Planning Sessions Round One Comments

DSF received many emails and comments about the Santa Fe County planning sessions this past week. For those who have not participated in similar type planning sessions, it was confusing and yet did not delve into some of the deeper issues. In addition, the planning sessions overall addressed the General Plan, the Galisteo Basin Area Plan, the Capital Improvement District, and the Oil and Gas Amendments to the Land Use Code, which added to the confusion for some. I had the benefit of attending the third workshop following Dr. Freilich’s talk that gave context to the third planning session. The previous planning sessions did not have the benefit of such context. On the other hand, there were those who were pleased with the planning sessions.

Our group identified the entire Galisteo Basin as a Critical Management Area (CMA) due to the hydrogeology, archaeology, air quality, wildlife corridor, view scapes, and so forth. The CMA would be an area that would not permit hardrock or oil & gas extractive activities. We took the development types key code and prohibited the last four, such as I = Industrial developments. It would be inconsistent and incompatible to conduct industrial developments in a CMA and in the fragile ecosystem of the Galisteo Basin. We identified other areas of the basin for certain types of developments, such as Agricultural/Ranching, Village Centers, etc.

Maybe future sessions would have better context? It would be helpful to have earlier notifications of the future sessions and a more detailed agenda so that the community would better understand what to expect.

Community participation is critical to the legitimacy of the process. About 90 attended the three sessions. Although there was overlap at Dr. Freilich’s talk, there were about 65 attendees. There needs to be more citizen participation. Ask yourself, do you have a 50 year vision for Santa Fe County? Do you want the government or Industry to choose the vision of Santa Fe County for you?

If you have suggestions about how to organize the County planning process or other input, please feel free to send an email to drillingsantafe@earthlink.net . Also, Planning Works has set up a website, http://www.ourplanningworks.com/santafe/ that has a Comment Center. Remember, democracy is not a spectator sport.