Nick Seibel, editor and publisher of the Silver City Daily Press, covers top stories each week on the Silver City Report. This week, evacuation orders lifted, library hours may be reduced, and Lt. Gov. hopefuls visit. Here's a transcript of his conversation with KC Counts:
KC Counts:
let's begin this week with the latest on the Sacaton Fire. You've got some good news to share, and we're happy to hear it.
Nick Seibel:
Thank you, monsoon season. And thank you to the firefighters that have been working on the Sacaton Fire, which has been burning mostly in the Gila Wilderness just to the east of the town of the community of Glenwood up in Catron County, just north of the Grant County border, reported last just under 10,000 acres, really kind of blew up a couple of weeks ago over a weekend, and firefighters were really having a difficult time dealing with it. But with the advent of monsoon rains, it jumped from 17% containment last Wednesday, over the weekend, on Monday, they reported it up to 57% containment. Folks that live in the Willow Creek community had been evacuated by Catron County Emergency Management. And on Monday, the go order was lifted for them on the recommendation of the Forest Service firefighters. And so, yeah, a lot of good progress there and really fortunate we've got that under control and that the rains are doing their thing.
KC Counts:
Yeah. All right. Well, let's move on. It looks like the library's going to have to possibly make some adjustments due to a staffing shortage. And I guess the problem is there's not funds to go around to cover that shortage.
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, the town of Silver City, you know, they had a change in management at the back at the beginning of the year. And things have been tight in the town's coffers. And so, they've done some things like cut out their sponsorship of events, and we've had a lot of stories following that. One of the other, sort of fallouts from that has been a hiring freeze for most town departments. And the Silver City Public Library is one of those. So, they've got a vacant library clerk position that they don't think they'll probably be able to fill until hopefully sometime next year. In the meantime, that stretches the rest of the staff really, really thin. It really means that the library director and his assistant end up having to work a lot of extra hours because the union employees that work at the library, you know, there's no money in the budget for overtime to pay them to stick around extra hours. So, in a presentation to the library advisory board at their meeting last week, the library director, Ken Dare, basically told him what he'd like to do is... just close the library on Mondays every week and extend their library hours on Saturdays to 4 P.m. And hopefully, that'll allow them to continue serving the public and it'll give them a lot more flexibility in terms of scheduling the staff that they do have at the library. And that's not a final decision yet. Town administration will have to sign off on that and it may well end up being a topic of discussion before the town council too, even though they, technically speaking, don't need to approve that action.
KC Counts:
Well, nobody reads on Mondays anyway.
Nick Seibel:
[laughter] Well, that was one of the topics of discussion is that one of the slower days that there are people who, for instance, come to the library just every day to check their e-mail and use the computers. This is one of the only places to have access to that kind of technology. So, by closing on Monday, that means Sunday and Monday, those folks will have two days that they won't have access to the world.
KC Counts:
I gotcha. Okay, that's tough. Let's move on now to the visit by Lieutenant Governor candidates to Silver City. And the twists and turns of that race, I guess it'll be July 25th when the Democratic Party's State Central Committee will make their decision, right?
Nick Seibel:
That's right. And of course, you know, Grant County historically has been a big Democratic county in the state of New Mexico. And it's particularly an interesting wrinkle this time around because we're coming off eight years of having Grand County native Howie Morales in the Lieutenant Governor's office. And now, with all the upheaval, after the winner of the primary dropped out just after the primary election was done because of health concerns, one of the two leading candidates to fill out that gubernatorial ticket is another Grant County person, Stephanie Garcia-Richard, who's the incumbent state land commissioner, grew up in Silver City, graduate of Silver High School, and her father was a longtime instructor at COBRE High School, a lot of folks in the community are familiar with her. So, all three of the folks who are in the running there came down and spoke at the Democratic Party meeting here in Grant County last week. And definitely interesting to see the dynamics in that race play out. And as usual, Grant County is right in the middle of it.
KC Counts:
All right. Well, gosh, lots of twists and turns and we'll see what happens after July 25th. Nick, thanks so much for the update. You can read all about these stories and more at scdailypress.com. Have a great week.
Nick Seibel:
You too.
