I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Map of proposed boundaries of Valle de Atrisco
Registered voters who live in the unincorporated area of Bernalillo County’s South Valley are voting today in a special election to determine whether or not they should incorporate into a town. The proposed town would be called Valle De Atrisco. If the voters approve incorporation, the new town would be Bernalillo County’s fourth municipality.
Voting is open from 7 am to 7 pm, at eleven consolidated poll locations throughout the area.
The vote is the culmination of a multiple year organizing effort by the South Valley Incorporation Advisory Group, and state Rep. Miguel Garcia has been one of the primary advocates of the initiative. In September 2008 he told The Independent that the town was necessary in order for the people who live there to have a say in how the area develops:
“Every month the county issues more and more special use permits allowing housing to be built on agricultural land. We’re losing our land by the day,” Garcia said. “Every time you do that you stick the dagger in a little deeper. Creating our own government would start to pull that dagger out, by allowing the people who actually live here to control how the valley is developed.” …
“The driving spirit of our work to incorporate is to have local autonomy and self-determination so that we can make land use and development decisions that will keep our identity intact,” he said.
Some critics of the idea contend that residents would see an increase in taxes and still struggle to provide a proper level of services. This view was corroborated by a comprehensive study done by UNM’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research in 2008. That study found that there would be a $3 to $8 million revenue shortfall to meet the new city’s costs, The Independent reported:
When BBER added the state-shared revenue with other sources of revenues they estimated a total of $440 per capita, or slightly more than $22 million.
The study estimates costs, at the very lowest, at $500 per capita, or $25 million. This is a figure that BBER developed after looking at current cost estimates of $30 million and shaving from various areas. So ultimately, BBER found, there is a $3 to $8 million gap between revenues and costs.
Still, BBER Director Lee Reynis said that the gap was small enough that the town would still be “in range” of meeting it’s needs:
“What we tried to do was come up with reasonable estimates for what it would cost,” BBER Director Lee Reynis told the Independent. “And we found that if they exercised some of their taxing capacity, combined with the state share of gross receipts taxes that all municipalities receive, that they are within range. And communities typically live within their revenues so they find a way to do it.”
