By Lynn Janes

The town of Hurley had been set to have a regular meeting February 11, 2025. Only Mayor Ed Stevens, and Pete Ordonez had attended so a quorum could not be met. Mayor Pro Tem Reynaldo Maynes had been held up and councilors Nanette Day and Keana Huerta had resigned.

Stevens read the resignation letters. Huerta cited school and responsibilities as a reason she could not continue. Day said she had been hired for a job that did not allow for any government pay so she could not continue on the council.

Stevens thanked Adam Polly for helping the people that recently had lost their house in a fire. One of the fire fighters had been in attendance and said it was a really bad fire, and they had a hard time keeping it contained. Police Chief Kevin Vigil had even had to run the fire truck for a while.

Stevens said the road work had been going well, and they have been ahead of schedule. Mountain States, the road contractor, will be putting up a new welcome sign for Hurley with council's approval. Stevens said they had been a good neighbor and taken care of the road when they needed the detour. Vigil said they had not had any problems.

Stevens apologized for not being able to have the meeting due to not having a quorum. They will be looking for letters of interest to fill the two open council seats.

The agenda had a presentation concerning the Southwest New Mexico Community Forestry Project. Continuing this would not violate the Open Meetings Act because no decisions would be made and no town business would be discussed.

Sarah Hurteau, IBIS (Integrated Biological Solutions) out of Alubuquerque said she would be working with GRIP (Gila Resources Information Project). They have a $5 million, five-year grant for forestry projects in six communities in southwest New Mexico. They will include Hurley, Santa Clara, Bayard, Silver City, Deming and Lordsburg. Part of the project will include working with Western New Mexico University to build a certificate program for tree care. They have been working to create a management plan for each community and that has been what she will be working on.

The plan includes planting 1,000 trees across the six communities over the next five years. They had sent out a public survey and will have a plan drafted to present to the town councils. The survey can still be filled out by residents to see what they want.

While waiting for the plans to be done for each community they have funding to cover maintenance of existing trees and public spaces. Southwest Tree Solutions will be involved.

For now, the project will just be for public spaces but in the next year they will be including homeowners.

The next regular meeting will be March 11, 2025, at 5:00 pm.

Meeting adjourned.