SPECIAL MEETING
MINUTES
NSD Business Office
1326 W. Highway 92 #12
Bisbee, AZ 95620

Minutes for June 23, 2023

The Special Meeting was called to order at 3:00 PM. Present at Roll Call were Stephen Dey, Andrew Foster and Charles Behney.

First agenda item was the Truth in Taxation Hearing, open for public comments. No one from the public attended or spoke about taxation, so the meeting was declared in recess until 7:00 PM.

At 7:00 PM, the meeting was called to order from recess. Roll was called. Stephen Dey, Andrew Foster, Charles Behney, Angelica Coronado and Jesus Guerrero were in attendance.

As there were no comments from the public, Mr. Dey made a motion to approve the modified budget for fiscal year 2023 to 2024. Mr. Behney seconded the motion, and a roll call vote was taken. The roll call vote was unanimous in favor of passing the budget for FY 2023-2024. The budget was approved.

Mr. Dey spoke about the problems regarding NSD’s application with USDA. The USDA Arizona Director, Ms. Charlene Fernandez, stated that Naco was not a colonia during a conference call. Mr. Behney insisted that the Naco community was a colonia and provide a news clipping from 2004 stating that Naco was mapped by USGS as a colonia. Apparently, the Naco Census Data Place was missing from all of the colonia records that are submitted to the state and federal agencies, for over two decades. This is a possible violation of Title VI guidelines that the USDA requires for rural development.

USDA agent Michael Dean sent the NSD a resolution from Cochise County signed in 1995 that made the Naco Township a designated colonia, including a map of its boundaries. This is missing from the County records. And apparently this was missing from current lists of colonias.

Mr. Dey made a motion for a request for legal services, to hire an attorney to represent and defend the Naco community and its status as a colonia and other NSD matters.

Mr. Behney amended the motion for legal services to include expertise in environmental law, Title VI law, and municipal government. Mr. Dey seconded the motion.

The motion passed unanimously. There was no further discussion nor comments from the public.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:35 PM.

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Stephen T. Dey

Naco Sanitary District Chair *

NACO SANITARY DISTRICT
P.O. BOX 755
Naco, AZ 85620

520-353-4372