Managers Give Updates Regarding Speeding Issues in Construction Zones, and Canceling Coffee with the Managers Indefinitely

GRANTS, NM – City Manager Andrew Valencia and Interim Village Manager and Finance Director Candi Williams gave updates regarding the City of Grants and the Village of Milan, the updates included projects, construction on Santa Fe Ave. and construction of Airport Road.

Valenica said that there were some difficulties in the construction on Santa Fe Ave. and Iron St. He said the project is moving forward at a steady rate despite the issues. Valencia also gave an update on the Roosevelt Bridge project. He said that they are unfortunately hitting some roadblocks due to cable lines from Century Link and a couple other agencies that were not buried as deep as they thought. Valencia said that they are working on getting those cable lines moved and spliced in to avoid service interruptions.

Valencia answered a question about hiring a new library director for the Grants Public Library and how they plan on looking for candidates. Valencia said, “As we advertise for the position, we will take those individuals and we will make sure that those individuals are meeting the criteria that is based on the job description. From there we will possibly put a panel together that will help me make the decision. Moving forward if we decide that we need to further evaluate through interviews, we can do that.”

Williams said that the village has started construction on phase two and three has started and traffic control has started. The construction will take place where they ended phase one before the box culvert and will end at the intersection at Motel Dr. She said that they will address the intersection at Motel Dr. first, because there are no utilities there, and they will do curb and gutter and repave the road. Williams also said that construction from where phase one ended up to under the bridge will be closed for close to a year. Williams also said that they will make sure that all businesses in that area will still have an access point. As for the swimming pool, the village is finishing up the planning phases and said they will not close the swimming pool for construction until August or September. The Village will also be holding an Easter Egg Hunt event on the first weekend in April at McElroy Park.

Valencia said that he would like to ask the public to get the license plates of all those that are speeding through the construction areas. He said, “We were out there Thursday night for some issues that we ran into. We were dealing with them going by us probably 60 miles an hour through the construction zone.” Valencia said that Chief Maxine Monte is working to have officers at the construction zone during peak travel times to prevent speeding. He said that it is important for the city to keep the construction workers safe in the construction areas. He said that they are also looking at possibly adding more stop signs to other problem areas for speeding such as on First St. and Second St. Valencia also encouraged that individuals should call in to dispatch or to Crimestoppers if someone is speeding through the construction area, the non-emergency line that individuals can call is 505-287-4404. Valencia answered a question regarding the biggest issues that the city currently has to deal with and if the city has a big issue when it comes to behavioral health and mental health. He said, “I do believe that behavioral health and mental health is a big issue in the area. We need attention, we need help… It comes to funding it really does. The lack of funding. It’s all nice to have beautiful roads and great infrastructure, but we forget about the human being aspect with mental health… That’s definitely one of the areas that would be important to our communities.” Valencia also spoke about the issue with retaining officers in the area as well. He said, “We don’t have enough officers. It’s difficult to recruit officers, it’s difficult to retain officers. The state has thrown lots of money in that direction, and we’re still finding that even with that kind of money it’s still not attracting anyone.” He said that also because of this, criminals in the area know when officers are busy and that can lead to more crime being committed. He also said that it is more difficult to recruit officers because all of the entities in the area are competing against each other with pay and benefits.

Williams discussed the affordable housing plan that both the Village of Milan and Cibola County adopted. She said, “What that does is it allows us to work with those construction companies to get those houses built. It is an issue, we get approached quite often by the prisons, the hospital, the schools for housing. If we built 100 houses, next week they would be full, that is a big issue.” The village is taking the beginning steps to work with contractors to build houses in the area.

Valencia said that the managers had spoken about not continuing coffee with the managers. He said, “It’s odd because when we think about canceling it, we get a big turnout. It dwindled down so bad; we were wondering if it was beneficial.” Overall, the participants unanimously agreed that the managers should continue the coffee with the managers meeting and also gave some input to how they could improve the turn out which included, changing the time, having more presentations, and having an agenda for what they will discuss.

Coffee with the Managers takes place every first Thursday of every month at 8 a.m. at the Coyote Del Malpais Golf Course.