Valencia County Commission Threatens to drop the ball in play again!

posted: October 9, 2004

The October 5th meeting of the Valencia County Commission turned out to be a pivotal point in the battle to stop the Power Plant in Rio Communities Industrial Center.

It was announced that Commissioner Mary Anderson would not be at the scheduled October 20th Meeting on the Moratorium put in place through the efforts of Larry Alba and other community leaders. This really makes Mary Anderson look like she’s the foot person for People’s Powers interest for the Valencia County area. It did not escape the attention of Libertysteward.com and its reporters in the audience. It also did not escape the attention of our viewers that the attorney for People’s Power was there and left after Mary Anderson’s announcement. We are not the only ones that noticed her continually making eyes at the attorney in question, as if looking for a lead on what to say. That seemed to be the sole reason they were there as there was no other business pertaining to the issue on the agenda that night. The Moratorium Meeting was postponed until November 3rd and the People’s attorney left with a smug smile on his face. This, of course, was a planned event facilitated by Mary Anderson and intended to give People’s Power a window of opportunity between the 20th of Oct and the 3 of Nov to make their move and be within their rights. Mr. Alba is strenuously protesting their action as it represents their breaking their word again after having promised the community this respite until the subject of correcting the zoning can be properly addressed.

It was equally disappointing to note that Ruben Chavez seems honed on being the People’s Power man on the spot in the Zoning Department which he has basically inherited after the other rats left the sinking ship.. He has this nasty habit of putting falsified maps in front of the Commissioners and asking them to sign off on illegal I-3 zoning changes. He did just that at the September meeting and Commissioner Paul Trujillo refused to sign on to it, just as he has adamantly done in all the previous Commission meetings. We all thought you were working for the people of Valencia County Ruben, whatever happened to your oath of office - did you swear it to People’s Power or the People. Just who do you really work for Ruben!?  When asked about the Moratorium Mr. Trujillo explained: The public needs to know what is about to happen to their air, water and property values, and if they care they need to show up and stand up for what is theirs to defend.” 

We all owe Paul Trujillo a great deal for being the only commissioner so far to show and enlightened stance on this issue.  Paul has shown strong leadership and maintained good faith with all of his constituents by looking out for the well being of the community when the sharks have been circling and having their way with our property and civil rights. He has continued to try and conclude the business of setting right the illegal off-board changes that were made by other conspirators who have since left the scene.  Mr. Alba has spent incredible sums of money defending his own and the communities interest and with him nipping at their heels both the previous county attorney resigned as well as the old county manager. 

Both left under a black cloud of suspicion and although they may not be in those jobs any more the pressure is not coming off. An ongoing discovery and investigation of this fraudulent act is underway.  Both the ex-County Attorney and the ex-County Manager are subjects of this ongoing investigation. 

Apparently one of them has a solid record of having falsified public records to effect an illegal zoning changes.  None of this has been missed by any of us in the citizens groups targeting this issue.

When pressed on the matter Mr. Trujillo was very forthcoming stating: “I talked to the county manager and the attorney and told them I disagreed with the alleged expiration date, because the language of the moratorium states that it is to allow time to develop a policy that deals with issues of public health and safety...... which has not been done.”  He went on to note that community leaders should strive to put new moratorium language on his desk and that of the County Manager as soon as possible before the next meeting.  (Any suggestions you have can be directed to editor@libertysteward.com and we will post them here for your consideration in the second part  of this article called “Read the full Story”. under this very article title.  If it is no longer  the current Headline Story simply continue to scroll down under the Headline Story and you will  find this article in the News Section.)

Below is the letter sent from Mr. Alba and others to request the action items necessary on the Commission’s Agenda for the October 20th meeting. 

October 8th, 2004
Request for Agenda Action Item at Oct 20, 2004 County Commission Meeting 
Valencia County Manager
Michael Trujillo
County Commissioner Chairman 
Gary Daves
P.O. Box 1119
Los Lunas, NM 87031
Dear Michael Trujillo and Gary Daves, 

We request that we be placed on the agenda as an Action Item to answer the question of the validity of the Zoning change that appeared in November 1999 in regard to the (high level) I-3 Heavy Industrial Designation of the Rio Grande Industrial Park.  The evidence we have found proves that this is a (low level) I-1 Resource Industrial District.  This question has been asked repeatedly for the last Two Plus years, and an acceptable answer has never been put forth.

As landowners of properties that directly abut this industrial park we have never been notified of not only the change of zoning, or even the request or intent to change the zoning as required by state laws.  This is a violation of our civil rights, and must be corrected.  For Facts related to this matter please refer to the complaint letter from Lawrence Alba dated May 25, 2004.

Please also note that there was a recent appointment to discuss this matter with our state representative Kandy Cordova. She was the Valencia County Clerk in 1999.  She immediately noticed and declared that the clerks attested handwritten date on the zoning map was a forgery of her handwriting of the date of November 8, 1999. 

Lawrence Alba 
Rosalie Castellano 
David Castellano 
George Faust
George-Luis Dewey

We need to rally around Paul Trujillo and show up in force to combat this conspiracy to commit fraud and the subsequent squandering of Public Funds over an issue that never should have been allowed to go this far.  The bad decisions on the part of public officials prior to Paul Trujillo’s arrival on the Commission has left the County of Valencia open to lawsuits by People’s Power Company or lawsuits by citizens coalitions on the other side.  So its either going to be their loss or ours.  That is what happens when people entrusted with the Public Welfare ignore proper conventions to make changes on blueprints.  Any engineer worth his pay would know that no changes are allowed to any engineering document unless the proper changes and revisions are noted in the Revision Block column and they can only be signed of by the responsible party, the checker of the draft and the final engineering released document which at that points has all the bells and whistles of a legal beagle!  This dog won’t hunt!  Show up and be counted - our community, its health and welfare and our way of life is clearly at stake.  We must help Commissioner Paul Trujillo to stop this I-3 zoning and have the building moratorium extended in the industrial zone.