Cloudcroft Catch-Up: Your One-Stop Digest for Village News From Finances to Festivals
Money, bikes, speeders, school news, pickleball, and more
A long lapse in Village IRS filings, the first annual pickleball tournament, and chamber news—what else happened in Cloudcroft’s last week before school begins?
Our update answers community questions and keeps you in the loop.
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Auditing the Village Books
Last week, the village administration held an emergency meeting with a long list of missed tax filings and unreconciled accounts dating back to 2022.
Cloudcroft Reader asked questions at the meeting. Afterward, we spoke to the village’s previous mayor and former payroll and accounting employee. You can read that report here.
A third-party accounting firm hired by the Cloudcroft village council — Beasley, Mitchell & Co. of Las Cruces — arrived Monday afternoon.
The firm is set to audit the village’s previous financial year, hopefully revealing how much the village owes, as well as where the unpaid tax monies went or whether they remain in the village coffers.
Mayor Craig Turner told the Cloudcroft Reader,
“This week will be crazy. I hope to have more information and updates later this week. I truly can’t guess.
It’s taken three years to create this mess. It’s going to take time to clean up.”
The Otero County Slash Pit, the tree and brush dumping ground located just Northeast of Cloudcroft Village off Highway 244, is open for the season—every Saturday from 9:00 AM--4:00 PM, unless otherwise noted.
The Slash Pit’s typical operations run from April until October, depending on weather and fire conditions.
The Village of Cloudcroft website has an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—mandated survey on its homepage to determine whether private property waterlines contain hazardous materials.
The EPA has released a 10-year deadline for replacing service lines that contain lead or copper. Responses are due by the first of October.
Updates from Police Chief Roger Schoolcraft
Many folks have asked about what the area police force is doing in response to dangerous drivers on Highway 82.
We asked Cloudcroft’s new police chief, Roger Schoolcraft, to weigh in:
“What I typically do is I'll ask the mountain deputies to try to hit the 82 corridor. There is only one mountain deputy. And he's got 220 square miles to cover other than just 82.
But the problem with that is we’ll write 20 tickets in one day, okay? Then the next day it's a whole different group of people coming. You might flood them for a week but once they realize there are no cops, they go right back to normal.
There's no long-term solution for it unless you had just one officer dedicated to do that on Highway 82. Last week I wrote — just in the village — I wrote eight speeding citations.
I keep thinking to myself, ‘Why would anybody come into a small town that's congested and think 45 is good, or 50 or 55?’
“We're working on getting a yellow flashing light. I talked to the DOT, the state engineers, about getting some kind of solar lights that flash for all of our crosswalks. Everybody here jaywalks.”
At recent village council meetings, Schoolcraft mentions developing a mountain bike patrol in his report.
More on bikes:
“A grant we're going to work on for next year is to get a bike lane made all the way through the village. So people aren't having to stay in the dirt or hugging the edge of the bike.
And we're getting ready to get an e-bike for the police department. We're going to go to Quick Quiet Cat. It's more than off-road, rugged, comes with racks and stuff so we can put some of our equipment and gears on it.”
The police department is hiring.
On the two open positions, Schoolcraft says:
“My biggest hurdle is going to be finding good quality police officers. I’ve still got two positions.
And I'm going to vet people. I told them, when they interviewed me for the job, I said, ‘If it takes me a year, year and a half, so be it.’
Because we want good quality officers. I'm not just going to hire somebody to fill a slot. That's a huge mistake.”
Pickleball
Last weekend, Cloudcroft hosted its first-ever Pickleball tournament on brand-new courts. When the tourney was rained out, it moved to the Cloudcroft Middle School gymnasium. You can read our coverage of the event here.
Interested in playing? Follow the Cloudcroft pickleball on Facebook. You can join the free ‘Pickleball Addicts of Cloudcroft’ club here.
The School:
For this coming school year, Cloudcroft Municipal Schools announced several changes.
Jocelyne Gillespie, the former high school principal, is the new superintendent. You can read about the former superintendent Tana Daugherty’s retirement and the school’s newest teaching appointments here.
The Board of Education (BoE) has a new member: Cassandra Saffle. Saffle founded the Parent-Teacher Organization for the Schools, where she has served as president for the past two years.
Over the summer, the BoE adopted a new personal electronics policy in the handbook. Touting the policy as becoming a “cell-phone-free campus,” you can read more about the changes here.
Another notable transition for the school: out-of-district students are now waitlisted until after registration.
Art+Wine Festival and more this Weekend
Art+Wine in the Cool Pines, the annual art and wine vendor event held at the Sacramento Mountains Historical Museum’s scenic Pioneer Village, is happening this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
The Cloudcroft Chamber of Commerce organizes and sponsors the event.
The Chamber underwent recent staff changes. Former manager Kendra King left, and chamber employee Alexis Nast currently serves as the interim manager. The Chamber Board recently added a new board member, Brent Bradshaw.
Another event this weekend is the 85th annual Otero County Electric Cooperative (OCEC) member’s meeting, which is open to all OCEC members.
Registration for the meeting begins at 8:30 AM in the Cloudcroft High School Gymnasium, and the meeting, which will include a Board of Trustees election, starts at 10:00 AM.
Members are welcome to stay for a free meal, and door prizes will be given out. In years past, giveaways have included electric equipment and appliances, gift cards for local businesses, and a side-by-side ATV.
The Fires and Beyond:
Shortly following the recent South Fork Fire and Salt Fire, many of our neighbors in the Ruidoso area are still under evacuation orders due to intense flash flooding.
Heavy rains have swept through the burn scars, creating mudslides, debris flows, and washed-out roads.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs announced that the South Fork Fire was caused by lightning.
Federal investigators suspect that the Salt Fire was started intentionally, and the FBI is still offering a $10,000 reward for tips that lead to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for the blaze.
In the wake of fire season on the mountain, questions of emergency management, fire mitigation, insurance coverage, and more weigh heavy on stakeholder’s minds.
The Cloudcroft Reader is organizing a panel to answer these questions and more in a public forum this fall. We’ll announce the participants, date, and time soon.
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Look forward to our new interviews with the Lodge owner, Joe Duncan, real-estate guru Justin Muñoz, and Mayor Craig Turner, all coming soon.
Nice, quick way to stay up..So sorry for Dr, Green's loss. Gerald was a gentleman, from a great mountain family...Young loss....