correct, this will determine what we do with the facility?"

"What's on the agenda today is what we do know, what we don't know, sort of starting the process," Larisch replied. The process will include looking at existing condition analysis in early April, with identification of program elements by early June and master plan options and development by early July, with preferred master plan options by late August. "That's the proposed outline." Edwards asked that he share the document with the commissioners, which he said he would.

Edwards asked if it were for only the old jail or the courthouse complex. Larisch replied it is for only the old jail, for which the county received brownfields funding for the analyses already done. "This is the second visioning meeting after the big one pre-COVID."

Webb presented her manager's report with a couple of updates. "The perimeter fence at the Detention Center is nearly complete, once the controls and cameras for the gates are in place. We are in the process of getting the vendor in place for the outdoors and recreation plan." She noted that one of the things on their trails list are the trails at Bataan Park. "There is potentially some capital outlay coming that could cover that project. I'm continuing to monitor the pieces of legislation that could impact the county. It's a huge task. For the RISE program at the Detention Center, we had our first graduate, which we thought was a big success for us. That's huge progress. We continue to make some small programmatic changes, hoping to continue success with that project. We're hoping the Legislature will continue funding those programs across the state. COVID has slowed the program down tremendously, because of not being able to have contractors in and just the whole COVID measures in the jail. The state seems pleased with what we've done."

Ponce asked about accreditation at the Detention Center. Webb replied that it has stalled as well due to COVID. New Mexico Counties will pick up the accreditation process from the Municipal League. "We're still working on policies. We are finalizing six policies and we are prepared to move forward once New Mexico Counties takes it over."

Browne asked about the thinking on reopening the county building.

Webb said she is still hearing concerns from some of the officials and department heads that need to be addressed "before we open to the public."

The next article will begin the review of the regular meeting.