By Lynn Janes

The Silver City Town Council held a regular meeting October 8, 2024. Attendance to the meeting included Mayor Ken Ladner, Mayor Pro Tem Guadalupe Cano, Rudy Bencomo, Nicholas Prince and Stan Snider.

Council comments.

Prince started with everything he had been doing in the past several weeks. He had helped one of the schools with their activated live shooter system. His mother lives around Tampa where a hurricane will be happening, and he had to assist her in evacuating her home. He listed many other meetings and events. Prince thanked the council and employees for all the work they do to keep the town running. " We need to recognize our power to help the public and use it." He encouraged the public to have a greater and deeper engagement with the community. "I know we all wear many hats and get spread thin."

Bencomo said he liked Prince's message and appreciated him talking a little slower. He said he attended the Outdoor Conference in Las Cruces, and it had been well attended. Many of the speeches were on the importance of outdoor activities. He listed some other meetings he had attended and thanked Juno Ogle for her article on the late Ralph Dominguez, who had recently passed away.

Cano went over all the events and meetings she had attended, some being the Pride Festival. She said this one has been near and dear to her and glad to see the acceptance in the community. She serves on the board for the Outdoor Conference she and other council members had attended. She thanked Alfred Sedillo, town clerk, for all he had done to prepare for them to go. She had spoken at the Gila River Festival, which she is also on the board of, and it had been about how they would conserve and protect the river. Jacqui Olea, community development director, had put together a public land use and housing meeting, and it had been well attended. Cano thanked her and said, "It was the best I had ever been to." They had some good input and ideas from the residents for the land use code changes and affordable housing ideas. Cano had been brought up in the Saint Vincent De Paul Catholic church and they recently had their 150th -year anniversary. She had enjoyed all the events. She added a thank you to Ogle for an article she had done on the reason for the naming of the recreation center and why the name had been chosen.

Early Voting has opened, and Cano encouraged everyone to vote.

Cano asked for a moment of silence for John Arthur Smith who had passed and been a Senator in Deming. She said he still had a huge impact on this community. They had a moment of silence for him.

Snider said he had not been able to attend the housing roundtable but had watched the recording. He liked the ideas spoken about to improve the community. Modifying the land use code and housing plan would be a huge project for planning and zoning. He thanked them and Olea for taking it on.

Ladner said he had attended many events and meetings recently but would not go over all of them.

Public input

Linda Schuh said she lived on 8th Street and had owned her property for twenty years. She approached the council to show them a video on her phone. It concerned the bonfire the university has for homecoming every year. "It is very frightening because it is big and could easily spread. We are in a drought situation." It has to do with safety. She understood the Silver City fire department issues the permit, lights the fire, maintains it and then extinguishes it. She said she had two fire fighters in her family and has full respect for them. The city will be liable if something happens, not the university. She suggested they have it someplace else safer. She asked the town to stop sanctioning the event at its current location and change the venue.

Alex P. Brown, a coach at Silver High School, addressed the council and said he had moved here in January and has been welcomed by the community beyond expectations. He had come here from Portland, Oregon. "It is tough for me to be here and say anything negative. I don't know why it is so widely accepted to allow for loud vehicles and motorcycles to disrupt the peace of the community." He lives on Mann Drive, a block from Swan Street and Fox Field. The loud vehicles and motorcycles start at around 9 pm and go to about 11 pm. Lately they had started to wake him up in the middle of the night at 2-3 am. He has used noise canceling earphones and his swamp cooler to drown out the noise, but it didn't work too well. The town code does have the noise issue addressed in the ordinances and uses 95 decimals as the cut off three times the baseline of 35. This issue affects so many people, and he wanted to know what gave them the right. Alex P. Brown said he had so many positive experiences, and this had been the only bad one. He had spoken to others that had the same issue with the noise and had said it had become worse recently. He asked the council to speak to their constituents and maybe see what they could do.

Rich Sickler said he has been a recent arrival to Silver City and the community had a good feel. He found out some property he had been on was owned by Madame Mille. "She owned a brothel here but that was the least interesting thing about her." He wanted to know why a pillar of the community didn't have a statue or day dedicated to her. She had businesses, employees, and was a philanthropist and animal lover. A book had been written about her life. Sickler pointed out that Leadville, Colorado has a day they honor a murderer and cannibal, and he thought this community could honor Madame Millie. He felt her story needed to be told and hoped to see a movie about her someday.

Sickler commented also on the loud vehicles. He lives on Racetrack Road, and they have a speeding problem and suggested some speed bumps.

Anthony Quintana wanted to address the cannabis ordinance changes they would be addressing in the agenda later. He had been involved in the process working with legislation on the state level, and he also is an owner of a cannabis business. "I am all for what you all are trying to do. I just want it to be fair and treat all the businesses the same." He also didn't want them to make it harder or punish those that have been doing the business legally. They had just had an inspection done by the cannabis control division and had prepped hard to make sure the business would be in full compliance with all local, state and federal regulations. "I am an open book and would be glad to meet with any of you and answer any questions."

After a lot of discussion, the council approved a notice of intent to adopt amendments to ordinance 1333. Olea said this would be a proposed change to the land use and zoning for cannabis retailers to a conditional use in the historical district and remove from the commercial light district. Currently this has not been implemented but have been discussed with land use code updates. It will also remove any opportunity to have them around any schools.

Cano wanted to clarify that everything downtown will be conditional use, and all cannabis businesses will have to come before the council. She hoped this helps with the past issues, and Cano felt it would be an important step. Some of the other areas of the proposed changes had to do with the cannabis businesses needing to be stand-alone businesses that have cannabis consumption areas so they will have their own air system.

Prince went over some of the points for clarification. He asked who the appeals would be put through and suggested historic design review. Olea told him it would fall under planning and zoning. Historic design review primarily addresses the outside facades and not regulation. All requests would also come before the council.

Prince asked about event permits where cannabis would be consumed and what that process would be and would it be the same as alcohol. Olea said they have not had any events where cannabis would be consumed. It would be against state statutes for it to be consumed outside of any area licensed for consumption.

Bencomo said he thought they had an event downtown that had cannabis consumption. Olea said it had taken place at a designated consumption area and took place inside.

Reports

Alex C. Brown, town manager, did not have any reports

Chris Lemme, president of Silver City Recycles, had a report for the council and a recent project at the wastewater treatment plant. Silver City Recycles benefits the town and is a nonprofit organization. They exist to reduce the amount of waste at the landfill. They have been doing nonorganic reduction with aluminum cans, cardboard and plastic. This project he has proposed to the town would be for compost of organic waste. He referred to this as biosolids and sludge. It would be left from the sewage process and currently that has been transported to the landfill. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets the guidelines for the states to regulate wastewater treatment plants. They classify wastewater sludge as a class B biohazard and must be regulated and requires special handling. To avoid disease, it has been highly regulated. Some acceptable choices to process include landfills, deep well injection, composting and incineration. Disposing of it in landfills creates methane gas which Lemme said would be worse than CO2. The preferred method from the EPA has been composting which turns a biohazard into a valuable resource. Currently half of the wastewater systems in New Mexico use composting. Silver City has been using the landfill.

Lemme said that this past May they had traveled to Carlsbad to view their composting operation. Their system processes ten times more than Silver City. Carlsbad requires 40 hours a week to run the process and much of it automated.

Silver City Recycles would like to propose this process here. Lemme said all that would change would be the truck that usually hauls the sludge to the landfill would not and it would remain and be put into a designated drying bed and be fully contained. At that point Silver City Recycles would take over and add woody biomass and biochar to start the composting process. In approximately (would be testing throughout) 45 days it should be clean of any contaminants. At that time, it could be used by the community and could be an income stream for the town. It would also be an opportunity for education for the schools to learn about the process. "For the same cost you could have more benefits."

Recently they had tested a cubic yard of bio sludge and used the process learned in Carlsbad and after the process they had the compost tested and it came back showing no pathogens had been present.

Prince said this had been done in Michigan and he suggested Lemme look into the challenges they had.

Cano asked that they present the council with a full accounting of costs and a budget.

Snider said he fully supported the project and wanted to see them move forward.

Ladner asked Brown about the project. He said they would have a clear budget and have an actual guaranteed use of the material in place before they brought it to the council. The city would not have any long term burden.

The council approved the new mission statement for the Silver City Museum. Bart Roselli, museum director, said he has been honored to work in a museum supported by the community. The mission statement drives everything the museum does. Roselli said, "The current one is rather foggy, it is ok but not great." A good mission statement will help the community grow.

Prince wanted to know if the museum committee had approved it, and Roselli said yes.

The council approved the request for proposal (RFP) for marketing services after some discussion. In a previous meeting, Brown had asked to cancel the RFP at that time because of some problems that had been found in it.

In the past, a large portion of the lodgers tax had been given to the visitor center and they had chosen to focus on the recruitment to bring  retirees to the area. That funding should be used to focus on tourism to bring in people for a short-term effect on the town resources. In the early 2000s it had created an issue with transplants and second home ownership. Brown said they had sold their homes for large amounts and came here and bought homes for cash. He had been approached to do this again but didn't feel it appropriate especially because of the lack of housing for residents. He also wanted to make sure the council would have a more active role in how they recruit and promote the community. The first meeting in November he wanted to have the visitor center come and do a proposal so the council can have input.

They had received five RFPs. They included Mariposa Marketing, Albuquerque; Sinclair Communication, El Paso; SkyWest Media, Silver City; Vox Optima, Albuquerque; and Sunny 505, Albuquerque. Brown made the recommendation of Sunny 505. He asked if the council had any questions.

Cano said she had a statement and not a question. First, she had been glad to see them go through the process again. She did have concerns over using the same company that they had before, and this company had not done anything the council wanted or come talk with them. She asked if they would have anything in the contract requiring them to work with the council. The marketing for the town had not been very well done in the past few years using this company. Cano said she had specifically asked three times for them to come talk.

Brown said it would be a new contract, and they will incorporate the requirement for quarterly presentations, so the council could take a more active role.

The council approved resolution 2024-21. This would be for the transportation fund. It would require a 5 percent match of $17,520. The funding would be used to do a feasibility study to extend the Sheriff Posse Road to the bypass road. It will look at options for that development. The owners of the properties in that area have agreed to donate land for the right of way.

The council approved resolution 2024-22. This would be to accept the colonias funding to plan and design the widening of Swan Street and providing bike lanes and sidewalks. The match cost will be $34,550.

The council approved resolution 2024-23. Snider had proposed this resolution. It will be used to notify the United States Air Force that the community would be against them using the area and Gila National Forest for low altitude combat training. It will be a safety hazard to the forest.

Cano thanked Snider for bringing the resolution forward. The Air Force had said that they would not be responsible if a fire started. Prince also commended Snider.

Meeting adjourned