Nick Seibel, publisher and editor of the Silver City Daily Press, covers top stories each week on the Silver City Report. This week we hear about a tragic shooting that injured a minor, talk of getting the area ready for impending fire season and Aldo Leopold Charter School and Silver Consolidated Schools striking a deal over a campus.
Susan Morée:
There was a tragic shooting in Silver City. Tell us about it.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, it was devastating to a lot of folks in the community. Over the weekend, early Sunday morning, actually, a Cobre High School student, a 17-year-old girl, was in a vehicle with some friends. They were up on the Brewer Hill neighborhood, downtown Silver City. Someone shot at the car and of the passengers or the people in the car, the only person to get hit was the 17-year-old who the family identified as Kelly Cope. She has a GoFundMe, of course, for the family for her recovery, which is online. We've got a link to that in our story. The Silver City Police got a search warrant, searched a home near where the shooting took place, found evidence of methamphetamines, and made an arrest in the case very quickly. But meanwhile, Ms. Cope is still in the hospital. The last I heard, she had opened her eyes and was responding, although she doesn't have a lot of control over one side of her body, and they were keeping her in an induced coma. So, it's a rough roadahead for that poor girl, and certainly a lot of folks' prayers going out to her and to her family.
Susan Morée:
That's really a tragic story. Let's talk about the fire danger in the Gila National Forest. How is that impacting folks in your area?
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, well, you know, last week, the town of Silver City, the Gila National Forest, and the unincorporated areas of Grant County all instituted stage one fire restrictions. The Village of Santa Clara added their community to that list this week. And in the face of all of that, Grant County held a public meeting last Thursday with their consultants to gather input on updating their community wildfire protection plan that will guide funding from the state and also put the county on the list for other grants eligibility they have to update that every five years and one of the things that kind of came out of this is that there are 48 different subdivisions in the county all ranked in the triple digits which puts them at higher high fire risk based on the national metrics that get used to determine those things. We've been talking about this for as long as I can remember, but establishment of defensible space around and within these neighborhoods is kind of one of the big priorities. And the hope is that, the update of this plan will shake loose some more funding to help folks accomplish that. And there was a fellow who runs a business in the community named Gila Woodnet, who came to the meeting and said, ‘you know, this is part of what we do.’ And he said, there might be a market for some of this material that gets thinned out of these neighborhoods. And so, lots of opportunities there, and hopefully this plan helps the community realize some of that and reduce some of that fire danger that's out there.
Susan Morée:
And Aldo Leopold Charter School reached a deal with Silver Consolidated. Tell us about that.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, which is kind of an exciting thing. Back last year, the Silver School Board voted to close two of its four elementary schools in Silver City. They're going to close the 6th Street Elementary School and Jose Barrios Elementary School and consolidate those students into their other two schools. And so the big question has been, what will become of both of those campuses, both of which have a lot of history?Jose Barrioswas originally North Silver School when it was built in 1949 and was later renamed for Jose Barrios, who was a Silver City police officer known for his work with children who passed away a number of years ago. That school was named in his honor. So, there's been a lot of concern from the community what happens to these campuses. Well, the Leopold Charter School, which is chartered under the state, reached a deal with the Silver Consolidated School District just this week. Their plan is to purchase that Jose Barrios campus for $1.67 million, and that's less than the market value of $2 million that Silver Schools had determined through their appraisal of the property. But because it's a transfer, basically, between government entities, that's not a huge deal. Both the leaders of all the Leopold and the Silver Schools superintendent said that this was a huge win for not just education, but for the community as a whole. And the leadership of Aldo Leopold has vowed that they will preserve the name of Jose Barrios on the school building, and they will keep his memory going on there in that facility.
Susan Morée:
And where can readers find these stories?
Nick Seibel:
Lots, lots more, including that GoFundMe for the student who got shot over the weekend at scdailypress.com.
