GRANTS, N.M. - The Grants City Council meeting that took place on February 18 was convened for two and a half hours. In this meeting, the council spoke to the new director of the Animal Care Center, discussed the critical condition of Coyote Del Malpais, Grants Police Department statistics, and appointment of two members to the recreation board.
Animal Care Center’s New Director
The Animal Care Center has a new director, that moved from Montgomery, Texas just under three weeks ago (per meeting date). Maddison Martinez, having heard about the position a few months ago, “had done a little bit of research about the history of what has gone on here and I felt called to apply and to come here and see what I could do to help make it better… Since…October. I just want to commend Chief Monte and the staff and all the volunteers because from what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen, that’s changed. I’ve seen a wonderful improvement so far… It’s been very good to come into how they’ve… implemented the changes and policies and processes so far.”
Mayor Erik Garcia said, “Welcome aboard. This is Grants and you know, the animal shelter is… hard. It’s not an easy department…. Thank you and welcome aboard.”
Martinez said, “I’ll do my best and I do want to say right now… we have 45 animals in the facility. My first week, we were down to, I want to say about 34. We just… had a litter come in so that inflated… Total from January first this year… from what I’ve seen on the database system… it looks like we’ve had about 72 animals come in so far this year. And wishing the last two and a half weeks we have had 39 get transported out. 46 total for the beginning of the year.”
Mayor Garcia asked, “What’s your vision? What do you see yourself [doing]… with that facility?”
Martinez responded, “I want it to maintain the Animal Welfare Standards that have been implemented already with the help of Best Friends and improve on documentation, improve on consistency and building habits… Hopefully, by this time next year, I would like to do more outreach within the community here in Grants. Try to encourage fosters, building our volunteer group, and bringing more attention to the animal shelter… Since I got here, I have communicated a lot with members of the community. I’ve had people come up to me after seeing me exit my work unit… They’ll bring me their concerns about, you know, accessibility to spay/neuter, accessibility to vaccines, or containment practices for their animals. And those are all things I would like to work on so that way they can have that help as well and it can also reduce the number of intakes that we get and the numbers of litters.”
Martinez went on to explain that the company, My Dog Copilot, will be flying out animals from the shelter in the beginning of March. She is also trying to get more attention for the “old-timer” animals in the shelter, adding “Right now our kernels are mostly full of the old timers.” Martinez explained that the young or newer animals are usually transported out or adopted, rather than the big dogs and old timers.
“I think you bring some good ideas,” Councilor Dolores Vallejos said. “Welcome to Grants and welcome to the shelter.”
Councilor George Garcia said, “Yeah, welcome aboard… You hit the ground running it sounds like… and I know it’s a problem not just here, but statewide, probably nationwide, [with animal overpopulation.]” Councilor Fred Rodarte asked, “I was just wondering whatdidyoudobackinTexas?”
Martinez responded, “So, I have a lot of history working with animals. Overall, my majors [in college are] in animal science and biology. So, outside of school, I worked at various other kennel environments as well as I’ve also [had] a lot of extensive experience in equine… My previous place of employment was running an equine emergency vet facility... So that’s a lot of what I did. A lot of working with dogs, cats, equines, a little bit of livestock... This is what I’ve always wanted to do.”
Grants Police Chief Maxine Monte, who has taken charge of the animal shelter since the dismissal of the previous director, said “I didn’t want to overload her, but she’s been amazing. Just amazing and just the ideals that she’s bringing to the facility and she’s going to help us develop protocols so that we can produce or implement a standard operating procedure. But one of the problems that we do have is a low percentage of return to owner. And when we were looking at the numbers today, the numbers were pretty high compared to our outside agencies, as well as our agencies that go out and pick up a stray animal… that number alone… was at least 30 to 40 animals that have been dropped off in just this 40 day period… One thing that were are changing in the city ordinance is that if you’re pet was picked up by animal control then it’s going to be mandated microchipped. And of course there [is] grant funding[s] out for the microchipping too… We’re looking at ways to improve the animal back to owner and/or do enforcement for the abandonment of those animals… [Madison’s] amazing, she’s ready to go. She has amazing ideals and I look forward to working with her and then eventually saying ‘here you go.’ But the other thing I wanted to highlight is Best Friends is amazing. We probably wouldn’t be where we are at right now if it wasn’t for their partnership and their guidance and their recommendations.”
Monte went on the explain that they are going to sponsor a billboard that will have the City of Grants emblem and Grants Animal Care Center. Should be up for about 30 days. Traveling east from Milan to grants at the beginning part of March.
Coyote Del Malpais Golf Course
Coyote Del Malpais Gold Course Advisory Board Member Dr. Arnold Valdivia thanked the council before saying, “It is with some sadness and frustration that I’m here today. Our golf course is doing worse than ever. A lot of our suggestions that we have put out have not come to fruition… respectfully I’m going to disagree with our city manager. I don’t think the city can run the golf course… I don’t feel like the city is capable of running the golf course appropriately. We have good intentions, but we’re not able to solve the issues that the city has in getting some of the stuff done. So, our suggestions was for the… city to go and do an RFP with a company that can run the golf course… There is a company that takes over some of the golf courses that are in their disrepair. So that may be something that we can try. I have also spoke with the city manager about maybe we can sell it to somebody, you know, but I was told that that was impossible… because of the water management or the waste management. Anyways, that’s… our suggestion and I hope you guys take it into consideration and go and do something, because we don’t want to lose our golf course.”
Mayor Garcia said, “If you look at your greens and all your grass, what is the biggest issue/problem that you see out there?”
Dr Valdivia responded, “I think there’s several reasons.” He explained that the main reason is that there are only three people working on the golf course and one working in the cafe, while it also takes a long time to get stuff done. He provided an example, in which a broken pipe at the golf course was discovered in October, prevented watering and hindered the greens’ recovery. But as he was away for a couple of weeks, the grass had not been watered.
Dr Valdivia continued, “I called our city manager and we agreed that we will have a tank come over and we will water by hand, that took also two more weeks… that pipe hasn’t been fixed. So that’s just one of the many things that we see that prevents a golf course from being [able] to improve. We don’t need that much. Right now I’d love to have the green and the tee boxes taken care of.”
Mayor Garcia said, “… We’re drowning our greens with water that is burning the soil. The golf course was built for wastewater distribution. To fix it, we’d need a treatment system costing millions… It’s going to cost eight point million dollars to put what we need over there.”
Dr Valdivia responded, “So then we need to fix the water treatment program to have better water… to me, if we’re not going to do this, we’re going to lose the golf course.”
Mayor Garcia replied, “We’re trying to find out what’s the best solution, but our number one game plan is to make sure that wastewater treatment is within standard.”
City Manager Andrew Valencia put together an analysis and explained that if they go out for an RFP, they need to decide if it’s for the course, irrigation, or both. Any option will still cost more than what they currently spend, and tough decisions on city funding will have to be made.
GPD Statistics
Chief Maxine Monte gave the statistics: 46 arrests, 91 citations,123 cases, and 1,263 calls for service in the month of January. She explained,“We’re slightly higher than 2025 when it comes to calls for service. Well, I shouldn’t say slightly… [we’re about] 200 over... and we are about 150 over from 2024.”
After going over the statistics, she said the the GPD has started several activities, which include DWI Saturation, seat belt enforcement, and selective traffic enforcement.
Recreation Board Gets Two New Members
Two people were appointed as recreation board members for a 4-year term.
Before being appointed, Marisa Corley explained, “I feel that I can bring a fresh perspective and see things through a different lens. I have seen some of the concerns expressed on social media about the rec department and I actually think the rec department is led in a good direction. I just feel that they could use a little bit more support for a more well-rounded department that benefits our youth and even our adults here in our community.”
Reyes Jaramillo, the assistant principal and athletic director at Grants High School, said, “My mission in public education has always been to give back to my community. Grants has always been my community. It shaped me to who I am and I always want to give back in any way. So, with the vacancy on the recreation board and my position, I think that would be a good bridge between the two. So, sports and recreation have played a major role when I grew up… I see how important recreation is for our kids. I get to see it at the end goal; the final product of it. My goal on the rec board would be to try and bridge that… from recreation sports to hopefully state championships.”