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Historically speaking, Gov. Susana Martinez is correct for her veto of the Santa Fe Courthouse funding. The current and former Santa Fe County Commissioners are responsible for the shortage of funding for the project. I use the word “historically” to provide a framework of what led up to the shortfall.
During the early 1980s, the Albuquerque Journal purchased their current location in Santa Fe. This property was the former site of Roybal’s Texaco gas station, which of course had underground gasoline storage. It was discovered at the time of construction of then-new Journal North building that contamination existed. After several months of cleanup and further discovery that the gasoline plume also contaminated adjoining properties, the construction of the Journal North was completed.
Two and a half decades later, Santa Fe County decided to purchase the properties involved to build a new courthouse. The property directly adjoining the Journal North was once owned by a prominent Santa Fe elected official. This and other properties were purchased and the courthouse construction began, only to be delayed by the New Mexico Environment Department for gasoline contamination.
Initially, county commission attempted to ignore the findings and even attempted to claim that they would alter their construction plans and only excavate two stories below ground and therefore not interfere with the contamination. Wrong. The Environment Department demanded a site cleanup. This resulted in the delay of construction and the enormous payment to the contractor every month the delay occurred until cleanup was satisfactory.
So now, compound the cost of the delay and the cleanup, and you can easily see why there is a tremendous cost override concerning this project. The county should have never purchased the property without Environment Department clearance and who would have been responsible for the cleanup? The former owners, not county taxpayers of Santa Fe.
It would be wrong at this point to pass this cost to the entire state of New Mexico taxpayers when truly this is a Santa County cost liability. Therefore, the governor was correct in the veto process. As a Santa Fe County and city resident, I am not looking for an increase in my taxes. As a city dweller, that cost is compounded by the recent revenue bond increase in property taxes. The tax liability continues to grow because of lack of transparency by both governing bodies.
Dr. Larragoite is a former Santa Fe County Commissioner.
