[Editor's Note: This is part 4 of the Grant County Commission first work session of the month held April 9, 2024. It continues county reports.]

By Mary Alice Murphy

To continue county director reports at the April 9, 2024 Grant County Commission work session, the new County Fire Chief Roger Groves, presented his first report.

"I've been on the job for just over two weeks," Groves opened his report. "The first 24 hours was a trial by fire, for real. We had a structure fire, an engine was rolled and firefighters extricated from the vehicle. All were fine. The engine sustained significant damage. I was pretty busy!"

He thanked Emergency Manager Scot Fuller for keeping the current projects going while he was filling in.

"I did some calls the other day and currently our membership is 216 volunteer firefighters, give or take a few," Groves said. "Yesterday some departments met and were voting on several new members."

He reported for the first quarter of the year, the volunteers responded to 67 fires, 251 EMS calls and 17 other. "I assume others include false alarms and cat in a tree type of call, which does occur. The total is 335 total calls."

The state Fire Marshal's Division fiscal year 2024 individual department award funding was received and the departments are ensuring the funding is encumbered and distributed according to policy.

"We are wrapping up most of our training, because when fire season starts, it's really hard to get instructors because they are being called to fires," Groves said. "At least 25 have completed the wildland fire refresher training."

He said: "We made tremendous strides at the Cliff-Gila VFD to correct deficiencies. They named a new chief, Preston Johnson, and Assistant Chief will be B.J. Agnew, who served as chief for at least 20 years. Water tanks have been set and will be completed, as well as electrical work that needs to be done."

On key event dates, he noted that he was working with the Airport Manager Rebekah Wenger on training. "I need to research my ARFF (aircraft rescue and fire fighting) certification. If I need to, I and another individual will go to Dallas for the training."

Groves said the pre-ISO assessment for the Pinos Altos VFD would take place in April. He also said he was helping, along with Fuller, with the Tour of the Gila Bike Race, which took place in late April.

"I also want to bring back the First Aid training that used to be done regularly, for assisting EMS at calls," Groves said. "Often, firefighters are there first, so we want to improve their skills."

He said he met with the Fire Academy instructor who is assigned to this part of the state. "We are working out some things to improve and expand our firefighter training locally. We are lacking in that and on how to get our new members trained. We hope to do some here, but ultimately some may have to go to Socorro to the academy."

Working on pack testing for the volunteer firefighters, Groves said they need the training to participate with the Forest Service on some of their fires. "We need to iron out some things in the process, but we're working on that as well."

"I'll stand for questions," Groves said.

District 3 Commissioner Alicia Edwards said: "We are really excited to have you in this job. Thank you very much. You said there are about 216 volunteers. How many do we need to be fully staffed?"

Groves replied that all the departments have the minimum requirement of 12. "Some have 55; some have only 12. Realistically, out of the 12, your core group is going to be four or 5 running the call. Some members are only on paper. We are seeing a lot more calls where we're getting mutual aid from other departments."

District 2 Commissioner Eloy Medina welcomed Groves."I appreciated your comment about the First Aid, so that firefighters can help EMS. Having First Aid, tourniquet training and CPR training makes them eligible to answer the call. The worst thing is not to have them answer the call. Please keep that program alive."

"I'd like to add that I'm excited to be here, too," Groves said. "I did have to go home and rest after the first 24 hours," he said to chuckles from the commissioners.

The next report came from the Finance Director Linda Vasquez. She said she would release an RFP (request for proposal) for external auditor services on April 11, with a due date of May 22, 2024. Key event dates include the budget hearing to be held on April 23, a budget discussion at the May 7 work session and preliminary budget approval on May 21.

District 5 Commissioner Harry Browne asked that the third quarter report be given to them prior to the May 7 budget discussion. She replied that she would try to provide a preliminary report prior to the meeting.

The next county director report came from IT (internet technology) Director Adam Baca.

Baca said he and his staff are configuring and preparing for ease of use the equipment for the computer lab to be installed at the Grant County Veterans Memorial Business and Conference Center. "We also have a bit of work to do behind the scenes to make sure we can get them on the network over there, so they are properly managed with anti-virus software. We also have the vision on being able to remotely support them. We hope to have them ready by the end of the week, and then we need a test week and making sure they work before installing them.

"Recently I applied for some grant money from the Secretary of State's office," he continued. "Because this building serves as an election center, we have the opportunity to get some grant money. Some of the ideas I put into this application were the beefing up of our networking devices to allow us to have redundant devices in case of one going down. Having a redundant device already in place will prevent any loss of time and keep the network going. I'm also working on addressing public record requests. It's actually in its implementation stage, starting with appropriate users. Kristi (Franco, executive assistant) has been leading the charge. This will be what allows us to handle IPRA (inspection of public records act) requests. We found a solution that was reasonable in price and had the topics we were looking for to better handle the requests that come our way. We will have the kick off call soon to talk about implementation and routing of requests. We are also preparing our preliminary budget for fiscal year 2024."

For future projects, he said they continue working to virtualize the physical servers. "I've also been talking with our Tyler Eagle representative to discuss migrating to the cloud all our Eagle services, including those used in the assessor's office, the clerk's office and the treasurer's office. That would be quite the transition. We're working out some of the finer details and how it will affect the offices."

Edwards asked for a reminder about moving the Tyler Eagle services to the cloud and whether it is the same thing as virtualization of the physical servers.

Baca said the Tyler Eagle services would go to the cloud, but the virtualization of the physical servers would remain in the facility, "making sure we maintain control. The structure is in place, but it's on very old equipment that needs to be replaced. It's two different projects, but the logic is the same."

The next report will come from the Planning Director Randy Hernandez.

To read the previous articles, please visit https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/84008-grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-040924-part-1; https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/84035-grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-040924-part-2 ; and https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/84075-grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-040924-part-3