Two Bernalillo County seats up in today’s MRGCD election

Photo by Kevin Eddy.

ALBUQUERQUE — The final day of voting in the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) election is today, and property owners who live within the district are deciding on board members in four seats.

MRGCD is responsible for a network of irrigation ditches, levees, diversion dams and drains that stretch from Cochiti Reservoir to the Bosque del Apache near Socorro. It is funded by taxes paid by property owners who live along the river and fees paid by farmers who use ditch water to irrigate their land.

Voting takes place until 7 p.m. today at polling sites throughout the district. Anyone who owns property within the district’s boundaries is eligible to vote.

(Not sure if you’re in the district? Check these maps of Bernalillo, Sandoval and Socorro counties.) To vote you need a government-issued ID or two of these three: a tax bill, utility bill or voter registration card.

The most hotly contested seats in the election represent Bernalillo County, where one  director has rankled some with his forthright style but earned praise from others for stirring up a cozy board and shining light on its inner workings.

Debates over recreational use of the ditch system have also divided board members and district residents.

Some argue that most in urban Bernalillo County don’t use the ditches for farming, so the function of the ditches should be expanded to provide recreational opportunities for those who live along them. But others want the ditches left alone, and some property owners don’t want increased public access to ditches that are literally in their backyards.

POSITION 3: Director for Bernalillo County

Jim Roberts

Jim Roberts has lived in Albuquerque’s North Valley for 10 years, but he and his family have farmed in the South Valley since 1929. Today he farms more than 700 acres including the farm bought by his grandfather, the late U.S. Senator and Secretary of Agriculture Clinton P. Anderson. “I was kinda born with dirt in my veins,” Roberts said in an interview.

Roberts has served two terms since joining the board in 2001. “We have reduced taxes by 24 percent, reduced the per diem for board members by 70 percent and we’re using 40 percent less water than we ever did before,” he reported.

Although Roberts says it was he who initially proposed a system of recreation trails along irrigation ditches to the board, he became opposed to the “Ditches with Trails” plan and voted against it.

“As it started to get further along, it started to involve more and more layers of government, and… it was almost losing kind of why we’d started it,” he said.

“All of a sudden it was this thing about when you could cut weeds and when you couldn’t and it was really changing the character of things from when we’d started. We didn’t like the way it was going, where there were so many different entities involved and it had gone away from the grassroots structure of when I started it in 2003.”

Roberts says he would like the district to hire someone to talk to each neighborhood about what kind of trail improvements they want.

He has not asked for any endorsements from local politicians or anyone else, Roberts added.

He is a hands-on board member who devotes two nights a week to meeting with people in the district. If they need help pulling weeds out of their ditches, he’s happy to help, saying, “If I’ve got to climb into a ditch with a pair of galoshes, I’ll do it.”

Adrian Oglesby

Roberts’ opponent in the race is Adrian Oglesby, a water lawyer who has lived in New Mexico since 1989 and in Albuquerque since 1997; he now lives in Duranes, a neighborhood near the river, just north of I-40. Oglesby runs the living rivers program for the Nature Conservancy but does not work on projects in the Middle Rio Grande Valley, focusing instead on the San Juan and Gila rivers. He describes his job as “a blend of land management, acquisition and trying to encourage folks to be wise in their water management.”

Oglesby is supported by state Sens. Dede Feldman and Jerry Ortiz y Pino, both Albuquerque Democrats, along with former Albuquerque mayor and former MRGCD chief executive officer Jim Baca. He was also endorsed by Conservation Voters of New Mexico, which praised him for being “dedicated to protecting the integrity of the Middle Rio Grande: the farms, the communities and the ecosystems – and the water that sustains them all.”

“Primarily, in this race, we’re trying to bring integrity back to the district, restoring the public’s faith,” Oglesby told NMI, adding, “I’d like to bring the notion of longer-term planning to the district.”

MRGCD has been rocked by criticism that its chief engineer and CEO Subas Shah is “double dipping” after he retired but kept his job, collecting both a pension and a salary.

Oglesby is reluctant to takes sides in the debate over a system of formalized trails along the ditches (although he has been endorsed by supporters of that plan), saying, “On the one hand we have a trail system that has been tying our community together for years… On the other we know that trails bring crime, so we have to balance that out.”

But he does not hesitate to criticize the district for posting signs that warn against trespassing along the ditches, while also saying it would not prosecute those who want to walk along them.

“They’ve made promises for years to take those signs down. And the district has a long history of shying away from responsibility. Why can’t we just replace those signs with ‘Use at your own risk’ signs? They keep up the signs but they give you a wink and say they won’t call the cops.”

Position 6: Director For Bernalillo County

Karen Dunning

Karen Dunning is an environmental review officer for the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority; she is a former administrator for Santa Ana Pueblo and worked as a community planner for the City of Albuquerque for 10 years.

She lives in the North Valley, one house away from an irrigation ditch, but she does not irrigate. She argues that her experience as a community planner and as a facilitator in city grievance hearings makes her suited to bring calm and cooperation to a troubled board.

“I’ve been reading all these stories, all these lawsuits and controversy, and the challenges that the district faces are tremendous. In order to deal with those challenges we need to have a board that can work together,” Dunning said in an interview.

She has enjoyed the support of Sen. Feldman, who was a major proponent of the “Ditches with Trails” effort, and who has often been in conflict with the current director in this position, Bill Turner.

“She came to me at a Joan Baez concert and said, ‘I’m thinking of running for the conservancy district. What do you think?’ And I said, ‘I think that’s great,’” recalled Sen. Feldman. “[The district] is such a hornet’s nest that no one wants to devote the time. So I’m delighted when people without vested interests want to get involved.”

Although Dunning is not an irrigator and does not have extensive experience with water issues, she believes the board would benefit from her service as a director who is an “ordinary citizen.”

“Turner says he wants change, but he is so confrontational that it doesn’t work. He doesn’t manage to effect that change because he may come up with a very good idea, but because he’s come up with it, other board members aren’t going to support it,” Dunning said.

Bill Turner

Bill Turner lives in Albuquerque’s Old Town neighborhood. A former New Mexico Natural Resources trustee and a member of the MRGCD board since 2005, he has a Ph.D in geology with a focus in hydrology. His firm, WaterBank, buys and sells water rights in New Mexico and across the country.

Turner said the plan to put in a system of formalized recreation trails was a power grab by Sen. Feldman, who defeated him to win her seat in the New Mexico Senate. His objection to the trails plan was related in part to an increase in crime after some South Valley trails were paved.

Although Turner’s tenure at MRGCD has been marked by controversy, some have praised his efforts to reform what they say has been a secretive but powerful organization. He was recently endorsed by Conservation Voters New Mexico, whose executive director, Sandy Buffett, said, “During his first term, Dr. Turner demonstrated his commitment to reforming the policies and practices of the MRGCD to make it more open, transparent and responsive. We need him to continue this fight.”

Turner has sued the district several times, charging that it violated the state’s Open Meetings Act and that its proposed water bank was illegal. In 2006 the board tried to have him removed as a director, saying his own water rights business was a conflict of interest. The former chairman, José Otero, was quoted in the newspaper calling Turner a “pain in the butt.”

Turner says he’s proud of having shaken up the district’s board.

“They criticized me for being divisive, but when I was elected I was faced with a board that would stonewall everything. They would do whatever [CEO Subas Shah] said to do. I fought with those bastards for holding meetings in Shah’s office before the regular meetings… and the board is working so well now.”

“This is not a patty-cake game we’re playing here. You’ve gotta crack some eggs to make an omelet. And I’m the easiest guy to work with when you have good communications. I’m really easy to work with.”