By Lynn Janes

The town of Bayard held a regular meeting May 13, 2024. Attendance included Mayor John L. Ojinaga, Mayor Pro Tem Eloy Medina, Councilors Frances Gonzales, Eloy Gonzales, and Gilbert Ortiz. Martha Salas, city clerk/treasurer also attended. 

Public input

Chuck Gray, Bayard beautification committee chair, let the council know they had held the first music in the park. The turnout had been light but he thanked Tany Ortiz, deputy clerk and the the police chief for their help to make the event successful. 

Eloy Gonzales asked the council to consider George Reyes for recognition. He has helped with baseball and little league for many years and has been a real asset to the community. 

The council approved the consent agenda that included meeting minutes, wastewater report and library report. It also included a paying for a workshop for Robert Terrazas and Isaac Gonzales, as well as attendance for Police Chief Hector Carrillo to the New Mexico Chiefs of Police conference and training for Officer Trevor Jensen. 

Planning and zoning

The council approved the appointment of Cordell Jones as chairman for planning and zoning. 

The council tabled the application from Cynthia Sosaya for flood plain exception. Her insurance had approved but the mortgage company had required the council approval. The city does not have a flood plain manager and Medina pointed out the city could be liable if anything happened. Ojinaga said they had in the past had properties flooded that had retaining walls. They will be obtaining more information.

The council approved Louie Bernal who had been waiting for a long time for this approval. He has been wanting to put up solar panels. Salas said she had never seen someone have to wait for approval for this type of construction. 

New business

Bridgette Jones, project coordinator Southwest New Mexico ACT, had a presentation for the council concerning the Mine Mill Hall restoration project. This will be part of the Five Points Project that includes the Waterworks building in Silver City, Old Hurley schoolhouse in Arenas Valley, Bradley Hotel in Santa Clara and the train depot in Hurley. 

The number one part of the project will be to save the building from the water run off during the monsoon rains. They have been applying for grants. AmeriCorps Youths will be coming in June and the town will have a crew for six weeks, worth $18,000 in labor. They will put half the crew on the Bradley Hotel and the other half on the Mine Mill. A grant of $8,400 had been obtained from Freeport McMoRan for the project. Kristine Lundgren has had extensive experience with water harvesting and restoration. She has been working with the YCC (Youth Conservation Corps) at Aldo Leopold school. They have asked the council to support the project by committing to a possible maximum cost of $5,000. Jones said she felt they would not need that much and would continue to try and obtain donations. 

Lundgren had a map of the plan to mitigate the water run off with diversion and harvesting. They would then use that water to plant plants around the building. She went over the whole plan with the council. 

Medina said he loved what they proposed to do but he had concerns that it would not take care of the extreme amount of water that comes down during the monsoon rains. When it failed, they would have to pay damages to surrounding businesses. “We want to be good neighbors.” He wanted them to understand they have a lot of water that comes down starting at the Food Basket. “We need the water channeled to highway 180. Lungren said they had done other projects and encouraged them to view them and see what they had been able to do. 

Medina asked Michael Paez, maintenance director, what his thoughts would be. He recommended catching it and diverting it to the highway. “We have had a lot of problems in that area with flooding.” 

Gilbert Ortiz suggested moving the catchment containers to catch more and Lundgren suggested adding another container. 

Medina felt that the recommendation of the engineers to put in a concrete berm might work better. Jones said, “I am not an engineer but have seen what can be accomplished with these methods at the Waterworks building.” The engineer’s proposal will cost approximately $125,000 and this project will be approximately $40,000 of which most will be in-kind donations. She suggested they see how it worked and if it didn’t, they could go the route of the engineer. 

The council approved the purchase of materials for the Mine Mill Hall project not to exceed $5,000. 

The council tabled the award ideum to design the master plan for the Mine Mill Hall tourism grant. The grant expires June 30, 2024. The council will find out how much can be done by that time. Jenny Castanon, grant writer, said they could use half of it in that time. The council expressed a worry that if they don’t use this grant, they will have a hard time obtaining one from tourism in the future. They had the grant since December 2023. Some discussion took place on why it had not been acted on sooner. 

The council approved the oncall administrative and engineering tasks with MBI, Inc. Trumm Engineering. Terrazas said “He has always done a good job for us, and he will be oncall.” The contract has been estimated at $20,000 for the year. 

The city of Bayard had advertised for audit services for the fiscal year 2024. They had received two quotes. Beasley Mitchell and Company for $38,993 and Jaramillo Accounting Group LLC for $44,000. The council approved Beasley Mitchell and Company. 

The city of Bayard has had a MOU (memorandum of understanding) with Gila Regional EMS and the council approved to extend it for another four years. Medina said they would be adding more services. 

Ordinances

The council approved resolution no. 8-2024. This supports the application for a pledge of matching funds for fiscal year 2025 transportation project fund. Paez said this would just be an application and it will be for the projects on North Foy, Alta Vista and Cooper Street areas. 

Action for personnel

The council approved three resignations that included animal control/code enforcement officer, police department sergeant position and grant writer/library aide. Salas said she had discussed with Castanon earlier her interest in museum director, but that position has not been created at this time. They had posted the animal control/code enforcement officer in house and one of the police officers had applied.

The council tabled the advertising of a temporary fulltime evidence technician. Salas said they had to table it until she had further information from the police chief. Carrillo said they had purchased the software ($6,000) using law enforcement funds to keep up on evidence and go back on evidence from past cases. Salas said the grant will pay for the position and it will just be temporary until they get all caught up. 

The council approved the hire of Louis Frank Owens for code enforcement/animal control officer. He had held the position before. They approved him at $18 an hour. 

The council approved Daniela Sedillos for accounts payable clerk. She had already started and has picked up everything very well. She had been a warehouse clerk for Freeport McMoRan. 

Mayor and councilor reports

Paez asked the community not to travel to Foy Street during the construction unless they live there. “It is extremely rocky and is a half week ahead of schedule.”

Carrillo had cards and challenge coins he wanted to present to the persons that helped during the Tour of the Gila bike race when it came through Bayard. They had helped with traffic control. He had a list of persons. He said recently he had been recognized at a police awards ceremony for his involvement in a case that the person had been given life in prison. He had emailed Workforce Solutions concerning the students they had hired for co-op positions that the state would reimburse the wages to the city. They had two students and he had been told they would be put on a waitlist for the reimbursement. Frances Gonzales said she had spoken to the state, and they would not receive the reimbursement but would be first on the list in July for funding the next students. The money they had been supposed to receive went to Bernalillo and Dona Anna counties. Carrillo said while attending the Chief Association meeting they had expressed wanting to have more representation from the southwest part of the state. The department will be working with Snell Middle School on a presentation about prevention. He said he would be doing a little different process for recruitment of officers than he had done in the past. 

Medina asked what they would be doing with the co-op students. Salas said they would be extending them and that they could use them. They have the funds to cover the cost. 

Eloy Gonzales asked if people within the city could have septic tanks and Medina said, “We should not have any because they are not allowed.”

Frances Gonzales said the housing authority meeting would take place onWednesday at 4:00 pm. 

Budget work session will take place May 23, 2024

The next regular meeting will take place May 28, 2024

Meeting adjourned.