2006 - City Manager Jaime Aguilera's Memos To Mayor, City Comm. & Attorney

Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 1/13/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 01/09 to 01/15 More good news. Met with the Tourism Board. They were exited that they are getting their new web site online this week. They also reported that all the spa hotels were booked solid in December. They were actually turning people away. They also reported that the downtown merchants reported a 30% increase in business in December due to the additional visitors. Met with Senator John Smith, Jan Carrejo, Mayor Rainey, Chairman Peterson, Mayor Barnes, Mayor Jackson and others to review our areas legislative requests. Met with Earl G. regarding interest from a user related to the Spaceport who is looking to locate in the industrial park. Earl stated he would introduce them to me next week. Met with the Golf Board. They asked the city to use city crews to remove the wood frame addition to the main building due to its dilapidated state. I told them to schedule the demolition with Norm Met with the Hospital JPA Met with Rick Homans, Mayor Rainey, Chairman, Peterson and Jan Carrejo regarding the Spaceport. Mr. Homans apologized to the group about not keeping us up to date on the GRT issue. He said that the plan was to ask Sierra and Dona Ana Counties to vote on a -cent increase in the GRT. 25% of the increased revenue will be routed to the local communities and the remainder will be used for the development of the Spaceport facility. The facility will be state property, and will operate similar to how an airport operates. Met with MerryJo, Commissioner Reaver-Black, Mayor Rainey, and
Nadyne to discuss the status of the Education Advisory Board. After a lengthy meeting, we agreed that I would read their proposal, recommend changes, meet with MerryJo to discuss them to see if we could agree on the scope of services that Education Advisory Board will accomplish. Met with the Personnel Appeals Board to review a case that was grieved to them. The board found in favor of the city and not the employee. The police department will receive a donation of $1000 from Foxworth/G for lumber. We may receive a donation on sheetrock from another source and Ron H. has also asked for donations from Home Depot and Lowes. David Senn has also agreed to donate his services as an engineer to draw the plans (worth approximately $5000) for the work that Norm and the volunteers will do. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
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Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 1/23/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 01/16 to 01/122 Met with the staff Tuesday morning to discuss the Commission action on Monday night. All except one person was happy with the outcome and they pledged their support and were glad the Commission took the position that they did. Met with Sam Senn to discuss the engineering plans for the police station. He has volunteered to design the plans for the interior work that needs to be done. In the past, the state inspection department (CID) did not require plans for minor interior work but they have a new person in the office and it is now a requirement. Met with the Utility Board and discussed the Turtleback golf course. As a related issue, they agreed that the city should begin to look for a means to fund expansion of the sewer plant by those that hook-up in the future. They decided to write a letter to the Commission. Met with Ford, Linda, and Ed Williams regarding Fords pending retirement (April 17th). I asked Ed to move his office to the sanitation Department for two reasons. 1) So that he can help the new director in the transition after Ford retires and; 2) so that Ed can get an up-closeand-personal look at the operation and report back to be what changes
if any, can be made to streamline the department. Ed will ride with the truck drivers, and meet with each staff person individually over the next couple of months. Then we will meet with the staff to review the recommendations. Met with the Sanitation staff to introduce Ed and explain why he is there. Met with Colleen G. regarding some questions she had about the use of the Civic Center by Tier 1 and Tier 2 applicants. Met with Jack Whitt regarding the final issues related to the wastewater agreement. Met with Don, Andy, and Jesus to discuss what projects we will submit to Congressman Pearce for funding. We agreed to request funds for water and wastewater line replacement. We will also ask the RPO for dirt road paving funds. Met with the P and Z Commission to review the Randy Ashbaugh Master Plan Subdivision. Met with Bernie (wastewater) to review a report on the effluent line and the 3 mil tank at Morgan St. I dont believe I had informed the Commission of the problem with the tank. Apparently, when the tank was finished, it would not work properly in connection with the 1 mil tank. The 3 mil tank would overflow and drain the 1 mil tank. So the connection was closed and the 3 mil tank has been sitting idle ever since and every body kept blaming everybody else. I met with the tank engineers and they told me we were not operating it correctly. So Ive had the wastewater department change the way they operate it and it is now operating and is on line. There were approximately 2 million gallons in the tank that had gone stale due to lack of use but it has been tested and it is still good. We are now mixing it with fresh water to assure its safety. On a different note, I have hired Bernie to act as the inspector on the Effluent line project. He is doing a very good job and is saving us over $20,000. Met with Dee regarding the dog bite issue. He will give a report to the Commission at your next meeting. Met with Dumas Slade (airport engineer) to review our projects for next year. Unfortunately, our contract with him (ASCG) has expired and we must re-RFP the engineering services. The RFPs will go out this week. Met with the SCEDO Board. We discussed the racetrack, which seems to be on the way to becoming a reality although there are still major hurdles to overcome such as sewer and water. We also heard a presentation from Starchaser. They also propose to do commercial flights into space with a different kind of vehicle. They are looking to
locate their factory and operations in Las Cruces or T or C. I will meet with them next week to discuss possible locations. We also heard from the owner of the 160-acre site on north Kopra. He unveiled his proposal for 400 fairway homes (with the municipal course). Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 1/30/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 01/23 to 01/29 Monday and Tuesday were spent in Santa Fe. Met with the Airport Board at a special meeting to discuss how to invest the $15,000 that the City received from the McAfee lease. The Board decided to: Buy a golf cart from the golf course in order to provide for luggage
transportation and it will also serve to provide battery boost for airplanes. The cart was free but we paid for new upholstery, new batteries and tires. The cost was $545.00. Delete the use of a rented weather program and computer and instead purchase a computer and rent a satellite program. This will result in monthly savings of over $100 and provide better information for pilots. Buy chairs and benches for the lobby area. Paint and refurbish the lounge area. Install a refrigerated A/C instead of the current swamp cooler. Install an awning in front of the office area Install a new sign at the entrance to the airport Dan will get pricing for all these items. The Board will meet again to review the costs involved and make further decisions if necessary. Met with the Lodgers Tax Brd. The Board discussed a recipient of Lodgers funds that have not yet spent their allotted funds (Civic Center). They will contact them to make sure the funds are spent in a timely manner. They also heard a request from the Fiddlers for funds. They were told the Board had already allocated all funds for this year and denied the request. Met with Kathy Clark. The Tourism Brd. has decided to advertise in northern Mexico and they solicited my help in contacting media sources. We called an ad agency, spoke to them and they agreed to come to T or C to speak to the Board in more detail. Kathy will provide a free nights stay for them. Met with Ford and Kerry B. to discuss the purchase of new camera equipment for the use in the sanitation trucks so that the drivers can more easily see objects behind the trucks. Spoke with Gary Whitehead about convening the Cemetery Board so that they could review my proposal to update cemetery fees. He agreed and will let me know this coming week as to the time and date of the meeting. The last time they met was in January of 2005. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 2/27/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 01/30 to 02/05 Held budget meeting with: Bobby Sanders, Ed Ragsdale, Norm Carter, and Robert Bustos. Met with Angel Mays from BLM to discuss the proposed purchase of the old landfill. It was her opinion that the city will not incur a greater liability by actually owning the property in question. She suggested that the city needs to send a letter to BLM in order to start the process
which she estimated could take between 4 to 6 months to complete. Met with Lareena Miller and Ed Ragsdale to discuss the maintenance of the park where the fountain is located on Main St. Apparently, the city had promised to maintain it but had only maintained the fountain and not the park. Ed told her he would put it on his maintenance schedule and add an irrigation system for the trees and plants. Met with Justin Banister from El Paso News Channel 9 to review the NASCAR proposal. Met with the Hospital Board, suggested that the Hospital do more publicity and that they request Lodgers Tax funds for that purpose. Met with Don and suggested that the Pothole/Weed Crew begin by cleaning Date and Broadway. Met with Mexicos General Counsel, his staff (3), Mayor Rainey, Chairman Peterson, Jan Carrejo and others to discuss relations with Mexico. They discussed tourism, economic development, I.D. cards, etc. Met with Judy Kahl from NMED, Jesus and Bernie to discuss the Effluent Project. She inspected the work and found everything satisfactory.
Interoffice Memo: City Manager
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Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 2/6/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 01/30 to 02/05 Met with Mr. Hibler, Gil, and Britt to review the Sierra Coop Agreement. We made several comments regarding the existing agreement. I have sent Mr. Gee the attached letter.
Met with Paula and Steve Green to discuss the proposed arts and space museum. The Arts Council is proposing that the National Guard Armory be the site in T or C to house the Museum. They are proposing that the city support their request. They wanted to first make sure that the city did not have plans for the facility. I told them that we had found a home for the Police Dept. and that we had been told that the building was not available. I told them that I thought they had a good idea and that we need more places for our tourists to visit. Met with Jack Baker to discuss the use of a pedestrian bridge that Smith Co removed from the Morgan Street Drain that was in the way of the Effluent Project. Jack thought it would be a good idea to use it at the Riverside Park that the Rotary Club is working on. I agreed and instructed Smith Co to take the structure and leave it at the park parking lot. Met with Barry Ragsdale to review 2 more requests for fee assistance related to renting the Civic Center. The Power House application was denied since their application was received late, and the Womans Club (Fiesta) was postponed because I need to have a meeting with them to discuss some pending issues. To date the city has authorized $1160.00 in fee reduction. Met with Pat OHanlon, Ed. Ragsdale and Angel Mays from BLM regarding the shooting range. Ms. Mays finally came to T or C to review the progress we have made on transferring the range to City ownership (it is actually called a Patent). I have been bugging her since last October. Angel visited the site and was happy with what she saw. She gave us a list of items that we need to complete before she can authorize our Patent on the property. The list includes minor things like painting the Mobil homes beige, and making one usable as a clubhouse, and getting a map showing the location of the water and electric lines. I think we should be able to complete her list in a couple of months. Met with Adam Fuentes and Linda Bauer on a grievance filed by Mr. Fuentes. Met with Engineer John Gwynne from Engineers Inc. to discuss a study to initiate a Utility Expansion Fee. He said he would give me a proposal. Met with Dumas Slade regarding engineering work for the 3rd St. Sidewalk Project. Met with Greg Neal regarding the NASCAR project. He is proposing to be the citys airport FBO. I will discuss the issue further with the Commission in closed session since it is also related to a lease agreement he is proposing. Met with Russ, and Norm regarding the work to be done on the Police
Building. Met with Twister Smith, Tom Knowlton (city engineer), and Bernie to review the status of the Effluent pipe project. The project has had a couple of minor setbacks due mostly to uncooperative property owners in the vicinity, but it is still close to being on schedule. They are now past the urban area and will be up on Palo Verde st. next week. Attended the Municipal League Municipal Day meeting in Santa Fe on Friday. Attached: Letter to Sierra Coop Interoffice Memo: City Manager
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Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE:
2/13/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager
Friday Memo week of 02/06 to 02/12 Met Rebecca Dow and Don regarding the property across the street from Appletree. Ms Dow wanted to know if the city was interested in installing concrete storm sewer pipe in the storm sewer ditch that is adjacent to the road. She had the pipe donated from a local contractor. Don and I reviewed the proposal and after discussing it, we decided that installing the pipe would reduce the risk of someone driving into the ditch. I contacted Ms. Dow later and informed her to get her contractor to deliver the pipe on the property and we would install it. It will be approximately 100 ft. long. Met with Naydine and others regarding the Education Board. They agreed to all the changes I had made to their MOU and By-Laws. A full report will be given at the Commission meeting of 2/14/06. Met with the P and Z Commission. They agreed to begin the process to enact a new zone designation for residential projects that do not use the standard residential subdivision format. It will be called a Residential/Commercial Planned Unit Development. Met with Honey and Britt to discuss her request that her wastewater bill be reduced because she says she waters heavily for landscaping. I told him I could not grant her request because it would open up a pandoras box of requests. I told her she would be better off installing a landscape meter or that she could ask the Utility Board for relief. Met with NMDOT and 2 citizens at 311 Broadway to discuss some issues of signage, a traffic signal on Main, controlling speed, and two way traffic on Broadway and Main. NMDOT representatives told the citizens that they would need a request from the city for most of the issues. They also said they would do a study to see if a signal was warranted on Main. I told them I did not agree with 2-way traffic on Broadway and as far as signs for the art zone, they should submit a more formal proposal to me to review. Met with Rhonda Nickels and two other women regarding the Fiestas at the Civic enter. The issue was the rent and their wish to be granted relief. I had already received their application and Barry and I had already approved it. They were happy but didnt like the fact that the city had to pay. Met with Bill Callahan at his museum. Met with staff. The emphasis at this meeting was customer service.
Met with Jay and Mark Filosa and Bill Pippen. Details will be discussed in closed session. Met with Sam Senn, Jack Witt, and representatives from BLM, and NMED to discuss the old landfill, the meeting went for 3 hours and we toured the site. BLM and NMED are both happy with the prospect that the landfill might be recapped. They suggested that Jack install 2 more monitoring wells. A fly in the ointment seems to be that some of the landfill spilled over to Jerry Fahls property. It seems that it is only on the surface and that trash was just dumped over the side of the escarpment. We will have some more meetings to resolve some other issues. Overall, it seems that the city will be no worse off than we are now if we accept Jacks proposal. Met with Paula Green to discuss the Clean and Beautiful Grant. It needs to be amended since it originally proposed to install median improvements on a median that may be reconstructed to make way for Wal-Mart. We will probably move the project to the median where Bullocks is located. Met with Rebecca Rizzutti to discuss a request I made to Senator Bingaman to assist us in getting some funding for our sewer and water systems.
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Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 2/21/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 02/13 to 02/19 Started the budget review process with Department Heads this week. Met with Mary, Bustos, Pat, Nobes, Peterson, Armijo, Ford, and Britt. Next week should round up most of the other departments. Met with the Tourism Board on Tuesday, discussed the new Web page they just recently placed on the Web. Also heard a presentation from a publicity company from Mexico that may run some articles for us in northern Chihuahua State. I made the initial contact and Kathy Clark agreed to provide free hotel space for them. Met with Earl Greer to review the proposal by Starchaser to locate their operation in T or C. I instructed Earl on the deal we would offer Starchaser. I am using Earl as the go between since he was their first point of contact and he brought them to the table. Also, according to the Las Cruces Sun, they have broken off negotiations with the City of Las Cruces. Revised the Subdivision Ordinance to more closely reflect how the review process operates and inserted some new regulations that I think are necessary. I also wrote an ordinance for a new zone called RCPUD which stands for residential/commercial planned unit development. The new regulations will be necessary for the proposed new golf course development that is proposed on Kopra west of the Freeway. The P and Z will review the revised subdivision ordinance and the proposed new zoning at their first meeting in March. Attended the preconstruction meeting for the Ash Street Circuit reconstruction. The proposed timeline is as follows: Order to proceed issued by 02/17/06 Work to begin on a smaller circuit during the week of 2/27/06
Work to begin on the larger Ash Street Circuit within 45 days Work to be finished on or before August of 2006. Met with Ed Ragsdale and Pat OHanlon regarding the shooting range. Last week, Angel Mays from BLM had indicated that there were several issues still utstanding before BLM could transferr title to the city. Pat provided a copy of the insurance from the NRA, Ed agreed to repaint the mobile homes that were on site and to set one of them down to ground level to make them handicap accessible. Pat has also rewritten the initial proposal so that the current version states exactly what we have done to the property and it leaves out things we have not done or intend to do such as construction of a glass enclosed observation tower. Met with the Wal-Mart architect. Everything seems to be on schedule for an early 2007 opening. Met with Paula Green and Joanne regarding the Clean and Beautiful grant application for next year and implementing the grant for this year. It was originally proposed that this years grant would be used to improve the center median in front of the Chevron station. Due to the Wal-Mart proposal, it is possible that the median will have to be redesigned. Therefore, we moved the project to the median near Bullocks. Met with Ed Williams and Ford. I have instructed Ed to monitor the sanitation department for the last two weeks. Ed gave me a briefing of what he has observed. My gut feeling that the department is overstaffed and under worked seems to be true by his report. However, the changes that are needed in the department are going to have to wait for Fords retirement. Ford has indicated that he will retire on 4/15/06 but that he will continue to be on the city payroll until his vacation time runs out. I have already authorized the advertisement for his position with about a 30-day advertising time span in an attempt to get as many applicants as possible. Only after the new person is hired can we expect to see some improvement in efficiency in that department. Met with Barbra Anderson, her husband, and the Mayor to discuss issues related to sewer service to the city of Elephant Butte. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
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Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 3/6/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 02/27 to 03/05 The bad news is that Joanne has tendered her resignation effective 3/31/05. Her husband has decided to retire, they have sold their home in EB, and they want to be closer to their family in Albuquerque. Met with Tony Grundel of Data Logic and his associate as well as Kerry to discuss the possibility of starting our own wireless network in T or C. they said that if we were interested that they would look for grants for us. The city would save quite a bit of money if we didnt have to buy internet access from the local providers and we would get better service, so I told them to give us a written proposal. Met with the following on the budget: Dan D.; Ed W.; Jesus S.; Joanne; and Russ P. regarding Animal Control Met with the Tourism Board. Met with Steve Gee from Sierra Electric to discuss the contract extension. Mr. Gee agreed to most of our proposed changes, he will rewrite the contract and send it to us so that we may review it with the Utility Board and the City Commission. I just found out that Dr. Cardwell also charges the county $24,000 for taking their animals and that fee is going up to $30,000. E. Butte is charged $108.00 per animal and I have not yet contacted Williamsburg. I contacted Jan at the county and we decided we needed to discuss the issue. She was also unaware that the cities pay the
doctor individually. Jan and I will meet next week to discuss the issue. Met with Tom Knowlton from ASCG, Judy Kahl, Smithco staff, and Bernie to review the progress on the Effluent Line. Smithco is ahead of schedule on all aspects of the installation. The liner was installed last week and they will be ready to test the water flow the week after next. Met with Paula Green regarding the Clean and Beautiful grant. Met with Gil, Randy A., and his engineer to discuss the power layout and load requirements. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 3/13/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 03/06 to 03/12 The current DWI services agreement with Nola Kent will expire in a few months. The State requires that the new contract be put out for RFP. I met with Nola Kent, Jay, and Pat to discuss the new RFP for the DWI services. Held a conference call with Sam Ojinaga from the state DFA and Jay to review the problems the state is having with our agreement with the Veterans Organization. Apparently, the state is not well informed about our relationship with the Veterans Organization and they want more information before they will approve an $18,000 reimbursement for the Veterans Org. We are in the process of providing the required information. Met with Gil to review his budget for next year. That was the last department budget that had to be reviewed. Joanne is now compiling the budget requests for next year. Met with Roof-us to review the status of their plans for the pool building. We agreed that they will seek funding for approximately $350,000 from various sources.
Held a phone conference with Valor Communications to review their charges to the various department phones. I asked them to send a representative to review our system and to make recommendations on how we can save money. Met with Jim Nesbitt, Chief Peterson, Det. Huff to discuss a possible agreement with the school district and the City to provide a sworn officer to the schools. Jim will see if he can budget for the position and we will also budget a smaller amount to pay for the officer when he/she is not on campus. Met with Ms. Terry Walther, Commissioner Whitehead and Ed Ragsdale regarding her desire to place an American Flag on the husbands grave. I told her that the city regulations did not permit her to do so on as many days and nights as she wanted to but that the regulations were being reviewed currently and that she might want to send us a letter for our consideration. Met with the P and Z Commission to discuss a new zone entitled Residential/Commercial Planned Unit Development and to also discuss changes to the citys subdivision ordinance. Met with Tony Grundel to discuss his proposal to create a city wireless internet system using grant funding. We discussed the best available technology and agreed to proceed to design the system and look for funding at no cost to the city. Met with Andre to discuss a complaint about dogs in Ralph Edwards Park. I informed him that the new director had just discussed the issue with me and that we agreed that we will be replacing the signs at all the parks and enforcing the leash and no-poop ordinance. Met with the Golf Course Brd. and briefed them on the status of the proposed golf course expansion. Met with staff at our regularly scheduled staff meeting. Discussed the budget, the need to rid all departments of unwanted or useless equipment through an auction. Met with Jan Carrejo, Commissioner Peterson, Ford and other county staff as well as a landfill engineer to review the status of the two landfills. More information will be discussed at the next Commission meeting on the 14th. Met with Britt, Linda, and Otto (utility clerk) to discuss some organizational changes to the Utility Department. The changes that have been made are: 1) Otto will be reassigned to replace the vacant position in the Building Maintenance Dept. and 2) the Utility Department will move the billing clerk to assist with the customer counter. The work of the billing clerk will be lightened by outsourcing
the utility billing to a company in Albuquerque. The Utility Department will save money in the process and allow the city to keep our customers better informed with a more informative utility bill and with inserts of other types of information. Met with the RTD task force to discuss the formation of the regional Rural Transit District for Sierra and Dona Ana Counties and communities. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 3/17/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 03/13 to 03/19 Met with Britt and the Postal Pro representative regarding the outsourcing of the Citys billing process. The extra cost to the City will be approximately $7,000. The salary and benefit savings to the City will be $31,720.00. Postal Pros will allow one free insert per month (we pay for the paper). We will also be able to send out small notices on every bill at no extra cost and we will provide customers with historical information on a graph with the following: last year this month
usage; last month usage; and this month usage. We should be able to be on the new system in 60 days. The Utility Office Billing Clerk has submitted her resignation (took the job as City Clerk for Williamsburg) so it will not be necessary to lay anybody off or to move someone to another department. Met with the Tourism Brd. They reported on the conference they went to in Denver and stated that it was very successful. The Board also decided to investigate the possibility of doing an art exchange with the state of Chihuahua. I will be contacting some friends I know in the state government to see if they are interested. This would bring Mexican art and artists to do an exposition at our galleries. Met with Earl G., Greg Neil (NASCAR project person), and Steve Meckfessel regarding the proposal to bring the Ironman triathlon competition to our area. They are in the investigatory process at this time. They would like to have the event start in September of 2007 if all looks ok. This would mean that 2000+ athletes, families, and spectators (5000) would converge on our area over a 5-day period. It would place a strain on police and crowd/traffic control services but I promised them all the cooperation possible. Met with Gayleen from TRESCO to discuss their proposal to use our vacated police building as their office and development center. They are willing to pay rent and also to do some of the interior remodeling. I informed them that we had other plans but that they were not cast in stone at this time. I left the door open for them. I told them the building would not be available until September of 2006. Met with Joanne and the Valor representative to discuss changes in our phone system. The reason is that as I was reviewing the department budgets I noticed that every department had a phone bill that was different from the others. The Valor representative told us that she had found several places where we were being charged for things we did not need or things that we did not have. She also is going to prepare a comparative analysis for me to look at to see which system (we have 3 different ones now) would be better for us to use. Met with Russ and Roy (animal control) to begin to investigate the feasibility of operating our (jointly with the other cities and county) own animal shelter. Met with the RPO to rank the road projects for our area. Truth or Consequences proposed the reconstruction of Broadway from the City limits to the Veterans Hospital and the installation of sidewalks on Date. The RPO ranked the Broadway project second in the road improvement category and the Date project was ranked first in the safety category. These projects go to the state DOT for ranking and funding statewide. It usually takes 2 to 5 years to get a project funded
but its worth the wait. Next year we will submit other projects. Met with Dee Brown to review another animal barking complaint. Met with Norm regarding the provision of handicapped accessible bathroom for the court. I agreed with his proposed solution and they will begin working on it this week. The Parks and Recreation Crew, the Street Crew and the Building Maintenance Crew all worked together this week to comply with the BLMs requirement to make the building at the gun range handicapped accessible. The old Border Patrol Trailer was moved, a hole was excavated, and the trailer put back and set at ground level. The remaining work will be for Norms crew to lay the concrete pad for the handicapped parking space/walkway and to paint the building. Once that is done, we will petition BLM to hand the property over to the City. Met with Randy Ashbaugh, he was under the impression that the city was going to provide the transformer for Wal-Mart. I told him it was his or Wal-Marts responsibility unless he wanted to appeal to the Utility Board. I didnt tell him that the City has in the past made the developer install all the infrastructure and has also paid for some of it if it made a finding that the City was going to recuperate its investment. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: 4/3/2006
To: From: RE:
Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager
Friday Memo week of 03/27 to 04/02 Met with Jay, Hazel and Mayor Montgomery to review the Commission agenda
Interviewed the one qualified person for the position of Finance Director. Currently undergoing background check. Met with the Tourism Brd., they expressed an interest in reviving our Sister City relationship with Chihuahua City. Interviewed for the position of Sanitation Supervisor III. Despite the fact that we advertised in several newspapers, and in the Sanitation National Magazine, and that we gave an abnormally long period for application, we only received applications from within the department. I interviewed 4 of the more qualified applicants. Met with Andy to discuss a complaint from a Mr. Rob Wheeler related to the fact that his warm water drain was broken by city crews in one place and PNM in another place. He repaired the one broken by the city but he was asking for assistance in repairing the one broken by PNM. We agreed to repair the one broken by PNM and we will bill PNM separately. Mr, Wheeler was thereafter very complimentary of the city staff. (I didnt tell him the sewer line in the alley was our maintenance obligation not his). Met with Roy (part-time code enf.) and Raymond (future code enf.), Ed Williams and Linda to begin the process of having Raymond transfer to become the citys full-time code enforcement officer. This move will become effective 04/03/06. Met with the citys safety committee. I took Thursday and Friday off to go visit my granddaughter and she is fantastic.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 4/10/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 04/03 to 04/09 Met Paula Green regarding the Clean and Beautiful grant. She had originally stated that she would help us implement the grant but she said this week that she had changed her mind. Its a small grant for about $1100.00 that is usually more trouble than its worth but we plan to use it to place some landscaping in the median near Bullocks.
Met with Alma to discuss a former bank employee that I plan to hire as the new Finance Director. Met with Frank Torres the new Sanitation Supervisor III to review goals for the department. Met with Steve Gee from Sierra Electric. He gave us some bad news. Tristate Electric Coop is planning to raise their rates to us by 60%. I have scheduled a presentation by Tri-state and WAPA for our workshop meeting on 4/19/06 at 5:30. Met with Engineers Inc. to discuss the infrastructure fee that the Commission and I have discussed in the past. The engineer met with the Water and Wastewater Department also. The report should be back to us by the end of the month. Met with Alex Klsoke regarding a literacy program in the City. He was looking for funding; I explained that the Citys budget could not be used to support educational programs. I told him this was a state and federal obligation. Met with Joanne regarding the budget. She has completed the entire budget. We reviewed it and made some minor adjustments. We will schedule a work shop with the Commission in the near future. Met with Ruanna from the Gallery Association. She had volunteered to create some banner art for the Commission to consider. This item will be on a future Commission Agenda for your review. Met with Kerry Kent, Andy Alvarez and a local realtor and her client regarding the availability of sewer for a lot east of the hospital on Tingley. Andy informed them as to the location of the sewer main and I told them that it was their obligation to pay for the 8 line that has to be extended to serve their property.
Attended a meeting hosted by the Department of the Interior regarding the lake levels. We were informed that by the end of the summer the lake will be at its lowest level since the early 1970s. Met with Sam Senn, Jack Witt, Angel Mays (BLM) regarding the old landfill that Jack wants to buy or lease from the City. Angel stated that the fastest time we could accomplish the lease was in 4 to 6 months. Jack stated that he can work with that and we all agreed to begin the process to have the landfill capped and transferred to the City then to Turtleback Partners. Met with Britt, Charlie and Al from the Utility Board to review the information that Steve Gee had just given us earlier this week. We decided that the information from Steve Gee was probably correct and that our course of action for the immediate future was to begin soliciting proposals for service from other companies such as PNM. That process has begun.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 4/17/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 04/10 to 04/16 The Commission may recall that I had assigned Ed Williams to the Sanitation Department on a temporary basis so that he could observe the operation and make recommendations for changes to the operation. This week I met with Frank Torres to discuss the recommendations for changes made by Ed Williams. It will still take some time for Frank to be able to implement some of the proposed changes but some will be done immediately. Ed cited the low morale and lack of leadership as the two main issues to be dealt with.
Met with Martina and Roy (Animal Control Officer) to discuss the progress we are making on investigating the possibility of running our own animal shelter. Martina was involved in the construction of the shelter building for Dr. Cardwell. She contacted the same builder in Arizona and will get a quote for a similar size building. Roy and Martina will put together a tentative budget so that we may evaluate the financial feasibility. Martinas mother is a veterinarian in Socorro and has volunteered to come to town once every two weeks to do vet work for us. Met with the Tourism Board. Met with Roy, Raymond (new Code Enf. Officer) and Chris to discuss code enforcement issues. I wanted to make sure that the City has the right legislative tools for the Code Enforcement Officer to use in his duties. We concluded that we do, however there is an issue with the municipal court judge and process that will need to be dealt with in the future. Raymond has already begun a proactive code compliance operation on Date and Broadway. He has visited every residential site and issued first warnings where applicable. He will begin the same process for commercial properties next week. Met with Randy Ashbaugh to discuss the amount of money he has to purchase a bond for. Once we determined that he needed $413,000. He went to the bank and got a letter of credit on our behalf in the
amount specified. He is now able to record the plat so that he can sell the property to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is ready to secure a building permit as soon as they get the property. Met with Kerry Kent to review another project by the golf course developer Steve Stuckey. Kerry is Steves official representative in T or C. The new proposal is that Steve intends to buy Jerry Fahls property located next to Turtleback Golf Course. (Please note that this is still not public knowledge) Met with Steve Green to discuss the Art and Cultural exchange program with Chihuahua City. Met with Jay to review changes to the Cemetery Ord and Fee Resolution.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 4/21/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 04/17 to 04/23 Met with Donna Monroe do discuss the Clean and Beautiful Grant. She is volunteering to help to implement it. We discussed the possibility that we can do metal landscape sculptures in the medians instead of live landscaping.
Met with Norm and we discussed using the 4 H club to do some of the cleanup that is required under the grant. Also, he is going to see if his staff can produce the steel sculptures similar to those in Las Cruces on Amador and on Main and Foch. Met with Bobby Allen to review the fees for the Veterans Memorial Cemetery. Also discussed the status of the reimbursement to his organization. I informed him that I had sent a letter to the state protesting their handling of the reimbursement and gave him a copy of my letter. Met with Linda to discuss the issue of the Court employees who are still not complying with the time tracking requirement Met with a developer by the name of George Koustas, Chris, Jesus, and Andy to discuss his recent purchase of the commercial property on Date known as the old turkey farm. He does not yet have specific plans for the property but was interested in a high end hotel and/or possibly a theatre. Met with Everett Banister to discuss cooperative flood control issues.
Wrote a new Sign Ordinance for review by the P and Z Commission next month. The current ordinance allows off-site signage and is too liberal with billboards. It also does not take into consideration large stores like Wal-Mart and it allows too much signage in residential areas. Met with Raymond (Code Compliance Officer) to discuss the forms that the city uses. I concluded that the system in place is too cumbersome, so we created new forms for taking complaints, for issuing warnings, and issuing court summons. Jay is currently reviewing the court summons with the Judge and we will implement those as soon as they are approved. The other forms have already been implemented. They will save time and money, because we will not have to send as many certified letters as we have in the past. Met with Norm to discuss the roof at city hall and his relationship with Colleen Greer. Met with Chris to discuss a complaint against KAM construction. They have now been give until the end of the month to remove all business related equipment from their parents home on Riverside. I also told Chris to stop being so liberal in how he interprets and enforces the City Codes. Met with Greg Morrison (Steve Stookeys representative) to discuss the status of their development and the golf course. I informed him that Commissioner Stagner had brought to my attention a possibility that the golf course might have a deed restriction which could affect the way we plan to deal with the existing property. I suggested and he agreed to do a title search. Met with Randy A. to review an agreement with Wal-Mart in which they want to take responsibility for installing all off-site improvements i.e. streets and utilities. Attended Kerry Kents Funeral.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 4/21/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 04/24 to 04/30 Met with Harlan Kent. He was referred to me by Kerry before his passing. Harlan was looking for a job as a building inspector. I told him we did not have any openings at the time. Met with Ray to discuss his progress in Code Compliance. Met with Jesus regarding the status of the Change Order for the repair of the Wet Well. I told him we would discuss it with the engineer and Twister on Wed. Met with the Tourism Board. The new advertising in the Mexican Magazine was out this month. Susan Lafont reported that they had seven rooms let this week to people from Chihuahua. We dont know if it was the result of the ad. Met with Gil and the engineer doing the work on the Ash St. Circuit. We discussed the need to upgrade the circuit that will
serve Wal-Mart. We also decided to study the future needs of that circuit because it will also serve the proposed 400 homes west of the freeway. Met with Kerry to practice using the new digital projector we installed in the Commission Chambers Met with Paula and Jane Green to discuss Janes need for more space to conduct her computer training classes. We also discussed sending two of our people to learn Excel. They will go next month. I suggested that they talk to Jim Nesbitt about the use of the portable classrooms that the high school will no longer be using. Held a pre-construction meeting with Twister, ASCG, and our WWTP Staff to review the final phase of the effluent line that will connect the high school. The project will begin on 6/1/06 and they will have 6 months to finish it but Twister thinks he will be finished in November. I stressed that it was important to do the road work during the summer break for the high school. Met with Engineers Inc to discuss the proposed Utility Expansion Fee. Met with Susan (payroll) regarding issues with Bobby Sanders. Attended the Hospital Board meeting Held our biweekly staff meeting. We concentrated on issues having to do with the Fiesta. We also discussed the vandalism problem in Ralph E. Park. We agreed that I would ask Jay to look into a more severe punishment for graffiti artists and vandals. Attended the Workforce Development Board meeting Attended the SCEDO Board meeting. There was no quorum but we did discuss interesting issues having to do with a comprehensive plan Attended the mandatory driving class. Reviewed all requests by non profit agencies. So far the requests total $85,000 and SCEDO has not yet turned in their request. Also asked Jay to attend the next P and Z meeting to discuss conflict of interest issues and to inform them that they will need to fill out the disclosure statement form. Steve Rouke is again behind on his Lodgers Tax Payments. He is due to appear before Judge Hawkins next week. I told Jay that we will not accept partial payments because he never seems to get current. I told Jay to file a lien if we cant get him to pay the full
amount of what he owes. We dont know the extent of the debt because he has failed to report the number of rooms let for the past 3 months. Based on prior records I estimate that he owes us about $8000.00 Met with Norm about rehabilitating the sign at Evelyn Renfro Park. I told him to keep the same frame but to use carved wood for the sign. I think it will look better. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 5/5/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 05/01 to 05/07 Met with Jay to review the conflict of interest form that is to be used by the P and Z Commission. Met with Chris N. to review the status of KAM Construction running a business in a residential area on Riverside Dr.. Chris advised me that all KAM business related equipment has been removed from the site. And that had promised not to return or operate a business from that location. Any remaining equipment belongs to the owner who owns a farm on the other side of the river. I instructed Chris to
send Mr. Faykus a letter explaining that we appreciate his cooperation but that any future violation will result in a citation. Met with Ellen to review the budget requests from the local nonprofit organizations. Met with the P and Z Commission and Jay to instruct them on the use of the form and issues related to conflicts of interest. I informed them that they should fill out the form and return it to the City Clerk within one week. Met with Bobby Sanders regarding my proposed method of dealing with the court. I have written a separate memo on the issue and copied the Commission. Met with Barry Ragsdale to discuss the possible purchase of City property by CMC Construction. This issue will be discussed in closed session at the Commissions next meeting. Met with Ann Filosa to discuss the possible formation of a nonprofit for the purpose of receiving donations to the hospital. I explained that the hospital is already a non-profit and that it can receive tax related donations. She was concerned about comingling gifted funds that are for a specific purpose with hospital operating funds. I explained that the hospital finance director just needs to set up a separate fund. Met with Officer Glen Hayes regarding a personnel problem. Met with Tony Grundel regarding a proposed joint venture with the county and the two other cities for the purpose of applying for a grant for creating a Wireless internet service for all public entities. Met on several occasions with senior staff to make sure all Fiesta issues were being addressed. I was informed the end of last week that the department of Game and Fish were not going to stock our pond for Fiesta because they claimed the water temperature was over 70 degrees. We tested the water and it showed to be between 59 and 61 degrees all day. I tried calling Game and Fish but I couldnt get through. I tried calling a fish farm in Arizona but they said they no longer supplied New Mexico due to long bureaucratic issues. I decided to call Sandy Jones. He called the Governors Office and the Game and Fish Director and we were promised 200 fish for Friday. Met with Ellen regarding the Police Building purchase. The State funded the purchase on 4/14/06. NMFA did not inform us of the event and also that it was up to us to conduct the actual purchase. Ellen is now in the process of getting the funds transferred from
NMFA to a local Title Company so that we may conduct the actual property purchase. Closing should take place by the end of next week.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 5/15/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 05/08 to 05/14 Met with H. Bartoo regarding a City road leading from the Cuchillo Dam. He was asked by the County if the City would let him use it to
haul gravel. The County did not want him to use a County road. I told him the road was not meant for commercial traffic and that the City was not in favor of the idea. I also told him that we might take steps to officially designate the road as non-commercial if he insisted on using it. Met with the Tourism Board. Met with Sam Senn regarding the architect for the police building. The plans were finally turned over to us and I sent Chris the next day to Las Cruces to file for the permit. Now its another waiting game to see how long it takes CID to review and approve the plans. Met with Utility Department staff. They asked for temporary help until such time as we hire a new director. I authorized an emergency hire of a part-time temporary employee. The employee will start this week. Met with Ellen to review the outcome of the budget workshop. Met with staff at our regular staff meeting. The employees are planning an employee picnic for mid July. Also I asked Ann Filosa to provide some team training for the staff. She agreed to do so as a volunteer. Met with Bobby Allen to review the status of the Civic Center/Colleen issue. He also asked that the City provide street sweeping service to the Veterans Park Parking lot. It seems that the parade horses left behind some road apples. The Street Crew cleaned the parking lot the same day. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: 5/22/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners
From: RE:
Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager
Friday Memo week of 05/15 to 05/21 Met with Sandy Jones at the Citys industrial site (next to Fair Barn) to discuss some changes that the Flood Commission wants to do in the area. Apparently, in the next few months the Flood Comm. will hydoseed the area to prevent erosion. Sandy wanted to know if he could go ahead and remove a drainage swale that the City had built to protect the Elite Shutter site. He says that after the City had built the swale, the Flood Commission had built some flood control devices upstream and that the swale was no longer necessary. I asked Don, about the issue and he agreed. Therefore I will let Sandy know that it is ok to remove the swale so that he can then hydro-seed the area. Attended a SCEDO Board meeting. The meeting was dysfunctional at best. In the end the Board decided to continue action on the hiring of the executive director and assistant director until after the City votes on their budget. Met with Lola Polly regarding funding for the Chamber of Commerce. I suggested that the Chamber should partner with SCEDO for office space and personnel. She said the Chamber was willing but that she didnt think SCEDO was. Attended the City closing on the Police Department building. There was approximately $8000.00 rebated to the City pursuant to the agreement with Kirikos for rent and gas payments we made. The funds will be used for building improvements. Interviewed the two most qualified candidates for the Utility Director position. Both were well and equally qualified, so it was a difficult choice. In the end I selected Helen Belis, our current Finance Department Accountant I for the position. She will start next week. Attended the Community Input Event held at the Civic Center. The meeting was held to receive public input on how the Turner Foundation funds were to be spent in the future. We were informed that the way agencies were funded in the past would not be the way they would be funded in the future. The group was told we essentially had 3 choices: 1) we could fund a program that the City of Socorro runs that rewards kids for good school grades; 2) fund a study in our county that would identify the needs for our youth; or 3) fund a Youth Conservation Corps project. In the end the group did not agree on any of the choices. Met with Mayor Montgomery, Commissioner Stagner, WNMU president, Commissioner Whitehead, School Board member Tooley to review the WNMU status. Mayor Montgomery will report on the outcome at the next meeting. Spoke with MerryJo about the demise of the EVAB board, she had heard
of the outcome of the City/WNMU meeting. I also told her that the CHEP board was not affected by the formation of the JPA but that CHEP would have to deal directly with the JPA instead of the City, assuming everything went as planned. Met with Jesus regarding the use of a telemetry system that the Water Department had installed at the vacuum lift station but never used. I agreed to have them move it for use on the effluent water system thereby saving the City $5000. Met with the Code Compliance Officer regarding the status of the code compliance effort. Met with Bobby Sanders, Jay, and Randy VanVleck (via phone) to discuss the Court vs. City issues. We all agreed that we would enter into an MOU so that the Court/City relationship would be clearly defined. Met with Chris regarding the status of the police building permit. Apparently the permit will not be issued until next week. Met with Susan to discuss the direct deposit issue. Susan did a great job of launching the program without a hitch. Those of us that took advantage of the program received their money on time and accurately. There were no flaws reported. Susan is to be commended for a job well done. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 5/26/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 05/22 to 05/28 Valor made the change in the phone system that had been planned for several weeks. The change will save the city $12,000 per year. Unfortunately, the change did not go as smoothly as promised. At the end of the week they have still not been able to restore our long distance service. Hopefully they will do so by Monday. Met with the State Engineer Sheldon Dorman from the Las Cruces Office regarding the hot water well issue. I reported on the issue at the prior Commission meeting. Met with Tony Grundel. He is working with the Police Department to apply for a grant that would get us computers in the police vehicles so that officers could access crime data on suspects in real time. Tony will set up a demonstration of the Wi-Fi hardware this week. The demonstration will allow any one in a vehicle or any where in the city to access the internet through a computer with Wi-Fi capabilities. Met with Delbert Fraisinet and Ellen to discuss the CDBG Grant. Met with the Tourism Board. In my opinion this Board is the most organized and functional Board we have. Their meetings are to the point and business-like. Met with Russ and Norm to review the next steps necessary to finish the work on the Police building. We will have a weekly meeting from now on to make sure no one drops the ball. Met with Ellen to recap the budget workshop. Met with staff and discussed the final action by the Commission on the budget. All in all the feeling from the directors was positive and no one complained about the Police Department increases. Met with Jerry Engleheart regarding a neighbor dispute issue. The meeting with Grieg Morrison to discuss the progress of the golf course and residential development was postponed until next week due to other pressing business in Tucson. I informed him that he should bring a company prospectus and background so that I can do my due diligence on his company. He said he would bring it next week.
Met with Kathy Sloan from the Herald to discuss the Trumbil issue. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 6/5/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 05/29 to 06/04 Met with Dan Havens who flew out here from San Diego to install a two week test of his companys WiFi system. The Police Department is seeking a grant for on-board computers and the WiFi system is a necessary component. Met with Russ and Norm to review the progress on the Police bldg. We are still looking for bids from qualified electricians. Kirikos will remove the retort next week. Spent several hours resolving a personnel problem in the Utility Department. The Utility Billing Clerk quit on the spot on Monday due to home problems. Since all the staff in the Department was new, she was the only one that knew the billing system. Met with Jay to review the Pippen Case. Mr. Filosa sent a set of questions to us. Jay and I agreed that he would draft responses and I would review them. We also reviewed the answers Mr. Pippen gave to our set of questions we sent him. Last week I became aware through an indirect source that Elite Shutters was going to be in town on Thursday and Friday to remove their stuff from storage at our building. I had the Electric crew take turns watching them to make sure that the only took what belonged to them and just to let them know we were watching. As of Monday morning (6/5/06) they were still not done, Gil estimated they would not be finished until Tuesday. Attended the Hero Award ceremonies for Rick Courtney. Met with Pat OHanlon to review the status of the shooting range. All work that we promised BLM has been done with the exception of the concrete walk for the handicapped. Pat will follow-up. The Shooting Club has agreed to pay for the concrete and Norms crew will lay it. Met with Gary Whitehead to review the Cemeterys request for funding. He said that even though the agreement states that they will get no further funding, that they cannot continue to maintain the cemetery without our help. I asked Gary to produce a plan as to how the $100,000 endowment fund was going to be used by the cemetery and
I would then review it and present it to the Commission. He said they could get along this year without our funding and that he would produce a plan for next years budget. Gary also drafted a set of talking points on the SCEDO issue. We discussed the points and I told him I agreed on all points in his paper (see attached). Don Armijo took me to view the road issue explained in the attached letters. We drove the entire length of the road in question as well as the dam access road. Mr. Ross requested to be placed on the Commission agenda to discuss it with the Commission. I feel he has still not exhausted his administrative alternatives and so I plan on reviewing the issue with him before I agree to place the item on the agenda.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 6/12/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 06/05 to 06/11 Met with Jerry Engleheart regarding a complaint about a neighbor. Met with Russ and Ellen regarding calculation of the $2.00 raise issue. We were not able to determine to an exact amount what had previously been granted to Police Officers. We decided to wait for Linda to return next week to settle this issue. Attended the SCEDO nominating committee meeting and nominated Jerry Stagner as President, Gary W. as Vice President, Patsy B. as Treasurer, and Alma G. as Secretary. Earl G. will serve on the SCEDO Board as past-President. The SCEDO Board accepted the nominations as presented. Met with Bobby Allen regarding issues with the Veterans Park and the Civic Center. Met with Pat, Ellen, and Helen to discuss options for training the Utility Department staff. It was decided to hire Rene on limited term contract to come in after hours to provide training for Helen. Helen would then train other staff. Met with Joe the junk dealer that has the second hand store on Date. Apparently he was given the remnants of equipment and junk left by Elite Shutters after they moved what they wanted. Joe then gave what he did not want to Willard Hall. Joe wanted to know how long he had before he had to move the rest of the junk from the City property. I gave him until the end of the month, at which time the City crews will take whatever is left to the landfill. Met with Leslie Lites about a neighbor to neighbor complaint. Met with Norm and Russ to discuss the progress of the Police Building work. Norm informed us that he has been successful in getting enough contractors to bid on the electrical job. Bids are due 6/22/06.
Interviewed Scott Weber, the New Utility Department Director (Helen has decided the department responsibilities were more that she imagined and has decided to go back to her job in the Finance Department.) Met with Paula Green regarding a complaint about the Citys use of air fresheners. She claims she is hypersensitive to certain chemicals and that air fresheners cause her to have an allergic reaction. I told her I would not remove air fresheners from City offices based on one persons possible (not proven) reaction. She said she was going to wage a campaign against the City on this issue. Met with Ed Williams to discuss City policy on the use of hepatitis vaccine. Met with all senior staff and discussed the upcoming employee picnic June 16th at 12:00, as well as other issues. The picnic will be held at the City pool, if the Commissioners are available your presence would be appreciated. Attended the SCEDO Board meeting. The Board approved the nominations for the Executive Board and decided to ask Gary W. to put a working subcommittee together to begin the process to rewrite SCEDOs By-Laws. Met with Steve Gee to discuss the Sierra Electric/City contract for service. I will further discuss this issue in closed session with the Commission. Met with Donna Reese regarding the outcome of the City, County, WNMU meeting. She asked that the City provide assistance by reducing Westerns utility costs. Westerns City utility bill costs them about $6800 a year. I told her I would ask the Commission to consider that issue at a future Commission Meeting. She also said that the Countys contribution would be used to offset the janitorial expenses.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 6/27/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 06/19 to 06/25 Attended the Utility Board Meeting to give them an update on the TriState power cost increase issue. Met with Russ, Nola, and Ellen. Russ was representing and speaking for the DWI Council. Nola had recommended that they change the Fiscal Managers from the City to another entity. The DWI Council asked Russ to meet with me and discuss the issue. Russ was satisfied that the City is doing everything within the law as well as accommodating the special needs of DWI and stated he would recommend that the DWI Council not change Fiscal Agents. Met with Bill Martin regarding the Hot Mineral Well issue. He stated that his artesian well has reduced its flow by 15% and he blames it on all the new wells being drilled in town. Met with Bobby Allen regarding the payment of two invoices that he turned in to the City. Ellen had refused to pay them because he did not follow proper procedures. One problem was that he did not properly bid the work and the other problem was that the invoice had the wrong date of service. At the same meeting, he stated that he would no serve as the park administrator. He later handed me the letter that the Commissioners have since been given. Met with Ellen and Ed Ragsdale to review the grant expenditures
for the Veterans Park. Met with Connie Manning, her husband, and Roy (ACO) regarding her dog that was put down by Dr. Cardwell. She made several claims that the City and the Dr. had not followed procedure but I found nothing to substantiate her claims. I told her she had to take responsibility for not following Roys recommendations and for not checking at the veterinarian before the 3rd day, and for not having a current ID tag on her dog. Met with Chris to review a new proposed sign ordinance that will be reviewed by the Planning and Zoning Commission in the near future. Held the bi-weekly staff meeting. Met with Donna Monroe regarding the Clean and Beautiful grant. Met with Sam Senn and Jack Witt regarding the Citys application with BLM to close the old landfill site.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 6/27/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 06/26 to 07/02 Attended a mandatory meeting in Albuquerque regarding our self insurance fund. I found we need to make some minor changes in our drug testing procedures in order to make them more equitable. Spoke with Randy A. regarding the use of one of his properties along Marie St. for use as a dirt storage area. He will be dumping excess dirt from the Wal-Mart site there. He will eventually get a grading permit and spread the dirt in order to make this property usable as home sites. Met with Ellen, Russ, Priscilla, and Linda regarding the pending change in the PERA plan for City Police. Linda informed The PD of the process. Apparently it will take a 100% positive vote of all the officers to allow the City to move forward. We plan to invite a representative from PERA to make a presentation to the officers. Once they are educated on the issues, we will take a straw vote, if we cant get 100% positive vote, we will drop the issue. If we get a 100% positive vote we will then ask the Commission for a resolution and then take a formal vote. The entire process will take about 6 months to complete.
Met with Ed Ragsdale regarding a briefing he gave me on a meeting held at the lake on a river trail issue. Apparently there are no formal plans and no funds for the venture but the state was looking for ideas and input. Met with Tom Knowlton from ASCG Engineers. He just finished inspecting the work by SmithCo on the Effluent Project. A final punch list was generated for SmithCo to complete prior to final payment. Met with Frank Torres regarding the new trash truck. He, Pat, and Robert checked out the new truck and found that it did not seem to meet the specifications of the bid. A meeting was held with the manufacturers representative and we found out we were looking at the wrong specs. The new sanitation truck is ok and will be put into service as soon as the manufacturer fixes some minor details. Because the truck was delivered after the due date, we also discounted $2000 from the sale price. I also toured some alleys with Frank to look at some of the trash that people are throwing away due to the Code Compliance actions. He was complaining that it is putting too much of a burden on his sanitation crew. The amount of trash people are throwing away is considerable, but I told him we had to continue to provide the service in order to keep our commitment to clean up the town. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 6/27/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 07/03 to 07/09 Met with Russ about his Departments overtime. It was all justifiable due to court appearances, staff vacations etc. Met with Jenny Bustamante regarding a grant application she needed signed. Also discussed the restroom issue for the Commission Chambers. She is very cooperative about using the restrooms in her building but this will not solve the problem. Attended the P and Z Commission meeting. I noticed that they were not following the public hearing procedures and I suggested that they continue the item to the next meeting so that I can give the chairman a script to follow. The Commission also heard from several businesses regarding the proposed changes to the sign ordinance. The Commission will hold a study session in 2 weeks to work with all interested parties on the ordinance.
Met with Senator Bingaman. He was in the area to tour the Morgan Street drainage project. He attended a presentation on the areas Meth problem, and he met with the Housing Authority Board. Met with Terri Baird from USDA regarding a grant for a wireless high speed internet system for the City. Apparently we do not qualify for the grant; the only other option would be a loan. I informed her that we had higher priorities for loan commitments. She informed us that we should look at the Gates Foundation. Met with Katie Roberts from the State Economic Development Department, Commissioner Rainey and a reporter from a French Magazine. The French reporter has been interviewing several people from Las Cruces, Hatch, and T or C, regarding the Spaceport. I attended a meeting last week regarding our self insurers fund. Several issues were raised about how cities can get a better rating and save money. I then met with Ed Williams to discuss these issues. As it turns out we have a very favorable rating but we will be making some minor changes to our procedures to hopefully get a better rating in the future. Met with Greg Neil and Steve Rouke regarding NASCAR. The news is very encouraging. The state and BLM are proceeding at a good pace to trade the 9 sections. He thinks the trade will occur by next May. Greg is lining up investors and has hired a nationally recognized Land Planning Firm to begin the planning process. The last time I met with Greg, I had mentioned that that should be their next step. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 7/14/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 07/10 to 07/16 Met with Jay to review the Pippen lawsuit. We later reported to the Commission the outcome of that meeting. Met with Gil to review the storm damage report. Fortunately there were only minor incidents for the Electric Dept. to deal with. Met with Linda regarding the issue of merit increases. For the benefit of the new Commissioners, Ill give you some background. Apparently, after the Sam Isom era, the City stopped giving out
merit pay increases to employees in order to reduce the burden on the budget. However, cost of living increases have been given every year. There was an informal policy put in place by a previous City Manager that rewarded employees with merit increases if they received some type of training certificate that benefited the City. The problem with this system is that it is inherently unfair to some employees because it cannot be applied uniformly. That means that some employees get merit increases because they can get training and certificates but others dont have that possibility. So Linda and I have been wrestling with this issue since my arrival. I have come to the conclusion that I will terminate the unwritten practice of doling out merit increases for certificates and that I will create a different method by which we can recognize (financially) our good employees. Met with an employee of the Fleet Maintenance Division regarding a grievance against his supervisor. Attended a meeting of the Hospital Board in which the approved this years operating budget. There was a question about the Citys GRT contribution that I am currently researching. I will have a report the City Commission on this issue in the near future. Met with the Tourism Board. Nothing new to report. Met with Lori Swanson regarding the use of the Civic Center to distribute commodities. I told her that I would not approve of the use of the Civic Center for three consecutive days, but that if she could cut the use to one day that we could work it out. Held a telephone meeting with Greg Neal and his Land Planning Consultant to discuss the issues that the City is concerned about regarding the NASCAR track and adjoining uses. I told the Planners that they needed to consider the airport land needs in forty years and that all current plans should keep buildings away from the growth area for the airport. We also talked about water and sewer needs among other topics. Met with Gary Lane regarding his contract with the City related to removal of white goods from the landfill. Currently we pick up the white goods in the alleys and take them to our landfill. He then picks them up at the landfill and takes them to get recycled. He wanted to know if we might be interested in delivering the white goods to his property so that he does not have to travel so far to pick them up. This would be good for us also because we would save on gas and time. He is located in the county west of the fair barn on the other side of the freeway. I told him that as long as the county permitted it we would start the move in 30 days.
Met with Linda regarding the proposed PERA changes for the Police Department. After we reviewed the effects of the change we both concluded that most officers will not benefit from the change so approval seems unlikely. We have set a meeting for 7/20/06 to discuss the issues with the officers. Met with the Golf Board and gave them an update on the proposed golf course development. (nothing really new to report, I am waiting for an agreement from them so that we can review it) Met with Frank Torres regarding the proposed distribution of the new polycart containers in the Cielo Vista neighborhood. We will first send out individual notifications to all customers with instructions on how the new system will work. This will be our test site to see how the polycarts are received. I selected the area because there are no alleys in this neighborhood and neighbors complain about the dumpsters sitting in front of their homes. The process will take approximately 60-90 days to complete. Held a department staff meeting in which we discussed the ICIP. This was the kick-off to the ICIP process. The next step will be to gather all the details of the ideas proposed by staff and then to hold a public hearing. After the public hearing the Commission will review and rank the proposals. Met with Clay Spear regarding the land sale to CMC Construction. He was not too happy with the idea of having to compete for the property because he was afraid he would not get it. Met with Russ and Norm about progress on the Police Building. The electrical contract has been let. The contractor will start by next week. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: 7/14/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners
From: RE:
Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager
Friday Memo week of 07/17 to 07/23 Met with the Citys auditors, they will be in the City for 4 days. So far, they are pleased with what they are finding. They have a little problem with some minor accounting errors in the Utility Department having to do with single dollar amounts. I explained about the turnover in the Utility Department and it seems to coincide with the errors they are finding there. Met with Paula Green and Delmas Howe regarding an issue that I will discuss with the Commission in closed session next week. Had several phone conversations with our Utility Engineer Jim Siano regarding his need for information on rates, and billing from WAPA and Sierra Electric. Attended a meeting hosted by Sierra Soil and Conservation. There were several people there to discuss the resurrection of the Rio Grand Trail. We also discussed reviving the Hot Water Falls at the Museum and a park that was supposed to be donated by the Armendariz Ranch near the river. Met with Andy and Chris regarding a resident who wants to develop a property on the east end of 9th Street. We decided to require that the resident must loop the water line and will be reimbursed when others tie onto the line. Met with Bernie, Jesus, and Andy to discuss water priorities having to do with expenditure of the state grant we are about to receive. We have decided that it is most important to connect the Morgan St. Tank to the upper zone tanks with a direct line instead of the existing plan to connect them through the existing distribution system. Attended and led the discussion at the P and Z workshop on the Sign Ordinance revision. The meeting lasted 2 hours and we only got through about 1/3 of the ordinance due to large citizen participation in the workshop. We have rescheduled a meeting for next month. Met with Linda regarding two pending personnel issues. Met with most of the Police Officers to review the PERA options. I informed them that we will call for a straw vote next week. Only if there is enough interest shown on the straw vote will we begin the process to change them over to another PERA plan. Held a telephone conference with DFA again! This is the 4th conference call with them as well as several other calls and
correspondence about reimbursing the Veterans Organization for the work they have done. The State once again asked for a change in the agreement (third time). It is a stupid change that does not amount to anything but it will again waste more time. We first asked for reimbursement for Bobby back in November and they still cant get it right. I have authorized Ellen to pay the Veterans the $18,000 now so that their interest does not continue to accumulate. I met with Imogene to discuss the golf course agreement with Richard Garcia. At last weeks meeting I mentioned to the Golf Board that the agreement was due for renewal, and that the Board needed to tell me of any changes to the agreement that they might wish to recommend. Imogene made some minor recommended changes and I told her I would take care of them. Actually I had already noticed the issues and planned to change them anyway. Met with Commissioner Torres about an improper e-mail issue that was brought to his attention. Apparently, SCCOG staff had used SCCOG computers to receive had forward illicit e-mail. I contacted Delbert, the Director, and he told me he was aware of the issue and the person involved had been disciplined. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 7/14/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 07/24 to 07/30 Met with Architect Bolling regarding the Vet. Memorial museum he designed. The project has been bid once in the past, but the one bid was rejected due to incompleteness. I asked Mr. Bolling to rebid the project with several alternatives so that we can be assured that the grant amount will not be surpassed. He will prepare the bid documents and drawings in two weeks. Met with Don regarding the work on Riverside Dr. The work by our crews has begun in preparation of the paving to be done by Bartoo next week (if the weather holds). Met with the Tourism Board. They discussed an idea that I endorse, which is that all groups that receive Lodgers Tax should run a coordinated advertising campaign in order to stretch the funds and in order to create a better impact. Met with the Animal Control staff to discuss the possible City Animal Shelter. All the facts are in and I will be making a presentation to the City Commission in 2 weeks. Met with the Regional Planning Organization and discussed future funding issues as well as the GRIP 2 proposal that will go before the Legislature next year. Met with SCEDO at their first meeting with the new board. Met with the Lodgers Tax Board. The proposal from the Tourism Board was discussed. As well as restricting the use of lodgers tax on a 75/25% split. In other words that 75% of the funds must be used outside the City. In order to encourage more visitors into the area. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 8/4/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 08/07 to 08/13 Attended a water conference in Santa Fe. While I was there I spoke with the State engineer and the States attorney, and I asked them if they planned to distinguish between hot mineral water and regular potable well water. They both immediately knew what I was talking about however they were elusive on the issue and in the end; they made no commitment to do anything. On the issue of the barking dogs, I plan to buy 2 cameras and place them at the library. The library will then lend them out with a deposit, ID and an agreement to replace the camera. The cameras will cost approximately $250 each. Only those people that are referred to the library by a police or animal control officer may check one out. We will also buy video tapes and sell them to customers at the library at cost. At the staff meeting on Thursday, the staff ranked the ICIP projects. They propose that only necessary city infrastructure be funded. They are concerned that the pending growth will overtax our physical resources. Met with Bobby Sanders regarding our codes related to animal cruelty. She suggested and I agreed that our laws need to be strengthened. In a recent case, a dog was removed from the owner by the judge, it was placed at the Vets care and 30 days later the owner picked up the dog and took it home. Presumably back to the same tick infested home that we took it from. Met with Susan Todd regarding the dog barking issue. Also, met separately with Kathleen Smith on the same issue. Apparently, the new rabies shots are good for 3 years. I will therefore propose to change the validity of our dog license for 3 years or the expiration date of the rabies shot whichever is less. This will take an ordinance change. In the meantime, with the Commissions acquiescence, the idea behind the dog tag is to make sure everybody vaccinates their dogs and to register them in case they are found on the street. Therefore it is important to make it very simple and affordable to register a dog. I will begin enforcing this new time line since we are now beginning a
proactive license enforcement program through our animal control officers. Attended the water well owners meeting Friday afternoon. Two of the well owners agreed to hire the geologist Wickner to study the issue. He will have an answer to the well owners and presumably the City by mid October. There were two main points he made: We should never limestone, and allow any body to drill over 140 feet into the
The cause of what has been happening recently probably has many different factors involved, including the lake level, the river level, and the drought we have been in for the past several years. He was more worried about the amount of water being pulled from the aquifer than the amount of wells that have been drilled. He also said that a concentration of wells could be a problem.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: 8/4/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 08/07 to 08/13 Attended a water conference in Santa Fe. While I was there I spoke with the State Engineer and the States water attorney. I asked them if they planned to distinguish between hot mineral water and regular potable well water. They both immediately knew what I was talking about however they were elusive on the issue and in the end; they made no commitment to do anything. On the issue of the barking dogs, I plan to buy 2 cameras and place them at the library. The library will then lend them out with a deposit, ID and an agreement to replace the camera if lost or damaged. The cameras will cost approximately $250 each. Only those people that are referred to the library by a police or animal control officer may check one out. We will also buy video tapes and sell them to customers at the library at cost. At the staff meeting on Thursday, the department directors ranked the ICIP projects. They propose that only critical City infrastructure be funded. They are concerned that the pending growth will overtax our physical resources. Met with Bobby Sanders regarding our codes related to animal cruelty. She suggested and I agreed that our laws need to be strengthened. In a recent case, a dog was removed from the owner by the judge, it was placed at the Vets care and 30 days later the owner picked up the dog and took it home. Presumably back to the same tick infested home that we took it from. Met with Susan Todd regarding the dog barking issue. Also, met separately with Kathleen Smith on the same issue.
It has come to my attention, that the new rabies shots are good for 3 years. I will therefore propose to change the validity of our dog license for 3 years or the expiration date of the rabies shot whichever is less. This will require an ordinance change by the Commission. The idea behind the dog tag is to make sure everybody vaccinates their dogs and to register them in case they are found on the street. Therefore it is important to make it very simple and affordable to register a dog. In the meantime, with the Commissions permission, I will allow dog licenses to be valid until the expiration of the rabies shots. I will begin enforcing this new time line since we are now beginning a proactive license enforcement program through our animal control officers. I attended the water well owners meeting Friday afternoon. Two of the well owners agreed to hire the geologist Wickner to study the issue. He will have an answer to the well owners and presumably the City by mid-October. There were two main points he made: We should never limestone, and allow any body to drill over 140 feet into the
The cause of what has been happening recently probably has many different factors involved, including the lake level, the river level, and the drought we have been in for the past several years. He was more worried about the amount of water being pulled from the aquifer than the amount of wells that have been drilled. He also said that a concentration of wells could be a problem.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: 8/18/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager RE: Friday Memo week of 08/14 to 08/20 Attended a meeting hosted by Donna Sanchez regarding the Countys Pandemic Flue Plan. Met with Commissioner Stagner. He briefed me on the history and details of the proposed Hot Springs Waterfall. Met with Steve and Paula Green to discuss a variety of matters including the proposed sign ordinance and the proposed SOB ordinance. Met with Greg Neil regarding the proposed Racetrack. Greg brought me up to date on the process. They are hoping to close the deal on the BLM land in 6 months. In the meantime his company has hired a land planner to begin work on the design of the racetrack complex which will include industrial buildings as well as an aviation component partnered with Eclipse Aviation. Met with the Planning and Zoning Commission in a 2 hour workshop with local businesses to review the final draft of the proposed sign ordinance. The changes to the proposed ordinance will be the subject of a public hearing at the 9/5/06 P and Z Commission meeting. Met with Rick Homans, and County and City Commissioners and staff to discuss the proposed rocket launch at the end of September. The City and County group agreed that we would take responsibility for providing traffic control with the leadership from the State Police as Incident Commanders. The group (Gary Whitehead) also agreed that
we would be responsible for providing a place for visitors to park and watch the launch from a safe distance. Opened the Bids for the 5 acre property sale that we advertised. The results will be shared with Commission in closed session. Met with Dr. Cardwell at his office. He gave me a tour of the facility. He informed me that he is planning to move to Texas and that his practice is up for sale. He also stated that if the city was interested he would sell us the property without the veterinarian equipment.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 8/28/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 08/21 to 08/27 Attended a meeting with Comm. Rainey, County Comm. Peterson, County staff, and property owners from the Desert Aire Community. Assemblywoman Hamilton was supposed to attend but she did not show. The purpose for the meeting was to ask Assemblywoman Hamilton about funding for a water line. Since she did not attend, the meeting is to be rescheduled. Met with Frank (Sanitation) and Robert (Service Center) about suspension work that a Sanitation truck needed. Normally it would be sent to Albuquerque, but a new employee (Stuart Ferrell) stated that he has done that type of work before but that we needed to buy some specialized equipment for approximately $5000. Robert stated that Electric and Streets are also going to need some of the same suspension work on their trucks soon. So I authorized the purchase of the equipment from 4 department budgets.
Attended a Water Conference in Albuquerque. The purpose for the meeting was to notify all Rio Grand water users that the northern counties are shifting water rights from the south to the north at an alarming rate. The group will continue to meet to see if we can influence the State Engineer to stop the water rights transfers. Met with Greg Neal from the NASCAR project. He has now brought in more investors to his venture. The latest proposal now includes a high end hotel, a golf course, retirement housing and a new concept that they plan to pitch to FEMA. The concept is that they will build for FEMA a temporary city of 15,000 homes to be moth-balled and used only during a national disaster like Katrina. They think FEMA will like the concept and by funding it they will bring all the necessary utilities and services to the area. As the Commissioners know, the project hinges on the BLM/State land swap. The land swap seems to be on schedule for mid 2007. They also requested that the City help them market the project by giving them a letter stating that they had exclusive rights to deal with the City on the development. I wrote them a non-committal letter (I sent a copy to the Commission last week) stating that the Commission would entertain the proposal as soon as they submitted an agreement for review. Met with Angel Mays (BLM) and Jack Whitt to discuss the Citys purchase of the old landfill. I filled out an application to get the process moving and Jack wrote a check for $100 and another for $19,000 for the BLM. The process seems to be on the fast-track with the BLM and we think we will be able to lease the property to Jack in a couple of months. Met with Mr. Broomfield who is the property owner of the house on Lincoln Street that experienced a mudslide on Tuesday (part of the mudslide also occurred on City property). I informed him that he had to hire an engineer to design a way to stabilize the slope. I also told him that the City was also going to hire an engineer and that he could hire the same person and save some money; He agreed. I met with an engineer from Engineers Inc. on Friday. He toured the site and said he would give us a proposal on Monday or Tuesday. I also met with David, the owner of Coffee Tea or C, and Sid Bryan, who were the victims of the mudslide. I told them that because the City property was involved in the mudslide, that the City crews would clean up the mess. Fortunately no one was hurt and no property damage occurred, except for some water and mud in the buildings. The latest GRT numbers for August are in. They are even higher than the June high of $240,617. August was $254,381. Businesses in town have reported to me that they are all having increases in sales and services.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 9/11/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 09/04 to 09/10 A second meeting with Rep. Dianne Hamilton was supposed to have occurred on Monday of last week but she cancelled at the last minute. Another meeting will be set up in the near future. Met with Engineers from Smith Engineering to discuss a sludge press
for the sewer plant. They suggested a 1.2 meter press that they had just installed in the City of Aztec. We will do some further investigation on the issue. Met with the Planning and Zoning Commission to review the proposed sign ordinance. The group of artists (same ones involved in the adult bus. Ord.) were there to protest that they wanted one more workshop with the Commission. There have already been 2 plus 2 Commission meetings. The Commission agreed to one more work shop. Met with Samuel Ace, Delmas and Steve Green regarding the proposed museum at the old fire station. They requested a letter to the state making assurances that they City was supportive of the museum. I sent the Commission a copy of the letter which in essence stated what the City has done related to this issue. Held the required public meeting with the community related to the adult business ordinance. The same people came and said pretty much the same thing. They focused on one particular issue about a warning sign required to be posted in front of the building. The only other usable comment came from Russ Peterson who suggested an appeals process. The ordinance is on the City Commission meeting this week. Met with George Bolling to review the proposed bid package for the Veterans Park Museum Building. We should be able to bid the project in 2 weeks. Met with Greg Neal regarding a proposed international aircraft manufacturer that is interested in locating in New Mexico. His company has prepared a packet that will be sent to the State Economic Development Department for submittal to the prospective Company. It is a long shot but this is exactly what Speedway Inc. is supposed to do, i.e. bring businesses into the area. I will keep the Commission posted on this issue. Attended a meeting with the proponents of the X-Prize event. They are looking for volunteers and school children to participate in this years event. Met with Chief Peterson, he informed me that one of his officers (Terry White) will be leaving us to go work for the county. Attended a meeting with the County Commission, Elephant Butte City Council, Williamsburg Trustees, and City Commissioners among others to discuss the pending Spaceport launch at the end of September. The meeting went well and different duties were assigned to people to work on the logistics of having a crowd of spectators show up for the first launch. Met with Jim Nesbitt to discuss the effluent water and the City/School
Officer agreement. He informed me that the school had decided not to hook up the high school to the effluent system due to concerns that the water at the field sometimes stands for hours before it evaporated or seeps into the ground. He said the middle school hookup could go on as planned because water percolates better there and does not stand. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE:
DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 9/15/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager
Friday Memo week of 09/11 to 09/17 Met with Kathy Clark and two other well owners. They just wanted to bring me up to date on what they and the association have been doing. Nothing to report of any significance. On a related issue the City asked EBID to help us measure the amount of water that is flowing into the river from the hot springs drain. The amount of water is incredible. 330,000 gallons per day! This is 1/4 of what the entire City uses in one day. Kathy thinks there are some older well owners that just keep the water running into the drain whether they use it or not. Seems to me that if the current well owners were more responsible about their use, there would be enough water for everybody to use. Met with engineer John Guen. He finished the report I asked him to do on the sewer and water hookup fees. I have not had a chance to review it but I will review it with the Utility Board on Monday. Met with Barbara Phelps, the new WNMU acting administrator for the Gardner Learning Center (GLC). We discussed the upcoming meeting with the Provost, the Mayor, Gary W., Comm.. Stagner, Ann Filosa, Regent Janos, and Donna Reese. We also discussed some maintenance issues at the GLC. The survey we sent out has a deadline of 9/15/06. We have received quite a number and the GLC has also received some. We will be turning over the completed surveys to Donna at the meeting so that Western can interpret and provide a report to the City. Met with Linda, Susan, and Ellen regarding cross training for Susans job (Payroll). Linda agreed to take on the task since she is already familiar with the system. Met with Bill Loomis to discuss our Grip 2 funding requests. Met with the Golf Board and updated them on the golf course expansion project. I met with Steve Stookey the land owner last friday and he told me that he was not happy with the speed that his employee Grieg Morrison was moving on this project. He said he needed to build a fire under him because he wanted this project to move faster. Met with the SCEDO Board. The Board approved a job offer to the top candidate for the Executive Directors job to Mindy Ybarra. She holds a similar job with Anthony NM. Met with Clay Spear to sign the purchase agreement that Jay wrote as a pre-agreement to the actual sale. An escrow account has been opened with Ekmar and we believe we will close before the end of
October. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 9/22/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 09/18 to 09/24 Met with the Spaceport Launch Event Task Force. The security and safety services have done an excellent job of coordinating those issues. The information to the public brochure has been commissioned. The cost will be spread between the City, County, and Tourism Board, about $400 each. All seems to be going well, well see the day of the launch (Monday) how things go. Attended the court session on the Roberts case. The jury did not seem to struggle with a quick verdict in our favor. We just dodged a $1.2 million dollar hit! Met with Colleen Cays. She is an entrepreneur that proposes to build a factory in Las Vegas, NM for a product that she claims will save energy, is green, and will bring jobs to the area. The product is a cider block type of material made with concrete and wood chips. She is also interested in building a factory in T or C. Jack Whitt has indicated to her that he is interested in using her system on his homes at the Golf course. Met with the Utility Board to review the proposed Power low bidder and the proposed sewer/water impact fee. Both of these issues are to be reviewed by the Commission next week. Met with the Rio Grand Corridor group. Merry Jo has begun having meeting with the group in an effort to revive the previously proposed waking/riding trail along the river and into the downtown area. Met with Don Gustin regarding the Sign Ordinance. He wanted to meet prior to the workshop with the Commission because he thought he could get his argument across better in person than in a group. Bob Bass was in town to review our dams with Don and the Corps of Engineers. Only minor comments were made having to do with weed and brush removal in some areas. Met with Jay Hopkins, he wanted to interview me regarding my first year anniversary with the City. Met with Rebecca Dow. She briefed me on an important matter. She told me that she had learned that WNMU was proposing to take our
grant of $334,000 and spend it in Silver City. Apparently WNMU has failed to spend the money in T or C since 1999. Several extensions have been requested from HUD over the years. This year the deadline for asking for an extension is in 7 days!! On Thursday of this week we met with WNMU. In attendance were Commissioner Gary W., Ann F., Commissioner Stagner, Mayor Montgomery, Steve Janos, Donna R., the WNMU Provost, and Myself. At that meeting they indeed confirmed that they were planning to move the money to Silver City and to use $100,000 in T or C. I have placed the item for discussion on the agenda for the 26th. Met with the representatives of FEMA regarding our application for assistance. They were very cooperative and helpful; Don will meet with our representative on Wed. to start the application process. Attended the P and Z Workshop on the Sign Ordinance. The issue will now go to the P and Z meeting on 10/3/06 for final recommendation to the Commission. Met with Ed Williams and Andy regarding safety issue in the trenches. We agreed to purchase some portable shoring equipment and some different types of hard hats that wont fall off when a person stoops over. We also agreed to do some staff training on the issue of trench oversight. Met with Steve Stookey to review the progress on the golf course. We began the review of the legal agreement between the City and the developer. This review is still in the infancy stages eventually the agreement will be reviewed by Jay and the Golf Board before it goes to the Commission. Dont forget the Police Open House on Saturday. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 10/2/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 09/25 to 10/01 Attended the Launch on Monday. I was going to view it from Highway 51, until the public was informed that there would be a delay until 10:30. The event was well organized; members of the Tourism Board were at the L-7 Road checkpoint giving out brochures and information. Met with Rebecca Dow before the City Commission meeting to discuss the Western NMU proposal to take the $234,000 to Silver City. She briefed me on the history of the project as she knew. Met with the Tourism Board, we discussed the possibility of creating a strategic plan for spending the Lodgers Tax. The idea would be to hire a media consultant to help us and the Lodgers Tax Board spend the money more wisely and get more effect from it. The Chair agreed to speak with a local firm and bring back some information on the subject. Met with Jim Siano, Steve Gee (Sierra Coop), a Tri-State staff member, Charlie H., Scott W., and Gil A. to review the contract with Sierra. We essentially revised the existing contract. We spent about three hours at the Sierra Offices and I am now in the process of reviewing the contract with Jay. In order to meet the deadlines for the PRC we need to get a contract to the Sierra Board by 10/20/06. My plan is to have a Special Meeting of the Utility Board on 10/11/06 and then a Special Meeting of the City Commission on or about 10/17/06. Met with Randy A. and Andy A. regarding some changes that Randy wanted regarding the location of the main water line on Date. Andy and I had talked about it before and Andy did not think it was a good idea. We convinced Randy to keep the water line in the location the original plans showed it.
Don met with the FEMA representative and took him out on a tour of the damaged areas and showed him the work the City had done in response to the floods. The report from Don is that the FEMA Rep. was helpful and encouraging. We believe we will get some of our money back. The only project he said was not eligible for reimbursement was the work that we did to clear the mud slide behind Main St. Attended the Hospital Board meeting, there were several people there protesting the firing of Dr. Burger. The Board could not comment due to pending litigation with the doctor. Also I noticed that in the discussion of their budget, they did not report the GRT contribution correctly so I sent them a letter two days later to that effect. Met with Matt from the Utility Services Company who is preparing an RFP for tank repair for us. We discussed the content of the RFP and he said he would send me a digital copy so that we could customize it to our needs. We received the results of the asbestos investigation on the old water offices on Riverside. I had been told that the asbestos was only on the roof, but the report shows that there is asbestos in all parts of the building. We are now in the process of getting a quote on removal so that we get an idea of the cost. Met with Debbie Audette who is a businesswoman from El Paso. She is looking to relocate her business in town and wanted some advice. Met with Linda Bauer regarding the Police PERA issue. I sent the Chief a memo on the issue and copied the Commission. Met with Department heads and reviewed next years goals. Met with Code Compliance Officer Chavez and discussed the issue of personal contact and human relations with him. I also told him he is doing an excellent job and that the Commission had commended him on his work. Met with Smith Engineering staff regarding an RFP for the sewer plant. I asked them to do an RFP for a belt press for us. The RFP will also serve to hire an engineering firm to plan the plants expansion to meet future needs. Had a phone conversation with Steve Stookey, he has placed the Jerry Fahl property in escrow. It is approximately 240 acres located near and around the Ace hardware store. Stookey has said in the past that if he was successful in getting the property, he would donate 5 acres to the hospital. This promise was made to Kerry Kent at his insistence. I asked him if that was still a promise he intended to keep and he said yes. I asked him if we could use the promise to talk to the Governor about funding and he said we could. Closing on the property should take
about 45 to 60 days. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 10/6/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 10/02 to 10/08 Met with Margaret Stokes regarding parking for the fiddlers. She wanted the City to allow 2 RVs for two handicapped members to be allowed to park in the Civic Center Parking lot. I told her it was ok as long as it was only for the handicapped. Steve Gee, Jim Siano and I have been corresponding by e-mail this week to get the final wording on the Sierra Coop Agreement finaled. We have come to an agreement and the proposed contract will be reviewed by the Utility Board on 10/11/06 then by the Commission at a special meeting on 10/17/06. Met with Mayor Bob Barnes, Councilwoman Adrianne P., their engineer, and Steve Gee about electrical service for the sewer plant. Apparently their engineer assumed that power would come from Sierra. When he applied, he was told it was in the T or C jurisdiction. The problem is that we do not have any power lines in the area. A cost analysis was done by Gil and our engineer and it would take the City over ten years to
recuperate the investment of running power lines to the area. We would also need to buy, lease or negotiate easements along the way. Sierra is willing to serve if we give them permission, they have 3 phase power within a few hundred feet of the proposed plant. I told the group that I would recommend that Sierra provide power but that eventually it would be a Commission decision to allow Sierra to provide power in our jurisdiction. I asked Steve Gee to prepare an agreement to that effect. Once it is submitted to us I will take to the Utility Board and the Commission. Met with LaRena Miller regarding the Video Shoot as part of the banner program. We are entitled to 4 videos promoting our City. I told LaRena that the company (CGI) would send a videographer to town on Wednesday. I asked for her help in preparing sites, photos and information on our City for the Video. I also asked Steve Green to give the videographer a tour of the area. They both stepped up to the plate and gave the videographer tons of shots and information. Kathy Clark also helped LaRena and Steve in this effort, kudos to them! Met with the State Taxation and Revenue Department auditors for an exit interview. I will give the Commission a report at the next Commission meeting but apparently we may end up owing the state close to $50,000 for taxes we did not pay (compensating tax) for materials we used for construction from the year 2000 to present. Apparently they have a new interpretation of construction materials that does not agree with the Department of Finances interpretation and since we were using the DFAs interpretation we now have to pay! It is totally unfair and unjustified but they apparently are getting away with it with other cities. Met with Linda, Robert, and Joe McDonald regarding personnel issues at the Service Center. Attended the P and Z Commission meeting related to the proposed Sign Ordinance. The Commission approved the proposed ordinance with one minor change. This item is scheduled for the City Commission agenda of 10/10/06. Met with the CGI Videographer and coordinated the work with LaRena, Steve and the Mayor. Met with our Electrical Engineer (SGS Whitter), Gil, and Charlie H. to review a load study he performed for us the study proposes several improvement that we need to make in the near and far future in order to accommodate the expected growth. Met with Jay regarding the proposed SOB ordinance and the comments from the ACLU and the local artists group. The essence of the meeting is contained in my report to the Commission for next Tuesdays
meeting. Met with Ellen, Pat and Scott to review the Audit report and our response. Met with Lori, Mary, and Jay to review next meetings agenda. Met with Jay Armijo from SCCOG. He has recently been hired and his job will be, in the immediate future, to assist us in the legislative appropriation process. Met with Chris, Jimmy Robbins, and Don regarding the last Phase of the Morgan St. Drainage Project. We identified several concerns that we need to communicate to the NRCS at their pending pre-construction conference with the new contractor. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 10/16/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 10/09 to 10/15 Met with Orlando Romero, he was asking for the reason why the City
cannot grant him a variance on the beer and wine license since he has contacted the church and they do not object. I explained that the City passed an ordinance that states that no variances may be given. He asked about the process to get that changed. I told him to write a letter and I would present it to the City Commission. Met with the arbitrator on the Pippen case in Las Cruces. After 4 hours of negotiation, we agreed to a monetary settlement. This will be discussed at the Commission Special Meeting on Tuesday. Met with Randy Ashbaugh to discuss legal issues. He agreed to support our proposed filing in court and said he would file jointly. Met with Gil Avelar regarding the pole fence at the golf course along Marie St. he said he would get started this week. The plan is to put a vehicle barrier along Marie to keep trespassing vehicles from tearing up the golf course. Met with Yolanda Sepulveda, she is interested in promoting the pool cover. She said she would talk to our legislators. She wanted more information on the cost and type of building. I gave her some information and suggested she contact Roof-Us for more details.
Interoffice Memo
Date: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 10/23/2006
To: From: RE:
Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager
Friday Memo week of 10/16 to 10/22 Met with Chris regarding a lady who is proposing an adult business on the corner NW of 7th and Date. Apparently she is not ready to fill out an application but she did begin the process of identifying the surrounding property owners so that they may be notified of her intentions. This notification procedure is required under the current ordinance, however, the constitutionality of this procedure is in question. Met with Stewart Ferrell (he is the employee who stays in the mobile home at Ralph Edwards Park). He recommended that we enact a curfew at the park because he says that there is too much activity at night and that the police tell people to leave but that there is no violation of an ordinance according to the PD. I will meet with Russ to discuss the issue. Met with Jay, the Mayor and Mary to review the agenda and to discuss the proposed moratorium on adult businesses. Attended a meeting in Albuquerque that was sponsored by the Municipal League Self Insurers Fund. The purpose of the meeting was to sensitize Mayors and City Managers about the importance of reducing accidents in the work place. Our City is about average in terms of our claims and accident rates. I will be proposing to the City Commission a program meant to increase attendance at safety meeting by our employees and reduce accidents. The proposal will require an investment of $100,000 in raises for employees. It is actually a much deserved raise that I am tying to safety issues. Met with Chris to review my report to the Commission on the comparison of the existing sign ordinance to the proposed ordinance. That report will be discussed at the next City Commission meeting. Met with Ron H. and Ellen to discuss an internal budget adjustment for the purpose of paying for the telephone system to be moved to the new PD Building. The move will take place at the end of this month. Met with Merry Jo and Bobby A. to discuss the proposed Soil Conservation (NMACD) Conference. This will be the first major conference in the Civic Center in many years. We discussed some remaining issues related to dishes, cleanup and meeting rooms. The Conference is scheduled for 10/31 thru 11/2/06. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 10/31/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 10/23 to 10/29 Met with John Westra (Civic Center Manager), Merry Jo Fahl, Bobby Allen, and Norm regarding the upcoming conference which will bring 250 people to the City on 10/30 thru 11/2. They indicated that we had a problem figuring out who would do the dish washing for the event. Gary Whitehead was to have spoken with Jenny Bustamante about doing the dishes but Jenny has told them she didnt know anything about it. I told them I would contact Jenny. I spoke to Jenny the next day and we came to an agreement. Her staff will charge $1.00 per plate setting (to be paid by the Civic Center renter). On the first day, they will have to work overtime since it is a dinner event and they will require 4 buss-carts to be donated to the Senior Center in exchange. SCEDO will pay half of the cost of the carts ($400.00) and the City will pay the other half. The carts will be used in the future for catering meals at the Civic Center. Met with members of the County and the State regarding the need to update our 911 software and information. The County and all Municipalities have an obligation to provide dispatch with updated information on addresses. T or C is deficient in its compliance with this obligation and we will need to provide the information to dispatch in the near future. Jan P. Carrejo and I talked about possibly sharing a GIS (Geographic Information System) person to do the work for the County and the City. Met with the Tourism Board. I handed out certificates of appreciation to Kathy Clark, LaRena Miller, and Steve Green for their help on the City Tourism Video. Met with Linda to review two positions descriptions; the Utility Manager and the Clerk/Receptionist positions will become vacant in a couple of weeks. Met with the same group of people that coordinated the Spaceport Launch last month to do a de-briefing. We identified several issues that we or the State Econ. Dev. Department needs to change before the next launch. The date of the next launch is not yet known. Met with the Department heads and discussed a possible Christmas party for the employees. We all agreed it was a good idea and we set up a committee to put it all together. The event will be tentatively at the Elks Lodge on 12/15/2006. Attended the Meet Mindy event to meet Mindy Ybarra the new SCEDO Executive Director.
Attended the SCEDO and SCOG/RPO meetings, nothing new to report. Met with Jeff Mills Geologist from NMED. Mr. Mills gave us a briefing on the contaminated sites under the old gas stations on Broadway @ Main. Essentially he said an older site next to BBQ on Broadway is no longer a threat and will be taken off NMEDs list of contaminated sites. The two sites at Broadway and Main are still active but they have not migrated and are not considered a danger to groundwater at this time. NMED will continue to monitor the sites but they do not plan any action. Attended the Lodgers Tax Board meeting. They recommended that the City Commission consider making all Lodgers tax recipients spend their funds on the 75/25 formula for next years funding. This means that 75% of the funds would have to be spent outside a 50-mile radius from the City and 25% could be spent locally. Met with Joe Finazzeo. He is a pilot and is interested in leasing the Pippen building for a hanger and a mechanics shop. He currently lives outside the state but is looking for a house in the area. I told him I would put some figures together on the cost of the building.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 11/6/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 10/30 to 11/05 After Commissioner Renfro pointed out some errors in the current budget. I decided to have our auditors review it again. On 10/30/06 Ellen and I met with our auditors in Albuquerque to review the budget. They were very helpful and fortunately we found no more errors. We planned to have a budget adjustment on the next Commission meeting but Ellen had some family business to attend to in Oregon and we will not have the budget adjustment ready until the Commission meeting of 11/28/06. Spoke with Greg Neil (Raceway Inc.) regarding the progress of the racetrack. He indicated that the BLM had reviewed the proposed land exchange with other Federal Agencies and no one protested the land exchange. This cleared the way for the exchange to take place without any concern that some Federal Agency would later protest the exchange. BLM will now sign the agreement to do the exchange as soon as other bureaucratic hurdles are taken care of, but this was the most important one. He also said that this now frees up his investors money (5 Million) so that he can begin doing the land planning. Met with Pierce Reynolds from ASCG to review the plans for the 3 rd St. Sidewalk project. Don will review the plans and provide feedback to the engineer in 2 weeks. The project will then be bid in about 4 weeks. Opened the bids for the Veterans Museum Building. Unfortunately we had only one bidder even though eight contractors had attended the mandatory pre-bid meeting. The bid came in too high ($396,350) and we will therefore recommend that the bid be rejected at the next Commission meeting. I received a letter from Jim Nesbitt stating that the portable buildings that we were interested in were going to be sold at auction and that if we
were interested, we would have to bid on them like everybody else. This poses a problem since we cannot pay more that the appraised value. I plan to write him a letter explaining our situation and also that public agencies usually give each other first rights to public property before the property is sold to the public. Spoke with Mrs. Morgan (citizen) regarding her wish that the City recycle more goods. I explained we recycle our treated water, the metal from white goods, cardboard, newspaper, sludge from the sewer plant, oil from our vehicles and green waste. She was surprised and said we should let people know. I told her it was a good idea and we will put this on our utility bills. Spoke with Yolanda Sepulveda (see memo under separate cover). Also interviewed other people related to the case including Chief Peterson. Interviewed 7 applicants for the Utility Manager position. We had a good selection of interviewees and in the final analysis I selected Michael Atchley from the Wastewater Plant as the successful applicant. Met with the Geronimo Trails Committee regarding a status report on current grants. We also discussed applying for a new grant. We all opined on what should be funded with the proposed grant. Attended the hospital board meeting. I had sent them a letter in September through Ellen telling their finance people that they were not properly reporting the GRT revenue that we were sending them as well as the credit they receive on their utilities. At the meeting I noted that we had not received a response and that in my opinion, their financial statements were still incorrect. They said they would review it for the next meeting. Attended the Water and Soil Conservation Conference that was held in the Civic Center. The place was packed! And everybody had a good time I received nothing but compliments about our staff and the facilities. The Conference brought 250 people into town and filled up almost every motel for 3 days. Attended the 4-H Turkey Shoot at the Citys Gun range. It was well attended and people had a lot of fun. Met with the County Commissioners to discuss the possibility of hiring a lobbyist in Washington DC. I explained that the City did not have any pending grant applications at the Federal level, so a Washington Lobbyist was not something that I could support at this time. Met with our Parks Crew, Merry Jo Fahl, Bobby Allen, and the state Soils and Conservation folks at the Veterans Park to take a picture of the new sign that was placed there in recognition of the grant that was awarded to the Park for trees and plants.
Met with about 50 City employees at our first City employee general meeting in the Commission Chambers. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the proposed raises that they will have an opportunity to earn. The other subject on the agenda was a proposed employee x-mas party. They were enthused about the proposed raises and they endorsed the way we will tie the merit increase to their performance in safety issues and training. They also requested that we have more of these types of meeting so I plan to do them about once a quarter. Interoffice Memo: City Manager
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 11/20/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo weeks of 11/06 to 11/12 and 11/13 to 11/19 Computer problems did not allow me to issue the report for last week. We have interviewed applicants for the IT position and we had a good number of people to choose from. Hopefully the new computer guy will start in a couple of weeks and we wont have these computer problems any more. Met with Mr. Porter from FEMA. He said we would get approximately $3000 for work we did in response to the flooding. He also said he had authorized us to do some more flood prevention or repair work and that we would get reimbursed. The P and Z Commission met to review a request from the City to vacate the alley behind Main St. The Self Insurers Fund Staff recommended that we vacate the alley since it does not serve a City purpose. Mr. Porter (FEMA) also said we were not going to get reimbursed for the work we have done in the landslide cleanup or any future work because the alley was not in use by the City. The P and Z Commission denied the Citys request for the alley vacation. Staff will appeal the decision to the City Commission.
Met with Architect Bolling regarding the bids for the Vets Museum. We discussed future plans for bidding. I told him we would probably wait until the end of the Legislative Session to see if we got more money for it. Met with the Golf Board to give them an update on the proposed expansion. I told them there was nothing new to report. The new patio cover has been installed and the Board has had volunteers do cosmetic repairs to the existing building. Met with Barbara Sholkofsky top discuss the need to get our 911 addressing up to date. She proposed that one of her staff would be willing to do the work if the City could provide a driver and a vehicle. I told her we would. Spoke with Officer Portillo of the State Police. He informed me that the States investigation on the alleged harassment by Police Chief Peterson proved to be invalid and that the State Police had concluded the investigation, cleared the Chief and closed the case. Attended the Veterans Memorial events. The logistics seemed to go well and a good time was had by all. Met with Randy Ashbaugh. He is interested in buying all of our remaining effluent water for his property that lies west of the freeway. He said he wanted the City to keep him in mind before we sell it to anybody else. Attended the Elephant Butte Chamber of Commerce meeting to review current projects in the City. Met with Linda regarding the employee committee that is reviewing City Personnel Policy. We went over the suggestions and we believe we will have a report to the Commission in 30 days. Met with Chief Peterson to go over the policy on liquor violations enforcement. I told him to enforce the law if his officers witness a violation. I also told him to put together a Standard Operating Procedure for this type of enforcement so that all officers know what to do and do it uniformly. Met with Naydene Gardner and Mel Tepper regarding this years Cancer event. Mr. Tepper wants to skip the walk-athon and instead he wants to bring a magic show to the Civic Center. Met with the SCEDO Board. We discussed the Convention that just passed and identified issues we need to deal with before we get another convention. The proponents of the convention had nothing but praise for the facility and staff. The problem occurred with the local hotels. They were reported to be very uncooperative and rude to customers. Mindy and I will set up a meeting with the hotel owners in the near future to see if we can get them to be more cooperative when we are trying to fill their
rooms!
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 12/4/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 11/26 to 12/02 Met with Chief Peterson regarding setting up a standard operating procedure for the enforcement of the liquor sales. He has responded with a memo to his officers that states that they will investigate complaints or if they see a violation they will take the necessary steps to write a complaint to the District Attorney for possible prosecution. Met with Mary P. to discuss confidentiality among her employees. We agreed that I would write a confidentiality agreement that all employees would sign. I wrote the agreement, had it reviewed by
Human Resources and Mary. Mary will have all employees including herself sign the agreement when she hires the new receptionist. Met with SCOG and CDBG/State staff to discuss the Community Development Block Grant. Apparently, if we are able to finish the Ash St. Circuit before 12/12/06 we will be eligible to reapply for CDBG funds this coming year. I contacted the engineer on the Ash St. Circuit job and asked him if he could issue a certification that indicated that the work was complete. He said we were very close to finishing and that he did not see a problem with issuing the letter before 12/12/06. Met with Rick Courtney regarding his status with the Housing Authority. He briefed me on his plans and the issues he and the Housing Board are dealing with. Met with Pierce Runnels from ASCG engineers regarding the 3rd St. sidewalk project. Pierce, Don, Benny and I reviewed the plans and went out in the field to review some issues with drainage. We asked him to review the plans with NMDOT and to make some changes then we would meet again. Met with the Finance staff to review the upcoming proposed budget amendments. The amendments will be reviewed by the Commission at their meeting next week. Met with Ms. Smith regarding the dog barking problem. Apparently the Police Department has not implemented the dog barking policy and I assured her that it would be done immediately. I sent Chief Peterson a memo to that effect and he responded by stating that all officers are now knowledgeable about the policy. I attended a City Managers meeting in Albuquerque this week; one of the interesting issues we discussed was that NMED was taking over 2 years to approve new landfills. Apparently Deming has spent over $250,000 in engineering studies and 3 years later still does not have an NMED Permit. We also discussed the problem of having volunteer fire departments not complying with safety training. The consensus was that the city pays for their insurance and we should therefore have the right to require them to show up to safety training classes. We opened the bids for the booster pumping station and water line. There was only one bidder (SmithCo) but the bid came in lower that the engineers estimate, so we believe it is a good bid. The engineer will review the bid and provide a recommendation for the Commission to review by your meeting next week.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 12/8/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager
RE:
Friday Memo week of 12/04 to 12/08 Met with Gil to discuss the pending switchover to the Ash St. Circuit. We met again after it was done (in less than 4 hours) and it all went very smoothly. Met with Don Porter from FEMA to review the amount of funding that the City would receive in reimbursement for the flood damage this past summer and spring. A full report on this issue will be made to the Commission on 12/12/06. Met with our new IT person by the name of Bob Hupp. He stared this week. He was most recently employed by Riolink. He started on some of our problem computers right a way and he seems to be very knowledgeable. Met with Architect John Carson before his presentation to the Recreation Board to go over his presentation. The meeting with the Board went very well. The project the team of Architects presented was an eye opener. I think most of the audience expected the normal swimming pool type skateboard park. What they presented is apparently the state of the art park that looks more like a plaza that can be used for other events besides skateboarding and doesnt have the drainage problems that the traditional parks have. Commissioners Renfro and Rainey also attended. Met with John Westra and Ed Ragsdale to review issues with the Civic Center. Apparently the State Fire Marshal inspected the building and gave us a list of requirements to repair including removing the drapes (already done) and repairing the sprinkler system that has been disabled. Met with Linda regarding the proposed changes to the personnel policy that is on the Commission agenda for next week. Met with Mindy Ibarra regarding the changes to the office space in the Civic Center. The SCEDO Board and the Chamber have held a joint meeting to discuss possibly joining forces in order to better coordinate their similar efforts. As an outcome of the meeting they tentatively agreed to reconfigure the office space and share the space in order to better serve the public. John Westras office would then be located in front so that the public would have direct access to him also. The proposed changes look promising. I told Mindy that I would await a formal request from SCEDO before we could start on any changes to the office space. Met with Jay Hopkins to discuss the coming negotiations with our cable provider. Apparently the franchise agreement ends on September of 2007 and he was asking what the City will require in the negotiations. I told him it was premature to discuss at this point. Upon further review of the files, Mary found two conflicting pieces of
information. The original agreement that states that the franchise is good until 2013 and a letter from the prior cable company says that the agreement will end in September of 2007. At this point Im trying to sort out the discrepancy. If any of the Commissioners have any more information on this issue please let me know. Met with Andy to discuss the proposed Legislative requests for this coming year. I am in the process of putting our packet together for the legislators and the governor.
Interoffice Memo
Date: To: From: RE: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 12/18/2006 Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager Friday Memo week of 12/11 to 12/17 Met with Chris and Joey Perry. She is a retired planner from San Diego who is interested in volunteer work. I asked her if she would work on zoning the newly annexed area of the City and she agreed. She will start Monday, working a few hours a day. Ellen Evans submitted her resignation effective 12/15/06. I have named Hlen Belis as the acting Director. We will advertise for the Finance Officer next week. Met with the RPO (Regional Planning Organization) Board in Elephant Butte City hall. I asked them, and they agreed, to support the citys request to have NMDOT expedite the off-ramp design for Wal-Mart. I also spoke to the District engineer and the design engineer and sent them an e-mail on the issue. Attended the safety meeting with PNM at the E. B. Inn. Met with Tony McRoberts, Delbert Fraisinet ( from SCCOG), Ray Chavez and Gil Avelar to discuss the possibility of the City applying for a CDBG grant this coming year to upgrade the Wiliamsburg Circuit. The deadline is January 5th 2007. Unfortunately it is a short deadline because we just found out that we are eligible to apply. Delbert stated that SCCOG will help us put the application together but that we need to do a sample survey of the 2000 residents that will benefit from the electrical system upgrade. Ray will use some students from the high school to do the phone and field survey. Attended the SCEDO Founding Fathers Meeting. The Employee Christmas Party was fabulous and well attended.
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Interoffice Memo
Date: DATE \@ "M/d/yyyy" 12/29/2006 To: Honorable Mayor and City Commissioners From: Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager RE: Friday Memo week of 12/18 to 12/31 Met with NMDOT engineers Frank Guzman and Maria Hinojos, Randy A., Don A. and Randys engineers at the Freeway off-ramp site to discuss issues related to the off-ramp redesign. NMDOT was very cooperative and after the field visit we met at the Red Room in the civic center to review point by point the issues that NMDOT wanted Randys engineers to change or write. The whole process took over 2 hours. The end result was that after 8 months of review by NMDOT, they finally seemed to get the idea that this is an important project for the city. Not that it was all their fault, Randys engineers dropped the ball on at least 2 occasions that caused a 2 month delay in the review process. The estimate is that after Randys engineers revise their submittal, NMDOT will take 7 more weeks to give them an unoficial nod to proceed with the understanding that there is still more work to be done in designing the final plans and review and approval by Santa Fe and the Feds. Randy thinks Wal-Mart will re-bid their building after they get the nod from NMDOT. That means actual construction may not begin until April or May.
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2006 - City Manager Jaime Aguilera's Memos To Mayor, City Comm. & Attorney

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2006 - City Manager Jaime Aguilera's Memos To Mayor, City Comm. & Attorney

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Interoffice Memo

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Interoffice Memo: City Manager

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Interoffice Memo: City Manager

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To: From: RE:

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Jaime Raul Aguilera, City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

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October. Interoffice Memo: City Manager

about 45 to 60 days. Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

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Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

Interoffice Memo: City Manager

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Interoffice Memo: City Manager

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