Belen
Councilor Terese Ulivarri, as chair of the Mid-Region Council of Governments, presented Belen Mayor Ronnie Torres with an award he received for creating the Regional Mayors Cau-cus. Each government official in the caucus received a similar plaque.
The action occurred at a city council meeting last week.
Torres organized the region’s mayors three years ago, and they meet monthly to discuss municipal issues. He learned of the concept from the Denver-area mayors’ organization.
“In the Denver area, 22 mayors meet each month to keep communications going,” Torres said. “I thought it was something we could do here.”
Nine mayors, including Torres, Roger Baldwin of Bosque Farms, Louis Huning of Los Lunas, Marty Chavez of Albuquerque, Charles Aguilar of Bernalillo, Gary Kanin of Corrales, John Hooker of Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, Gloria Chavez of Tijeras and Jim Owens of Rio Rancho, were recognized by the Mid-Region Council of Governments.
They also meet with three tribal leaders and the Kirtland Air Force Bace commander.
“Everyone has the same problems, just different sizes of populations,” Torres said. “It has opened up our communications and prevented a couple of situations from getting out of hand because the mayors worked together to prevent it.”
In the city manager’s report, Sally Garley said:
- “The City of Belen employees will be required to wear identification badges as per our administrative policy, effective Sept. 1.”
In the city councilor reports, each councilor complimented those who put together the Our Lady of Belen Fiestas.
- Ulivarri asked the administration to develop a cell-phone policy for use of city-provided phones by employees.
“I’d also like the staff to see if we can get a different website, rather than using the yahoo.com address,” she said. “I think it would be more professional if we had our own address. We can also have e-mail addresses for our employees.”
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April 18, 2024
