Water Delivery Withdraws

Santa Fe County withholds cash for water because of roads dispute

Santa Fe County will withhold more than $30 million it planned to contribute toward the construction of a regional water system to the Pojoaque Valley, bailing on a previous obligation with the passage of a resolution Tuesday night.

The County Commission voted  4-1, with Commissioner Miguel Chavez dissenting, to stop funding set aside through a settlement known as Aamodt. Only until the county and four area pueblos can come to a compromise on who controls who roads through pueblo territories will the county consider assuming its portion of financial responsibilities.

But for now, according to the resolution, the county may very well need the money to pay for court costs that might arise from the confusion.

The action, which came after nearly an hour and a half of public testimony, immediately drew applause from a packed chamber of frustrated residents, many of whom are from El Rancho and no claim their property values have been declining in the last three years, ever since the Bureau of Indian Affairs claimed that a pair of county roads that they've used for years actually belong to San Ildefonso Pueblo, and not the county.

The seed of doubt as to the true ownership of the road caused title companies to refuse insuring access roads to the properties, they say, which in turn caused lenders to think twice about lending, all of which has made refinancing and obtaining home loans difficult.

Last week, the county and the San Ildefonso Pueblo met and tried to reach a compromise, but both failed to do so. The Pueblo says it simply wanted its roads and right of ways returned to them, noting that they would like to rename them, but pointed out that the county could still use them as long as they maintained them.

The county balked, saying that it would rather all pueblos in the Pojoaque Valley, from Nambé to Tesuque to Pojoaque, try to work out some agreement over all county roads as they pass through pueblo lands, the county now fearful that a domino effect in property values could become widespread.

But San Ildefonso officials refused, saying they were only talking about their roads, and with that they walked away from the negotiations, an impasse that led to Tuesday night's resolution, which was drafted by Commissioner Henry Roybal.

While some residents who showed up at the commission meeting failed to see a direct connection between the road dispute and the decision not to help build a water delivery system, there is a direct connection between the two, the county argues. The county planned on financing the water delivery system from the proceeds from its property taxes, but now that the values of properties are declining, so too are the revenues that would have gone toward the cost of delivery system's construction.

County Assessor Gus Martinez has said that his office has received as many as 160 valuation protests from residents in El Rancho in the wake of the dispute and the subsequent decline in their property values.

Mel Chaney, a 90-year-old resident who lives El Rancho is among those affected.

"My house is my main asset," he told commissioners, "and when I have to move forward, it will have to be based on the sale of my house, and with the present situation…my house is considered devalued and maybe unsaleable."

Chaney went on: "The situation on the market right now comes as a shock to me. I'm not unique in this situation. There are many people who live in the same situation, and it seems to me that this resolution is a fast way forward to getting this resolved."

Some residents, however, had a hard time figuring out what the long-anticipated water delivery system had to do with the ownership of county roads, among them Leon Howard, an attorney, who said the county should solve the road ownership dilemma "irrespective" of the water delivery system.

The four commissioners who voted for the measure said they felt confident that the financial pullout was a smart move because if the future ownership of the roads are in question, then the success of the water delivery system could suffer as well as a result. Legal costs associated with a lawsuit filed against the San Ildefonso could also add up as much as is portion toward the construction of the system.

Chavez said he didn't think the resolution was the "end all" to the problem, and was holding out hope for a compromise between the county and the pueblo.

The pueblo issued a statement after the vote from Gov. James Mountain that reads, "For two years, we have been working in good-faith to find a fair resolution to both of these with Santa Fe County.  It is disheartening that after all of we’ve put into this, including hours of face-to-face meetings, they chose to blindside us by suddenly tying the two together. The truth is, separately, these are two very complicated issues and combining them will only further complicate matters, and potentially drag out any resolution to either. We believe that is a disservice to the Pueblo, private landowners who are caught up in the road dispute, and the taxpayers of Santa Fe County.”

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story gave the wrong amount of the money the county voted to withhold and miscounted the number of pueblos mentioned in the resolution. 

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