Bayard presented with possible mine worker memorial project

By Lynn Janes

The town of Bayard held a regular meeting July 16, 2025. Attendance included Mayor John L. Ojinaga, Mayor Pro Tem Eloy Medina and Councilors, Frances Gonzales, Eloy Gonzales and Gilbert Ortiz. Martha Salas, city clerk, also attended.

The council approved the consent agenda that included minutes, accounts payable and department head reports. It also approved attendance of elected officials to attend a conference of the New Mexico Municipal league and the head librarian to attend an annual conference.

Old business

Michael Pino came to provide a presentation on a possible mine workers memorial. He had been born in Socorro and worked with the state for seventeen years in the maintenance department. He has 1.3 million square feet under his responsibility and continued with some other qualifications including owning his own business for 27 years in Socorro. He saw a need for economic prosperity because, "The little town is pretty much dying."

They had planned to do a memorial for the American miner at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and had been able to secure $420,000 from the legislature. However, they had refused to funnel the money through the college, and they lost the funds. Later he tried again, and it keeps being vetoed.

Bayard has been right in the middle of mining, and he thought it would be a good location. If the request for funding goes through the cultural affairs incentive they would have to choose an artist. If it went through the Department of Tourism, it might be different.

This project had all started with a promise he had made to an elderly lady who owned the Kelly Mine. She has since passed away. Pino had worked with an artist already and has seen some incredible artists that had also bid. He said the project would bring a lot of tourism and lodger's tax and the city will have to be behind it. He had a Facebook page that had some of the artists renditions for the memorial and had been working on this project for nine years. He said he would take care of the funding and legislature, and Bayard would be the fiscal agent for the funds. Pino wants to turn it into a national monument. The council and Salas had a number of questions for him. Once they had funding it would be a two- or three-year project. Pino will be asking Senator Gabriel Ramos for help putting the bill into the legislature.

Pino went into the importance of teaching the history of mining in New Mexico and said people have been wanting something new, fresh and not political. The people that have been and currently in mining need to be recognizef. He added many nationalities have been involved in mining.

The council approved Bayard to be the fiscal agent for the mine workers memorial with an end date of December 31, 2028.

Allyson Siwik, Gila ResourcesInformation Project director, and Southwest New Mexico Community Forest Network project attended to provide a PowerPoint presentation of the plan for Bayard. She had also been joined with others working on the project.

This will be a five-year project funded by the U.S. Forest Service to build urban and community forests in six communities to included Bayard, Santa Clara, Hurley, Lordsburg, Deming and Silver City. This will be the second year of the project. The past year they had developed a plan for each community based on input from the city staff and residents. They also reviewed data such as temperatures. The full plan can be viewed on www.swnmforestry.org. The plan is fifty pages and includes pictures of an artist rendering of the planned areas. At the time of the meeting, she provided the council with an executive summary a few pages long.

The plan has three goals. The first one for Bayard will be that it fosters economic development, community character and environmental health. They want to plant trees that will really help keep the community cool and pull together areas with walkability. The second goal will be to enhance public health, recreation opportunities and quality of life. The project will be looking at creating shade at the ball fields and places the residents use. The last goal will be to have the residents engaged in the care of the trees. The project will be providing training in terms of tree pruning, planting and irrigation. It will also encompass some other aspects. Using the power point presentation Siwik went over each area they would be planting trees.

Siwik said they have funding to help with grant writing to have irrigation put in because that would be super important. Public comment will be gathered until August 15, 2025. She asked that people visit the website and submit their comments. They discussed putting information on Facebook, flyers and having a work session. One idea will be to have a hard copy of the plan available at the public library for residents to view.

An evaluation of all the trees in public spaces had been done, and they had identified the ones that need pruning or removal. They had already done a lot of invasive species removal and dead tree removal. Where trees had been removed, they would be planting drought tolerant trees and will be doing it in the fall. Bayard has willow trees that will be dying in the next ten years, and they will plant trees that will be coming up to replace them.

The council, Siwik and people working on the project talked about the tree species they would be planting and Siwik asked what trees they would like to see. Texas oaks, Mexican elders and Chinese Pistache had been some talked about. All would be drought tolerant. The website has a list of drought tolerant trees that would grow well in the area.

Western New Mexico University will be starting a certificate program for tree care professionals to start a generation in the care of trees. It should be available fall of 2026. They would also have people available for training people interested and to answer questions.

The council postponed the proposal to lease city-owned property for sustainable cattle grazing. Barbara Andazola had attended along with her husband Stephen Gomez. They had submitted a letter to the town with a proposal to lease the recently acquired property for the purpose of cattle grazing. They want to use the property for rotating grazing and will be using between 15-20 cows. Depending on the area they may have up to 50 cows. Currently they have been living between here and Las Lunas. Frances Gonzales worried about the grazing taking all the grass and not being able have it come back. Andazola said they have been very careful with the grazing and not overgrazing. She pointed out it would help with overgrowth and that it would help with and mitigate wildfires.

They would work with the city on the time frame because they knew ultimately, they would be developing it. Andazola asked for the whole acreage but would work with what the city allowed.

Salas said they had already been contacted by a man wanting to lease the property for grazing a few months back. She had obtained a sample lease that had been used before on the property. Some things would have to be figured out and currently they need to have an attorney look into it. Andazola said she thought it would probably be better for overall management of the land to have only one person leasing but offered to answer any questions they might have.

The council approved the quote for the HVAC system from PC Automated Controls. They had received a quote from J and S Plumbing, but it had not been as comprehensive.

Michael Paez, maintenance director, said this quote before the council had been in depth and looked at occupancy and square footage. The current evaporative coolers will be reaching their life span, and they had not been undersized but didn't take into account occupancy loads. The contractors that submitted the bid had done their homework.

Salas said they had a lot of complaints from renters. Right now, they just let people know that they only have swamp coolers.

The contractor will be doing it in phases so the building will not be completely without cooling at any time. The contractor has the units in their warehouse, and they will be ready to go as soon as the council approves the quote. The project will be paid with capital outlay funding.

Ordinances and resolutions

The council approved resolution 13-2025 adopting the Grant County 2025 Hazard Mitigation Action Plan. Salas said the document has 400 pages and had emailed it to the council. This had come before every municipality in Grant County to approve.

The council approved resolution 14-2025 approval of end of fiscal year budget adjustments. Salas explained the few minor adjustments that had to be made.

Department head reports

Gabriel Gonzales, fire chief, said they had two fire service calls in June and both had been to assist with the Trout Fire at Fort Bayard. They had worked 24 hours total and would be submitting for reimbursement from the state forestry. The department had 40 EMS calls for June and 26 had been Bayard, 13 Hurley and one in Santa Clara.

For training they had worked on wildland fundamentals. He continued with several other things the department had been doing and a few promotions in the department.

Frances Gonzales asked if he had checked the property, she had concerns about. He had checked it out. He did find a lot of wood, but it had not been by a structure and near the fence. The weeds had also been trimmed down. They did have a lot of junk cars. He will continue to work on what can be done and work with code enforcement.

Frances Gonzales did mention that the property has a lot of traffic late at night, and it starts about 11 pm and ends at 3 am every day.

Chuck Gray, beautification committee chair, said they had a meeting and had agreed on a few areas to use the funds they had raised to clean up. One area will be the mining park.

Cindy Renee Provencio, head librarian, said they had not been awarded the LOR grant. She had almost finished the application for the outdoor equity fund and had significant support from the New Mexico Wild staff, Continental Divide Trail Coalition and Latino Outdoors. They had to postpone some programs. The New Mexico summer reading program and nature discovery camp had been very successful.

The library will be provided ten mobile hot spots from T-Mobile to be checked out. This will provide internet connectivity for patrons in their homes or wherever they take it as long as cell phone service will be available. The new website has been put up and running, www.bayardpubliclibrary.org. Provencio said it will be a work in progress. They want to start a Friends of the Library group that would be an official fundraising arm of the library. It will be its own nonprofit and independent from the city and will support library programs. She continued with other programs that would be coming up. Medina had been in Albuquerque and stopped at a little bagel shop on Central Avenue and the young lady working the register talked about Wild and Scenic and knew Provencio through her efforts.

Ojinaga wanted to know if they had found out who broke into the garden at the library. Hector Carrillo, police chief, said it had been three adults, and two had been charged with criminal trespass. They will be making adjustments to the gate to mitigate that problem in the future.

David Terrazas, wastewater director, said he had met with the contractors that would be doing the capacitors. They have been and will be monitoring the system for a few months for information. They did identify some problems with a PNM pole and will be sending a letter to PNM to have it fixed. The contractors had also made some other suggestion to make the system run better.

Salas had something to report. They had applied for a $100,000 grant from tourism to do the design for the Union Hall and had been awarded the grant.

The council went into closed session.

The council came back into open session and only items on the agenda had been discussed.

The council approved the completion of the introductory period for Officer Martinez with a raise to $25 an hour. He had been paid $24 an hour for the probationary period. He had been an officer in Lordsburg and was already certified.

The council approved the termination for the animal control officer.

Mayor and councilors reports, none currently.

Special meeting will be held July 30, 2025
Next regular meeting will be held August 20, 2025.

Meeting adjourned.