Discussion Action Items Strike Out: October’s Contentious Council Meeting
Flared tempers, cold shoulders, call-outs, and calls to order. Plus, Mayor Turner weighs in at nine-month mark
Yet another marathon Village Council meeting, which lasted over three hours, stalled out several repeat Planning and Zoning discussions and action items.
The elephant in the room: distrust.
Skywater Discussion Dries Up
In lieu of his usual council-wear of a leather moto jacket and collared shirt, Trustee and Mayor Pro-tem Jim Maynard donned a simple black tee and khaki brewery ballcap to present a Skywater replat request on behalf of All Family Partners, LLC.
Maynard addressed the room the same as he did last Council meeting, presenting to the back of the heads of the Council:
“The discussion began on this over the procedure. As soon as the question came to me, I came to Mayor Turner and I let him know whatever path he wanted us to go forward on would be more than welcome.”
“If there are ordinances that we haven't addressed, if there are concerns for any one of you that we haven't discussed, we're here and ready to accommodate you.”
“Replats tend to cure problems. A little bit of replat history. The net effect of them, there were 21 lots to start with at the end of these replanted efforts. Now we only have 10 lots. Why is that important? What that does is take 11 potential water meters.”
Maynard quoted (at length) Democrat Senator Martin Heinrich's statement on affordable housing, “We Need to Build More Homes.”
When asked if he planned to build affordable housing on the lots, Maynard answered, “It’s still going to be expensive. We are a resort town. I'm not even pretending there's any way I can make a magic wand and carpenters are going to work for less money than they used to. (But) if you increase the supply of all housing, then you're going to reduce the price of some housing.” ”
Discussion moved to some back and forth between the Council, Maynard, and P+Z Commissioner Jessica Beach on the question of whether, upon passage, the replat will require Skywater to undergo a new contract with the village.
Trustee Timothy King said he did not want to approve the replat after the previous three replats were done through “back door” methods. King addressed Maynard directly, saying, “I think you knew better. It’s disappointing.”
Maynard replied, “We can play that game.” He continued, “My question today is: if I am compliant with your village ordinances today, can I do a replat?”
King said, “To me, I’d still say it’s the fruit of a poisonous tree.”
After no motion was made, Maynard referred to the agenda, saying,
“So part of my request here, I asked the council to advise for any additional action required to move forward. You're talking about history. You don't think this procedure was correct. As soon as that came to my attention, Mayor Turner and I talked about it. I said, then what do you want done? And so I started the new procedure.”
The veneer of cooperation quickly dissolved as it became apparent the Skywater replat was not headed for approval.
Trustee Maynard turned to Trustee Gail McCoy and said, “You're just gonna make it where when I work on that hillside, it's not gonna look as good as it should. Are you gonna feel proud about that?”
Trustee Tabitha Foster said, “I mean, that is not something that should be put before us, telling us that it's gonna be ugly. That's not our business.”
Mayor Turner called the meeting to order and reminded the Council of the issue at hand, saying
“So the issue here is, is do we approve it, do y'all approve it in the vote, or do you not? That's what we want right now, and that's what the vote is right now.
But to Timothy's point, the trustees feel like - I'm speaking on their behalf, if I speak poorly, let me know - they feel like the way you did it last year, Jim, was inappropriate, wrong, and also that because you know the book so well, they feel like you knew that you were doing it inappropriately.”
Despite the direct comments that the three replats attempted in 2023 without P&Z or Council approval were an end-run on the legitimate process, and the call by the other three Trustees last month for Maynard to resign his position, Maynard refused to acknowledge that he had done anything wrong nor did he offer any apology.
The mayor asked if there was anyone who wanted to make a motion to approve the replats and no one came forth.
Clearly frustrated by the lack of support from the council members, Maynard said, “If this doesn't work, what will work? Replats are legal in Cloudcroft by anyone — even me.”
Following the stilted Skywater discussion and lack of action, talks became increasingly combative as the night wore on, especially concerning the request to purchase a small portion of the defunct village street-way where Coyote Avenue and Curlew meet.
Maynard addressed newlyweds Joshua and Merima Speiss’s request to purchase village land, saying, “What you're asking us to do here is sell you a park. Tabitha is very concerned about the future, and how we set precedent.”
Trustee Foster then pulled the minutes from the April 2021 meeting where Speiss first requested to use the roadway for parking. She read,
“The authorization to utilize an improved unused village road as driveway and or process to purchase unused village land. He said at the time Mayor Denney was not in favor of selling the property. The discussion ensued with council members and public works head.
Trustee Maynard suggested that the owner may improve the road if he chooses under the direction of Jubal (Hall, Public Works.) Attorney Rhodes stated that it should be clarified that he is using this as a village right-of-way. Trustee Maynard made a motion to approve the usage of the road as a public right-of-way and approve under the direction of the public works supervisor and not allow purchase.
And it was considered a road.”
(Note: Current Public Works Supervisor J.J. Carrizal spoke with Cloudcroft Reader—he said that the proper procedure for villagers to follow is to “contact Public Works through the village office for road repairs,” and that using approved materials, the proper grade, and other considerations were important due to “legal reasons and liability.”)
After more back-and-forth between the Council, mayor, and Mr. Speiss, a motion to postpone the discussion item until after Speiss secured an appraisal was made, seconded, and carried—though Trustee Maynard vocally “opposed.”
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Rewind: More from the Meeting
Déjà Pü: Part Deux
Mr. Richard Lee once again implored the council to take repeat action for his properties at 802 Chautauqua, where a cesspool creates a public health hazard. After a lengthy groupthink, no council movements were made, blocking any progress on Lee’s problem.
Trustee Foster said, “In my opinion, it looks like a financial favor. Like we're doing this to save him money because he just said, I don't want to do it that way. Not that it's not doable, but that he doesn't want to do it that way.”
Mayor Turner said,
“We do this, and we have now done a favor for somebody, and we owe a favor to everybody. So Tabitha, I couldn't agree with you more, and I talked about that in my office today. But here is my concern. What do we do about the sewage? Because that is raw sewage going out into somebody's yard.”
Water and Other Reports
In his Mayor’s Report, Turner said,
“The last time that our aquifer was evaluated was by the corporation Mavtech in 1995. That's been almost 29 years ago. So one of the things I'm working on in the next few weeks is to secure a company to come in and evaluate our wells and the health of the wells. Are they in good shape? What's the infrastructure of the wells? And then second, what's the status of our aquifer? Do we have enough water to last us two weeks, two months, two years, two generations?”
Mayor Turner later addressed that the village enacted restrictions this summer because we are “operating at 97.4% capacity,” though the village never had to haul in water, even in our busy season.
Turner mentioned, “We had a main break yesterday, and J.J. and his team were out there fixing that all afternoon yesterday. So those are the kind of things that sometimes we don't know about. In fact, I didn't know about it until this morning. But I think one of the things that's important is that you'll see on here on the report that 149,000 and change of gallons was estimated loss in leak through the mains. My point, the reason I bring that up, is that's always our number one and biggest loss of water.”
During the Public Works report and throughout the evening, Trustee King put relevant images and materials on the new large-screen monitors flanking the village chambers — a huge step forward in highlighting information for the audience.
Turner said, ”So there's the service line right there. And then there's where it actually cracked right in two. So you can actually see.”
Foster said, “Timothy and the maintenance crew are doing this all with technology. And they are one of only two municipalities in the entire country, not just the state, but the entire country that are doing this. And just to give you an idea, Timothy did it for free.”
While Cloudcroft received a grant for the GIS mapping, King said that the City of Alamogordo spent about $125,000 on the same technology.
King then displayed the village website, with an EPA-mandated survey for monitoring and discovering lead in service lines (both public and private.) The deadline to submit is still open—you can find that here.
Maynard reported from a recent Municipal League meeting, where he serves as Director at Large. Topics ranged from municipal insurance policies for structures, extending info requests from police departments from 5 to 30 days, rural road funding, “Potentially Preemptive Issues,” and water infrastructure.
Maynard said, “Las Vegas comes up as one of the worst examples right down in the state. Here they have relied on a lake there in town for their water supply for 100 years. Because of fires in the area, it has sealed it up, it has very limited water, and they're just in more trouble than they can cure.”
Turner announced that he and village grant writer Lauren Groesbeck recently attended Santa Fe to request $1,032,000 for “money to rehab our water tanks.” Turner said, “Lauren spoke more analytics, and I spoke just begging for money— and it went very well.”
Chief of Police Roger Schoolcraft then delivered his report, saying,
“One of the things they did in the past was, we'd have animal complaint calls here in the village and they would wait and wait until they finally get one of the officers from (animal control) from the sheriff's office to come up.
Chris (Swanson) and I are trying to take those calls ourselves so we can expedite issues with roaming dogs. We are now giving verbal warnings to people who have their pets unleashed. So we're going to let that float for a little bit, and then when we get repeat offenders, we're going to start citing.”
Schoolcraft announced the need for more officers, stating that the Otero County Sheriff’s department was also “short-handed” and that the two entities have been mutually assisting each other, saying, “We are our brother’s keeper.”
He also announced that in addition to the singular Forest Service LEO for the area, the Game & Fish Department is currently down to one officer due to retirements and relocations.
Schoolcraft issued a call to the public to guard their homes. He said, “I'm urging everyone, if you have neighbors that don't live here full-time, make sure that they're checking their doors and windows and make sure they're locked. Also, please put up cameras. Cameras are our best asset for helping us solve these cases.”
Cameras to aid law enforcement and investigations were next on the agenda.
Agent Sal Guerrero from Border Patrol presented on Operation Stonegarden, a borderlands initiative that would unlock funding for Cloudcroft to pay for license plate readers, overtime pay, and more. You can read more about the FEMA-funded initiative here.
Guerrero said Operation Stonegarden funds weren’t “an immigration thing” but a “border security issue.” He said, “If you all have a TV, you guys can see the amount of flow that we're encountering. Not all bad people, but just a lot of people. And that's a problem.”
Guerrero continued,
“And that is where we implore the use of our partners through the Operation Stonegarden. And that's where we would identify areas that we believe, through intelligence briefings, we know they're circumventing our checkpoints to nefarious activity. Again, these would not be rooted in immigration. This would just be an opportunity to get resources for the community.”
“So that's where we use technology and resourcing to shore up those gaps through Operation Stonegarden because I do have intelligence of nefarious activity coming directly from the border, circumventing our checkpoints, pointing to these communities. We'd be able to justify buying license plate readers for the village.”
Parks +Rec. Proposal: Adopting “Elevation Park”
Bri Jonnes spoke on behalf of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee, asking for $500-$700 of village funding for volunteer-led efforts to update Zenith Park’s Byron Ligon Disc Golf Course, as well as delivering updates on other projects.
Jonnes said, “We've been talking about naming the ball field, so we quit calling it ‘the ball field.’ We've discussed it over a couple of meetings, people have put in what they like it to be called, and after a unanimous vote at our last meeting, we would like to name the park Elevation Park. And so we're asking that you guys adopt the requested name as the official name of the park.”
Ski Cloudcroft announced that they’re gearing up for the winter season, undergoing various inspections and maintenance before Cloudcroft’s first snowfall.
The leaves are already changing at Zenith Park, where, according to Mayor Turner, the Fun Committee Pumpkin Patch sold over $2,000 of gourds over their inaugural weekend.
Checking in with the Mayor
In the last week of September, Mayor Turner sat down with Cloudcroft Reader. In his own words, Turner looks to the recent past and considers the future.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
On fire safety—do you feel you've made any progress?
"No, and I'll tell you why. Because until we get this village protected (from fire) around it, I haven't accomplished anything. And two, I still need to put meat around our ordinances to be able to force people to clean up their yards, but we're going to do both.
My goal is to have ordinances in our books, approved by the trustees by next March so that in spring, I can start going around and have the P&Z clerk put out official letters saying, This is our new ordinance, and this is what we expect you to do. Let's get your yard cleaned up and protected from fire. When I do that, I feel like I've accomplished something."
Do we have a new police hire?
“It's taken some time, but headway is being made. In fact, the Chief is interviewing somebody soon. If he likes them, he will send them to me.”
What are your priorities with infrastructure?
“We're doing a good job with the roads. I'm proud of our accomplishments in a year with the roads. But if we don't have water, our community's over. And if we have a fire, our community is over. I get calls daily at the office from somebody concerned, whether it be the pickleball courts or whatever. And all those things are valid concerns and stuff like that. But when you put them on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, they're not a top concern of mine right now. My concern is ensuring we don't burn up and that we have water in the summertime for people coming up here. And conserving is part of it. And it helps a lot to do that.”
How is the audit coming along?
“Beasley Mitchell Company of Las Cruces is doing our audits for ‘22,-‘23, ‘23-‘24. They haven't started their forensic audit yet.
It seems like every day something does pop up. Every time we do complete something for the state or the federal government or anyone for that matter, we could immediately trigger something else and say oh, by the way, you know you haven't done this yet either as well. Every time we get caught up on something, it triggers something else from the IRS.
I'm hoping that 95% of this is simple — overwhelmed, undertrained, maybe a minor incompetence, and nothing purposeful. We'll find out.
We've had some vendors drop us because we hadn't paid them in time. But all of those people are now caught up. We're getting there. All employee wages, all that's caught up. And as far as contributions and everything, all that's caught up. So we are making great progress. But sometimes it's one step forward, two steps back. .
We're not being forgiven for any of the interest or penalties.
I'm a black-and-white person; there's no gray. If you break the law, you break the law. If you did something that was unethical or breached the state statutes or if the auditors come back and find out that there was nefarious activity going on, I would ask to pursue it 100%. From the bottom of my heart, I pray that what has taken place is just what I've said before: it is just a lot of people not knowing how to do their job, not knowing that that was even part of their job and therefore it just got swept under the rug because they didn't know what they were supposed to do. I'm praying that's what all of this has been — just incompetence, not malicious."
After the revelation about missing payments and sloppy accounting practices, do you trust the current budget?
“I don't think we're far off. We haven't found anything so alarming right now that the $2 million that we set aside that we were going to budget for this year, for this fiscal year, that we're way off. I haven't seen anything so alarming in the bills we have paid already, the people they still might owe, anything else that might occur, penalties, and anything like that. I haven't seen anything that alarms me to think that that 2.0 is off drastically.
Last year, the village did extremely well with gross receipts tax and everything like that. We may be operating at a higher budget than we once were.”
Is the new software for collecting the Lodger’s Tax in use?
"Everything has been in place for several months. But one problem we've had is the third-party vendor to collect the money was the problem. We weren't communicating. They weren't helping us get in touch with them. We were trying to get in touch with them, and we weren't getting anywhere. So we decided to go with a different company that we're already using, Heartland. If everything works out, they will start collecting all the lodgers' tax for us. Now, of course, people can still come in and give us a check if they want to.”
Tell us about Lauren Groesbeck, the village’s contracted grant writer.
“Lauren G is one of the most impressive people I've ever had the opportunity to work with. She is just incredible. Lauren has been granted to us through a grant. One of my highest priorities over the next six months is to ensure that I secure her again for another year.”
How is our water situation looking?
“One of the village's biggest responsibilities is ensuring the village has water. I can't go out and produce it, but I can certainly do everything I can to make sure what we have is used prudently and stuff like that.
I journal every day. And if you go back and read my journal, I have journaled about that more than a dozen times: what I can do as mayor, as one person, to ensure that we have water.
All of our focus now is getting the wastewater plant up to the 21st century. We're not going to mess with the PURe Water Project anymore. All of our finances, grants, any extra money that we have that is related to water, wastewater, etc is going towards the wastewater plan.
When we implemented water conservation this summer, the village did step up. There's so much that goes into education about this, particularly our guests that come into town. And they're not here but maybe one week, and then they're gone. They don't even know that we might be trying to conserve water. Let people know when they're here in the summertime, please be as efficient as you can. Be prudent. Be respectful.
We have pipes up here that are 100 years old. JJ and his team work on them all summer long, and sometimes it's by triage, meaning they wanted to work on pipes up on, let's just say, Mescalero, but they have busted pipes elsewhere. My point is we may get to a point where we say, Okay, we need more money because We can't even repair, we don't have the money to fix what's breaking, much less go back and start repairing what hasn't broken, but we know it's getting ready to break. It's just only a matter of time.
So, we may get to the point where I ask for a bond, increase property tax, or do other ways to get the money. I want to exhaust all grants I can first through the state before I start asking and putting a burden on the village.”
Have recent events on the council affected the working relationship?
“I want to think we're all going to be professionals. We're not always going to agree. This will soon pass, whether we're talking about Skywater or anything.
My ask of the trustees is always act as a professional. You're always courteous and kind to anybody in this office or talking to you on the street. And I expect the same here between us. It’s my expectation that we put anything aside that may be personal or that might be a conflict between the trustees and myself and do what is best for this village. I expect us to act like adults and professionals.”
Who’s fixing the pickleball court dead spots?
"I'll get legal representation and sue them (vendors) if I have to. We have a contract on that court that they do it right. We spent way too much money. It started under Bill Denny and the previous administration, but the grant to do that was like $385,000.”
Nine months in, what do you see as your biggest success?
“I think, without a doubt, my biggest success was revamping the personnel and getting a crew in here that cares about getting the job done.
Part of that was everything I've asked to complete to get this village back where it needs to be. The audits are a big success, and the forensic audit will be a big success.
Two is the relationship I've formed with the village and the trustees. I truly believe the village now knows that we will be transparent with them. We're going to be honest. We're not going to keep anything from you.
And three, getting our finances in order.”
Coffee and me.
“I'm going to start having coffee at different places. I will put it on my Facebook page that I will begin having coffee on Tuesday mornings at 9 o'clock. I'll go over to Black Bear and go to different places. People can ask me any questions they want. But I firmly believe that if I don't let people know what's going on, they will create their own narrative. You're going to come up with what you think. Just ask me. I'll tell you.”
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Another great report Hannah. Love reading the Cloudcroft Reader!
I've been following the Skywater replat discussions,
and I don't understand two things: A) Why is it relevant what Trustee Maynard was wearing? B) Why are errors that occurred with the past replat proposal relevant to the current decision at hand? If the new replat proposal meets criteria stipulated by the current Village Council, it should be approved. If it doesn't, specific reasons should be given. We depend on our trustees to set aside personal differences in order to make thoughtful, impartial, and legal decisions that benefit the community and its constituents. So far, I have yet to see clear, specific justification to refuse the current proposal?