The recorded meeting can be viewed on facebook. The viewing times are included.
County commissioner Paxon appointed to livestock loss board
In May of this year the county signed a Joint Powers Agreement with Socorro and Catron counties to set up a ‘County Livestock Loss Authority’. The purpose of the CLLA is to counteract economic losses to area ranchers due to wolf depredations that have increased with the Mexican Grey Wolf Recovery Program. As reported earlier this year, there had been 6 confirmed depredations in the county as of July.
The CLLA was set up to “facilitate communication between management agencies, establish effective partnerships, and implement cooperative efforts to provide relief to New Mexico livestock producers in accordance with available funding, and to further facilitate the reduction of adverse wolf-livestock interactions and unlawful taking of federally endangered species.”
County attorney Pato reported (1:08:20) that New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration approved the CLLA and the New Mexico Department of Agriculture submitted for “several hundreds of thousands of dollars” to provide funding for compensation to ranchers for losses due to wolf depredation. The results of that grant application are expected in the next few months.
Additional appropriations in the upcoming legislative session might also be available, commissioner Day mentioned.
Sierra county is tasked with assigning a board member to the CLLA. “There are no restrictions on who can be appointed” Pato told the commission. As noted by commissioner Hopkins, no official call for nominees had been posted to the public, therefore no names were presented to the commission to consider for the board position.
Day suggested that Paxon serve on the board since he has been taking the lead on the wolf recovery program and issues related to wolf depredation. The county will also be the fiscal agent for the CLLA so Day thought it best that a member of the county commission serve on the board to oversee the financial aspects. Pato concurred.
“I’d love to” Paxon said, “it could be groundbreaking”, and “could make some history”. But he offered position to others on the board “if they have a burning desire”. No one burned so the position was unanimously assigned to Paxon.
Rocky relationship with new flood commissioner
Sandy Jones, who was recently appointed by the governor to act as the flood commissioner for the county, expressed opposition during the ‘public comment’ section of the meeting (35:00) to several agenda items. The county was planning to transfer a lowboy trailer, dump truck and pickup truck from the Flood Department to the Road Department.
Flood commissioner is a governor appointed 2 year position with an annual compensation of $1. The position does not require approval by the county commission. The previous flood commissioner, Travis Atwell, now serves in the Emergency Management department as an emergency services and wildland fire coordinator.
“There is a massive misunderstanding about what the flood commission is”, said Jones. If the county were to approve the equipment transfer, then he expected the flood commission to be reimbursed. Jones further complained that he had not been notified that the transfer was planned but had read it in the paper.
County manager Webb recommended the commission table those agenda items (1:04:30). Following emails and a phone conversation about the transfer with Jones, Webb was under the impression that he was “absolutely” in favor of the transfer because there was no need for the equipment for the flood commission and it would be better suited for the road department.
Paxon agreed that a dialog was needed and reminded Jones that the county has had available information that Jones was “demanding immediately” but not yet picked up.
Jones agreed to make himself available for dialog “when he can”. There is “a slight change of direction at the flood office and sometimes change is hard” he concluded.
Whitney continues updating GIS
The GIS, geographic information system, department of the county maintains all the location data for the county which, among other things, is needed to get emergency services to the exact location where they are needed. Since being hired on as the coordinator, Keith Whitney has been working to fill in missing data and updating the accuracy of preexisting data.
The county commission addressed three ordinances and entered into a contract with an outside firm to aid in Whitney’s work.
During a hearing (01:30) to get public input (of which there was none) on the proposed ordinances Whitney explained that ordinance 22-005 would repeal an earlier ordinance which called for the county to have a planning board. “A county of our size, doesn’t need a planning board” Whitney elaborated. The work can be “done internally with a development coordinator”.
A lack of volunteers and ability of people to serve on the board has always been a problem, according to Pato.
Repealing the planning board means that the current subdivision regulations would have to be updated to reflect the change. Ordinance 22-004 was written to address that. The ordinance also includes adding a section for the county’s development coordinator to add forms and documents and puts the development coordinator in charge of sending information to agencies rather than the developer.
The new subdivision regulations would also allow summary replats, prevent developers from orchestrating subdivision without going through the regulations and include the emergency manager in the review of new subdivisions.
Another resolution, 22-006, was designed to outline a process for renaming roads, assigning addresses, and providing honorary road names. This resolution had been drafted years ago but never placed before the commission.
“It is not typical to have such a process”, said Pato. But he thought it would be good to have a process in effect that would allow changes but not make it so easy that every road would be renamed or given honorary status.
Most discussion of this ordinance by the commission during the regular meeting (1:43:40) was initiated by Day who was concerned about having too many names associated with a single road thus making it more difficult for emergency services.
Section 12 of the ordinance called for adding a sign on top of the existing road sign to announce the honorary status. Given their concern for emergency services, the commission approved the new ordinance with section 12 removed.
The commission also approved a contract with Wireless Tower Solutions, a company that Whitney has been working with for wireless telecommunication facilities in the county. The current county ordinances will need to be updated to include 4th and 5th generation wireless standards. Joceyln Holguin, procurement officer, explained that WTS has the expertise to help the county design those ordinances.
Webb also said that the company would “certainly have more expertise than I” who had been working with applications for new facilities. WTS will update the county’s fee structure which is “very far behind other counties”.