GRANTS, NM – The City of Grants held their Regular City Council meeting on October 25. During this meeting there was an update on the City Manager search, appointments to executive boards, and multiple time exemptions to NMDOT LGRF agreements.
Before the meeting fully began, Mayor Erik Garcia spoke about charter compliance and said that the councilors violated the charter by disregarding the Request for Proposal process. Mayor Garcia accused the councilors of this violation, 'by deviating from the welldefined RFP process, conducted by our city administration last year and led to the award of the engineering services in September 2023.' He said that they went through the process without including the necessary individuals in the decision and thereby violated the charter, and also compromised the city's resources and integrity. Mayor Garcia also said that other engineering companies that were interested in working for the City of Grants should have been included in the process, and by not including them the councilors undermined the process.
The meeting began with a discussion regarding changing the name of Santa Fe Ave. to Route 66. Councilor George Garcia said that the discussion will not be an action item until they discuss the name change with the New Mexico Secretary of Transportation. He also said that the city changed the name from Route 66 to Santa Fe Ave. in the past, and that they could change it again. He said many people support a name change and that they would like to see the name change before the 100th anniversary of Route 66 in 2026. Councilor Fred Rodarte spoke about his thoughts on the name change and said that he would support the name change, because he thinks that it would bring more tourists into the area. Councilor Beverly Michael also said that she would support the name change and that she thinks it’s a good idea.
The council went into executive session to discuss pending or threatened litigation regarding the Lisa Rains V. City of Grants update, when they returned to open session, the council did not make any decisions regarding the case.
Following the executive session, the agenda moved forward with the approval of minutes for the Special City Council Meeting held on September 7 and the Special City Council Meeting held on October 3. Both minutes were approved by the council. The next item was the appointment of executive boards. Mayor Garcia declared that Michael will no longer have a seat on any of the executive boards. Mayor Garcia also declared that he will be on two separate boards for both the COG and Economic Development. Mayor Garcia said that the reasoning behind this was because Economic Development told him that the Mayor and a Councilor cannot be on the Economic Development board at the same time. Due to this he said it's more important to have the mayor on the board due to things not moving along with Economic Development. Both Michael and Rodarte made comments expressing disapproval for the appointments and Rodarte even suggesting giving Michael some of his board appointments, but Mayor Garcia said that he will stick with his appointments. Section 3.02 of the Grants City Charter says that the mayor has power to appoint people to various boards, but limits his power by making it so the appointments must be approved by the council. No member of the council motioned to accept Mayor Garcia’s changes, and the meeting continued with no change.
Mayor Garcia said that the city had one individual who was interested in the manager position. He said that he had texted the councilors individually to set up times for them to individually speak to the person who was interested but he received no feedback. Mayor Garcia then said because of this situation the person who was interested in the City Manager position then said that the city government is broken and that no one would want to come work for them. He said that they cannot move forward if they cannot discuss the City Manager. Michael then said that Mayor Garcia told her he had an engineer for the position and that the salary was going to be $150,000. Michael said that this amount was unreasonable for a city with a population of less than 10,000 people. Councilor Garcia that they need someone who is a manager and not an engineer or an attorney, and they have been lacking a manager who manages the department heads. He also said that in two months they have not received one name for a new city manager. Councilor Garcia also said that the candidates don't want to work for Mayor Garcia. Rodarte said that he did receive a text from Mayor Garcia saying he had someone in mind, but that he didn't receive any resumes or names. He also said that the only person they received a resume from wasn't even considered, to which Mayor Garcia replied said that person wasn’t qualified for the job.
Michael spoke briefly about the long-term debts of the City of Grants. She said that some of the debts are low and that she believes that they could retire some of them. She also went into some detail regarding the various loans and debts that the city has. The council went forward with the next item which was regarding the Senior Center Joint Powers Agreement and a Senior Board Ordinance. In the discussion they were wanting to change the amount of council members that was recommended in the JPA in 1982 which was ten, and amend it to have seven or eight council members. The next discussion was regarding public safety. Fire Chief Robert Hays gave a few updates regarding the various testing of equipment and the new ladder truck and the need for more space to house it. Updates were given for the Police Department, they were beginning preparations for red ribbon week, and they are wanting to host a bi-annual training in the City of Grants for all the officers that are certified in the state of New Mexico. The agenda moved forward with the next discussion was regarding EMS updates, overall, the update was that the fire department is working diligently to make sure Grants Fire and Rescue is prepared for any changes it may encounter.
The council then went into the discussion/action items, the items included a budget adjustment, the 1st quarter report, five-time extensions for the NMDOT LGRF agreements, a change order for Compass engineering and a notice of an award recommendation. The notice of the award recommendation was to reconstruct the connectors for the taxiways at the Grants-Municipal Airport. The amount recommended was $3,621,154.80 excluding NMGRT. All items were approved by the council.
The meeting ended with two other discussion items, the first regarding the old jail site flag update. The update was that they are currently in the planning state, and that the current funding amount for the project is around $220,000. It was said that hopefully soon they can finish the landscape and design to get it off the ground. The second discussion was regarding park improvements and the next professional engineering report. In the discussion it was said that $100,000 was set aside for park improvements, and that they will continue looking at how they can do more for the community.