By Lynn Janes

The town of Bayard held a regular meeting March 19, 2025. Attendance included Mayor John L. Ojinaga, Pro Tem Eloy Medina, and Councilors Frances Gonzales, Eloy Gonzales and Gilbert Ortiz. Martha Salas, city clerk, also attended.

Public Input

A resident came to speak to the board on behalf of some of his neighbors. They live at the end of Empire Street. The city had put in a new water supply line for the double wide mobile home being set up. The area needs to be cleaned up a bit so the water drainage trench will continue to allow water to flow out. He said some other neighbors had been going to attend to bring up the same matter but had not.

The council approved the consent agenda. It included meeting minutes from February 19, 2025, and February 25, 2025, reports for accounts payable, police department, maintenance department, wastewater department, fire department and library.

Frances Gonzales wanted clarification on a funding grant listed in the library report. Cindy Renee Provencio, head librarian, said it would be a $30,000 grant application the library board members wanted to apply for. It comes from a local organization and has to be used for something permanent, something physical and enriches the lives of people in Grant County. It also has to attract people to either move or visit the area. The applicant must be a 501c3 or have one as a fiscal sponsor. One of the library board members, Patricia de Naranjo, also has membership with the Mimbres Valley Health Action League ,and they would be willing to be the fiscal agent.

The grant would be used to transform the garden into a community garden with ADA accessible raised bed gardens, a hydroponic garden along the fence and an outdoor kitchen to do cooking classes. They would have programs around teaching people how to grow food and how to cook healthy. The application would be due on April 15, 2025, if the council approved it.

The council had a lot of questions about where they would put the raised beds and outdoor kitchen. Currently they have started a temporary garden but want to do a permanent one in the same spot. The hydroponic would use PVC pipe attached to the fence. Provencio continued to explain the plan and where everything would be.

Medina told Provencio he appreciated her looking into this, and she has been doing an amazing job at the library. He had questions about the 501c3 and the reporting structure of the grant in reference to the city and its responsibilities. Salas said the nonprofit would have to do the reporting. He asked for them to clarify. He added he would be all for applying for the grant but just wanted to make sure of the fine print.

Provencio said the library had applied for the grant before and had been a runner up. A lot of people apply for this grant and it's competitive. Medina suggested a letter of support from the council.

Old business

The council approved the ground lease agreement between the city of Bayard and National Center for Frontier Communities. Salas had emailed the documents to the council a few weeks earlier so they could review.

Ben Rasmussen, Frontier Communities, said the town attorney had brought up two primary issues that had been addressed. The council did want a plan sent to them on what it would look like. The project will be done in several phases. The first would be the development of a community garden and orchard space. The second phase will be the greenhouse training center.

New business

A resident had come to speak on a request for a stop sign and speed bump installation for Watson Street and Blackhawk Street. It had been an ongoing issue but had become worse in the past several months. The police had been called a few times and been shown a video of the speeding. It had become unsafe for people walking. Children live in the area and the elderly walk. The officers have said they would patrol more but the problem has been a hit and miss. Another resident from the areas said it seems to be worse at night, and they even run the stop sign at the bottom of the hill.

Ojinaga asked an officer in attendance if the stop sign, or speed bump would help, and he said the speed bump would. Eloy Gonzales said he thought they should do both. Ojinaga pointed out how it can mess up fire trucks. The council approved a four-way stop sign and speed bump.

Jack Brennan, race director, attended to present on the Tour of the Gila coming up April 23-27, 2025. On the Friday, it will start and finish at Fort Bayard and at a point come through Bayard. It's called the Inner Loop Race. He went over the area the race would cover. It is a unique race and is the only one to come through a community. He thanked them for their support each year. They had been doing the race through Bayard since 2012.

Ojinaga said they all get excited about the race and even shut down the city hall for thirty minutes because they use the girls in the office to block off some of the streets. They also use the police, fire department and maintenance to cover all the side streets.

Brennan thanked them and told them how important it would be. "The racers come full bore through town and going 30-35 miles an hour." This year they have 22 teams which would be more than last year and that will be 150 people.

Ojinaga suggested in the future to do it during the week so elementary kids could come out and watch. Brennan explained the reason it had to be Friday, and it had been due to the kind of race and who would be racing. Some of the bikes cost $10,000 to $15,000 and those would be the ones used for this race, and they only come one day.

Brennan invited all the kids to come downtown Silver City on Saturday, and they could not only watch some of the racing but participate in some of the races they do for kids. The races for kids up to 12 would be free. The council voted to help in any way they could.

Allyson Siwik, Southwest New Mexico Community Forest, had not attended to do a presentation.

Steve Estrada, vice president of Copper Little League, thanked the council for their continued support along with the city employees. He came to ask for their support in the upcoming season for the facilities, lights and other things. He said the police and EMT personal would always be welcome to free hotdogs.

This year they have close to 300 kids registered and have averaged about 35 sponsors every year. The league has a sponsor coordinator that has been doing a great job and trying to make sure all the funds go to the kids. The opening ceremonies will be April 29, 2025. The council approved the continued support.

Salas has been working on some work orders for the field, such as repair of the batting cages and turning the water on. It had been shut off while the million-gallon tank had been worked on. They went over the list of things that needed to be done, including also putting in a locked gate that had been removed to keep people off the field.

The council wanted to know how much a sponsorship would cost, and Estrada said $250 and that would be a banner on the main field and $500 would be a banner on both fields. They still need sponsors, and Ralph Kirker has been the sponsorship coordinator.

The little league had a request to rename the T-ball field. It had always been called the Cyclone Field and for some reason it had been changed to Copper Field 2.

The Cyclone Field has a backstory. Estrada said they like to recognize people that dedicate their time and efforts to volunteering. One of them happened to be Reynaldo Villegas. He had lost his son and had been grieving him and used the volunteer work to help him through the difficult times. He had been part of gathering the dirt to build the field. They had dedicated that field to the memory of his son, which had been all he wanted. The boy's nickname had been Cyclone.

No one knew who had changed the name and when. It had not been changed in the town charters. Medina asked that they have a sign made designating it Cyclone Field. They already had a sign design and will bring it to Salas and will move forward on having a sign put up. Probably could not have it done for open ceremonies but could do a quick vinyl one for the interim.

Salas brought a suggestion forward to the council concerning rental fees and the community center. The bingo machine has become very old, 45 years old, and used a lot. The beautification committee has not been the only one to use it. A lot of organizations use the machine. She suggested a rental fee so they could start collecting money to replace it.

Chuck Gray, beautification committee chair, many times people have been using it that rent community center space. It has not been locked away. Salas said it would be now. The current machine is called a Bingo King 3000 and has not been made for around 40 years and last serviced in 1990.

Gray said Bingo popularity seems to ebb and flow and had recently been on a high. The beautification committee has counted on bingo as a fundraiser. They legally can have four a year and lately the machine has had some problems and has been hard to get it running again. Gray had done research and its considered old tech and now everything available will be computerized. To replace it would be $10,000. No money has been set aside to replace the machine, and it can't be serviced because of no spare parts being available. He had a few ideas of how maybe it could be modified if it quit again. The committee had discussed a $200 rental fee. Eloy Gonzales said the machine had originally belonged to the American Legion in Hurley. Gray asked the council to support a rental fee for the use of the Bingo equipment.

The council, Salas and Gray discussed for a while the rental fee. The council approved a $250 rental fee for the Bingo equipment.

The council approved the completion of the probationary period for the janitor. She will receive 25 cents an hour raise.

The council approved the hiring of Oscar Lopez as a police officer. He currently has been attending the academy and will be done in June 2025. He had done well with his interview and had passed his background check. Eloy Gonzales and Salas had been part of the interview and agreed he would be a good candidate. He also has been passing all his physical fitness requirements.

Department head reports.

Provencio said the library had been open on four Saturdays now. They have planned for more programs on Saturdays and will be advertising them. She has seen the patron counts increasing. Wendy Spurgeon, assistant Librairian, will be doing a program on Saturdays called Mother Goose on the Loose story time. It has been an award-winning early literacy program that involves rhymes and songs. Spurgeon will also be doing a biweekly teen drama camp, and it will start April 4, 2025.

For another project they will be starting a vegetable garden, and they have a few patrons that will be helping build it. They partnered with Frontier Food Hub and already had some workshops on soil preparation and have more planned for gardening. They will actually start planting in late May. The library has some funding left for the garden that must be used by June 31, 2025, and she has worked with maintenance to do some projects that will use that funding in the garden. They will install a 20-foot by 20 -oot cement pad with a shade structure to replace the gazebo. The gazebo will be moved to another location.

The library board and Provencio have planned an enchilada dinner sale with the LULAC council. They will raise funds to help support the programs they have started. The board had been hesitant about doing the dinner on their own and Provencio decided as a LULAC member maybe they could do one together and split the proceeds half and half. They will be doing it May 16, 2025, at the LULAC hall in Silver City. The portion LULAC raises will support scholarships for students attending college. Provencio said she still needed volunteers for the event and donations of ingredients.

Provencio continued with all the extensive list of the programs currently happening and coming up for all age groups.

Robert Terrazas, wastewater director, said he didn't have any current projects, and everything had been working well.

Gray just wanted to remind everyone they had a Bingo this coming Sunday. Doors will open at 1:30 pm.

Planning and Zoning didn't have any comments.

One of the officers had come in the police chief's place and said nothing really special had happened. Frances Gonzales asked about ICE and said she had heard they had come into a local restaurant.

The secretary for the fire department said they had three structure fire calls in Bayard of which one had been cancelled. They had also had one call they responded to in Hurley on Romero Street. The department had three fire trainings, and all of the volunteers had attended. Some repairs had to be done on engine two. One firefighter had to be sent to the hospital for heat exhaustion because of a fire incident. He had been treated and released the same day with no significant injury. The department has been working with the National Volunteer Fire Council making a firefighter program for recruitment. All of the inspection forms have now been digitized to better keep track and manage the reports.

Ojinaga asked that a letter be sent to Santa Clara thanking them for help sending two of their maintenance people for water line issues for six hours. Hurley had also sent people, but they had finished fixing the line. The area had been on a hill, and they had to dig it all by hand. Bayard has been still running on the 250,000 gallon tank and has not hooked up the million-gallon tank. Stantec and their engineer Richard Maynes have been working to have it connected to the main water line. Freeport McMoRan also has a warehouse full of old parts and will provide any parts they have that Bayard might need to fix the lines.

Eloy Gonzales said, "I am glad to see so many people here at the meeting."

Medina said he had a call from a resident that wanted them to bring back the Trunk or Treat and she wanted the city to go back to the way they used to do the Christmas candy giveaway. She felt kids had been left out because for years candy had been hand delivered and now, they just come to the corners. The council talked about how it had changed, and it happened during covid.

Frances Gonzales wanted to know what time they would be doing the budget workshops. Salas said 4:30.

Salas said the following week they needed to have a special meeting. Priscilla Lucero, Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments director, had requested it to go over the ICIP (infrastructure capital improvement plan). They also have a grant application due, and the council will have to approve it.

Salas let the council know all the software had been updated and everything will be in the cloud. They will not be on a server anymore because it burned out when they had the last power outage. The office had a lot of issues the last few weeks with taking payments, but Salas said the public had been very understanding. Sometimes when they came in, they couldn't take their payment because of being offline.

The next council meeting they will have the auditor attending to give a report. The audit had already been released and can be found online.

Ojinaga said they had a busy week, and he wanted to thank everyone for their work., especially maintenance and the fire department.

Special meeting will be held March 27, 2025
Next regular meeting will be held April 16, 2025.
Two budget work sessions April 30, 2025, and May 6, 2025

Meeting adjourned.