[Editor's Note: This is part 4 of a series of articles on the Grant County Commission work session on July 18, 2023. It continues and completes county reports.)
By Mary Alice Murphy
Randy Villa, director of the General Services Department and fire management officer, was not present at the July 8, 2023 Grant County Commission work session, so Facilities and Grounds Superintendent Jason Lockett gave the report.
He explained that a microburst had created numerous leaks at the Grant County Veterans Memorial Business and Conference Center due to the ongoing roof replacement. "The company didn't get the roof covered up before the storm came off the mountains. It caused the loss of some ceiling tiles on the interior of the building. We had some extra tiles in storage that they are using to fix it. The company will have it ready for weekend events. They are very embarrassed about it."
Lockett noted the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) inspection was taking place at the airport, July 17-19. He also said that fuel sales for Advanced Air for June had totaled 15,340 gallons for a revenue of $70,681.05.
He said that Daniel Graves would later give a DWI report.
"We've been doing maintenance at Bataan Memorial Park to address drainage," Lockett reported. "We've used about 200 tons of rock. We also added some concrete blocks to the stairs to fix issues. Moving on to the courthouse, we've had to put in some new air-conditioning units when some offices moved. We finally got the front pillars re-stuccoed and painted. The weather allowed us to do that. The front lobby renovation of the Department of Health office is almost complete, and we're moving ahead with the parking lot project in mid-August and making the office ADA accessible. For future projects, we continue to look at drainage at Bataan and upgrading the electrical and the vault bathrooms. I think that's an action item for you Thursday. We are also redoing the driveway and sidewalk up past the volleyball courts. At the Fairgrounds we plan on doing electrical work and work on the office and the show ring area. I would like to thank the maintenance department for all their work during this heat. I also thank the airport staff. It's been a busy fire season so far. And the volunteer fire departments and the sheriff's office for addressing all the lightning fires. They went to Hachita on Saturday until 4 in the morning. They deserve a shout out."
The next report came from Road Department Superintendent Joe Grijalva. "The blademen are pretty much on routine right now, and road crews are addressing complaints as they come in. We finished the 2023 chip seal, except for Silver City which we'll be doing in mid-August, and we had to reschedule a chip seal project to the week of August 28, because the mine had some things scheduled and traffic control would have been too difficult. We are working on the warning lights on Airport Road, and they should be up by the end of the month or first part of August. Our future projects, which we hope to get to soon include the two low-water crossings on Noonday Canyon Road. We will have to lift sections of the road and set culverts. We also want to finish the Little Walnut project."
District 5 Commissioner Harry Browne asked if Grijalva had heard any updates on the resurfacing of Highway 180 from 32nd Street to Hurley. Grijalva said he had not, but following a meeting with DOT, although they could not give him an exact date, he expected to hear shortly.
IT (internet technology) Director Adam Baca presented the next county report. "Robert and I are working on the network switch equipment installation. We completed it at the Road Department, and it went pretty smoothly, with basically a new install. At the Detention Center, it was a bit more involved as we had to remove some old, antiquated equipment in order to create some rack space to install the new equipment. With that, there was a lot of cable cleanup effort. It looks a lot cleaner in one of the data closets. Now that the switches are installed, we will work on the programming in order to create a better security presence. We are also continuing with our new server installs. Again, this will take a while. Once they are in, we can migrate the current server system to the new one. In order to do that, we needed to have our network switches in place first. We are continuing to prepare our current system to facilitate the GovPros payment system. This one has proven to be quite involved. My take on it is some of our servers that use some of the Tyler Technology services have been without management for quite some time. So, they need some attention to get to the point where we can move forward with them on efforts like this. It's a multi-pronged effort locally with the Tyler system and the GovPros system as well. In addition, we are working on a new internal IT ticketing system. The one we have is functioning, but it is introductory. It allows opening a ticket and closing a ticket, but that's about it. Reporting is almost non-existent. We are also continuing on with the audio/visual upgrades at the conference center. An El Paso group did a very involved site visit with me and created a large scope of work. With help from Randy (Hernandez, planning director) we are trying to see how we can implement and pay for this. Regarding future projects, we look forward to a county website redesign, which is in the very near future to make it more modern similar to the Town of Silver City website. Another project is content management, within Tyler, particularly with Encode, which most in the county use. It basically gives us the option to upload any document in electronic format, rather than having to scan and attach, it will allow a direct email attachment. This will help us so much with having an electronic record."
He said he attended a cyber insurance webinar, which was quite instructive, and upcoming was an elections security monthly meeting, regarding safeguards for upcoming elections.
The final county report came from DWI Coordinator Daniel Graves.
Graves reported he was training a new preventionist, Patrick Abalos. "He was a former principal at Cobre Schools. We're preparing for the new school year, and we are working on becoming certified for the DWI School here. Border Area Mental Health is no longer doing it for us and the courts. They were the only ones doing DWI school in Grant County, as well as in Luna and Hidalgo counties, so we will step in. We are finishing up our policies and procedures for our main program. They are ready for review, and then we will move on the policies and procedures for the DWI School to have them in place. For future projects, we are working on Team Ace [???? – it was difficult to understand]. We have several community partners willing to work with us, so we are setting up the logistics. We will participate in DWI Day at the legislative session, but we haven't nailed down a date yet. Upcoming events include the YSAPC (Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition) bike rodeo on July 26 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Gough Park. Also coming up is Summerfest, the Cobre Health Fair on July 29. And Sheriff's Association training will take place August 14-18, with myself and our court compliance officer getting our CEUs (continuing education units)."
District 1 Commissioner and Chair Chris Ponce thanked Graves for stepping up to take over the DWI School.
The next article will begin with a review of the regular meeting agenda and will include the regular GRMC report and elected official reports.
To read the previous articles, please visit: https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/79377-grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-071823-part-1 ; https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/79415-grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-071823-part-2 ; and https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/79433-grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-071823-part-3 .