The Gila National Forest is planning to enact Stage 1 Restrictions on March 23. The decision was made based on several factors including; long term severe drought in the Gila region, increased tree mortality across the forest due to drought and insects and forecasted weather patterns which indicate higher temperatures and drier conditions for March through June.

Stage 1 Restrictions limit public campfires to designated campgrounds with adequate fire rings to limit potential for human caused wildfires. Several large fires in the Gila National Forest have been caused by humans including the Black Fire of 2022 which burned over 300,000 acres.

Added Incentive to Register for Tour of the Gila Presented by New Mexico True

Monē Bikes Frameset To Be Raffled to Amateur Competitor in the Iconic Stage Race

Silver City, NM — In 2026, Tour of the Gila presented by New Mexico True will again raffle a Monē Bikes frameset to one lucky competitor in any of the five USA Cycling races. Every person who registers and shows up at the start line of the three- or four-day race is automatically entered to win. 

Teenage athlete Sterling Smith's name got drawn in the raffle for a Monē Bikes Hachita frame on the day of the 2025 Downtown Silver City Criterium. "It was the best thing I've ever won and the nicest bike I've ever owned," the two-time Tour of the Gila competitor says.

Western New Mexico University Regent and Vice Chair John Wertheim called the meeting to order

Before everyone rose to pledge allegiance to the American flag, Wertheim said: "I want us to pause for a moment to keep in mind our soldiers, sailors and airmen in combat right now."

Regents Wertheim, J. Dean Reed, Student Regent Keana Huerta, and online participation from Chairman Steven Neville, Gregory (Greg) Trujillo approved the agenda and minutes of the Jan 29, 2026 and March 5, 2026 meetings.

With no one having submitted public comment online or coming forward at his meeting, nor there being any old business, the meeting moved into Section six of the agenda.

By Lynn Janes

The Silver City Town Council held a regular meeting February 24, 2026. Attendance to the meeting included Mayor Simon Wheaton-Smith, Nicholas Prince, Stan Snider, Victor Nanez and Angela Salaiz.

The council approved the agenda for the meeting with the delaying of the recognition for employee of the month for February. They could not attend.

Council comments

Nanez, Salaiz and Snider did not have any comments.

Prince commended the community for coming out for Toss No Mas because the community runs mostly on volunteers. He had met with Freddie Portillo, police chief, to review the community's public safety concerns. Price expressed how glad he has been to see the patrols in town. Portillo has also demoed the new public facing information regarding area crimes. The software should be ready next month.

Western New Mexico University Regent Dean Reed introduced the last candidate for WNMU president. "This is Mario Martinez. He is from Fort Lewis College. Mario will give us his 15- to 20-minute introduction."

"I have a couple of reminders for you—the survey on all four candidates. You submit one for each candidate." He pointed out the QR code. "Please submit your feedback. It is crucial. It's very imperative for the regents here, community, faculty, staff and students. The other thing is that the survey closes at midnight tonight. All of that survey data, goes to Anthem, the executive search firm, they scrub it, quantify it, and they will hand the regents tomorrow, sometime around 10 to noon, their summary of each candidate, the rankings and what input is summarized the regents will meet three to five o'clock in Executive Session. I can tell you this will be a a very difficult choice, exactly what we wanted. So we're very, very pleased. It's been a great two weeks. Excellent candidates. We appreciate your participation again. Dr Martinez will give us about a 20 minute participation update on who he is and after that, it will be a one-on-one interaction. Welcome, Doctor Martinez, welcome to Western New Mexico's public open forum.

The third candidate, for Western New Mexico University president, Sharon Jones, visited the campus on Tuesday, March 3, 2026.

The session opened with: "My name is Dean Reed. I'm one of the regents. I'd like to introduce John Wertheim, a fellow regent of mine. We are the chair and co-chair of this search committee, and we are on candidate number three today, and we'll finish up tomorrow with candidate number four.

"At this time, a couple of instructions. We do have a QR code that I can't stress enough." He pointed to a poster with the QR code. "If you cannot access the QR code, wave your hand. We have paper forms you can fill out. Now you might say, where does that paper form go? We don't see it. Jean takes them in and sends them to Anthem [the search firm]. We never see them. All of the results are coming back from Anthem this Thursday morning. They scrub and compile all the comments. We never see that. This is what we pay a search for to keep it anonymous. The survey will close this Wednesday (March 5) at midnight, the regents are meeting this Thursday at three o'clock, in executive session to discuss those results and start to formulate our number one candidate and number two candidate.