Board Seeks Support from LRGPWWA

Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors, June 26, 2024

Immediately before President Wade Cornelius opened the meeting at 6:33 p.m., County Commissioner Shannon Reynolds commented that his topic appeared late on the agenda, suggesting he wanted to be moved up. He also noted that he had just had conversations that day with both Rep. Doreen Gallegos of District 52 and the county manager indicating a potential positive outcome for the Vista del Rey Mutual Domestic Water Consumers’ Association’s proposed roadwork.

There was a bit of a scramble seeking additional agendas for the meeting, questions regarding whether the board had a quorum, and the president’s comment that a sign-in-sheet was going around the room. Morgan noted that three board members outside of her, were physically present—including President Cornelius, and a fourth had suggested he might be attending by phone. Also present were the commissioner, Mark Sechrist, Heidi Batchelcher (Hatley), Martha and Skip Trego, Randy Mellor, Rob Campion, and Tiffany Santos (these last two are board members; Patrick Stafford, also a board member, did not phone in.)

The president then invited the commissioner to introduce himself. Reynolds noted he is serving his second term as commissioner for District 3 of Doña Ana County (in which Vista del Rey Estates is situated), the last term he will be able to serve. He said that Rep. Doreen Gallegos had had a conversation with the acting county manager earlier that day, about which he had had a subsequent conversation with the county manager. In that conversation, he learned that about twice what the water association has is needed to improve the road—if the county were to do the work—and that if the county gives the money to the water association to do the work on the road, it could avoid having to meet county standards, i.e., such as typical road width.

According to the plat map for the Vista del Rey Estates, both Vista del Rey Avenue and Santana roads were dedicated to the county, except for that portion that lies outside the subdivision and between it and High Valley Farms. The commissioner said that the acting county manager had determined that Santana Road was not dedicated. Therefore, the county was not interested in doing one road (Vista del Rey), while not doing the other. Additionally, Rep. Gallegos was not able to get enough money to do both roads, which would have amounted to about $600,000. She was able to get about $200,000, the commissioner said. The county is suggesting that instead of having the county do the association’s roadwork, VDRMDWCA should take it on, hire its own contractor, and get the best road it can for the amount of money available between the remains of its Capital Outlay funds and what the representative was able to obtain.

Heidi Hatley then inquired as to the lack of foresight in having a paved county road out here by its lonesome with no paved access to it. While all agreed that the order of the road improvement does not make sense, it is what is possible at this time. Additionally, Reynolds indicated that it would be the county’s intention to obtain funding to improve Santana Road the following year. Hatley likely was not a resident of the area using the water system when the project began, but the goal was to improve the water system; roads were always secondary on the Board of Directors’ list of desirable improvements. Additionally, as there has always been some dispute over whether the county or the area homeowners own Vista del Rey and Santana roads, and because of that the order of improvement could not be decided until the matter was cleared up.

Reynolds invited us to provide copies of the plat of the subdivision that should show private and county roads. (The association had not determined that both roads had been dedicated on the VDRE plat map prior to this meeting.) The commissioner said that according to the county engineer, Santana Road is not a county Road, and Vista del Rey is, but perhaps only a part of it. [Note: The plat map for Vista del Rey Estates subdivision indicates that all roads shown within the subdivision are dedicated, but the portion of Santana Road that lies outside the subdivision between VDRE and Arapaho Road may not dedicated.]

Reynolds said that the county is required to do things to meet certain standards that make having the county do the work more expensive. Cornelius then inquired whether Souder, Miller, and Associates Engineer Marty Howell, attending by phone, had picked up on Reynolds’ comments. He noted that he had and that something called CES might allow the water association to select a company to improve the road without having to go to bid. This should mean less cost for engineers. He wanted to check with his team first to determine whether that was the best approach. He said we may need to decide whether to do only a portion of the road, or whether to do the whole road to a lower quality than the county might require of itself. The commissioner recommended holding off on making that decision, as Rep. Gallegos had indicated she might be able to come up with additional funds that may be available this year.

Reynolds vowed to set up a meeting in which he and other county officials could look the subdivision plat map, where there is room to spread out and access to records in the county clerk’s office, if they were found to be needed. Morgan inquired when that might be, and he indicated that he could let her know the following day. The county is required to do more design and engineering than the water association would be, so, he indicated that it should cost much less for the water association to improve the road than for the county to do so. It might work out better for the water association to improve the roads and then turn maintenance over to the county.

Mark Sechrist said that he remembers Bob Melvin, former owner of the Bishop Cap Ranch, putting up signs identifying Vista del Rey as a private road, perhaps even by the county. Campion then asked whether the county or a developer had paved the portion of Santana Road to the corner with Arapaho Road. It appears that the developer did part of it, and the county the remainder. This, in essence, was Santana, Arapaho, Bishop Cap, and a portion of High Valley Farms roads.

Moving on to the approval of minutes, Morgan noted that she appreciated the board members having read the minutes so that they could be presented to the board for approval. She also made the point that any water association member can request a correction to minutes, even if they have already been approved. She pointed out that at the previous meeting, it appeared that Campion’s financial report had been discussed and Stafford had made a motion to approve it. However, Morgan noted that it appeared that the motion had never been seconded nor passed. The president said he thought he remembered the secretary’s tape recorder had given out at a previous meeting and that that may have been the occasion. Morgan said that it did not appear to her that that had been the case here. In this meeting, Tiffany Santos seconded the motion that was incomplete to approve the financial report in the earlier meeting. It was approved unanimously by those board members present, and Morgan noted that she would put an amendment on the previous minutes to the effect that the motion had been seconded in a subsequent meeting and passed unanimously. Morgan also (erroneously) thought that she had provided two sets of minutes to be approved at this meeting, and the board approved the second batch unanimously.

Campion was then invited to give the current financial report of which hepassed out copies. Our current bank balance, he noted, is $20,392. There was a very high balance in the account for awhile, because the New Mexico Finance Authority (NMFA) had sent us checks for $38,246 and $64,849, totalling, $103,000. We paid A-Mountain $52,820.55, and to Souder, Miller, and Associates $50,274.48. “We knew that was going to be a wash,” Campion said. In actuality, we paid out less than a dollar more than the NMFA had supplied. The treasurer continued that the association had a recent charge of $7,393, its annual loan/grant payment to the Colonias Infrastructure Board.

He noted that there were some water users who were delinquent or non-compliant. Morris Williams has not paid a bill since December, the treasurer stated. He has promised to pay a couple of times, but Campion said, “it just hasn’t happened.” Wohlferts are pretty good about paying up when reminded; Henries had paid off their $1,200 balance but are now behind once again. He is not worried about the last two, but the first one, he said, has been a problem for months. He said he was not sure whether we needed to shut his water off or pull his membership or something else.

Anyone can have a copy of our bank statements, if they are interested. His spreadsheet showed what the association had spent during the month. He noted that Water System Operator Henry Torres has always been bad about providing us invoices for his services. He also often has to buy equipment, and Campion noted that we need to keep what is a reimbursement to him separate from his actual labor invoices. Those are reflected in December and May payments to him. “We are all caught up with Henry,” Campion said. They are large payments. He said he wished they were provided more often, but he said he’s (Torres is) still a great deal.

Campion noted he is trying to keep his spread sheet in a 12-month format. He remembered having seen money go out for a water conservation fee last May, but he hadn’t seen a charge for that this year. Normally, the president said, Stafford pays those, because there is a calculation he has to do based on actual usage that is recorded at the well-head. Morgan said she had probably texted copies of that bill to Cornelius, but he indicated that he normally waited until he got something from Stafford.

We had been having some problems with the website, which Morgan had indicated she thought might be because they wanted to charge us for it. The president indicated he had no problem getting into the website. He had updated it some and indicated that he wanted to add some additional bells and whistles. He wants to add a mechanism through which payments could be made directly to Washington Federal on the website. However, he said there was no indication that we had to pay but that we could do so if we desired a higher level of functionality.

The president noted that we had already dealt with item 5b on the agenda and moved on to the communications policy. The reason for its creation was because for about a year and a half the board was unaware that our project was finished—the problem being communication. Neither A-Mountain nor Souder-Miller had informed us when the project was “over,” and additionally, A-Mountain had enacted a warranty on their work for which they never notified us of the beginning or ending date. Morgan indicated that this could become a legal issue at some point, so we must be informed of those details.

Morgan said many of the changes she had made int the communications policy previously presented were those in which she tried to strengthen the wording of the policy, by using “shall” and “will” instead of “should.” She had added a date to make it clear about which period she was concerned. Other changes were cosmetic. However, Heidi Hatley noted that in one instance Morgan had given the contractors the option of appearing at a meeting by using the word “preferrably.” Hatley said we should tell them exactly what we want. She and Campion insisted it should be in a meeting. Another element Morgan had managed to leave out was the insistence on getting a follow-up email on any phone conversation a board member might have with a contractor. Morgan had earlier said she thought speaking to a contractor directly was more effective, because all of our board members had managed to overlook the email regarding the “final inspection,” in which only our system operator was present. While he is a talented member of the association, and while he may have unofficially served as a liaison to the board, Morgan noted that he was not the client—a point which A-Mountain did not seem to respect. Additionally, Torres also was not informed that this inspection was a “final walk through.” This type of misunderstanding must be avoided. Additionally, the failure to notify by phone in this case was on the part of Souder-Miller. Board members agreed that, as Souder-Miller did not hear back from board members, that should have been a red flag to them that the communication did not go through. In that instance, they should have followed up with a phone call.

Campion also repeated his suggestion that all phone calls be documented through an email. Morgan stated that the problem with emails is that none of us apparently saw the email about the final walk-through. Hatley said that following up with an email is a way of tracking what was discussed and agreed upon in a telephone conversation. Morgan agreed to insert something about documenting phone calls, and to further strengthen the document by eliminating hedge words. Another of her goals in this version of the communications policy is that she was trying to eliminate repetition, she said. Campion also recommended giving project managers one key contact and that that person should be the one to inform the remainder of the board of the progress on a given project. There was discussion on that: Hatley thought the entire board should get the same communications—not having one or even two key points of contact. Campion disagreed, because one individual should be responsible for conveying the consensus of the board, when needed, because otherwise, one individual might say, “Thursday is great,” but it’s not great for everyone else. Hatley argued that following up everything with an email gives one the proof needed to back up what took place in a phone conversation.

However, back to the “final walkthough,” it was not clear in a follow-up meeting called by Souder Miller that what was being discussed was the project’s conclusion, and, therefore, the entire board was in the dark for about a year and a half, expecting things to happen in the future that had already taken place—unbeknownst to them. This was a case in which phone calls to ascertain knowledge ahead of time what was coming were absolutely necessary but did not occur—more or less the opposite of what Hatley was talking about, but which she and Campion both agreed was reasonable and important follow-up on a phone call that is not recorded in any fashion. “I’m just a less phone call, more email kinda guy.” Campion does, however, support having a policy, and making it available to contractors of both professional and construction components of a project so that they can know what the board expects.

Morgan said she did not feel the the policy was yet complete, but that she would add back in a statement indicating that phone calls should be backed up by supporting emails reiterating what was said. When the board is happy with the policy, then it can be considered for adoption, she said.

The president noted that we had covered Item D, the amendment to Stafford’s motion to approve the treasurer’s report from the previous meeting. That brought us to discussion of improvements to the road, in Item 6. It was determined that we had covered that. During Open Forum, which, followed, Campion said, “but back to the road,” he had asked for an update from Doreen Gallegos, who is trying ascertain that the county’s actions don’t lead us astray. The president also noted that we all need to be in agreement, regarding what we decide to do, so that people have nothing to complain about six months down the road. How much chip-seal are we going to put down is a conversation for another time, Cornelius said. However, he is concerned about areas where water washes over the road. These are things that will not be solved tonight, the president said.

In the later portion of the Open Forum section, Hatley indicated that recently, two boys had driven cross-country from Chaparral across the range until their car got stuck. This was simultaneous with an incident involving the theft of some guns in Las Cruces. It appeared that they may have been involved in the Las Cruces incident. She suggested that everyone be “locked and loaded,” because the potential for violence is growing. She said people need to be aware that there is that potential. It’s not only human violence, either—she said a bobcat had got one of her cats in the last week or so.

Sechrist noted that Patrick Stafford had asked Bobby Lujan to dig out the silting in of the culvert at Santana and Vista del Rey on the northwest corner. He wanted to make sure everyone was aware that that was taking place.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:32.