[Editor's Note: This is part 5 of a series of articles on the Grant County Commission work session on Dec 6, 2022 and the regular meeting on Dec. 8, 2022. This article begins with public input and reports from the regular meeting.]

Grant County commissioners present a certificate of appreciation from county staff to retiring District 2 Commissioner Javier "Harvey" Salas. From left are Commissioners Harry Browne, Chair Chris Ponce, Salas, Commissioner Alicia Edwards and County Manager Charlene Webb.

Photo and article by Mary Alice Murphy

District 1 Commissioner and Chair Chris Ponce started the Dec. 8, 2022, regular meeting saying: "I would like to say it's sorta sad that this is (District 2) Commissioner (Javier "Harvey") Salas's last meeting. I want to tell him that I appreciate everything you did for Grant County, as well as the building of our friendship through this commission. You had projects that we are hoping to move forward. The county staff also appreciates you, and I want to hand you a token of our appreciation. We all put ourselves in the line of fire when we run for office. I've also come to know your wife—a lovely lady, who supports you totally. I also have a token for your wife. She has been graceful in supporting you."

District 5 Commissioner Harry Browne said he also left a token for Salas. "It has been a great pleasure to serve with you, with your concern for the entire county and your district from day one. I also want you to know that a second term is not as much fun as the first."

District 3 Commissioner Alicia Edwards said she had something really important to add. "I've appreciated your perspective. I've learned so much from you. We are, largely due to your persistence, doing amazing things at Bataan Memorial Park. Your interest in it has made the county a better place. I hope during our four years serving together we have forged a relationship that won't die."

District 4 Commissioner Billy Billings was unable to attend the regular meeting.

Salas said: "I don't want to cry. I will save my comments for later, but I thank every one of you, the experience has been magnificent."

County Manager Charlene Webb echoed what the others had said. "I, too, appreciate your passion for the things that are important to you. You have opened my eyes and broadened my horizon to look at things differently. I've enjoyed working with you, and sorry I missed a year and a half, but I wish you relaxation away from this chaos. I'll wave a bit bigger when I see you on the road. Thank you for all you've done."

Salas thanked her and said: "I'm so glad you are back here and providing the guidance this county needs."

Ponce said another county employee would be recognized. "I would like to acknowledge our County Sheriff Frank Gomez. You have done an outstanding job. You've been keeping us aware of what was going on, and the passion you have for this county and keeping it safe has not gone unnoticed. It has been a privilege to work with you. I have seen a lot of good. You accomplished a lot of goals."

Edwards said: "You have done an amazing job. Your quick response to the community and to me when I had questions. I appreciate working with you, and I appreciate your dedication to behavioral and mental health issues."

Browne said: "You have done a great job. The department runs so smoothly, and I appreciate your comprehensive reporting."

Salas said it has been an honor "serving with you. I appreciate that you're not sitting back but getting the job done. I hope everything you did has instilled itself in every officer. I hope the future brings even greater things for you."

Ponce thanked Gomez for his professionalism.

During public comment, Robert Lucero of Hanover asked: "Where are we at with what's going on with the smell in Hanover? It's untenable with all the animals. People are dumping trash in the creek, and there is filth everywhere. Mr. Gomez installed cameras, but they are not working properly. Where are we at?"

Ponce noted that commissioners do not answer questions during public input, but "someone will reach out to you."

Gila Regional Medical Center Interim Chief Executive Officer Greg Brickner turned the report over the Chief Financial Officer Patrick Banks to give his CFO report.

"This is the October report ending Oct. 31, because the governing board will not approve the November report until our meeting this afternoon," Banks said.

He said the volumes have trended similarly to previous months, "except for the ER (emergency room), which has been rather busy."

Banks said revenue had come in blasts again, and "we are break even on EBIDA (earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization). We are covering expenses and are closer to break even. Year-to-date, July chipped away, but we are trending toward break even for year-to-date. On the key measures of liquidity, we are slightly lower in cash on hand, but that is a choice to keep our payment periods low."

Brickner thanked Salas for his tenure on the hospital governing board. "You always ask great questions."

He said the print newspaper had written an article about the hospital that "successfully confused everyone."

"This afternoon, I will go more into our services," Brickner said. "I have made patient experience and satisfaction my No. 1 priority. We are working on how to get from 3 stars to 4 in patient satisfaction. We do a patient experience survey. It's a paper survey sent by mail by a company called Press Ganey. It has the best response rate. It has 29 standard questions picked by CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid). They take the questions and put the survey results into a complicated formula based on the demographics of the patients. Older patients give us more positive feedback, so they generally drop the best scores, so they can compare apples to apples. One of the questions is: 'Would you recommend this hospital to your friends and family?' It's interesting, because people love our doctors, love our nurses, but recommending the hospital, not so much. We are listening to our patients. We have a big ask. If you get the survey, please send it back. We want to know how we're doing. We have had a 285 percent improvement from the trailing12-month survey period, from December last year through November this year, which was at the 14th percentile, but for the fiscal year since July, we have increased to the 40th percentile. I use the percentile because I want to know how we are doing compared to other hospitals, which at 40 percentile means 60 percent of the hospitals are doing better than we are."

He noted that April, May and June, "we were way down in in the rankings. We got bad surveys from the spring, so these numbers will change. We want to know if the things that the staff is doing like rounding are helping, so far, for the period July 2021 to December 2022, we were in the 56th percentile. For the last fiscal year at this point, we were at the 37th percentile. It is a regression to the mean. As our population grows, the numbers will drop, and we may see the numbers decline. We're doing what we need to get feedback. We are listening to you."

The following presentation came from Sheriff Frank Gomez. "This is my final presentation, and I want to share some of my accomplishments during my term of office. Please understand that all of this was made possible by a great team of dedicated professionals with support from many others, including all of you."

He noted that since 2019, the Grant County Sheriff's Office has received approximately $1.7 million dollars in outside-sourced funding to supplement the office's operations and to enhance them. The funds include CIT (crisis intervention training), Operation Stonegarden, US Forest Service patrol, vehicles with emergency equipment, safety and other law enforcement equipment, new ruggedized laptop computers, the electronic citation system (TraCs), emergency trauma bags, DARE giveaways and much more.

"We moved to 12-hour shift scheduling, which in the long-term did reduce overall abuse of leave and increase the number of deputies on duty at all times," Gomez reported. "In addition to this, the restructuring of the command staff allowed for better overall supervision and command-decision making.

"In the past four years, we greatly increased the amount of training for our entire staff including advanced-skill subjects, crisis intervention, negotiations and management," he continued. "We enhanced the shills of our patrol staff with various law enforcement/officer safety training, specialized certifications and overall effectiveness as leaders in our communities. Criminal investigators were offered highly specialized advance training in subjects such as homicide, interview/interrogation, voice stress analysis, internet crimes against children and narcotics enforcement."

Gomez said the department developed and implemented enhanced hiring practices, working closely with the HR department to ensure the most fair and transparent process to bring the best people for the job. Similar processes were used for the promotional process to allow for a more merit-based system, rather than one exclusively rooted in executive fiat and/or seniority.

"We developed a step-pay plan, which was approved and adopted by the union, Manager Webb and this board, bringing an equitable system that was the first in our county," Gomez reported. "It remains a highly viable tool for us, although the number currently need updating."

On the DARE program, he said it has been greatly enhanced through advanced training, including school resource officer certifications and more intensive programming for area schools. "DARE remains a great resource to bring our finest to positively influence children and act as ambassadors for parents, families and school staff.

Gomez said that his department has provided many intensive active shooter response trainings in area schools and for other organizations per their request. "We have provided fentanyl hazards training as well."

The crisis intervention training program has increased the effectiveness of the patrol staff in facing the complex and sometimes very serious situations in the field, he said. "They have de-escalated so many potentially dangerous incidents that I've lost count. We should all recognize this as lives impacted positively and sometimes a life preserved. I hope this program continues and advances. It represents the future of law enforcement in many ways."

He thanked the county for remodeling the office to make it "more suited to our use, including improvements to the parking area."

"We have worked hard to improve our professional, quality relationship with many agencies that our staff works with daily with positive results," Gomez said. "We currently maintain an excellent relationship with the courts and the district attorney's office. Our area law enforcement agencies are partners, and we have assisted them in their time of need as well as offered professional maintenance training to their staffs at no cost. I also recognize the positive relations that we have experienced with all of you and the manager and manager's staff. We could not have achieved it all without all of you."

The final article will cover the recognitions and awards to the retiring members of the sheriff's department, and then get into the review and decisions made at the regular meeting.

For the previous articles, please visit: For the previous articles, please visit: https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/75687-grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-120622-part-1; https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/75720-grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-120622-part-2 ; https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/75796-grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-120622-part-3; and https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/75812-grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-120622-and-regular-meeting-120822-part-4 .