Board says goodbye to Trustee Baca
VILLAGE OF MILAN, N.M. — The Village of Milan Board of Trustees held a regular meeting on Thursday, February 17, at 5:30 p.m. All trustees were present, and the agenda was approved as presented. The board approved minutes for a Jan. 13 Board of Trustees special meeting, a Jan. 13 Board of Trustees workshop, a Jan. 20 Board of Trustees regular meeting, and a Jan. 20 Board of Trustees hearing.
The board then temporarily adjourned the meeting to conduct a hearing for public concerns regarding a number of ordinances (Ordinances 276 through 283) that would address GRT and repeal a number of other ordinances, as well as an ordinance (Ordinance 284) that would increase the salaries of the mayor and Board of Trustees. There were no public concerns brought to the board’s attention, so they ended the hearing and reconvened the regular meeting. Village Manager Linda Cooke then explained Action/Discussion items 9.a through 9.h, which included the GRT ordinances that would be repealed. “These ordinances are basically the samething,” Cooke told the board. “They had a designation for the GRT and now we are removing that designation so it could still be used by the village but not for specific items.” Cooke said the board could approve all of them at the same time if they wished. The board approved all of the GRT ordinances, and then addressed the salary increasing ordinance. Cooke clarified that the ordinance was not necessarily giving a salary increase, but rather addressing a rounding effect that occurred during the village’s transition to a pooled cash system. This ordinance was approved.
Next on the agenda was approval of the budget report for January 2022, during which Milan Financial Director Candi Williams gave an update. Williams went over some of the report’s totals, graphs, and said, “We’re still staying above our projected totals for the year… it’s not so much of an uptick anymore. We were doing really good with a good uptick. It’s kind of leveled off now, so we’re hoping that… we’ll see an uptick soon… now with things opening up and no more masks maybe.”
The board also was able to take a first look at the pooled cash system in full swing with this report. Williams emphasized the importance of making sure all of the accounts balance out at the end of every month, and she also said they are still in the process of closing a few more bank accounts. Williams said the village’s total on-hand cash by the end of January equaled $4,547,957.09, “so we are doing really well, we’re getting there,” said Williams. The board approved the budget report for January 2022, along with Resolution 2022-0010 Budget Adjustment and Bar #7, and acceptance of the municipal court cash journal for January 2022. The board then approved a consideration to award construction for the Milan Fire Department remodel for the amount of $530,616.34, using NMFA and Capital Outlay funding. Milan Clerk Denise Baca said the NMFA loan would be paid back using fire funds. Then, the board went on to Resolution 2022-009, which includes a commitment from the village to create an asset management plan. According to Clerk Baca, some sources of funding that the village is looking into for the future, such as grants, have requested that the village have an asset management plan in place. This commitment determines that the village will create the plan within the next three years. The board approved the reposition.
The board then approved an engineering agreement between the village and Wilson and Company, along with Smith Engineering. Manager Cooke then asked the board to table item 9.p, a consideration to award a hydrogeologist agreement until after they conducted their executive session, which the board did. The board then approved a revised organizational chart, which Cooke said rearranged some of the employee positions to put certain positions in the right department and under the correct supervision. After directing Clerk Baca to advertise an ordinance a road naming and rural addressing procedure for the village, the board went into executive session. Upon return to open session, the board approved the hydrogeologist agreement, without going into any detail about the agreement. Manager Cooke then gave an update, stating that village offices were no longer under a mask mandate in light of the governor’s new orders. The village’s COVID policy was adjusted and is no longer as strict. During board comments, Trustee Ellen Baca announced that it would be her last board meeting as a trustee. “I want to thank everyone for allowing me to serve the Village of Milan for the past 20 years — 16 of its on the board, and the other four were odd jobs. I’m very proud to have served and I want to thank my family, my friends, my neighbors, in a lot of difficult times. I plan to stay involved because I’m not leaving the community, no matter what happens. I would like to ask the citizens to work with our new manager. She has an open-door policy, she’s been fixing a lot of stuff in the village. I would also like to ask the other municipalities to please come together. Let’s work together. This is our community, it’s not just one little town or another. We could probably get more done if we worked together. I want to thank all of our employees that I’d had the honor of working with — some good, some bad, but thank you very much. We had good times and bad times and I’d just like to say God bless the Village of Milan,” said Trustee Baca.
The other trustees said they would miss Baca, that the meetings would be quiet without her, and they thanked her for her service to the village. The next Board of Trustees regular meeting will be Thursday, March 17, at 5:30 p.m.