Grant County Commission holds work session 010626, part 2
[Editor's Note: This is part 2 of the the first Grant County Commission meeting of the year, held on Jan. 6, 2026.)
By Mary Alice Murphy
This article on the Grant County Commission work session held Jan. 6, 2026, begins the county reports.
Kim Dominguez, Corre Caminos director, gave her quarterly report. She noted that the grant application for the 2027 fiscal year is pending Department of Transportation review. She said the department has always been rated high, which is beneficial to their grant funding. She said she expects the report in April or May, and generally the grant is awarded in June or July, at which point she will begin the budgeting process for FY 2027.
For the first quarter 2026 ridership [federal fiscal year first quarter, running from Oct. 1-Dec. 31 2026], Corre Caminos had a ridership of 18,371, including Corre Cantinas [which offers rides on weekend or holidays for those who plan to drink alcohol at a bar or event, so they don't have to drive intoxicated].
Three new 14-passenger buses have been delivered and she is awaiting quotes for signage and branding. The department is still waiting on one van, which is awaiting recall repairs from Chrysler.
Dominguez will attend in Albuquerque from March 30-April2, the New Mexico Transit Association Conference, which this year will do a joint conference with the Southwest Transit Association.
In July-August, Dominguez will prepare the FY 2028 grant application. She also noted she has presentations scheduled with several companies that provide dispatch software, general transit feed specification support, GPS tracking, electronic passenger counting systems, two-way radio options, and National Transit Database reporting support. "These are just kind of an overall transit management software. It's going to help with National Transit Database reporting support, all of which I'm currently doing manually and tracking just on on Excel spreadsheets. The initial purchase and installation would be a capital expense, so we're looking at adding that to our 2028 grant application. As far as monthly costs, I don't anticipate that it's going to be much more than what we're currently paying for."
District 3 Commissioner Nancy Stephens thanked Dominguez for her work. "I think that the transportation services are valuable every day, but what's especially impressive is that 61 people on New Year's Eve took advantage of it in our small town. And I like the fact that you know you're preventing problems. Who knows if one of those 61 may have had an accident had they not had your service available, so thank you."
The next report came from Brawn Aguirre, who introduced himself as the new code enforcement officer for the county, having come on in December. He noted that the report he was about to give was created 13 days after his coning on board. "Right now, we have five cases out of seven we had conducted. Two have been resolved.
He said a letter was sent to the property owner for the violations and they have time to fix them. He noted all of the cases were ready before he joined the county but they had expired, so he is starting fresh and moving forward. More investigations are underway. "My information is on the county website and if anyone wants to file a citation, they can come directly to me, email me or call me."
Aguirre said two under investigation are in Cliff, one on Hanover, two on Highway 90, two in Indian Hills, and two others that have previously been happening in the Ridges.
Chair and District 1 Commissioner Chris Ponce thanked him for taking on the job and starting cases again. "We'll be patient and thank you for what you are doing and for your report."
Rebekah Wenger, Grant County Airport manager, presented her report. She said the current project is continuous pavement crack filling. She noted that over the past six months, several of the airport's t-hanger tenants had retired from flying, leaving four vacant hangars. "As of Dec. 15, we are happy to report that all 16 hangars are again rented."
The airport conducted spill training on Jan. 7, 2026. "Our primary risk is a spill of aviation fuels: jet fuel or avgas. We have 31,000 gallons of jet fuel storage and 12,000 gallons of avgas on site."
Detention Center Administration Joseph Andazola presented his monthly report. He said he has one opening in administration, the lieutenant position. As of Dec. 29, 2025, the population was 87 detainees, consisting of 72 males and 15 females. In December 2025, the detention center had 79 intakes and 83 releases. The average daily population for the month was 91, with the highest 98 and lowest 82. The RISE program for December had 23 participants, with 9 in the facility and 14 in the community.
Projects include the laundry room project in progress, scheduling for an upgrade for PLC (programmable logic controllers), a RISE pilot project for funding a SCT position to help tracking of court cases coordination, and lastly, the continuing accreditation process for the detention center.
Andazola said two certified accreditation personnel from the Dona Ana detention center spent two days at the Grant County facility and helped them with the PAR DMS reporting. "We learned a lot during those two days and took many pages of notes."
He noted that he would be meeting with state level accreditation personnel during the legislative session and discussion the fact that there still is not a director of accreditation at the state level.
Ponce asked that Andazola let the commissioners know how to support him at the legislative session. "I know reimbursement is one issue."
District 5 Commissioner Tom Shelley asked for an explanation of the SCT position. Andazola said it would help inmates that may not be able to defend themselves in magistrate court or district court. "They put them into a competency hearing. We have two psychiatrists in the state who are trained in the process."
He said the process could take up to 6 months, and with this position, which the state will fund up to $60,000 for, the state is trying to make the process shorter and a bit ore streamlined. "As I've mentioned before, we have a lot of seriously mentally ill detainees in our facility. The streamlining will prevent inmates just sitting in the jail for months. If they are found competent the case can move forward. However, if they are found incompetent, the case may be dropped or they may be sent to the facility in Las Vegas for treatment."
The next article will begin with the Emergency Manager report from Scot Fuller.
To visit the preceding article on this meeting, please visit https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-010626-part-1 .
