This one addresses a discussion on potential road abandonment and begins county reports.

[This is the sixth in a series of articles on the Grant County Commission meetings.]

By Mary Alice Murphy

Following the presentations [links at the bottom of this article] at the work session on June 21, 2022, commissioners held a discussion on the vacation and abandonment of a portion of Bald Knoll Road.

Planning and Community Development Department Director Priscilla Shoup said she had been in contact with the Bureau of Land Management, "which gave the county the waiver for right-of-way of the road, back in 1984, as it contains a portion of BLM land. So, we have taken the accompanying resolution off the table, because we need more time to investigate the issue. If the county decides to continue with this, the private property owner of the land next to the BLM land would like to have the ability to obtain the right-of-way. The BLM has a process, he would have to go through to get that right-of-way. Mr. Ty Bays was here, and he serves on the road abandonment committee. He was unable to stay, but he wanted to give the reasons why the committee agreed to abandon the road. He said one reason was that the county was not maintaining the road in a satisfactory manner for safety of travel for residents and commercial vehicles. The property owners have done significant maintenance on the roads themselves. County maintenance to acceptable standards would be very expensive and would likely cause unintended consequences for other more traveled roads in the county. Closure of the road will not prohibit public access to the public land, except for access to a small block of 40 acres of BLM land. The landowners are in agreement on maintenance of the road, as well as closure of the road. Abandonment of this road would release county resources to better maintain other more traveled county roads. There are two portions of BLM land affected that the agency granted the waiver on. The road affects Mr. Bradberry and Mr. Norris, who would maintain the road. The abandonment of the two portions would be taken over by the two property owners."

District 3 Commissioner Alicia Edwards asked where the locked gate would be and if it would be at the cattleguard.

Shoup explained that when former County Manager Charlene Webb was looking at the issue, the decision was made that the best place for the locked gate would be at the cattleguard, because everything to the east and north of the road is BLM land and would maintain public access, although not the same access, but still accessible.

District 5 Commissioner and Vice Chair Harry Browne, who led the meeting in the absence of Chair Chris Ponce, said the two letters from the BLM "were not very satisfactory, as if they were trying not to influence the decision. I've heard some concern, not overwhelming concern, from public land access advocates that doing this should not be the default. We shouldn't say it's too expensive to maintain access to public lands, and so it shouldn't be so easy to abandon roads. It's why I'm disappointed I don't get more from the BLM letters. Do people use this land? BLM should be able to say what the damage is to the users to lose this public access."

Shoup said the BLM planned to come out for a site visit but were unable to. "I don't know if they are just going off the maps. Mr. Bradberry said that people usually come to him to ask for access to the property through his property, because the terrain next to the BLM land is not great for hiking or whatever they plan to do. So, they usually access it through his property with permission."

Browne asked if anyone had considered doing a property exchange for that 40 acres.

Neither Shoup nor Interim County Manager Randy Villa had heard anything about an exchange.

Edwards said she had talked to Autumn Bruton, who is Bradberry's daughter, and that they were amenable to looking at a land exchange. "When I look at this, my brain that wants to put things in order, thinks that the 40 acres is in a silly place. It's at the top of a ridge. Couldn't we just do a land exchange?" Edwards suggested when the county would meet with BLM the next day if they could consider a land exchange.

District 4 Commissioner Billy Billings said he, too, would like to know about the possibility of a land exchange.

Shoup said she would be meeting with the BLM to learn about the agency's process to transfer the right-of-way portion from the county to the property owner. She said the transfer would allow abandonment of the road because it would no longer be a question of public access.

Browne said he believed the land swap would be the best outcome. Edwards concurred.

Billings said land swaps used to be fairly common. "If it were between two private property owners, it would happen in seconds."

The next item went to county reports.

Detention Center Administrator Joseph Andazola said he currently had four new officers in training at the facility, as well as four officers who have completed classroom training and are now in on-the-job training and had one officer vacancy. He thanked the manager, HR and county employees who had helped their recruitment efforts to get almost completely staffed. "A lot of the facilities have 25 percent or more vacancy rate, and one of the larger facilities has as many as 180-200 vacancies, so I'm grateful we worked hard to be almost fully staffed. We are working on retention now."

He said he is moving forward with the care coordinator position and has applied for approval of renewal of the RISE program. "Once we have approval, we will apply for the Just for Life program to get that care coordinator job description going. For the month of May, we had an average of 89 inmates a day, with 91 on May 31. Today we have 98. We had two staff covid-positive tests, as of June 16. In May, we had 28 RISE participants, with 16 in the facility and 12 receiving services in the community. For future projects, we are requesting quotes for a body scanner for the facility, because of the rise in fentanyl use in the county. In one instance, an officer found hundreds of pills on someone coming in. That caused the officers to be exposed to the fentanyl. With a body scanner we can more easily keep the facility safe. We are continuing to get education on fentanyl and the expansion of its availability and use. We are expanding Narcan classes to the schools and the public. We are conducting a statistical analysis of population trends, as well as detainee classification, housing and staffing of the facility. We are above capacity today. We continue to work on updating the Policies and Procedures utilizing information and resources given by the CSG assessment of the facility. We will continue training our officers with the Public Safety Psychology Group to let them know it is OK to ask for help. We sent 15 officers to Las Cruces for training. We want to continue training for officers, and we have some ideas, including the body scanner, which will cost roughly $120,000 to $150,000." He requested support and guidance for purchases of equipment and grant opportunities.

Edwards said she thought some facilities had used CARES funding for equipment purchases. And "there's a lot of data on how much safer a body scanner makes Detention Centers, so I think it would be a great purchase."

Villa said: "We want to put together a plan on equipment and the costs attached to it. By the same token, it will save lives of inmates and officers. Because the officers did go down right away and had to be treated. We want to make sure the public knows and anyone going into the facility is that, although it wasn't tolerated before, we don't want it to happen again, so the scanner would go a long way toward mitigating that 100 percent."

Browne asked if the person with the hundreds of pills had been charged.

Andazola said he had contacted the drug task force, which took it over, and yes, there are pending charges and "they will hold him accountable. We work well with local law enforcement. We contacted the DA's office, and we will offer phone calls and any evidence we have. The drug issue is primarily on the detainee side, but during the past few years, we have charged and terminated three staff members because of drugs, and they are serving time for that. With a body scanner anybody being brought in will be scanned, so if we later find contraband, it can rule out that it was an inmate that brought it in."

Shoup said the county had received Colonias funding for $2 million for the Little Walnut Construction Phase 1, but the San Lorenzo preliminary engineering report was not awarded, but said they could apply for New Mexico Department of Transportation funding for next year, which is often better at funding this type of road and drainage PER.

"I believe Charlene was working with Freeport-McMoRan to swap property for the North Hurley lift station, which is partially on Freeport property," Shoup said. "The swap would be a small piece of property on Hwy 152 next to the old Manhattan Bar. While we were doing research on the property, Randy found an old folder that had the deeds to the property all around the lift station in 1996, but the company had only given an easement for that piece of property. We don't know why. I talked to Mr. Bays, and he didn't know why, because he went on board with the company a year after that. We need to own the property for grants and such and half the station is on Chino property."

On the Community Block Development Grant upcoming application cycle, Shoup said because the county is not able to close out the current project, the Department of Finance and Authority notified the county it was not eligible to apply this year but can next year after completion of the current CDBG project. She noted that a Quality of Life Grant application process for recreation purposes is coming up and Bataan Memorial Park would be eligible for funding, as would the Cliff Fairgrounds. "We still have about $500,000 for Bataan Memorial Park for planning, design and electrical work for the pavilion. So, we can be prepared next year when CDBG comes around again."

She said the county had set a public meeting for the Tyrone-Thompson Road relocation for June 29 at 5 p.m. at the request of the commissioners to involve the public in the decision.

For future projects, Shoup noted that a redesign of Truck Bypass may be out for rebid in the fall of 2022. "We applied for funding from NM DOT for the Ridge Road Phase 1. We expect to hear about the award in July or August." On her report, she said several projects are currently in design, including North Hurley Road Phase III, Arenas Valley Road, and finalization for Little Walnut Road and Ridge Road. She also noted that public meetings for the Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan to prepare for requesting legislative funding would take place July 7 at 4 p.m. in Cliff-Gila, July 12 at 5 p.m. at the Commission Room and July 13 at 4 p.m. in Mimbres. "The ICIP will be upcoming in the next month or so, so you might prepare for what is on there now and what you might want to ask for."

Edwards asked how close the CDBG Bataan Memorial Park project was to completion, and Shoup said probably by the end of the month (June), but then the state would need to come down to monitor the project and the books. "I don't believe they thought there was enough time to complete all that. We had already started the process, with public meetings on the CDBG, but it would have been better to have closed out by the beginning of May. We had delays and the paperwork for CDBG is quite extensive."

Edwards said it was disappointing that it couldn't be done in time, but it's also too bad that the state "can't get down here to get their part done in time, either. It puts us a year behind. On the ICIP public meetings, if an acequia in Mimbres would want to request ICIP funding, could they come to a meeting and get on the ICIP? And then the county would be their fiscal agent?"

Shoup said she thought so, because she didn't think acequias had their own ICIPs.

Edwards said, particularly "after what we heard from the Forest Service this morning that acequias on the east side of the Mimbres river will need some help due to debris and ash [from the Black Fire burn scar]."

Browne noted that the NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service) might be a better option. He also noted that Shoup would be leaving the county on June 30.

Shoup confirmed that and said she was returning to the Silver City Planning and Community Development Department.

Villa said the Procurement Officer Randy Hernandez had been working with Shoup and would be interim department director.

Billings asked where the Cliff ICIP meeting would be held. Shoup replied at the Fairgrounds Exhibit Building.

The following report from Facilities and Grounds Maintenance Supervisor Jason Lockett will be covered in the next article.

For previous articles on this meeting, please visit: https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/72686-grant-county-commission-holds-lengthy-work-session-062122-part-1 ; which addressed the Gila National Forest presentation on the Black Fire and potential flooding impacts; and https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/72716-grant-county-commission-hears-several-presentations-at-work-session-062122-part-2 ; which addressed the SE Group presentation on the Outdoor Recreation Plan; https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/72717-grant-county-commission-hears-several-presentations-at-work-session-062122-part-3 , which addressed the Lodger's Tax Advisory Board report; https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/72765-grant-county-commission-hears-several-presentations-at-work-session-062122-part-4, which addressed the Tu Casa update, and https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/72852-grant-county-commission-hears-several-presentations-at-work-session-062122-part-5 which addressed the potential of a general obligation bond issuance on the General Election ballot.

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