[Editor's Note: This is part of a long first Grant County Commission work session of 2025.]

By Mary Alice Murphy

With no public input at the Grant County Commission work session on Jan. 7, 2025, County Manger Charlene Webb said two items on the agenda would take place in February, rather than at this meeting. The Hidalgo Medical Services report and the Gila Regional Medical Center Board of Trustees report would be placed on the February work session agenda.

Daniel Graves, DWI Program and Prevention Program administrator, presented the first county director report. He said his team, in partnership with YSAPC (Youth Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition), does outreach at La Plata Middle School and also in Cliff. They also helped with Snell Middle School Prevention Day and the Cobre Driver's Ed program. "We are also reaching out to people on Facebook and just starting with Instagram. We've reached out in the realm of geo-fencing. So instead of traditional advertising that we do on paper and social media, we're also reaching out through apps on cell phones. During the first quarter we reached 1100 students."

They also oversee Corre Cantinas, which offers rides to those who go to bars and establishments that sell alcohol and want a safe ride to and from home. "We tracked 156. Corre Cantinas runs on Friday and Saturday nights."

The DWI program also offers treatment to clients that come to them through compliance, the probation side of the program. At this time, they have 85 clients in treatment. They also have 187 that are in active probation. "Our current completion rate for those who successfully complete the program stands presently at 72 percent, which is higher than our yearly average."

Graves noted that the program brought in $8,800 in fees in December, which is lower than usual. He said the program has 14 on the ankle monitoring program. He also said they did a canned food drive for El Refugio in November that waived the client fees if they brought five or more cans of non-perishable food. "We collected more than 200 cans." He told commissioners, as he is vice chair of the state DWI affiliate, he will attend several conferences and legislative events during the upcoming session.

The next report came from Kim Dominguez, the Public Transport director, in charge of Corre Caminos and Corre Cantinas. She said that because her program receives federal funding, her fiscal year began on Oct. 1, so this is her first quarterly report. "We had our biennial Department of Transportation audit in November, but we've had no feedback yet. In October we provided park and ride transportation to 104 riders for the Mimbres Harvest Festival. We had 50 Corre Cantinas riders for New Year's Eve, which was fewer than we usually see, but not unexpected since it was on a weekday."

She said she had presented to the Southwest Regional Transportation Planning Organization for their 2026 grant, and she expects results to come in April.

Dominguez continued: "In our first quarter, we provided a total of 19,698 rides. This is an increase of 2031 rides over our first quarter of last year, which is encouraging growth. 10,581 of those rides were here in Grant County this quarter. We drove 54,908, miles, and were en route for 948 hours."

Grant County Fire Chief Roger Groves presented his monthly report. He noted in explanation for the new commissioners that he overseas 18 volunteer fire departments, as well as the ARFF (aircraft rescue and fire fighting) at the Grant County Airport. "Currently, we have 180 volunteer fire fighters and approximately 35 support team members. Altogether they have about 90 firefighting apparatus and command vehicles at 21 stations strategically placed. He said he is one of four certified ARFF individuals.

"In 2024, we had a total of 1387 dispatched calls, with 261 fires, and that would include structure fires, wildland, car fires. Our EMS calls, totaled 1061 that were dispatched to our volunteers, and 65 other calls, which are service calls, possibly false alarm, cat in the tree and which we actually did get those," Groves reported. "We had no fires and no crashes at the airport. I recently completed work on the waiver for our works capacity test, which is a training we provide for wildland firefighting, working with our volunteers, as well as getting an understanding of what kind of equipment needs there are, what they already have. We have continuous training in our volunteer departments. We are having some trainings in the future that will include our municipal fire departments, if they wish to participate. We certainly hope they will. We'd like them to."

He met with the State Fire Marshal's officer to establish a structural fire training curriculum, so "that we can improve our structural fire planning through our county volunteer fire departments. Currently, we're adding a skid unit to our county side-by-side that will also present another firefighting apparatus that I will be transporting to wildland fires as needed, or rescues in the. forest, where we can potentially transport, say, a victim who fell to where the ambulance will meet us."

District 5 Commissioner Thomas Shelley asked what a skid unit was.

Groves said it can carry 85 gallons of water for a fire, or with a gurney in the side-by-side that can carry a rescued injured person.

District 2 Commissioner Eloy Medina said he talked to the municipal fire chiefs who had some concerns about interacting together. "Can you reach out to them and make sure that we're all on the same page regarding dispatch response, because there have been some nasty rumors about dispatch? It's about service to our community. I don't care who gets there first, the color of the truck. I don't care. Our responsibility is to make sure that somebody gets there that can help the individual that needs help."

He said the fire chiefs and mayors were planning on meeting together soon and he would like Groves to participate.

Groves noted he has recently met with the Hurley and Santa Clara mayors and they are working together with him.

The next article will continue with county reports.