Pearce to hold controversial wilderness meeting

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., has stepped into a new controversy by holding a meeting today on wilderness study areas in Doña Ana County and putting together a panel of speakers whose only member participating in his capacity as an elected official is from Catron County.

State Rep. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, will be participating in the panel, but was invited in his capacity as southern New Mexico director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. Steinborn’s group is leading a campaign that has widespread support to create 10 permanent wilderness areas in the county.

Upset that no local government officials from Doña Ana County were invited to a meeting about Doña Ana County’s wilderness study areas, Oscar Vasquez Butler and Bill McCamley, Doña Ana County Commissioners and Democrats, wrote a letter to Pearce on Wednesday expressing concern.

McCamley is vying for the right to take on Pearce next year.

“While your press announcement states that you want to hear from stakeholders, it appears you have only invited a narrow group of individuals who are almost exclusively opposed to protected wilderness in Doña Ana County,” the letter states. “As elected officials, we are specifically troubled that you did not invite a single public official from Doña Ana County to speak.”

Pearce has billed the meeting as a “listening session” and said, in a news release, that he hopes to “hear the various solutions coming from community leaders on how to address these challenges” of creating “a cleaner and more vibrant environment” through managing the land.

“Doña Ana County has made tremendous progress and I hope this dialogue is helpful in continuing the progress,” he said. “How we decide to use the land is a critical question and part of the foundation in building a better New Mexico.”

The county and all four incorporated communities in it have approved resolutions – most unanimously – in support of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance proposal, which also has the support of 170 area businesses and the endorsements of several newspapers.

Pearce’s panel, in addition to the Catron County commissioner and Steinborn, includes an advocate of access for off-road vehicles, a realtor, a builder, a representative of a sportsman alliance, a retired agriculture secretary and a representative of the Farm Bureau.

McCamley and Butler requested that local government officials be added to the panel.

“We are not Catron County, and your analysis should be based upon what we as a community want,” their letter states. “… If such an offer is not extended to balance this panel, we can only conclude that this event is designed to primarily put out the perspective of a very narrow interest, to the exclusion of the community’s true voice and interests.”

As of late Friday, Pearce had not altered the makeup of the panel.

The meeting will be held from 2-5 p.m. in the board room of the Las Cruces Public Schools administration building, located at 505 South Main Street.