Cibola County Commission Restructures and Approves Yearly Resolutions

GRANTS, NM – On January 11 the Cibola County Board of Commissioners held a special commission meeting to appoint a new commission chair and restructure the government.

The meeting began with the restructure of the commission. County Commissioner for District 1 Christine Lowery was elected as the County Commission Chairman.

County Commissioner for District 3 Ralph Lucero was elected as the 1st Vice County Commission Chairman.

County Commissioner for District 2 Daniel Torrez was elected as the 2nd Vice County Commission Chairman.

The commission approved the consent agenda that included CDBG resolutions that are required to be updated yearly. The consent agenda included establishing a local residential anti-displacement, and relocation assistance plan and certification, establishing a citizen participation plan, establishing a citizen participation plan, establishing a section three plan, and fair housing proclamation and selfassessment. City Manager Kate Fletcher spoke about the reasoning behind approving these resolutions, “If it’s needed within the county, we have these resolutions passed by the governing body… just in case the CDBG grant is viable for a project or something happens we can start on it.”

The commission also approved resolutions authorizing Cibola County to submit FY24 DWI grant application/distribu- tion program, a statement of assurances and a Memorandum of Understanding between the County of Cibola DWI program and the New Mexico Department of Finance. Fletcher spoke about the reasoning for approving these resolutions, “If we don’t have these approved, we won’t be able to seek the funding [from the DWI program].

There were multiple action items that included Delegation of Authority to County Manager, Bank Depositories, Inspection of Records, Open Meetings Act, Public Participation at Cibola County Commission Meetings, Parliamentary Procedures and Robert’s Rules of Order, and Signature Authority on Checks. The first action item delegation of authority to county manager is changing the amount that the county manager is authorized to enter contacts with to $50,000 for legal settlements and deductibles. These items will also be informed to the commission through executive session, but will not be included in the agendas. It was also decided to keep all other amounts at $20,000.

The second was for bank depositories the commission approved the following banks to be able to deposit funds to, Wells Fargo Bank, TBK Bank, U.S Bank, NUSENDA, and State of New Mexico Investment Pool. The commission approved the resolutions for Inspection of Record, Open Meetings Act, and Public Participation. The commission approved the parliamentary procedures and Robert’s Rule of Order with two changes that include that all commissioners have one vote with equal power and that any commissioner can add or take items from the agenda. The final item was approved, Signature Authority of Checks. The commission approved that the board delegates to all Commissioners authority for signature on bank deposit boxes.