Nick Seibel, editor and publisher of the Silver City Daily Press, covers top stories each week in the Silver City Report. This week, Silver City considers allowing dogs to walk unleashed on a popular recreation site, Grant County residents are experiencing an increase in solid waste costs and the Silco Theater is trying to reopen by next week and more.
Susan Morée:
You have a story for us about dogs being walked on Boston Hill. What's going on there?
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, well, for folks who aren't necessarily familiar with Silver City, Boston Hill is a large open space right behind the Grant County Courthouse, sort of just adjacent to downtown Silver City, that's a bunch of historic mining claims. So the property never really got developed other than historic mining activity there and that got assembled and purchased by the Town of Silver City, oh, probably about 30 years ago. And so it's a popular space, a big trail system. You know, historically, folks with dogs have taken them up to Boston Hill, let them off leash, even though officially that has always been against town ordinances, which require dogs on public property to be on leashes. And that's something that the code enforcement folks of the town have begun enforcing. And so some users of the trail system have said that the use of the system is way down since they've started trying to enforce the ordinance. So a resident brought a proposal to the town's Trails and Open Space Committee, basically saying that they should officially change the town ordinance to exempt Boston Hill from leash laws. That, of course, as you might imagine, a whole bunch of discussion ensued among members of the committee and members of the public who showed up in favor, mostly in favor of the proposal. And what it seemed like everyone was kind of leaning towards was maybe looking at there being certain days of the week or times of day when perhaps dogs could be allowed off-leash so that folks who for whatever reason don't want to interact with off-leash dogs, that there will be some rules that folks will know about the space. But the committee itself didn't actually take any action. Of course, ultimately, the Silver City Town Council ultimately has to make the decision.
Susan Morée:
Solid waste rates are about to increase for county residents. What's going on there?
Nick Seibel:
Yeah, so the Southwest Solid Waste Authority is sort of owned jointly by the municipalities in Grant County. They all have representatives on the board and they operate the one landfill in Grant County as well as the solid waste transfer stations around Grant County. And basically they figured out here recently that they should have been raising their rates over time and they have not been doing that. And they sort of are, according to what the board says, backed into a corner financially. And so they are basically just jacking up the rates on municipal customers. And for the folks that live in unincorporated Grant County, the fee that they have to pay the county is going to be increasing as well. Right now it's like a $5 fee and that's looking at jacking that up considerably. It's going to go up to like $30 per account per month. Yeah, so it's a considerable increase for folks. And basically, what the county is saying is, hey, this is, we can't really subsidize, we're not supposed to subsidize this out of the general fund because this is what they call an enterprise fund. And the Solid Waste Authority has said they're basically increasing their prices on September 1st. So it's done. That increase is coming and the county is basically saying they don't have a lot of options in terms of phasing things in. But a lot of folks are really concerned about that big jump in rates. And similar conversations are happening in all the municipalities in the county because everyone is kind of facing the same thing at a time when folks are feeling kind of stressed out financially.
Susan Morée:
It sounds like Silver City Main Street Project is about to reopen the Silco, maybe in time for folks there to see the Odyssey next week?
Nick Seibel:
There is one first run movie theater in Grant County. Well, one real movie theater at all, these days, and that is the Silco Theater, which was built in 1923. And they have been under renovation all summer long. They closed on June 1st to redo the stage, put a new surface on the stage, install a retractable screen, basically so that the facility can be used for more performing arts and musical events, those sorts of things, in addition to movies. But of course, summertime is the big blockbuster movie season and a lot of folks have been missing the Silco, so they are rushing very hard and their tentative goal is to be open again on Friday, September 11th.
Susan Morée:
All right, well, where can readers find these stories, Nick?
Nick Seibel:
You can find this and more at scdailypress.com.
