By Lynn Janes

The town of Hurley had a regular meeting July 8, 2025. Mayor Ed Stevens, Mayor Pro Tem Reynaldo Maynes and Pete Ordonez. Aron Phillips and Robert Candelaria did not attend.

The council approved the agenda for the meeting along with the consent agenda. The consent agenda consisted of minutes from three meetings. Also, in the consent agenda had been reports from maintenance, clerk, fire department, animal control, police department, judge and library.

Municipal Judge George Moreno said he had quite a few code enforcement citations and had dealt with approximately 20 cases in court the previous month. From those the court had collected $400 to $500 in fines. Some had been issued summons because of ignoring the citations. The previous day they had a dog attack, and it had been a child, but he had not been injured but his clothing torn. The court will be dealing with that issue. Moreno wanted to commend the police chief, patrolmen, code enforcement and the fire department for their efforts on the Fourth of July.

Darlene McBride, town clerk, wanted to remind everyone about the town clean up that would be July 25, 2025. She asked the residents to have all their yard debris bagged so it could be picked up. She said appliances would also be picked up. The following week the construction would start on Anza Street and 3rd Street.

Jay Madrid, fire chief, said in June they had zero calls but had assisted in the Trout Fire two days and had worked 12 hours each day.

Allyson Siwik, director of the Gila Resources Information Project, attended to provide an update on the Southwest New Mexico Forestry Network project. She had a PowerPoint presentation to show an artist rendering of the plans they had for some of the areas around Hurley. A few others involved in the project had also come to explain different parts of the project.

They will be focused on public spaces such as parks, rights of way and the areas the town will be responsible for maintaining and will be hoping to do residential tree planting in the future. This will be a five-year program and is in its second year. In that time, they had met with the staff of Hurley and conducted a survey to find out what everyone would like to see, and the plan had been built around this. The full plan can be seen on swnmforestry.org . {Editor's Note: For those who prefer to see paper copies of the plans of the three Mining District communities, all three plans will be available to read in the Bayard Library by Tuesday, July 29, 2025] She said she could also send the full document to the council. The plan will have three priorities, community character, revitalization and beautification. Another goal of the plan had been to support the physical and mental health of the residents.

The plan would include nine different areas and had artist renditions of each area. They felt Hurley has the potential to have more impact than the other projects. The project will include stormwater infrastructure to harvest that water off the streets to provide supplemental water for the trees. The trees planted will be ones that will be tolerant to drought and known to grow well in the area and they will be starting to plant the trees in the fall.

The project will be taking comments from the residents on the plan until August 15, 2025. A resident in attendance asked if they would be planting seedlings or mature trees. Siwik said they would be planting trees that came in 15-25 gallon pots so they would be pretty big. Another resident asked about removing the tree stumps. She said the equipment for that had to come from Las Cruces so when they came, they would be doing all of the communities at the same time. She will let Hurley know when that would be happening.

All of the trees planted will be put in a database and all maintenance will be recorded.

A resident made the statement that he would love to have a beautiful lawn in front of his house but can't afford the water to keep it up. Many residents face this. He asked if they would have a program to help people pay their water bills. That led into who would be paying for the water to keep these trees up. Siwik said that will be why they use native drought tolerant species that don't use a lot of water. She added in that will be why irrigation will be an efficient way.

A resident asked about the group doing the pruning and would that only be for town trees or would it be available to private residences. Siwik said they would be working with individual residences also.

Western New Mexico University, as part of this program, will be creating a certificate program for tree care and will be a semester long. The certification will be to begin a journey to becoming a tree care professional. They could start their own business or bring those skills to the community. The course will cover many aspects of tree care.

The council approved the ICIP (infrastructure capital improvement plan).

The council approved the placement of a manufactured home at 601 E Street. Doug Miranda, code enforcement/animal control officer, said the applicants for placing the manufactured home will be tearing down the old structure. He had checked the setbacks and easements. Everything will be within the ordinances.

The council tabled resolution no. 1-2025/2026

Mayor and councilor's reports.

Maynes and Ordonez did not have anything to report currently.

The next regular meeting will be August 12, 2025, at 5:00 pm.
Special meeting July 29, 2025, at 3:00 pm

Meeting adjourned.