Tuesday, December 13, 2011

San Augustin Water Hearing Date Set - Feb 7

The State Engineer has scheduled a hearing on the San Augustin Water Grab for Tuesday, February 7, 2012. PLEASE put this on your calendar and plan to be there. Our numbers are making a difference. It's hard to ignore a crowd!

Date of the hearing: February 7, 2012
Place: Socorro District Courthouse,
200 Church Street, Socorro
Courtroom 1, second floor
Time: 10AM

The hearing is on the motions to dismiss the application.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Catron County Gears Up For Fire Season

Contact: Zina McGuire, Catron County Fire Marshal
PO Box 507, Reserve NM 87830
(575) 533-6470
catronfire@gilanet.com FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


CATRON COUNTY GEARS UP FOR FIRE SEASON
Are we ready for catastrophic wildfires like the Wallow Fire?
By Lif C Strand, Catron County CWPP Contractor

RESERVE, N.M. November 30, 2011. La Niña conditions, an ongoing drought, buildup of hazardous fuels conditions in the National Forests and bad memories of this year’s catastrophic Wallow Fire have prompted the Catron County Commission to take aggressive action to protect lives and property within its borders as the 2012 fire season approaches.

La Niña is a periodic and predictable weather pattern that brings warm, dry conditions to the southwest. Catron County currently is experiencing drought conditions ranging from abnormally dry to extremely dry, within the southern part of the county – the heart of the Gila National Forest – experiencing the worst drought conditions (e.g. a 13.4” precipitation deficit for the first 10 months of 2011 in Glenwood).

“We can expect to see wildfires before spring, due to these dangerous conditions, if nothing changes” said Zina McGuire, Catron County Fire Marshal. “If we learned anything from the Wallow Fire, it is that we can’t wait until we see the smoke to protect our people and property – we have to act now.”

“Catron County has been dealing with concerns of our citizens regarding hazardous fuel reductions and potential catastrophic wildland fires for a long time now,” McGuire said. “We still receive calls, emails and visits by citizens who remain concerned even after the end of the Wallow Fire, and our citizens are very worried about the upcoming fire season.”

Catron County began addressing the issues of catastrophic wildfires after the passage of Catron County’s Disaster Declaration Resolution in 2001, which is still in effect. Following the guidance of the Federal Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, the County worked in partnership with NM State Forestry, the US Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service to create a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) for the 7000 square miles within its borders. Catron County additionally created CWPPs for eleven major Wildland/Urban Interface (WUI) areas.

The CWPPs assessed the state of the forest and woodlands and the risk to WUI areas in order to know what work needed to be done to reduce the risk of wildfire.

“The point of the CWPPs is protection of human life and property” McGuire said. “To be useful tools, the CWPPs must be reviewed and updated immediately.” The Catron County Commissioners agrees.

Accomplishment reports, of the work done by public land management agencies to implement CWPP goals to date, have been submitted to the County by these agencies and will be used to reassess fire prevention priorities.
Additionally, the County has contracted with a Fire Wise/Bio Mass contractor and obtained two chippers and a grapple truck (using all Federal funds) to help residents implement the Fire Wise program.

“Our goal is to analyze the submitted data to see if the fire risk for our communities has changed. Once analyzed, we can make a push to help protect the highest risk communities prior to fire season” McGuire said.

For more information see http://www.catronfireprevention.org/



# # #

Monday, April 11, 2011

Catron County Commission Demands Wolf Incident Investigation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RESERVE, NM. “The wolf issue is one of the biggest problems the county has faced,” said Catron County Commission Chairman Hugh B. McKeen to Tod Stevenson, Director of New Mexico Department of Game & Fish at a regularly scheduled public meeting on Wednesday, April 6, 2011. With Mr. Stevenson were RJ Kirkpatrick, Assistant Director NM Game & Fish; Jim McClintic, Chairman New Mexico State Game Commission; and Dick Salopek, New Mexico State Game Commission. An audience of nearly 100 people attended the meeting.

In late January a formal complaint was filed by the county with NM Governor Martinez regarding a wolf depredation investigation that occurred on January 18, 2011. Catron County contends that NM Game & Fish wolf biologists Ellen Heilhecke and Mischa Larisch allegedly sought to influence or change the official investigation findings of Sterling Simpson and Armando Orona of US Wildlife Services during an on-site investigation as to the cause of death of a cow.

“Influencing or attempting to influence the findings of another agency’s official investigation brings up a lot of problems,” said Catron County’s Wolf Incident Investigator, Jess Carey. “The credibility of the game department wolf biologist is now lost.” Simpson and Orona did confirm that the cow was killed by wolves, with Carey concurring.

“Other findings of confirmed wolf kill have been changed to probable in the past,” Carey said. “How can you change documented evidence?”

Stevenson confirmed that Larisch did call and relay a message from Heilhecke to the Wildlife Services personnel while the investigation was in progress, but denied that any impropriety occurred.

“My staff said they did not say that Wildlife Services should modify the finding from confirmed to probable,” Stevenson said. “My folks called and said there were feral dogs in the area to take into consideration.”

“There were no feral dogs on this ranch,” Carey said. “Last year, several miles away, a neighbor was letting his house dogs run loose, but that problem was resolved. Mr. Simpson concurred: There are no feral dogs out there”.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Catron County Attorney Ron Shortes stated that he agreed with the Commissioners’ and Carey’s call for an independent, third party investigation of the incident.

“I think you have a conflict of interest when you say you have an obligation to facilitate this Mexican wolf recovery program vs. your constitutional obligation to the people of NM to protect wildlife,” Shortes said.

“While an independent investigation is needed, my ultimate feeling is that you have a bunch of good people with the New Mexico Game Commission and NM Game & Fish trying to do their best, but I’m wondering if they’re trying to do too much,” Shortes said. “They’re assisting the recovery program on one hand, trying to protect wildlife on the other – is there any possibility of trust while that’s going on?”

After a show of hands to see how people in the audience felt, the Catron County Commissioners voted unanimously to go ahead with their request of Governor Martinez for a full, independent investigation of the incident. Director Stevenson volunteered to provide a synopsis of the progress of the investigation by April 15, 2011.

“Catron County has taken a no-wolf stand,” McKeen said. “I’m requesting that you take a no-wolf stance, too. It’ll do us all good – we’re not only concerned about livestock but wildlife, too.”


Contact:
Bill Aymar, Catron County Manager
PO Box 507
Reserve NM 87830
(575) 533-6423
ccmanager@gilanet.com



# # #

Friday, May 7, 2010

County Commission meeting date change

Public Notice

The regular scheduled Catron County Commission Meeting for Wednesday, May 19, 2010 has been changed to Monday, May 17, 2010. The next regular scheduled meeting will be Friday, June 4, 2010. Meetings will resume their regular schedule Wednesday, June 16, 2010. All meetings will begin at 9:00 AM. Meetings will be held in the Commission Meeting room on the 2nd floor of the Catron County Courthouse. Agendas will be available before the meetings at https://www.mylocalgov.com/CatronCountyNM . For more information, contact Bill Aymar at (575) 533-6423 or by email at ccmanager@gilanet.com .

/s/
Bill Aymar
County Manager
STATE OF NEW MEXICO
CATRON COUNTY
RESERVE, NEW MEXICO 87830

Monday, February 15, 2010

HJM 48 - time to act!

One more effort from all of you who have been working for more equitable treatment of ranchers in the Mexican wolf fiasco can make a big difference.

New Mexico House Joint Memorial 048 has passed out of the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee today and goes to the House floor. Your continued support of this memorial for fair compensation for our ranchers is vital. Call or email your NM congressmen today!

More at www.amprowest.org

Friday, February 5, 2010

NAIS scrapped!

According to a NY Times article this morning, USDA secretary Tom Vilsack will announce Friday that the Obama administration has decided to scrap NAIS, the controversial program intended to identify and track livestock in the event of an animal disease outbreak.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Doing Business With Mexico

The U.S. Commercial Service is holding a FREE webinar on doing business with Mexico on November 17 at 10 AM MT. The Santa Fe Export Assistance Center would like to welcome the participation of any of the NM firms you work with that might find it of interest. Speakers will include the Senior Commercial Officer (Mexico Region) Ann Bacher, the Principal Commercial Officer for Monterrey Geoff Bogart, someone from FedEx to talk about shipping issues, and someone from Zions Bank to discuss trade finance issues. Also highlighted during the webinar will be an upcoming trade mission to Mexico in February. If you are interested in participating in the webinar or the upcoming trade mission log on directly on Nov. 17th to:

http://www.buyusa.gov/utah/mexicowebinar.html

or contact the Santa Fe Export Assistance Center – Attention:

Catherine Spillman
International Trade Specialist
U.S. Export Assistance Center
Santa Fe, NM
T: 505-908-7434
F: 505-827-0211

Catherine.Spillman@mail.doc.gov

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Wolf News Release: WildEarth Guardians lawsuit setback

Contact: Ron Shortes, Catron County Attorney
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Phone 575.533.6265
Email: shortes2@gilanet.com
April 17, 2009

WILDEARTH GUARDIANS SUMMARY JUDGMENT AGAINST CATRON COUNTY DENIED
Environmentalist attempt to deny County the right to protect its own citizens stalled

RESERVE, N.M. Catron County, New Mexico has learned that a WildEarth Guardians’ lawsuit, which attempts to deny the County the right to protect its own citizens from imminent harm, has been stalled. A US District Court Judge in Santa Fe recently denied a bid by the environmental group for a summary judgment against the County.

WildEarth Guardians, a Santa Fe, NM based environmental group formed through the merger of Forest Guardians, Sinapu, and the Sagebrush Sea Campaign, filed a suit against Catron County last year. The group claimed that a 2007 County ordinance, providing for protection measures for Catron County Citizens in the event of problems with wolves, violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

In October of 2008, Judge Martha Vazquez issued a ruling stating that WildEarth Guardians’ claims were moot, as the County had amended the ordinance. Nevertheless, WildEarth Guardians continued to press the lawsuit, claiming that the Catron County Commission allegedly violated the ESA by setting traps for a pair of wolves. However, the Court has now denied a request for summary judgment against the County on this issue.

“It is the responsibility of government to protect its citizens,” said a Catron County spokesman. “We have a problem here with wolves and have had one since the beginning of the program. The incidents have escalated to the point where our people - particularly our children - are at risk.”

Catron County has submitted numerous requests to the Mexican wolf program to include realistic consideration for human safety - something that is currently lacking in the ESA’s 10j Rule regarding reintroduction of Mexican wolves.

“The Mexican wolf program people are well aware of our concerns for the safety of our children,” the County spokesman said. “All WildEarth Guardians is concerned about is wolves - they apparently don’t care if a child is at risk.”

“Our citizens rely on local government to protect them,” the spokesman said. “They demand that of us, and by law we are authorized to protect our citizens. We cannot, legally or morally, allow the threat from habituated wolves to reach the point where our children and families are in imminent danger. That is clear.”


# # #

Monday, January 26, 2009

Local Economic Development Update

Lif Strand

Catron County will receive its Certified Communities Initiative (CCI) Award from NM Economic Development Department (NMEDD) in January. The CCI glass plaque award will be received by Catron County Treasurer Sarah Merklein in Santa Fe during legislative session.

A grant of $5000 is also awarded for the CCI designation. These funds are earmarked for the Catron County Citizens Group (CCCG) to inventory businesses in the county. This work will begin once the funds are received by CCCG. It will involve identifying every business in Catron County and visiting each one to perform an economic survey, then compiling the data. The work must be completed by June 30, 2009.

The inventory will be available to NMEDD and Catron County, and will be used as part of the baseline for supporting local economic development. Participation by businesses is voluntary but is highly encouraged. As a reward for providing the information for the inventory, participating businesses will be provided a free listing in a Catron County Business Directory available online at www.catroncitizens.org/econdev and in printed form available around the county. If your business is interested in participating, please contact Lif Strand at econdev@catroncitizens.org or (575) 773-4835.

A public hearing for the K&B Economic Incentives Ordinance will be held at the February 4, 2009 Commission meeting. A copy of the Ordinance may be obtained at the County Commission office. This Ordinance is required by NM statute in order to set the stage for County’s receipt of capital outlay funding from NMEDD to construct a building at the County Sawmill outside of Reserve. K&B Timberworks has applied for the economic incentive of use of the building.

Catron County Citizens Group is sponsoring a 4-day endurance ride to be held May 21-24 near Quemado Lake. This ride is sanctioned by the American Endurance Ride Conference (AERC). The ride is managed by Lif Strand, with co-managers Ray and Kathy Sansom of Datil. Ray Sansom, a multi-champion endurance rider, is competing for his sixth national award and has been promoting the ride all over the west at the various races he attends. Kathy Sansom is the ride secretary. Work on identification and measuring (by GPS) of the 100 miles of trail is on hold until risk of snow is less. The website is up and working at www.discovercatron.com.


The CCCG website has been updated and a new CCCG calendar has been uploaded - check it out at www.catroncitizens.org/events.


Lif Strand is Catron County’s Local Economic Developer, designated by the Catron County Commission and under contract with the Catron County Citizens Group. Strand acts as liaison between local businesses and the County, and between the County and state and federal agencies involved with economic development. For more information: www.catroncitizens.org/econdev

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Legal Notice: Public Hearing, Economic Development Ordinance

LEGAL NOTICE
PUBLIC HEARING

Notice is hereby given that on the 4th day of February, 2009 at 1:30 PM the Catron County Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing to consider adopting an ordinance relating to the Economic Development Planning Ordinance 001-2008 adopted September 3, 2008.

The draft of "An Ordinance Adopting an Economic Development Project for Public Support of K&B Timberworks, Inc., A New Mexico Corporation" proposed ordinance number 001-2009 may be picked up for review at the Catron County Clerk's Office at 100 Main Street, Reserve, New Mexico or by contacting Bill Aymar, County Manager at (575) 533-6423.

Comments can be sent are to be submitted to Bill Aymar, County Manager, Catron County Commission Office, PO Box 507, Reserve New Mexico 87830. For more information contact Bill Aymar at (575) 533-6423 or by email at ccmanager@gilanet.com

s/s
Bill Aymar
County Manager

Silver City Daily Press
January 21, 2009

Mountain Mail
January 22, 2009

Friday, October 3, 2008

REDT 002 - Economic Development: A Team Effort

REDT post 002
Economic Development: A Team Effort
By Lif Strand

Are you worried about how many job losses can occur before our economy truly crashes? Are you confused about how difficult it is to find a job, while you watch your savings dwindle to nothing and your debt get higher and higher? If you are an employer with job openings, are you perplexed about how difficult it is to find an employee when unemployment is so high?

You aren’t the Lone Ranger.

The NM Governor’s Economic Summit has drawn to a close. If nothing else has come of this conference it is the understanding that the current economic crisis in this country is a multi-faceted thing, and that the only way to deal with it is by a team effort. “Fixing” things from the top down (government bailout) isn’t going to work unless the very foundation of economic development is shored up as well.

What is the foundation of a sustainable, thriving economy? It’s not simply profitable financial institutions, but a healthy, sustainable environment, a healthy, sustainable society and healthy urban and rural, local, regional, federal and world economy.

Everything is connected to everything – nothing we humans partake of exists in a vacuum, sufficient under itself. If you only fix one thing without fixing the other parts, your fix won’t work, but will rather just cause more problems. Real life is a balancing act – sustainability occurs when all parts are considered when changes are proposed. If you ignore the connected parts, those other parts will be damaged by the imbalance and then other parts will drag you down.

A real fix that will create a sustainable, thriving economy means looking to the human environment and the natural environment. We have a strong environmentalist force nowadays that has positioned itself as the moral guides for humanity, but this force has forgotten that humans are rightful and valid part of the planetary environment, that environmentalist planning must recognize and accommodate the human environment. Green hasn’t worked and will never work if we only look at humanity as a disease that should be excluded.

The team that will fix the economy is the team that is inclusive rather than exclusive. The human spirit is perhaps the most valuable resource for improving our planet that we have. Addressing today’s issues must be done from the perspective of raising human consciousness on the environmental, societal and economic levels. No planning that focuses solely on one area to the exclusion of any other area can provide a solution.

In upcoming posts, you will be provided with an opportunity to join the Rural Economic Development Team to create meaningful, sustainable economic development. Your comments, suggestions and support are welcome.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Welcome to Rural Economic Development Today

REDT post 001
by Lif Strand

Rural Economic Development Today

Bailouts, foreclosures, stock market losses, job insecurity, financial uncertainty:  Signs of our economic times.  Who isn't worried about our economic future as individuals, families and a nation?

Welcome to Rural Economic Development Today, a blog dedicated to the specific needs of rural economies.  

My name is Lif Strand, and I'm a Local Economic Developer in Catron County, New Mexico.  As I write this, I’m sitting in an economic conference, listening to doom and gloom about the economic situation today. (I should be paying full attention, but the sound system is pretty bad). 

People are afraid, and that’s understandable.  Elections are coming up and no one knows what changes the new administration will bring about; no one knows if those changes will make things better or worse for each of us, particularly those of us who live in rural America.  No one knows if stock market fluctuations will wipe out our investments or shore them up; no one knows if the government’s bailout plans will wipe out our economy or save us.

Rural Americans are often the step-children of economic development planning on the federal and state level.  Lip service is given to us, but generally funds go to developed areas and we are left with the trickle-down, which isn’t much benefit at all.

The sad fact is that rural America is the very foundation of our country’s economy (and to an extent that of the world).  Rural America feeds everyone, supplies the natural resources that manufacturing is based on.  The focus of all economic development, particularly right now when things are so shaky, should be to stabilize the foundation, to assess what is wrong and fix it – making sure that the fix is not just for rural economic development today but for tomorrow and the next decade and beyond. 

This blog is here to examine the issues of rural economic development and, collaboratively – with your help – to identify those issues and look for solutions that will work for rural economic development.  Your feedback is welcome.