By Mary Alice Murphy

Members of the Grant County Commission held a work session on March 18, 2024 for a singular purpose—to discuss the Grant County Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation and Trails Master Plan.

District 1 Commissioner and Chair Chris Ponce said that District 5 Harry Browne had requested the discussion session.

Browne thanked everyone for taking time to discuss the issue. "My hope was to use almost $99,000 from the Sun Zia (electric transmission line) project (part of which crosses Grant County and provides funding to the county) and another potential for $250,000 from the Sun Zia project to pay for an employee to implement the comprehensive outdoor recreation and trails master plan. It's way too much for staff to take on."

He noted the plan had set forth specific steps to implement the plan. The plan writers had recommended hiring a person to take on the duties. "I think whoever is hired should decide how to move this forward. I hope we will have a more integrated trail system that our residents and visitors both can use."

Ponce said he had met with Lee (Gruber) and Bridgette (Johns) of the Southwest New Mexico ACT (SWNMACT) to talk about their projects, such as the Waterworks restoration project in Silver City. "I see they have been applying for grants and they have gotten a lot of money for the project. Listening to them and about the money they have been able to capture, I am sort of looking at them, and I think they are doing the job we are thinking about doing. I think we would be better off supporting them. I know you have been big advocates on trails and bike routes. I think maybe creating an MOU with them and supporting them. What i have noticed and have seen is possibly going after a grants person. To me economic development is big. We also have citizens that need places for their side-by-sides. It's not that I don't support trails. We have a backyard full of trails. My thing is where do we need to put this money."

District 3 Commissioner Alicia Edwards said, full disclosure, she is on the board of SWNMACT, "so I have an insight on our capacity. I want to discuss whether this person to hire should be an employee or a contractor. I think some trails between Silver City and Hurley with off-shoots to Pinos Altos and Tyrone will be so expensive, as well as a significant economic driver. SWNMACT is maxed out on capacity. The organization has been working on creating relationships that the county doesn't have. Engaging them on this project might be good, but the county would need probably a full-time person to help them. I'm generally an advocate of having certain county employees to so we're in control of our own destiny. But if I had to choose whether to hire a grants person or a person to do the trails, I would tend toward a grants person. We could hire a contractor for the trails project. Part of my thinking is the amount of capacity it would take for the trails is much higher than what it would take to hire a grants writer. It's a smaller position with a focused set of skills. I am interested in taking advantage of the extremely large amount of work that SWNMACT has been doing in the past. It's a little bit of a diversion on what they are doing, but they have been working on linking trails in the community."

Ponce asked where Incite (a contractor to the county for grants) is in grants.

County Manager Charlene Webb said in her conversations, she thinks the county needs to give Incite a more specific focus. "They are bigger on policies and procedures. If I give them a big broad scope they come back and ask what we want them to focus on. They've done a good job of identifying funding sources, but it's been difficult and almost easier to do them ourselves. They are doing some policies and procedures for us."

Ponce said: "If we hired a trails person, they could help with policy and the same with a trails person."

"Part of what we are lacking," Webb said, "is a policy on administering the grants. Writing grants is the easy part; it's the administration part that is hard to keep up with. We have about 50 grants with 2 1/2 people working on them, and it's taking away from their primary duties. Incite does not do grant administration. They can help with procedures that make it a little easier, and they can write grants, but they don't do administration."

Ponce said his second question. "I've written grants and had to administer them. What I don't want to see is to hire a grants person to add to the 50 grants the county already has. It's the reporting that's hard and takes a lot of time. If the county has budget to hire a grants person, do we have enough to hire an assistant to help with the grant reporting?"

Edwards said: "We always talk about one person. In my head it's always been more than one person. We have to have a vision for what the grants person would work on, only trails, economic development, health and safety? It takes a fair amount of research. Writing a federal grant is pretty onerous. Ten years at The Commons we were paying $3,000-$5,000 to write one grant."

Of those 50 grants are the Colonias, ICIP, etc. she asked. "Do we need to divide them up."

Webb said grants include everything from CDBG, Colonias, airport, capital outlay, all require reporting.

"I'm trying to picture one person reporting on all these different grants," Edwards said. "How much time does it take for Rebekah (Wenger, airport manager) just to gather all the information?"

District 2 Commissioner Eloy Medina said he recently worked on a grant and it took 20 hours to gather the information and get it written.

"I've written a gazillion grants," Edwards said, "and right now the state is so bad at getting the money out and all the little nit-picking things required. What I'm trying to get at is the question is one grant administrator in the manager's department needed? But we're way off topic."

Webb said she would try to quantify how much it takes. "We are seeing a lot in the auditing process about monitoring and overseeing the grants."

Medina asked; "You, Harry, said the plan mentions hiring a person, but I haven't found it yet. Do we have the option of a grants person or a trails person?"

Webb said the plan talks about grant collaboration, and there could be options to collaborate with others.

Medina said there are so many partnerships in this document and feedback needed in this plan. "You're not going to change Fort Bayard or Boston Hill. Is this person going to lead it?"

Browne pointed out a part that would answer all his questions, but said he didn't have all the appendices. "These folks are not from here, but they made the case for a point person. My tendency is to have a government person, because of the strictures of an institution and more gravitas. Nonprofits have come and gone and you can't necessarily rely on them to be there for the long term."

"So if we hire this person," Medina asked, "will that person go to Bayard and Hurley and say we're going to build a trail from Hurley to Bayard?"

Browne said that decision was up to the municipalities. "We have a ton of people in this area working on trails.The Forest Service has a ton of trails. I think this position will bring all the entities together through coordination and organization. I think this employee would work with the towns and the employee could help them work to get state funding. We could actually help SWNMACT, rather than their helping us. The county has expertise on easements, for instance. The person could convene all the entities to know what each is doing."

"What if the Forest Service says it doesn't want to work with this employee? Or Silver City said Boston Hill is ours to worry about," Medina asked.

Browne said the person could talk to these partners and say this is what the group wants to do. "I would think they would be thrilled that someone is coordinating it all. But as you suggested, if they can't do that, then we would have to cut the position." He said a person taking such a job understands that it may not work out or funding ends or whatever the situation occurs.

Webb said that the Southwest New Mexico Collaborative has created a working group with a lot of stakeholders that participate. "I take part in it, and it has continued. Maybe we've done a poor job of reporting what we're doing. They have participated in creating this plan. There has been a lot of discussion on implementing things. I think they fill the role of this partnership. It's already there. It was the brainchild of Adam Mendoca when he was the forest supervisor and it has continued on. Southwest Decision Resources (SDR) has facilitated the group. The Forest Service has primarily funded it, but all of us have put in some to give it a brand and a face. As I've thought of this, I think you have someone who can fill the role. I meet with Lee and Bridgette a lot. I think there's an opportunity for the county to contribute more to the collaborative and SWNMACT. I think the collaborative is working, and it just needs to push forward and say: 'Go do this work.' I can see all of them playing a part when you see the recommendations in the plan."

Ponce said he has a problem with the Forest Service. "When Adam was there, he was open-minded, but then they took the Grapevine campground away from us and took its resources away from the public. If Adam were still there, I would agree with all you've said, but it's hard for me anymore to support anything from the Forest Service."

Medina said he thought a grant-writing employee would be more sustainable. "If we have someone in for the long haul, could that grant writing get funding for this position?"

"Potentially," Webb replied.

Browne called that "kicking the can down the road," because paying for the position through a grant means it might not last long.

Medina said he didn't see a rock-solid plan for the position to deal with the comprehensive plan.

Browne said all the key stakeholders had had input into the plan.

Edwards said that SWNMACT faces a huge dilemma. They have been working on the Waterworks project. They are paid by the town of Silver City to implement the town's vision. "They have hit a severe roadblock, because the town has changed their mind on a major part of the project. A non-profit has no leverage in my view. And this is my opinion speaking only for myself about the collaborative. I'm looking at the website and the only two non-governmental entities are The Nature Conservancy and SWNMACT. They haven't posted anything on the website since 2023, so they're not keeping it up. On my own behalf, I tried to go to these meetings once in a while, and I was clearly uninvited from participating."

Browne said: "We were uninvited in public."

"There are, according this structure, other ways for the public to participate," Edwards said. "It's run by the Forest Service. Never once, since I expressed interest, have I been invited to take part in a working group." With a "ditto," from Browne.

Webb said that was the way Mendoca wanted it set up, with the working groups. "Adam researched other similar groups and this is the way it was designed. He had the leadership council and coordinating groups to do the work in the trenches. They have groups such as one led by Kathy Whiteman at the university, who remains very active. So, although the Forest Service has been contributing, it is not like they are controlling everything. For whatever reason, these collaboratives were set up, and they didn't want a lot of elected officials. They wanted the people doing the work. I understand how you feel, but that was the mindset that came along with the way it was set up, and that's the way SDR has carried it forward."

Ponce said conversations were great with Adam. "To me the Forest Service should take care of the forest, and Grant County elected officials should take care of Grant County. I don't think that the Forest Service should have much control of our county part. I appreciate what Adam put together, but I don't think they should have that much of a say-so in this, even if they do contribute the money. My other question is our Planning Department, which has a lot of projects, but what else do they do? What do the other department employees do? Is there bandwidth for this?"

Webb said Daniel (Arrey) does the GIS and keeps up with the mapping. Ray (Castillo) does a little bit of everything from subdivision regulations to all of the assessment districts. He does a lot of whatever Randy needs help with. Code Enforcement does code enforcement. "I think they could have a role in this, but they may not have the bandwidth, because of everything else they have to do."

Edwards belabored her point a bit more, and said "it is not a criticism of the collaborative," but she does other things than her elected official duties and felt the exclusiveness of the organization is not what is called a collaborative and that it could be a model for what "we are trying to do."

Webb listed some of the various partners, which included municipalities, the county, state forestry has shown up, but the departments of economic development and of transportation have never shown up. Western New Mexico University is a big, active participant as well as federal agencies such as the Forest Service and occasionally BLM., as is Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments Executive Director Priscilla Lucero. "We've been trying to look at way to facilitate some of the things in this plan. But I think we are not going to be able to do these things without money coming from somewhere."

Medina asked: "Other than the Bataan Memorial Park trails, how many other trails does the county own and service?"

Webb said: "We have Bataan, and the lane incorporated in the Little Walnut multi-modal lane. That gives me heartache, too, as we have to come up with a plan to maintain them."

Edwards said the goal of the trails and master plan, she believes the collaborative should be the sort of plan that SE Group envisioned when they wrote the plan. "The idea is to think about how not just things that we own specifically, but how do our trails, Santa Clara trails go on to the forest service trails? How are we going to move vision forward to move things forward on all the assets of the county, not just belong to the county. They can enhance the health of residents, as well as bringing in tourists."

She said a couple of people created a map of the trails. "We've talked about QR codes on signs. It's all a vision about what the county can do around outdoor recreation for tourists and residents. Someone has to have a 30,000-foot view to bring it all together and implement it."

Ponce said every group that presents a new project to the commissioners say that they will bring in people to take advantage of the assets in the county. "If they all brought in that many people, it would take us 30 minutes to get from Silver City to anywhere. We would have bumper-to-bumper cars on the highway. We do bring in people. I see out-of-state license plates. I'm not sure we're doing it right."

"In the 20 years I've been here, we've never had a successful economic development group," Edwards noted. "I'm the last person who wants to be Moab. The planning process is the 'make sure we're not doing things willy-nilly.' We have to do what benefits our residents first."

Webb said: "In the collaborative meetings, we talk about all these things. Everyone gets to talk about these things, and we talk about these things, and we talk about these things, and we know what everybody is doing, but it has been made clear that the Forest Services said they have their own plans and they're going to take care of theirs. Park services, same thing. Municipalities same thing. I don't know how you're going to have one person do this. Everyone in this county and their organizations are so siloed. We've been having these conversations, but if a group collaborative can't get it together. We talk about how we connect our trails to the Forest Service trails. The challenge is the execution to getting it done. I don't understand how a county employee is going to bridge that. I don't think they are going to listen to a county employee. The Forest Service has thanked us for this plan, but 'we're going to what what we're going to do.'"

Edwards agreed that every group, every organization is so siloed and territorial, and then asked how the siloes could be broken, "so we can move things forward."

"We have to keep talking," Webb said.

Ponce said he sees the frustration. "It's like when we started talking about the vo tech school. I wanted just a few people in the advisory group. And then they want a group to decide what carpet and what paint. To me, Silver City has done pretty well with Boston Hill. Look at the rec center. Then we have groups who want a swimming pool. I'm like you, what do we do? Do we support this group or do we put someone out there, who might step on toes?"

"The conversation is happening, but the execution is a challenge," Webb said.

Browne said: "We have an opportunity to offer resources."

"What if we support the collaborative?" Edwards asked.

Browne said: "We already send out most valuable employee, our manager."

"Is there anything that would move the collaborative forward?" Edwards asked.

"I think the interagency partnership as laid out in the plan is already there," Webb replied. "It's less than $10,000 that the Forest Service gives to this group. It's not a lot of money to get done the things they want to do. I guess we don't report, because we meet, but really nothing is getting done. It's your job to get plans done, to set policies, but we haven't figured it out yet, and we don't have an answer. Bridgette made it very clear to me that to help us with this plan, we would have to fund another staff person for them. I think the pieces are there but we need to figure out how to put them together. It's not as easy as it might appear."

Ponce asked what would be more beneficial to SWNMACT, a grant writer or the county helping financially.

"Maybe we should ask Charlene to ask this group if there were anything that would actually move them forward beyond discussing the plan to actually implementing it," Edwards suggested.

Browne agreed: "Their mission obviously overlaps with this. My concern is that it is dominated by the Forest Service, so that's where the overlap ends. If there is some potential to have the group work with all the municipalities. then we should take that first step."

Edwards said: "Gobs of funding is available for trails. I've offered to write a trails grant. Everybody is looking at signage, because one of the things we hear is 'we can't find the trail, we can find the end of it.' We have to have a conversation on signage instead of people going off their own way."

Browne said that is specifically in the plan, to choose the colors, for instance, and make them the same. "All the signs can be fairly uniform, and it's better to have one person to do it."

Edwards said it seems like a good first step. "I can see Forest Service and BLM, saying nope, we aren't going to do that, but with all the other groups, we could make trails at Fort Bayard marked similarly to the trails at Harrison Schmidt Elementary, etc."

Webb said no one knows where the afore-mentioned map or app for the trails is.

Browne said if one person were in charge of it, it could be kept in one place.

Edwards said she hears all the time from county employees, organization employees, everyone is stretched in terms of human capacity. "It's all connected. The only way to get people here is to invite them to see what a cool place we are."

"What if the ask of the collaborate is: 'what would it take to do a community-wide steps for signs. Choose from three fonts, four colors?'" Edwards asked. "I'm trying to find an action. We're always talking about how to help them have more capacity."

"Why is the collaborative not here?" Medina said.

Webb said the collaborative has said there should be a person to do this. 'We talked about the signage, too. The working groups meet more often , the leadership group quarterly."

"My ask would be what do you need toward implementation of this plan, other than just talking about it," Webb said. "And it seems to me there should be a very clear message that it is not Forest Service driven. It would probably help if some of the other local groups could step up, too."

Edwards said; "We need to decide on local signage. How would any group know who to contact for the standards for the signage before applying for a signage grant?"

Browne said it comes back to that one person. "Part of their job would be reaching out to other organizations to let them know what they are doing and to find out what they need for the signage. It has to be a people person that people feel they can call."

Ponce summarized that Webb should do her ask at the collaborative and then come back for a report and more discussion.

Browne pointed out that a lot of what had been discussed was already in the plan, such as working with federal agencies and the challenges therein.

In answer to a Edwards said the "village trail at Harrison Schmidt is just on the school grounds. They have 10 acres. It will probably be about 1/4 mile around a lap."

Webb asked if she could also talk to Bridgette and Lee with SWNMACT.

Browne's reaction was: "You can talk to absolutely everybody involved. Why would we not want you to do that?"

"I just want to say, these conversations, even when they get testy are super-important," Edwards said. "One of the things that makes me really sad. It feels like we can only get so far on any of these projects and I think it comes down to capacity, not just in the county. So many amazing people we have in this county, so many dreams."

Ponce said he had a commissioner report. "Being honest about it, with this young 5-year-old that passed away last weekend. When I was in law enforcement, I had a similar case. What's been bothering me is we're missing something on these kids. I don't know if it's the schools, CYFD, law enforcement or what. In Grant County, do we really know how many kids have come in and registered in school? There's no way to know if parents are taking their kids to school. At school, the teachers can report them, but we're missing a lot on the outside. Unless law enforcement get called, we're missing something. These kids need to be fed. How do we fix it?"

Browne said this family had been reported and investigated. "I know some people who responded, and they only do what they can and they have to decide do we take the kid or not."

"In my experience in law enforcement, you have a couple of choices, you take care of the child," Ponce said. "It was an easy decision for me. I'm not saying just this incident. I'm not putting fault on anyone. My comment is how much are we missing out there."

Edwards said she believed it could be traced back to a capacity issue and a liability issue, and whether there is unknown liability. "Do we have a place to take the child. Do we have a family to foster them? I think it's capacity across the board. Silver High School has this enormous grant for mental health, but there's no one to hire."

Ponce reiterated: "What are we missing?"

Edwards said she believes it's a misplaced priority. "We have $50 billion in a rainy day fund in this state. It's really raining. We won't have a future if we don't take care of things."

Ponce said it's not just this incident. "I have no particulars, but what are we missing?"

Browne said the schools have a program called Child Find. "But I don't know all the details."

Meeting adjourned.