VILLAGE OF MILAN, N.M. — The Village of Milan Board of Trustees held a regular board meeting on Thursday, November 18, at 5:30 p.m. All trustees were present.
Financial reports were given first, due to Milan Financial Director Candi Williams needing to excuse herself from the meeting early. The board approved a Budget Report for October 2021 after Williams went over the report, each account, and how things are balancing out after the annual pumpkin patch. After approval of that, Williams quickly went over item A of the action/discussion portion of the agenda, which referenced an update on the financial audit FY 20. Williams informed the board that the village’s audit came back with an “Unmodified Opinion,” which Village Manager Linda Cooke told Williams is “the best audit you can get.” “Everybody worked so hard to make sure we got a good audit this year,” said Williams in relief. As for the audit findings, Williams said the auditors should be coming in December to discuss some of those findings and what they mean with the board, so that they could hopefully correct those for next year.
There were no public comments, so the board proceeded to approve the meeting minutes for an October 13 Board of Trustees workshop meeting, and an October 21 Board of Trustees regular meeting. The board also approved acceptance of the Municipal Court Cash Journal for October 2021. Next, Manager Cooke went over a new COVID-19 policy up for the board’s approval. The policy details guidelines regarding the number of hours that can be used for a COVID-related absences of village employees. The policy also includes “items of state law” that Cooke said the village will follow. Trustee Christopher Archuleta followed up Cooke’s policy explanation with a question as to why the masks must be mandated. Archuleta admitted that he is not one that favors the masks. Cooke replied by saying that COVID is more easily spread through respiratory means than physical contact. Another audience member also pointed out how the governor has extended her mask mandate as well. Archuleta also inquired about how many negative test results must be obtained before returning to work after having COVID, to which Cooke responded one. The new village COVID-19 policy was approved.
Next, the board heard from Cooke and Milan Fire Chief Daniel Urioste regarding approval of an EMS grant for the Fire Department. Cooke informed the board that they are being given back the authority to approve money coming into the village, and that is why they are taking a look at the grant. Urioste explained that MFD has applied for and received this grant for the past two years, which allows MFD to be licensed by the state to conduct emergency medical rescue services and they are given money to buy the supplies necessary to do that. The grant was approved.
Then, the board discussed approval of the Employee Holiday Calendar for the year of 2022. Village Clerk Denise Baca presented two calendar options to the board, one of which she said was essentially the same as the way they have always observed in past years, and the second one including the new federal holiday, Juneteenth, which is on June 19, but would be observed on June 20 for 2022 due to the 19th being on a Sunday. The Board of Trustees approved the second calendar option, including the observance of Juneteenth in their 2022 holiday calendar. “Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of African-American slaves,” reads an online Google result.
When discussing the approval of Resolution 2021-035 NMFA grant per water, Trustee Ellen Baca expressed a concern for the grant documents not requiring all the board member’s signatures. Cooke assured Baca that that is why the grant must go through board approval so that the board’s permission is recorded in meeting minutes, rather than signatures, but that they could request the village’s attorneys to include a requirement for all of their signatures on the documents if they wished. Baca said she understood and was fine with the way it was, but that she was just questioning it due to misconduct that happened in the past. Finally, the board approved the NMFA grant attached to Resolution 2021-035, as well as Grant Agreement PG-5455 per water system. The board then went into an executive session, within which they may have discussed pending threatened litigation (Bluewater basin water litigation), real property, or personnel.
Upon returning from the executive session, the mayor reported that no final action was taken inside the closed session. Next, the board received department updates from Manager Cooke, who told the trustees that they should find updates from the water department and maintenance department in their packets. “The village employees are doing really good,” said Cooke. “They were allowed to sit in on closing for the audit, and that really gave them, you might say, warm and fuzzy feelings, because they’ve worked so hard to get it to that point.” Cooke in formed the board of a donation of furniture that the village had received from the county. Cooke also stated that she was under the impression that the TBK property donated to the village may need a full roof repair due to the number of leaks, but that work on the building should begin soon.
Then, in an update from MFD Chief Daniel Urioste, the chief reported 98 calls for the month of October, and 13 fires. The fires were all outside of Milan’s district but that MFD helped with, including fires on the reservations, one structure fire in Grants, and many vehicle fires on the interstate. Urioste said many of the EMS calls are from people passing through the area and that places like Loves and Petro are getting a lot of traffic passing through. Urioste acknowledged the code enforcer and said they were doing a good job cleaning up Milan, which is increasing the calls of people asking to receive burn permits. Chief Urioste also said the area was entering a dry spell and that he will keep an eye on whether a restriction on burn permits is needed as winds increase. He also acknowledged the hiring of new assistant chief Michael Rivera, who Urioste said had done a good job at helping him. Finally, annual pump testing has completed and all five of Milan’s fire trucks passed.
Lastly, Milan Police Chief Carl Ustupski gave an update on behalf of MPD. Ustupski started off by agreeing with Urioste on the traffic issue near Loves, saying that auto-accidents seem to be increasing in that area. Ustupski also said that he expects to see a decrease in arrests due to a policy change from Core-Civic, stating that officers have to drop off paperwork at CoreCivic, rather have the option of faxing the paperwork from the station like they did before. The MPD Chief said this would tie up the officers’ time a bit more. Despite two resignations last month, MPD seems to still be doing good as far as response time goes. Ustupski also acknowledged the annual pumpkin patch, saying that despite what others said was a smaller crowd than usual, Ustupski was impressed by the organization of the event and he thought the activities and firefighter obstacle course setup was “awesome.” The Chief also said that they had received state funding to conduct more checkpoints and that hopefully they will receive more funding in the future, once they show they are making progress with this year’s checkpoints. Some of the officers volunteered to coach kindergarten basketball, which Ustupski said is going well with two practices under their belt so far. Two murder suspects were also discovered in the Milan community recently, and both were apprehended.
Mayor Felix Gonzales then spoke, saying that the board would no longer be announcing an employee of the month, because he said that all of the village employees were “special” and doing a good job, so they would no longer be acknowledging only one employee a month. There was a special Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, November 29 at 9 a.m., which will be covered in next week’s edition of the Cibola Citizen. Upcoming is a Board of Trustees workshop meeting on Thursday, December 9 at 5:30 p.m., and a Board of Trustees regular meeting on Thursday, December 16 at 5:30 p.m.