No Special Election: Maynard Remains Acting Mayor, Appointment "Deleted"
What's next for the village? Plus, closed session on former village clerk, Mayor Turner has "no hard feelings," new hires, the audit status, Capital Outlay requests, and more.
In the standing-room-only Village Chambers, the council deleted the first item off the special meeting’s agenda: the appointment of a new mayor.
Last Thursday, Mayor Turner abruptly resigned following a disagreement with the council over staffing issues. Last night, the former mayor Turner stood in the back of the crowded room, patiently waiting for his allotted two minutes of speaking time.
Before we fill you in on what the community had to say, the rest of the special council meeting, an exclusive talk with Turner, and more below, here are a few important procedural points:
Pro-tem Maynard is acting mayor, meaning he performs mayoral duties, like setting the agenda and presiding over meetings, yet retains a council member vote.
The mayor's seat will be filled by appointment, which the council of trustees will vote to approve. Any eligible elector, including the trustees, can be appointed to the position.
If a trustee is appointed mayor, the mayor's nominee will fill the vacancy in their trustee council seat, which must be approved by the council.
While mayor race runner-up Dusty Wiley suggested a special election through the Cloudcroft Community Facebook page and at the meeting, according to New Mexico Statute 1-1-5.11, “As used in the Election Code, ‘special election’ means an election at which only ballot questions are considered and that is held at a time other than a statewide election,” meaning a special election may not be an option for filling Cloudcroft’s vacant seats.
Asked when a mayoral appointment will appear on the docket, Mayor Pro-tem Maynard said, “In the future,” and the council showed no apparent sense of urgency on the matter.
Folks Have Their Say
From the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd in attendance, community members signed up for their 2-minutes worth of say. Many encouraged the council during difficult times, including a surprising statement from Cloudcroft’s former Mayor Bill Denney:
“I know the sacrifices y'all are doing. I know the stress that you're feeling. I know the trolls on the internet that actually do get to you when you don't want them to. You're going to make this through. You stay positive. And the one piece of advice I will give you is, and it's something I've told myself a thousand times, it's not about me. You say that to yourself. You believe that. It's never about me. It's never about you. Good or bad. Makes the pain not hurt.”
Former Mayor Craig Turner took to the stand with a prepared statement, saying:
“Lastly, I want to take a moment to recognize the hard work and dedication of our village clerk. She's been here on the job for just four and a half months and has faced considerable scrutiny. While mistakes have been made, I assure you they were not intentional. The primary reason for these oversights is about time, staff and resources.”
Before Turner wrapped it up, Pro-tem Maynard interrupted to remind him that his two minutes were up, and was met by “boo” and cries of “let him finish” from a disgruntled crowd. Maynard allowed Turner to finish his statement.
Other speakers rebuked the council group. Jacque Tanis said:
“I've been here for 30 years. I've watched the town for 30 years go through everything. What I think is going on right now is nobody supporting each other. The town elected everybody, but we're not supporting you. We're not giving you a chance. You don't get on the job and, boom, you know what you're doing in your experience. Sorry, my voice is shaking.
I do think there's a power struggle going on. I think it's between everybody. I think you're all adults, and I'm sorry. I'm telling you this like I would tell my kids. Get your act together.
Work together if you have a problem. Craig, if somebody doesn't agree with you, work on it some more. Don't just quit. Work on it some more.”
After the speakers had their say, Trustee Tabitha Foster flipped the script, chastising the community members present in the room.
“My thoughts are, where have you all been, to be honest?
If you guys had been here at the meetings, month in and month out, every meeting, not just the regularly scheduled council meetings, the special meetings, you guys would know a little bit of what's going on. So to sit here and blame us for you not knowing what's going on, that's not a fair assessment.
If you want to be involved, you'll be involved. And I hate to see that the only time that you are involved is when there is drama involved.
I took to Facebook because people were trashing the trustees and we do not have a chance to defend ourselves. There are things, personnel issues that we are not allowed to discuss with you. It's unfortunate, but we're not. And that's why we asked for a special meeting, the last executive session, and we were denied that.
So if you want to be involved, the doors are always open. Our council meetings will now be the third Tuesday of every month. There are agendas posted in all of the places that the public can see. It is always online.”
Money Matters, Extended Employee Probationary Periods
Parts of the meeting ran like business as usual. The council voted to approve the allocation of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funds. Maynard explained, “Basically this money has to be allocated before the end of the year or obligated or else we risk it being returned to the state.”
The council voted to approve Grants Writer Lauren Groesbeck and Public Works Supervisor Joe John (JJ) Carrizal’s Capital Outlay Requests. We’ll go over those in-depth at the end of this article.
The council voted to approve a nearly three-month extension on probationary periods for new employees, “subject to completion of performance evaluations.” Carrizal’s questions on behalf of his employees were met with Maynard’s answer, “We’re buying a little time.”
New Village Hires
The council approved the hire of a new village attorney, Zach Cook. You can find his Wikipedia entry here.
Deputy Clerk Suzanne Peralta was sworn in as Interim Clerk.
Police Chief Roger Schoolcraft was happy to tell the Reader about one new hire for the village: another police officer, Mike Mackewich.
Mackewich reenters the force after retirement from the Otero County Sheriff’s Office in 2012. He became a Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office reserve deputy until 2022.
Judge Mark Tatum will swear Mackewich in soon, according to Schoolcraft. After running on a bare-bones force, the Cloudcroft department celebrates his addition.
“No Regrets” and “No Hard Feelings”
After approving funding, requests, and hires, the council moved to enter executive session to discuss “limited personnel matters, regarding the former village clerk.”
The Reader stepped out to ask Craig Turner if he regrets stepping down as mayor. Turner said:
“I don't, no.
You know, what I shared with you a of couple days ago: There are no bad employees. There are no bad people. There are only bad leaders. And the number one responsibility of the leader is to give people like [Public Works Supervisor] JJ the resources he needs to succeed. And if you don't do that, you fail.
And so, you know, good or bad, wrong or right, I could not persuade the trustees that I needed help. I felt like they needed help in here. And that's on me. That's on me to be able to articulate that well enough that, hey, look, I need help.
But I wasn't able to do it. So, you know, in some ways I failed. But I don't have any regrets. I love this village. I love the people. I love JJ. We don't always agree. We're disagreeing right now (laughs), but I love this man.
And I mean, I have no hard feelings against any of the trustees or anyone, period. I felt like I was at a crossroads that, you know, can I accomplish anything right now? And I just felt like right now I couldn't. And so it would be better if somebody else stepped in that could maybe get more accomplished.
JJ deserves it. His team deserves it. Do I think I failed? No, we accomplished a lot in a year. But anyway, it was a lot of prayer and a lot of talking with Phyllis. And I think I did the right thing.”
Closed Session, Open Investigation
Back in the Village Chambers, the executive session concluded, and the open meeting resumed. After filing in, the trustees voted approval to send the closed session matters up the pipe for investigation via the Municipal League.
According to the New Mexico Municipal League website, the group hosts “year-round legislative advocacy and risk management activities. While the combined organization has grown significantly since its beginnings in 1900, the same core goal continues to drive the organization – protecting and promoting municipal interests with a unified voice.”
The Reader will follow the investigation.
Audit Results: Coming Soon
After adjournment, the Reader spoke with acting mayor Jim Maynard. When asked what his priority for the village was, he said, “Payroll. Keep people paid.”
When about the status of the audit of the village’s books, Maynard said,
“We're working on the path forward. The audit will be released, I believe, probably Saturday morning. So, the audit was finished. The state has to review it. Once their review is complete, then they give us permission to release. And so that's what we're waiting on. Then, it will also be released on their website. I will double-check that and make sure it's available to you.”
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ICYMI: Lauren Groesbeck’s Capital Outlay Recommendations
Before Turner stepped down on Thursday night, Lauren Groesbeck informed the council of the current Captial Outlay requests and their distinction from the Infrastructure Captial Improvement Plan (ICIP):
“I want to make a clear distinction. What we voted on in July was the ICIP. The next step in that is to take our top five projects and submit them into the legislative council portal as capital outlay requests. So the ICIP is a plan. And then the capital outlay requests are going to our legislators and saying, this is what we'd actually like to see funded this year.”
Water Source Land Acquisition, Water, Sewer, and Roads
“So it was determined in the meeting in Ruidoso that the water source land acquisition was not at this time a shovel-ready project. So, although it's number one in our ICIP, it's not shovel-ready at this time. So that's not likely to be funded.”
“The one that we did keep was water and sewer line replacement. Well, that was recommended to keep. It's a shovel-ready project, but it's over the $750,000 recommendation. So they recommended we keep it, but my opinion, and I feel as though I can speak for JJ [Carrizal, Public Works Supervisor] because he contributed to these recommendations. JJ's recommendation as well would be that we have other more competitive shovel-ready projects that would do better in a funding competition at this time.”
“JJ indicated that $750,000 might do a couple of blocks of replacements. And we do have the Colonias mountaintop, which is water line and sewer line replacement funding that we're hoping to use towards that anyways. And that's already approved.”
“Planning and design road improvements. I would say that that's one of our top competitors. And I would say that we should keep that as one of our shoveling projects, specifically, because we have secured additional funding that can be used with whatever is provided through Capital Outlay. So it's a good pairing. That would be my recommendation.”
After a recent Ruidoso meeting with state legislators, Turner said, “It's just, it's too messy. They don't like the money for land acquisition. He said that's something that you would want to pursue with conventional funding.”
Emergency Infrastructure
“And then the emergency warning system, we were advised to remove this from our Capital Outlay request list. I believe that it was perhaps not framed in the way that would succeed because this is an infrastructure improvement. I think that the legislators at the time were under the impression it was like a texting system or a software system and not infrastructure,” Groesbeck said.
“We are requesting an infrastructure improvement to our emergency siren system. So I would recommend keeping that.”
Top Five Recommendations
Groesbeck told the council, “At the bottom of your Capital Outlay Request Fact Sheet, I put the five recommendations, in order, that JJ and I had come with.”
The Village’s priority Capital Outlay Requests, from the Fact Sheet:
Heavy Equipment: $738,000 for motor-grader, backhoe, dump truck, and/or maintenance equipment.
Villages Vehicles: $418,000 for vehicles, including one emergency response vehicle, two public works vehicles, and/or one administrative vehicle.
Planning & Design for Road Improvements: $749,000 for planning and design for Village-wide road improvements to be used in conjunction with a $241,000 award through (The Transportation Project Fund through DOT).
Snow Melter: $700,000 for snow melting equipment to be used in conjunction with a $600,000 award for drainage improvements.
Emergency Warning System: $517,500 for updated hardwired emergency warning siren system equipment for fire protection and other disaster protection.
The final version of the Capital Outlay requests is due by December 13th. The monies for Capital Outlay projects are sought but not guaranteed.
Groesbeck informed the Reader that “the requests will be presented during the legislative session in February, and decisions usually come through in June-August.”
Groesbeck is a welcome stabilizing force for the village: her contract with the Southeastern New Mexico Economic Development District was recently finalized through June 30th, 2025.
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