Deming City Council hears update on Gila River Diversion project

DEMING – Council members squeezed several business items into an hour and a half during Monday’s regular meeting of the Deming City Council at the John Strand Municipal Building at 309 S. Gold Street.

Among the order of new business was the mayoral appointment of Irma Rodriguez to fill the District 2 seat vacated by Roxana Rincon.

Mayor Benny Jasso welcomed Rodriguez after sifting through applicants over a two-month span, and council members Joe “Butter” Milo and David Sanchez (via phone call) approved with a vote of confidence. Council member Dr. Victor Cruz was away on a trip. City Administrator Aaron Sera had dental work done and could not attend. 

Rodriguez, born and raised in Deming, says she had been approached several times over the years to seek a spot on the council. "I applied for the appointment and saw this as my opportunity to get my foot in the door," she added.

Rodriguez owns two businesses in Deming; Dust Devils Gymnastics and Cheer and Triadic Enterprises.

"Being a business owner in a small town, I hear a lot from our patrons. This gives me the incentive to learn more about local government and become a part of the process."  I look forward to serving the people in my district and the community as a whole."

Rodriguez has a daughter, Brianna Lee Harvey, who is a freshmen attending New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

Mayor Jasso opened the meeting by introducing William Perkins as the city’s new attorney from the firm of Lopez, Dietzel, Perkins and Wallace PC of Silver City, NM.

Mayor Jasso gave an update on the migrant relief situation in Deming and indicated that the number of asylum seekers brought to the migrant relief facility in Deming “has lightened up.”

We are seeing about 100 on the weekends and during the week we get around 40 to 50,” Jasso explained. “The nice thing about this is that the girls have the system down for arranging transportation to sponsors and so we usually ship 40 to 50 out each day, and that replenish number has not gone up. We are hearing the same rumor over and over that there are as many as 10,000 sitting at the border waiting to come over, but we haven’t seen that, yet.”

Anthony Gutierrez, executive director for the New Mexico Central Arizona Project (NMCAP) Entity gave an update on the Gila River Diversion plan to bring water from the Gila River across the Continental Divide in accordance with the Arizona Water Settlement Act.

Funding available for this project has come from the AWSA. A Joint Powers Agreement through the NMCAP Entity will provide the means to bring surface water to Luna County and secure a water table for the future.

“The amendment we made last December is also important to pretty much all infrastructure projects, and the amendment gives us the ability for projects outside the New Mexico unit,” Gutierrez told the council. “The New Mexico unit is the direct project development that we are currently working on which is a diversion with storage and the ability to develop the 14,000-acre feet available through the AWSA.”

Gutierrez said a second amendment was to allow for other water utilization projects which could potentially come from outside of the New Mexico unit for any other infrastructure projects. “When the Interstate Stream Commission was actually considering all of the projects there were 170 submitted to the Interstate Stream Commission, and of those, 16 were selected for funding, and the New Mexico Unit was among those projects selected,” Gutierrez said.

Considering the broad scope for water needed in the southwest, Gutierrez said the NMCAP Entity has been able reduce the overall scope to pay for the project. Gutierrez also alerted council to the two funds for the project; the NM Unit Fund and the Construction Fund that will bring in $56.3 million to work with. Plans are to bring the Gila River Diversion project under the funding amount, according to Gutierrez.

Council also moved to support the Corre Caminos public transportation program that operates in Deming and once operated in the tri-county (Hidalgo and Grant) area. The city’s responsibility is $60,000 for the service. Councilman Milo questioned whether Corre Caminos could provide an update on the program and what type of advertising it can offer for the service in Deming.

The next regular meeting of the City Council is slated for 6 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 9 at the John Strand Municipal Building.

Bill Armendariz can be reached at 575-546-2611 (ext. 2606) or biarmendariz@demingheadlight.com.