Meeting the franchise owners

Many people talk about "exercising their franchise" around election time (me included). Last night, I got to meet some of the newly elected officials.

There was a forum with our new councilman (elected), new mayor (elected), and city manager (appointed). First, I was amazed that I was nearly the youngest person in the room -- but perhaps people my age are busy with their families and can't make it to meetings like this. Then I was amazed by how many people asked the "Why can't we get a stoplight here?" or "When is this improvement, which has been promised then pushed back for seven or eight years, finally going to happen?" types of questions -- but maybe, even with their interest in city government, they don't know that public works, codes enforcement, etc. would be better suited to provide answers than people who were elected just a month ago. (I was also amazed by how many people asked questions about traffic volume on a particular street, which I can't write here because I had never heard of it before, even though it seems to be a busy street, so I don't know how to spell it.)

I was one of the few people that asked about a broader, public-good issue. I asked about an issue that was raised during the campaigns: the lack of zoning regulations which would require developers to reserve a certain percent of their land for schools, parks, open space, etc.

When I took an introductory planning class at NMSU, about 17 years ago, the textbook described basic planning methods, such as "x" number of schools for "y" acres of development. I (wrongly) assumed that was a principle that every municipality applied. That is why we get acres and acres (or miles and miles) of houses but nothing to do near them in Las Cruces. (If any of you come to visit, ask me to show you where everyone is building houses and where the closest grocery store is.)

Well, first I addressed a concern raised by the young woman before me (one of the few constituents younger than I), informing her that the Bicycle and Pedestrian Facilities Advisory Committee (of which I am a member) would love to hear from her, and that our next meeting happens to be next Tuesday, December 18 at 5:00 p.m. at the new county complex. Then I asked my question.

The mayor responded, in a humorous way, that I must be a shill planted in the audience to bring up this topic because the city council had just, that afternoon, set a "work session" for March to work on nothing but the zoning issue.

I hope it will be set at a time I can attend. At the very least, I'm going to follow up with an e-mail to my councilman (twelve years younger than I).