By Lynn Janes
The Village of Santa Clara held a work session February 14, 2023. Trustees, Olga Amador, Arnold Lopez, and Peter Erickson attended. Mayor Richard Bauch and Mayor Pro Tem Albert Esparza did not attend.
First on the agenda had to do with the possible purchase of the Bradley Hotel by the village. Sheila Hudman, village administrator, gave the council the information about the property. The price of the property would be $120,000. It consists of six city lots. Each lot size is 25 feet by 150 feet. The building sits on two of those lots and has a square footage of approximately 4,000. The structure needs a lot of work. A portion of the adobe needs repair. Adobe Techniques will be coming to give an estimate. The first floor has been gutted and the floor joists replaced by concrete. The electric had been done as residential and will have to be upgraded to commercial. All plumbing would need replacement. In the past they had a fire and some of the roof joists would need repair. The top floor would need to be gutted. Hudman said an architect had come and looked at the property and said it could be saved but it would be time consuming. She pointed out that if the city owned it, they could get funding and it would be designated a historical landmark. The property has also been made part of the Five Points projects. The project has promised to help with the repairs also. Currently the city has funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021which came from covid money and was made available to help communities make improvements. Hudman said they had several people look at the property and could buy it but not afford the repairs. A couple of nonprofit entities have approached the village interested in renting office space. "This building is the only adobe in the village left that they could save."
Tom Caddel asked about the price and if it had been appraised. Hudman said the land value is $70,000 and that would leave $50,000 for the building. An appraiser would go by square footage and that would make the value more than $120,000. Caddel asked how long the village would give the current owner to get out. Hudman said 30 days. Caddel wanted to know how much it would cost to refurbish the building. Hudman said that Adobe Techniques had given the current owner a quote of $20,000 but that had been in 2014 and she thought it now would be closer to $50,000, and that would just be the outside. The sidewalk would be raised to make it ADA compliant. If an elevator would be needed it will have to be on the outside. Hudman said she had checked and that would run $10,000 to $15,000. Caddel had some other questions.
Hudman pointed out that only the building sat on two of the six lots giving the village other opportunities for development. She said they already had the funding for the purchase of the property.
They talked about some of the other adobe structures that had been lost due to neglect.
The next item for them to address had to do with the denial of a zoning change on the village owned property known as the industrial park. Ameresco Solar Land Holdings LLC had proposed a solar array in the area, but the zoning had to be changed to go forward with the project. Hudman had asked the representative several questions that she didn't have an answer to and would try to have by the next meeting. Some of the questions Hudman had put to her had to do with the billing and to whom they sold the electricity. They may need to table the matter until March. Although they would not be considered this year they would be ahead for the next year.
Police Chief Lonnie Sandoval requested that Oak Street and Cleveland Street become a 4-way stop instead of just the one way. Hudman said they had an accident and the chief asked that they make it a 4-way stop.
Hudman addressed the JPA (joint powers agreement) for the Grant County Water Commission. The agreement has been worked on for a long time. One of the items that had been discussed originally would be maintenance of the lines would be outsourced. Now it will be done by the municipalities. Hudman told Caddel "They will not be getting Bayard water, if anything they would by using ours. Previously in a meeting Caddel had opposed having Bayard water. We have a backup to Silver City." Caddel had several questions about the agreement. One had to do with the ownership of the water rights. Hudman said all water rights and systems stay with the municipalities. The agreement would only be for the connecting lines. Caddel wanted to know who paid for this. Hudman explained to him that this had been the reason for the JPA. They had to have an agreement in place to get funding for the project.
One of the stipulations to the 250 acre-feet of water rights donated to the village by Freeport McMoRan included being able to supply Hanover and Fierro with water if need be.
Hudman talked about the $1 million Freeport McMoRan would be donating to the improvements at the wastewater treatment plant in Bayard and how that helped all of them in the mining district.
Yvonne Gonzales, village attorney, went over the agreement and how the billing would work.
The next thing on the agenda had to do with the contracts for the village administrator and police chief. The contracts would remain the same with a few exceptions. The vacation time would extend from three weeks to four weeks. All village employees have a two-week vacation but because of their position they have three. Hudman said she has had a hard time taking any vacation because something seems to happen with the village each time so that she must cancel. "I lost 32 hours last year and the year before 12 hours." The policy for the village has been if not used you lose the vacation time. The change would be if they have made every attempt to use that vacation and have not been able the village will pay out up to two weeks.
Gonzales said Hudman has no control over her vacation time and gave examples of the many times she had to cancel vacation time. Hudman said "Many things are time sensitive." She said now that the chief has a department fully staffed, he should not have as many problems taking vacations.
The next proposed change had to do with the employee manual and vacation calculations. They had changed the procedure and had gotten messed up with past deputy clerks. Hudman said they want to go back to an accrual basis, and it needs to be changed in the manual. She said Gonzales had looked at it and approved that change. Gonzales went over how some of the codes needed to be revamped in title one. She went over those changes and how it would make it easier to update the employee manual.
Resolution 2023-2 had been brought to the council concerning the support of the New Mexico legislative bill for the Local Choice Energy Act. Hudman had provided a packet with information on the bill. The bill had passed one committee but with a lot of changes. She told them "Several newspaper articles were written about it and they had not been favorable."
Bruce Ashburn with PNM had attended the work session to give a presentation on the proposed legislation. He said previously a local representative had come to them and told them some very untrue information about it. First thing they stated that only 6.4 percent of the energy in New Mexico comes from renewable resources. Ashburn said that information is incorrect. "We are 40 percent renewable and of that 55 percent is carbon-free." By the year 2045 by law, they must be all carbon free, and PNM will be doing it by 2040. He went on to cite some other statements made that had been untrue. Information from other states that have done this showed they lost money. He gave several other statistics and information to the board. He added that in the past six years PNM had donated $26 million in the state and locally $240,000. This past Christmas PNM gave the Gospel Mission $5,000 for the holiday season. He asked the council to pay attention to where these companies came from. "They are coming from all over and that will take money out of the state causing reverse economics. They told you, you would have just one bill." That would not be true. The legislation states you would have two bills. "Essentially they are having you open your own electric company." This will be a form of deregulation. He pointed out all the problems recently that Texas had with this when the bad storms had hit.
He continued to go over the bill with the council. If you have one in the area you would not be able to opt out of the program. The bill does not include any requirements for PRC (Public Regulation Commission). Ashburn said PNM has to ask permission for any rate increase and the process takes up to two years. He read a portion of the bill concerning the ability for a resident to opt out and pointed out what it did not say. It would charge that person a fee. He pointed out that everything in this bill could change and they would not know what the end result would be. The bill also states the commission shall not terminate the local choice provider and the public utility cannot terminate the local choice provider. "Who can stop them?" Ashburn said Bayard had passed to support the bill but after receiving more information they voted 4-1 to rescind that support. "It is just not a good piece of legislation."
Gonzales said the legislation had not been well received in Santa Fe and needs to be totally rewritten.
Ashburn said, "What you support today may not be what you get." Gonzales agreed. Ashburn said they didn't need to support but rather should watch it.
Hudman said that Ameresco had asked that capital outlay money be used, and it would have to be in the village's top five requests and that would take away from the city needs. Ashburn pointed out that the representatives of the bill in the area have been saying the municipalities in this area will be supporting the bill. But that is not true, as shown by Bayard's rescinding their support.
Meeting Adjourned