[Editor's Note: This is part 1 of the Grant County Commission's special meeting held July 26, 2022.]

By Mary Alice Murphy

The first presentation at the Grant County Commission special meeting on July 26, 2022 came from Rosalinda Natividad, Incite Network chief executive officer.

Natividad said she would give an update and an overview of the ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) grants plan. [Because of cutting out issues, she had to turn off her video for most of the presentation.]

"This overview of the work we've done on the grants plan will focus on the outcomes," Natividad said. "You can review the plan annually or as often as you want. During the last four months, we've been acting as a research hub to support the county departments' goals and overall objectives. I would like feedback on the goals and strategies."

The departments involved include fire and emergency services, health and human services, roads, internet technology and broadband, and community development under the former director Priscilla Shoup and now under the new director, Randy Hernandez.

"I wrote one grant application to build out broadband," she said. "The equity plan framework was declined, and it was for $75,000. I learned more about rural areas and the need to be equitable. I did a review of grants that were awarded in this round, and they were heavily represented by indigenous tribal areas."

She continues to vet opportunities.

"The heart of the plan, we think, will be with health and human resources and fire and emergency services," Natividad said. "We want to ensure that elected officials are invited to the table."

Among the key strengths of the county are that the departments are eager to work together. The weaknesses include time as a challenge for the departments.

Needs for equipment and utility infrastructure for fire services seems to indicate that there is better support for schools on these issues.

She said she is working with Cassandra Harley, the new health and human resources county employee.

District 1 Commissioner and Chair Chris Ponce said the board needs to come up with "our top priorities. How many commissioners did you meet with?"

Natividad said up to the point, she has worked with the former county manager and Shoup and has asked to meet with the commissioners. "I met with commissioners at the county manager's direction."

Ponce said he thought she should meet with each commissioner individually, so they can give feedback.

The next presentation came from Marilyn Alcorn, chair of the Grant County Community Health Council. She introduced Phoebe Schroder [Editor's Note: what is the spelling of her last name?], the health promotions specialist with the New Mexico Department of Health at the Silver City location, serving Hidalgo and Grant counties.

"I provide coordination of the local coalition with the Department of Health," she said. "I want to work with all partnerships. There will be data gathering and I will provide support to the local DOH office and with the health council and the schools, mobilizing partnerships to solve the issues. It's important to collect data. I'm excited to work with Cassandra and with the health council."

She said the Grant County public health office is working on immunization as school starts. She announced the Cobre Summerfest that was taketo place on July 30.

District 3 Commissioner Alicia Edwards commented that Schroder had taken the place of Michelle Giese, who filled the role for many years.

"I have big shoes to fill," Schroder said.

The next presentation came from Ken Hughes, of the Coalition of Sustainable Communities New Mexico.

He said he was glad to see the county still doing an ICIP (infrastructure capital improvement plan), which the agency he previously worked for helped develop the program in 1995.

"I had retired from a state job, half of my time was with the Department of Finance with the Local Government Division, but when I was asked to work with this coalition, I knew I wanted to help make a difference," Hughes said. "It is a non-profit with membership working especially on legislative actions. We prepared testimony for our members advocating for higher gas mileage and electric vehicles. We helped pass the Community Solar Act in 2021. We are focused on supporting clean fuel standards. If there is a united voice, we speak for all members.

"This building is heated and cooled by electricity through PNM," he continued. "There are new technologies with heat pumps, that are three times more efficient than your current system, and they can combine with solar to bring you savings. There is funding through the Congressional delegation called congressional directed funding. It used to be called pork. Sen. Martin Heinrich loves heat pumps. There's also a lot of capital outlay, if you put that in your projects, you could likely through your representatives and senators get funding. We can share the research and data. What passed in this recent legislative session was a comprehensive energy efficiency development block grant that will open in September and will invite local governments to submit applications to help 'income-qualified individually owned households' to become more energy efficient, especially for mobile homes. We will help with the applications You will likely have some things you can do here. And electric vehicles. They're coming. I have one and I love it. It has a 60-mile range, not a lot, but most trips are OK. You need to map out where you want stations. I came over the Black Range, so I'm not sure how that would work. There's a lot of money coming in for stations along the interstate. That won't help you much. But the decision on second-tier stations is something the county definitely wants to be part of. I also have a slide in my presentation on Community Solar. It's an option, as opposed to solar on individual homes. A homeowner can subscribe as an individual to take advantage of solar with many other people. The plan is to build a 5-megawatt facility on about 30 acres. The county can help site the facilities, ideally near a PNM substation. The law calls for at least 30 percent of the subscribers to be low-income or income qualified. The county could help the subscribers with start-up costs."

District 5 Commissioner Harry Browne noted the county has received three applications for community solar on private land. "To my surprise, all of a sudden there was a concern about the decommissioning of the equipment at the end of life of the solar panels. Something that hasn't been done in other industries and made me slightly suspicious of the motivations, but I'm curious. Have other communities created a policy on decommissioning?"

Hughes said he had not heard that from other communities. "I've had solar since 2006 and it is nearing the 25-year end of warranty, but it's still producing well. I think that's frankly an overblown concern."

Browne said he has had his since 1996 and it's still working, but batteries can be an issue.

Hughes noted that community solar goes directly into the transmission line, but batteries can be added easily for the "40 days of clouds we have a year."

Browne said a firm wanted to do an audit for renewable energy for the county six years ago, and "they seemed to think we could save a significant amount of money. But other commissioners thought they were doing it in their economic interest, so they might not have been telling the absolute truth. We didn't sign a contract. Have other counties contracted with third parties that wouldn't have interest in the outcome?"

Hughes said he had not heard of any, but his old office with the Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department Energy Conservation Division has three engineers who will do the review thoroughly on an engineering report. He said it would cost a little. "Sandoval County wanted to solarize their buildings and used these engineers. The outcome was that solarizing all the county buildings was not practical and would not meet the 20-year payout."

Browne noted the cost of joining the coalition, which he thought was reasonable. "I hope to introduce an agreement to pay the fee to join. I want the commissioners to be aware that it is not free." [Editor's Note; According to the chart in Hughes' presentation, the cost for a county with 25,000-50,000 population would be annually $6,700.]

Hughes said the coalition is quite active and the new chair is from Santa Fe County. "She's quite happy with our work."

Edwards said she totally supports membership in the coalition. "You talked about manufactured homes. In the past, I've worked with low-income families who wanted energy efficiency, but it was difficult because they didn't own the property."

Hughes said community solar is open to tenants and renters, with the landlord's permission.

District 2 Commissioner Javier Salas said he is interested in community solar. "Does it have to go through you?"

Hughes said it does not have to go through the coalition, but can it come directly from the county.

Salas also noted that refrigerated air is more popular and replacing swamp coolers. "Can they be retrofitted with heat pumps?"

Hughes said, although a heat pump is a similar technology, it is more advanced and would have to replace the refrigerated system. "A heat pump, they should come up with a better name, because it heats and cools and may soon also heat water. They're working on that technology in Japan."

Hughes, in answer to a Salas question, said that Sen. Heinrich is working on rebates, because most people, if their air conditioning conks out, just ask for the cheapest replacement. The rebates would cover the cost gap between run-of-the-mill air conditioners and state-of-the-art heat pumps.

He noted there used to be rebates to replace old appliances. PNM now has a program to replace incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs. He said the price difference is minimal because the rebate is built into the cost of the LED bulbs. "It could be part of the utility bill, because the energy rider is already there."

"Three things we have to look at, fire, heat and floods," Hughes said. "So, what are our adaptation measures?"

Edwards said she and Browne were doing some math, and it would take 420 acres to provide community solar to every household in the county.

Hughes said land is not a problem in New Mexico.

Salas asked if it the community solar has to be next to a substation.

Hughes said it didn't, but from an economics point of view it would be better, so as not to require more costly distribution lines.

Edwards jumped in and said she thought about the wind energy project planned in the southern part of the county. Browne said the community solar has to be located on a line of the participating utility, which is PNM. Browne also said that the state has a cap on the allowed amount of participation in these programs. Hughes confirmed it.

Browne pointed out that the state land office is an ex officio member of the coalition. "Does that mean they are liable to cooperate?"

Hughes said the office has been swamped by requests. A person in the land office thinks it might be less costly for a developer to go to a private landowner, because there are hoops to get through to use state or BLM land.

Ponce asked if Hughes had reached out to the mayor of Bayard. 'We have had a couple of conversations."

Hughes said he had spoken to the Bayard Council the evening before, and hopefully they will put a resolution on the next agenda to join the coalition.

The next article will begin with a discussion on the ICIP for 2024-28.