Thursday, July 24, 2008

Delayed SAD Vote Frustrates Residents

By Rosalie Rayburn
Journal Staff Writer
      Frustration.
    That's the emotion a majority of residents who spoke in support of creating a new Special Assessment District voiced during Wednesday's City Council meeting when their councilor proposed delaying a decision.
    "Another delay, another monsoon, another chance for us to be washed out. What am I going to do?" said Kristin Brown, the north Rio Rancho resident who organized a neighborhood petition to create a SAD to pay for drainage improvements in her area.
    The petition Brown presented to the council contained signatures from 22 percent of the property owners in the proposed SAD.
    A SAD is a legal mechanism that allows the city to recoup the cost of infrastructure improvements, such as paved roads, curbs, gutters and drainage ponds, from property owners in the areas that benefit.
    District 6 Councilor Kathy Colley, who represents the Unit 17 area that includes Brown's neighborhood, was concerned that the petition represented such a low percentage of property owners.
    She proposed the council delay a decision until their Aug. 27 meeting to give Brown time to gather more signatures.
    Councilors voted 4-0 in favor of the delay. Councilor Larry Naranjo was absent from the meeting and Councilor Delma Petrullo left before the vote.
    More than a dozen people shared Brown's frustration. Rain-related flooding and erosion impedes access to roads and homes and poses a safety risk for residents, they said.
    They urged councilors to take into account that there are many undeveloped lots in the proposed SAD area which belong to out-of-state owners who aren't suffering those problems.
    Michael Perez, who helped Brown gather petition signatures, said he made 50 to 60 phone calls to states as far afield as Massachusetts, Michigan and Illinois, trying to get absentee landowners to sign.
    "They will never be voters in your district or city," Perez said.
    He asked councilors to consider the wishes of the neighborhood residents.
    A few who spoke said they would rather see a comprehensive citywide or regional infrastructure plan to address drainage issues rather than a piecemeal approach.
    City Attorney Jim Babin told councilors that state law allows cities to create SADs in response to a petition from 66 percent of the property owners in the area. Absent a petition by a majority of property owners, the law allows city councils to impose a SAD.
    But a recent attempt to do that provoked strong opposition. In 2006, councilors proposed a SAD that would have covered most of Unit 17 after unusually heavy rains caused extensive damage in that area. The company that engineered the SAD informed property owners that their share of the improvement costs would be about $13,500.
    Many objected, and councilors voted in April to discontinue SAD work in that area.
    That decision prompted Brown to launch the petition for a new SAD.
   

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