County commission candidates discuss growth

Candidates for two seats on the Doña Ana County Board of Commissioners shared their views during Tuesday’s League of Women Voters forum.

District 1 Commissioner Oscar Vasquez Butler, a Democrat, said one of his main concerns is getting out of the state-mandated extraterritorial zoning authority, which creates a joint board of the county and City of Las Cruces that oversees development in a five-mile area around the city.

“I have a deep concern with being in the ETZ,” Butler said. “I think it’s time we reconsider and the county takes control of its own destiny.”

Growth and related issues were the main topics discussed during the forum. Butler, who wants a moratorium on development in and around arroyos, blamed developers for what he called “uncontrolled growth.”

Butler’s opponent, Republican John Zimmerman, said there is “some uncontrolled growth,” but said there are other, more pressing issues, and other problems that contributed to this summer’s flooding.

The main problem, Zimmerman said, is that codes aren’t being enforced. For example, people aren’t being forced to take care of ponding areas on their property, he said, so many of those areas aren’t being maintained and are ineffective.

“That’s the problem we have in the county, is we’re not enforcing our ordinances,” Zimmerman said.

District 3 candidate Mack Haley, a Republican, agreed, saying the county needs to “clarify our codes and enforce those codes.”

In addition, Haley called for lots of input from the public, developers and others in the county’s comprehensive plan, which is currently under review, to help with growth issues.

Democrat Karen Perez, Haley’s opponent, said she doesn’t see the area’s growth as “uncontrolled,” but did say she sees “room for improvement on some of our plans for growth.”

The problem, according to Perez, is that the county, city and ETZ each have their own plans.

“What I have not seen is an effort to bring all three of those plans together,” Perez said.

The candidates were also asked for their positions on whether federal land and wilderness study areas should be preserved or opened for development.

Zimmerman said 93 percent of land in the county is owned by governments. He said he favors the federal government selling land for development, saying pushing development to the mesas, where the federal government owns much of the land, would help preserve farm land in the valley.

“How can we increase the tax base when we’ve got such a small amount of land?” Zimmerman asked.

Butler said he opposes development on federal land, in particular property in the Robledo Mountains that is the site of Paleozoic trackways many want preserved as a national monument.

He called for slower and smart growth in the valley, and said developers should leave the mountains alone.

“I think we have enough valley to live, but we have to live within the sustainability of water,” Butler said.

Perez said this issue “tends to be emotional” and asked that people consider it from “the practical standpoint.” She said it’s not practical to build in arroyos or on “unbuildable terrain” such as “areas that erode,” including many mountainous areas.

“Taking the land out of its natural intent and its natural habitat and trying to convert it to something it was never intended to be won’t work,” Perez said.

Haley said he supports the creation of a wilderness area in the Organ Mountains, but also said growth has to go somewhere and should go to the mesas.

“If we don’t want the farmland to go away, we’ve got to have somewhere to go,” he said.