By Lynn Janes

The Village of Santa Clara held a regular meeting May 8, 2025. Mayor Arnold Lopez called the meeting to order. Mayor Pro Tem Albert Esparza, and Trustees, Olga Amador and Ralph Trujillo attended. Peter Erickson didn't attend.

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

Mayor's report

Lopez touched on the recent cleanup day in Santa Clara. It had been sponsored by Freeport McMoRan (FMI). It had been a tri-city cleanup day and had taken about a month to plan. A lot of people had participated. Bayard and Hurley had participated, and they had 15-20 volunteers, some from FMI. June 6, 2025, they will all be doing Bayard and then Hurley in July. FMI had provided bags and food for the event. "I think the communities really worked well together and that is what we need to do." Everyone seemed to enjoy the event and helping others.

They have been working at improving downtown and have been finishing up some projects. They had some leftover asphalt, and the maintenance guys filled the hole in front of the new restaurant.

Copper Collaborative had its first meeting at the new restaurant with FMI, Bayard, Hurley and Santa Clara. They all enjoyed the restaurant and had a good lunch. Lopez said they had a good meeting.

The YCC (youth conservation corps) will be coming to plant trees. It is part of a program working with the university to plant 1,000 trees in Santa Clara, Hurley, Bayard, Silver City, Lordsburg and Deming. They will also be planting bushes and flowers plus mulching it all. Sheila Hudman, village administrator, said they had received a grant that had a 30 percent match. The grant had been $7,200. It will pay for the mulch, flagstone and plants. Eighteen trees will be planted, and they will be coming to start grooming the existing trees and removing the dead ones the next week. The invasive trees will be removed and sprayed with a germicide at no cost to the village. The eighteen trees will be at no cost to the village.

Lopez said they will be moving forward with some really good projects. The splash park will be opening soon. The maintenance department has been working at cleaning it up and checking everything. Music in the park should start in June.

New business

Representative Luis Terrazas had come to give a legislative update. "It is nice to hear about all the good things happening in Santa Clara. You guys are doing a great job making advancements or our little village." He liked the coordination with Bayard and Hurley.

Terrazas started by talking about the capital outlay for Santa Clara that he, Senator Gabriel Ramos and Senator Crystal Diamond Brantley had secured. He would also let them know about things that would help their community. They had been able to secure funding for Santa Clara with housing improvements and mower equipment with a total of about $385,000. He said the three of them (he, Ramos and Brantley) had been able to work well together.

They had been able to fund some items for Gila Regional Medical Center. They needed a CT scanner, so they had been able to help with that funding them $700,000. The current one needed to be replaced because it was very old.

They had tried to do as much as they could with the limited funds they had for each community to support them. Seems they receive a dollar for every hundred dollars of needs. Even though they don't have a lot they have managed to do well as a county and as a community.

Terrazas felt like HB47 had been a big deal. It provides veterans with relief on property taxes. The exemption went from $4,000 to $10,000. Disability would add more to that. HB161 will provide day passes, free passes to the state parks for veterans.

He had focused on crime, things like fentanyl, and making exposure to a child a charge of child abuse. HB340 will allow DNA into a database even after someone has passed if arrested on felony charges.

Terrazas had worked on healthcare and tax credits for the rural parts of New Mexico. It has been hard to find and keep doctors in the area. People have to travel long distances just to see a doctor. Many struggle paycheck to paycheck and with the cost of gas and travel can't do it. 'Their medical needs are not being met." Terrazas said he has been working on a way to keep doctors here and help bring in more doctors. The legislature still does not want to address the medical malpractice cap. It has been the biggest problem the state has when it comes to keeping doctors. Many doctors have left because of the malpractice insurance. The legislature has allowed trial lawyers to take over the state at the expense of medical care.

HB 315, Terrazas sponsored will allow for archeological field school education program to surveys so they can go in and do thinning. This has been an obstacle to thinning projects. Archeological survey has to be made on land before any thinning can be done, and it takes very long to obtain that survey with the archeologist available. This allows students to take over at a point so the process can go faster.

To help support law enforcement Terrazas helped sponsor HB 104 which would help when police officers were injured in crimes.

Many kids have been missing school, with excessive absenteeism. He had worked on something that would hold parents accountable that have been part of the problem. On average he had been told some kids have been missing school more than three weeks a year. The bill had been supported by a lot of superintendents around the state, but the bill didn't pass. Although it didn't pass it does start a conversation.

They had worked on some infrastructure for border security. Communication has been bad along to border. with some places having none. This will help that problem and provide communication all along the border. Terrazas explained Ramos could not be there due to conference he had to attend.

"I am a bit frustrated on the taxing of New Mexicans." He keeps fighting to make sure the residents will not be taxed more. People have had to live paycheck to paycheck and some on fixed incomes like social security. No matter what happens they don't receive more and so when prices increase, they struggle to make ends meet.

The state has a $3 billion surplus. It takes $70 million to make sure any New Mexican making $70,000 or less not be taxed. "Why aren't we doing that?" Terrazas said to him that really helps those people sustain themselves. It would be important for the small families that have children, fixed incomes or pensions. "In my opinion we can do better."

Terrazas brought up the fire that had been started in Santa Clara and said the same person had done it in Silver City. He has spoken to the District Attorney, Norm Wheeler. They had a meeting that included law enforcement, Ramos and some other individuals. The meeting had discussed what they could do to support law enforcement. Unfortunately, due to prior legislation passed in Santa Fe law enforcement's hands have been tied. Someone starting fires could cause the death of one or many and he referred back to what had happened with his aunt and cousin that had been trapped and burned in their home by someone. This person that recently started the fire in Santa Clara keeps being let out because the person has been deemed incompetent. "We are trying to address these problems."

Terrazas said the legislators have two different funds. Capital outlay takes care of the equipment, brick and mortar needs of the communities as he outlaid earlier. In the past they have had junior funds also called grow funds and this year they did not have those. Those funds in the past have been used to help organizations such as El Refugio and last year Terrazas had been able to provide some of those funds to SASS (Silver Regional Sexual Assault Support Services).

This brought Terrazas back to the border. He said some things don't come out in the news. He owns a mortuary down there and he knows a lot of people have been dying on the border. It doesn't matter what side of the fence you are on, border protection, open borders. "At the end of the day it is a lose-lose situation. Many people are dying there including children and we are being called out to pick up two, three, even four people at a time." All have been dying of exposure, elements, lack of water, etc. They have been young people in their early twenties and some as young as twelve years old.

Terrazas added to this being a past situation. In the past four months, they had not received one call to pick any deceased person on the border.

Some people become politically divided on the oil and gas issue. Terrazas said New Mexico provides the cleanest barrel of oil in the world because of the many regulations. New Mexico had more environmental regulations than other states. Oil and gas pay for 50 percent of the budget in New Mexico. The state needs to be leveraging this gift that has been said to have a 100-200 year life. This can help our state in so many ways and the residents. "If that oil is not produced here the demand is still there and it will just come from another state or country that doesn't follow the same environmental standards."

At the end of the day not producing oil here hurts jobs, the economy and schools throughout New Mexico. Terrazas said he could continue with what has been happening but didn't want to take any more of their time and asked if they had any questions.

Lopez thanked him for coming every year to update them and provide a good briefing. He commented that losing the junior money had been sad. Terrazas said, "It was sad not only for here but throughout the state. We sometimes, and it saddens me, get so politically charged that we don't focus on the things we all agree on. There is so much more we agree on than disagree on."

Terrazas shared how the legislature works. Many of the bills can be up to 300 pages. Each morning, they don't know what will be voted on and they jump all over. They might start with bill 100 and then go back to 29 and then to 51. They only have 30 seconds between them. In those times they might add amendments or substitutions. "It is like a test." When all done, he has gone back and if he had known some things he would have voted differently. It has been a problem with all legislators. "No one gets 100's all the way through school, but I can tell you our heart is with Grant County."

Lopez wanted to add the Tommy Knocker bikers come every year to Fort Bayard and have a wonderful time and they love it here and want to see more events there. "Fort Bayard still has a lot of potential." This could not only help the village but Grant County and just needs some funding. "I know you support that and thank you."

Beasley Mitchell and Company joined the meeting by phone to provide a 2024 audit report. Caesar Ortega and Carmen Spivey provided the report. It had been approved and released by the state April 10, 2025. They thanked Hudman and everyone who had helped in the process. The audit had been for the time of July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024. Their responsibility as auditors would be to audit the financial information and provide an opinion on whether the statements had been presented fairly based on the audit tests and procedures. They continued with an extensive explanation of the audit.

The village had received an unmodified opinion, the best they could have. They had two findings, but they had not been material. The two finding from the past year had been resolved and these had been two different ones. First, the capital assets had not been updated. It will be resolved within the next few weeks. The second finding had to do with a prior year adjustment also related to capital assets. They provided the council with an extensive explanation of the findings and what had been done to resolve them.

Resolutions

The council approved resolution 2025-13 for the third quarter budget adjustment transfers to cover negative balances in other funds awaiting reimbursement. Leandra Esparza, village clerk, explained the quarterly report to the state can't have any negative balances. When the village receives the reimbursements, the funds will be transferred back. She provided full explanation to the council.

The council approved all proclamations that had been done because of the cleanup day Lopez spoke to in his report. They had done a proclamation to thank the Bayard employees, Hurley employees and FMI employees and volunteers that helped. The council read each one that thanked them for the resounding success due to their efforts.

Lopez wanted to thank the staff for their hard work, and it included maintenance, police and fire departments. "I say this at every meeting, but I think it is important to acknowledge folks that do our work."

A public hearing will be held Thursday May 15, 2025, at 6:00 pm for cannabis business.
Second regular meeting to be held Thursday May 22, 2025, at 6:00 pm

Meeting Adjourned