By Lynn Janes

The Village of Santa Clara held a regular meeting June 12, 2025. Mayor Arnold Lopez called the meeting to order. Trustees Peter Erickson, Olga Amador and Ralph Trujillo attended. Mayor Pro Tem Albert Esparza did not attend.

The council approved the agenda, past meeting minutes and department head reports.

Mayor's report

Lopez said they had finished with a lot of the projects downtown including the buffer islands. The YCC (Youth Conservation Corps) kids had come in to do much of the work and maintenance had moved a lot of heavy rock. They had put in plants and trees that would not need a lot of water and had all done a really good job.

The Bradley Hotel still needs to be finished but the contractors have been waiting on some materials to finish. The material has been coming from El Paso and Las Cruces.

Southwest Asphalt will be working on the potholes in town. They will be cleaning them and then filling the holes. Two of the streets that will have the most attention will be Cottonwood Street and Fort Bayard Street. "The village doesn't receive much from the Department of Transportation (DOT), so it doesn't go very far."

He had attended a Freeport McMoRan (FMI) meeting about the Copper Collaborative and things have been going well between the municipalities. They had done the cleanup in Bayard and next will be doing Hurley in July. He thanked FMI for helping them with the project.

Music in the park would be starting the next day. Amador said it would start at 6:00 pm and they would also be starting the movies on the coming Saturday when it becomes dark so maybe around 8:30 pm.

A man out of Albuquerque will be doing a fundraiser in the park for the Bradley Hotel. He was the realtor that sold the hotel to the city.

New business

Senator Gabriel Ramos came to provide a legislative update. He first wanted to comment on how good the Santa Clara has been looking with all the new improvements. Every time he drives through town he sees more and congratulated them. He had hit the ground running at the legislature. The first few weeks they put the bills together for the 60-day session. They had a few days they went until 1:00 to 2:00 a.m., and many of the days had gone to 9:00 pm to midnight. The senate had a lot of bills they wanted to push through, and he had presented 19 bills and 4 passed.

Every insurance bill he had been asked to present, he had to go against the insurance industry. He had a lot of the industry people mad at him, but he felt he had done the right thing representing the people. They had been able to raise the limits on New Mexico Fair Plan insurance to $700,000. This plan helps people that cannot qualify for regular insurance. Currently a lot of people that live in the mountain areas have lost their insurance due to wildfires.

They passed the Wildfire Prepared Act that will help people to firewise their homes. It will help insurance rates when they have done this to their homes. Right now, Ramos could not say how that would work. He went over some other insurance bills passed that would hold insurance companies accountable. In Ruidoso after the fires some of the insurance companies had denied claims or taken very long to process them. Some other bills implemented parameters of how insurance companies conduct business.

Ramos thanked everyone who had come up for Grant County Days. He said it thrills the senators and representatives to have them. He said he and Representative Luis Terrazas work well as a team. They prepared each other on the bills that would be coming through. Their efforts had been able to provide $4.8 million in capital outlay to Grant County. They tried to concentrate on the big projects that would help the area. One project would put money into the landfill to create another cell and $100,000 to the Warming Center. Santa Clara had received funding for a new mower, $75,000 for maintenance, $150,000 park improvements and $100,000 to demolish some old homes to build affordable housing. They had been happy about the affordable housing that has been needed across the state but the southwest has been the worst in need.

Ramos said when it came to it, they had not been republican versus democrat it had actually been urban versus rural. The representatives from all of the southern part of the state had worked well together to represent all the people. "It has been andhonor to serve you all."

He spoke to the Medical Paid Leave act and it being a horrible bill that would take money from everyone that receives a paycheck. It would just be another tax on the people and especially bad for small municipalities and businesses. It had not passed. He fought a number of bills that would infringe on the second amendment. He warned they would be coming back, and they just had to keep working to stop them.

They had something else they have been working on and that would be the issues Catron County has been having with the wolves. They have had instances of them coming on to porches and taking animals. The residents have been scared to even have their children playing in their yards. Something needs to be done to stop this problem.

In the next session juvenile crime will come up. They want to make the laws a little tougher. Bills have been put forth, but many thought the laws had already been too tough on the juveniles. He brought up not only juveniles but adults committing crimes have just been in a revolving door, arrested and out on the street again over and over. Many repeat offenders. He hoped in the next round they could have some serious crime bills, and he asked the police chief to reach out to him with any ideas.

Lopez said he would like to see the council members and office administration attend Grant County Days next time. Ramos said it would be good for them to see how the legislature works and what it takes to have a bill go through. First, they must have at least half of 42 senators vote for a bill and then it goes to the House. After that they have to have half of the 70 members vote for the bill. If they have passed those then the governor has to sign the bill. "So, it is not easy to pass bills and get them all the way through the process." He said he would love for them to come and 90 percent of the time they can take them to the floor.

Lopez said the first time he went he had been lost, but Sheila Hudman, village administrator, had helped him and given him a guided tour. On that Ramos said the village has been very fortunate to have Hudman who knows the ins and outs and how to have projects done. Lopez said he knew that. She will retire one day so they have been working to make sure those people coming up behind them understand the process. They spoke about Lonnie Sandoval, chief of police ,and that Hudman had to stay at least three more years.

Lopez thanked Ramos for all he had done and appreciated him keeping them up to date. Ramos said the gave them the phone number where he can be reached —575-313-2077 and said his legislative aide is Brett Kasten. They talk on a daily basis.

The council approved the quote for the purchase of a 2024 Ford F-150 police responder unit in the amount of $52,145.50. Sandoval said he had found out about an overstock of these trucks that usually have been hard to find. Currently the chief's truck has lost the reverse gear, and he has had the truck for a long time. In the past when he had been able to obtain new units, he passed them to the officers. The new truck will be paid for out of the law enforcement funds.

The council approved a quote for the purchase of a smartboard from Touchboards for the fire department in the amount of $2,719.12. Larry Montoya, fire chief said this will be an 86 -nch touch screen used for training and connects to the computer. It will be a little upgrade to the projectors they had been using. The funds will come out of the fire fund. He and Lopez talked about the other uses for the smartboard. It could help with scheduling and show everything done through dispatch.

Bosque Advisors had come to provide a presentation on general obligation bonds for street improvements.

Lopez wanted to say something before they started. He and Hudman had been struggling to find a way to do more street improvements. With the current funding through DOT, they could not keep up or even fix everything that needed to be fixed. He said he has been grateful for the funding from DOT, but it just had not been enough. Doing a general obligation bond seemed to be the only way. They had met and come up with a plan.

Mark Valenzuela had come to make the presentation. He is the managing principal of Bosque Advisors, a firm focused soley on New Mexico to do bond advisory work throughout the state. Currently they have been working with the town of Silver City, Grant County and Silver Consolidated Schools. State law allows for general obligation bonds to pay for infrastructure. State law doesn't provide enough opportunities for their own budgets to be able to fix all the infrastructure that would be needed. So, bonds need to be sold to provide that infrastructure. Linda Melendrez joined and provided her background as a partner of Melendrez and Melendrez, a law firm in Albuquerque. She had attended the University of New Mexico and then New York University law school. After that she had worked at a Manhattan law firm for seven years. She returned to New Mexico ten years ago and works with public finance law with cities and schools around New Mexico trying to help these capital issues that need funding. Melendrez said she does the ins and outs of the statutes when it came to elections and helps through the process.

Valenzuela said when selling bonds, you have an attorney on one side and a financial advisor on the other to take you through the process. He had prepared a power point presentation for the council to view. Every government in New Mexico will be slightly different and treated slightly differently by the state legislature. "Whenever we talk about bonds we are talking about long term borrowing of 20-30 years." This will also include a tax increase and know that would not be the words people wanted to hear. These increases allow for a community to invest in themselves and improve property values.

Valenzuela said Ramos will be a great leader to represent them. He had known him for years and worked with him when he had been on the Grant County Commission. Currently Valenzuela has been working with Silver Consolidated Schools to build a new school in Cliff for $45 million, and their contribution will be about $5 million.

General obligation bonds come from property taxes and require an increase. "It's so that the state might contribute a bigger paycheck to your community because they see that your community is also kicking in with what they call skin in the game." The property owners in the community pay additional property tax to pay off the debt also referred to as a bond. In New Mexico when a community, or school district wants to tax your property to pay for a bond, they have to go to the voters and ask permission. If more than half fo the voters vote yes, bonds can be sold and the increase in tax imposed. That tax raised can only be used to pay off the bonds. The money has to be used for infrastructure, bricks-and-mortar projects.

If the village decides they want to do this, it can be done in the November election or the village can do a special election but will have to pay for that election themselves. The council will have to pass a resolution to include this in the upcoming election. The New Mexico constitution says that cities may ask voters for up to 4 percent of what they call the assessed value which will not be the same as market value. Assessed value will be one third of the market value. He gave the example if a home has a market value of $100,000. The assessed value will be $33,000 and that will be tax base of the property taxes.

Currently the property value for Santa Clara for 2024 came to $17 million and when multiplied by 4 percent it comes to almost $700,000. Valenzuela said Deming had been using general obligation bonds to build roads. He continued to go over what some of the other municipalities in the area had done. Valenzuela had provided the council with a draft resolution. This would need to be approved and submitted to the county clerk no later than August 25, 2025. Melendrez reiterated some of what Valenzuela had said. She would help them with the resolution if they chose to move forward. Once they had done that it would be time to educate the voters on the request.

Hudman wanted to add that this would be a one-time increase, no matter how many times the bond renewed. Lopez reiterated the increase would only be once and gave some examples. The council asked what the range of increase would be to the residents. Valenzuela came up with assessed home of $100,000 would be an increase of $120 a year, $10 a month. Trujillo asked about a public hearing before they passed the resolution.

Valenzula and Melendrez said a public hearing would not be a requirement to put the question on the ballot. If approved on the ballot they then would have to have a public hearing. Valenzuela said they could put this on the agenda again and he would come and answer questions from the public. He said many hold town halls before the election to inform the public about it why it needs to be done.

Lopez asked if the voters approve it in November how would they have to wait for the funds. Valenzuela said it usually will be about the same time as having an ordinance passed, about three months. They discussed the process for a while.

Hudman and Lopez spoke to the fees for Valenzuela's services. Valenzuela said he wanted to be very transparent. The fees they charge generally have been $21,000 but because of the size of these bonds they would decrease the amount to around $15,000. For this they will help them all the way through the election but if they don't win, the village would not be invoiced.

Lopez said, "This is a win-win situation." With only being able to obtain funding of $40,000 a year from DOT is had been hard to do much to improve the streets. "I am grateful for what we get but it is not feasible to do what we are trying to do." Esparza had not been able to attend due to work, but knew he would have questions. Valenzuela said he would be glad to return. Lopez said they would all probably be reaching out with more questions.

Resolutions

The council approved resolution 2025-15 updating the fire district for Santa Clara. Larry Montoya, fire chief, said back in 2011 the last fire chiefs all made an agreement and labeled their own districts. It had never been updated since the annex of the portion of highway 152. This updates Santa Clara's district to avoid any more confusion. This will also take over a small portion of Whiskey Creek Fire Department and Fort Bayard Fire Department.

Lopez said he and Montoya had been to a few meetings with dispatch and there had been some confusion. This will give dispatch a good map. Montoya said if they get a call they will respond even if it does not fall in their area. This had also been put in front of the village attorney, and she had approved it.

The council approved resolution 2025-16 authorizing a loan agreement between the village and the New Mexico Finance Authority. The loan will be for a new brush truck for the fire department in the amount of $269,305. It will be paid through the fire fund. The truck will arrive in July and will replace the old one that had some mechanical issues that could not be fixed with the pump, so it will be converted to a utility truck for the fire department. Hudman said the council had voted to apply for the loan and it had been approved.

The council approved resolution 2025-17 that certifies the village current assets for fiscal year 2022-2023. Hudman said this had come from an audit finding and they had been unaware this had been a requirement.

The council approved resolution 2025-18 that certifies the village current assets for fiscal year 2023-2024. Hudman said again this had come from an audit finding and they had been unaware this had been a requirement.

The council approved resolution 2025-19 for the annual utility rate increase. This has to be done because of increase in costs. They have already seen tariffs included in plumbing parts now. The CPI (consumer price index) has come in at 6 percent. The rates will increase by that amount. Customers should see an average of a $5 increase. It includes the water, sewer, wastewater and trash. Hudman had been advised that both solid waste and wastewater would be increasing. This will allow them to cover those increased costs. The village residents will see that increase in their August 1, 2025 bills.

Proclamations

The council approved the proclamation to enact stage two fire restrictions. The council had approved it before but needs to be updated every 30 days. Montoya went over the restrictions and what it would mean. They will be issuing citations and will not be starting with a warning. A list of the restrictions will be posted at city hall. The fine will be limited to $500 or 90 days in jail. Montoya had already spoken to a fireworks stand across the highway on the issue.

Hiring raises and terminations

The council approved the resignation of Autin Whitehead. He has to step down due to not being certified in the time period allowed. He had not enrolled in the academy in time and he will be trying to attend in January 2026. Lopez said Whitehead had done a good job. They will have an officer graduate from the academy this month.

The council approved a $1 raise for the Sonia Valero, police secretary, who had completed her six-month probation.

Second regular meeting to be held Thursday June 26, 2025, at 6:00 pm
First regular meeting to be held Thursday July 10, 2025, at 6:00 pm

Meeting Adjourned