Local governments missing out by competing, rather than coordinating, with one another for capital outlay monies

by Kathleen Sloan | December 21, 2020
6 min read
NM Senator elect Crystal Diamond, Representative-Elect Luis Terrazas and Representative Rebecca Dow
(From left) New Mexico Senator-Elect Crystal Diamond, Representative-Elect Luis Terrazas and Representative Rebecca Dow Photographs courtesy of the featured legislators' social media sites

In a recent interview with the Sun, John Arthur Smith—District 35’s state senator for 32 years—criticized local leaders for failing to work together to coordinate their capital outlay requests so as to maximize the amounts and impacts of the awarded funds.

His conclusion, based on long experience, was echoed last week by incoming freshmen Senator-Elect Crystal Diamond, Representative-Elect Luis Terrazas and returning Representative Rebecca Dow during capital outlay request presentations by all of Sierra County’s governmental entities.

The Dec. 17 online convocation of state legislators and local government leaders was sponsored by the South Central Council of Governments. Leaders were given 20 minutes to present their governmental entity’s top funding priorities.

After listening to a few of these presentations, all competing for the same pool of capital outlay monies, Crystal Diamond suggested a different approach. Diamond, who replaces Smith as District 35’s senator in January, pointed out local government entities in other counties within her district used their Council of Governments as a grants coordinator. Because they did not compete against each other for grants and capital outlay, these counties regularly won bigger awards.

“We need to find out what other COGs are doing and do it here,” Diamond emphasized. 

District 38’s Dow said she and Smith coordinated their responses to capital outlay requests in the past, and said she would be doing the same with Diamond and District 39’s Terrazas this session, implying the three legislators would determine project funding priorities in the absence of consensus among local leaders.

Terrazas added that their pooled capital outlay for the area is probably about $4 million.

Guidelines given to freshmen legislators by Legislative Finance Committee Director David Abbey for disbursing capital outlay monies highlighted another means for Sierra County governments to maximize awards. Local governments should first seek grant money to fund projects, Diamond and Terrazas both said, using capital outlay as matching money for those grants.

Diamond and Terrazas said Abbey had emphasized that federal Colonias funding provided the “biggest pot of grant money,” with about $19 million to be granted within the state this year.

Although Colonias funding is available for a broad array of infrastructure projects, such as water, sewer and roads improvements, Terrazas said, few local governments qualify. The community served must be low income and located no more than 150 miles north of the Mexican border. Sierra County, the Village of Williamsburg and the City of Truth or Consequences have sought and received the Colonias designation.

Yet Sierra County is among the lowest-ranking Colonias grantees, having received only $2 million since 2012, Terrazas said, compared to more than $40 million received by Doña Ana County.

“This is a huge pool of money we are not tapping into in Sierra County,” Diamond said.

Sierra County’s capital outlay requests

County Manager Bruce Swingle made the presentation to the state legislators. He said the county’s first priority was a $150,000 request to purchase two handicapped-accessible vans to bring tourists visiting Elephant Butte Lake State Park into Elephant Butte and Truth or Consequences to increase commerce and gross receipts tax revenues.

Swingle said the “state economic gurus” found the idea of transporting tourists to spas, restaurants and shops to be innovative, and they are encouraging other communities to replicate the program.

The county’s second priority was a $100,000 request to pave the parking lot of the former Amin’s Furniture building that is being renovated to accommodate county offices.

The third priority was a $427,000 request to expand drainage capability at the Bridge of Grace, the “major ingress and egress” point for Monticello, Swingle said. The road often becomes impassable during rains.

Terrazas asked if Swingle had applied for Colonias money to fund the Bridge of Grace project. Swingle said the county had never received Colonias money and had no grant writer on staff. The 20 grants currently administered by the county were written by employees with multiple responsibilities.

The county’s fourth request for funds to bring the older section of Sierra Vista Hospital up to fire code elicited the most interest on the part of the state legislators.

Swingle estimated the cost to cure 99 fire code hazards identified last March by the fire marshal at $1.8 million, while cautioning that figure is not yet firm.

Because the older and newer building “are somewhat joined,” the older building must be brought up to fire code, Swingle said.

The state is allowing patients to be placed in the old, 11-bed hospital unit during the pandemic, but, once the crisis is over, Swingle said, the state will enforce strict adherence to code.

Dow recommended to Swingle that the project must be divided into phases so that the capital outlay request covers 100 percent of the first phase. Swingle said he would restructure the request into separate phases, each with firmer cost estimates.  

Addressing all the government attendees, Diamond elaborated on Dow’s point that accurate phasing, request amounts and timely spending are important,. The state is looking at unused capital outlay awards, with the goal of “reverting” the money to the originating funds for redistribution. She noted the New Mexico State Veterans’ Home had not used monies awarded three years ago.

Diamond asked South Central Council of Governments Director Jay Armijo to investigate why the veterans’ home has not spent that capital outlay.

Village of Williamsburg’s capital outlay requests

Mayor Deborah Stubblefield gave the presentation to the state legislators. She said the village’s first priority was for $50,000 to match $250,000 in Colonias funding to repave and improve drainage on Doris Avenue and Mona Street.

The second priority was a $100,000 request to commission a preliminary engineering study of needed street and drainage improvements throughout Williamsburg.

The third priority was a $100,000 request to design water and sewer improvements.

Inconsistent with her prioritizing of Williamsburg’s capital outlay requests, Stubblefield noted water and sewer lines should be replaced before the streets were paved.

City of Elephant Butte’s capital outlay requests

Mayor Edna Trager gave the presentation to state legislators, taking most of her time to relate the city’s history.

Her list of requests lacked specifics and cost estimates.

After Trager’s presentation, Diamond asked the mayor for “a clean one-pager” of priority requests and dollar amounts and recommended government leaders refer to Sierra County’s single-page summary as a model.

City of Truth or Consequences capital outlay requests

City Manager Morris Madrid gave the presentation to the state legislators.

The city’s first priority was a $1.15 million request to redesign the street, sidewalks, curbs and gutters along Foch Street, which is the major connector between the city’s “two main streets” downtown. The project would make Foch a “showplace,” Madrid said, that would boost tourism and commerce.  

Dow pointed out the project had already been funded, with $1 million coming from MainStreet New Mexico and $200,000 from previous capital outlay. Dow noted that Linda DeMarino, MainStreet’s executive director, had been apprised of the capital outlay award.

The city’s second priority was a $400,000 request to fund a city-wide drainage and flooding master plan.

The city’s third priority was a $5.5 million request to complete the first phase of a $12 million “multigenerational campus” to be built on the parking lot between Third and Fourth Streets, next to the city commission chambers. The first phase would be the construction of an indoor pool, Madrid said.

Dow and Diamond noted the lack of attention to utility infrastructure in Madrid’s presentation and pointed out that capital outlay funds will likely be limited this session.

They reported getting calls from constituents in T or C, complaining about the need to fix potholes, water and sewer lines and to prevent rolling electrical outages.  

“We are getting the same calls,” Madrid conceded.

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Kathleen Sloan is the Sun’s founder and chief reporter. She can be reached at kathleen.sloan@gmail.com or 575-297-4146.
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Understanding New Mexico's proposed new social studies standards for K-12 students

“The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.”
—National Council for the Social Studies 

Reader Michael L. Hayes of Las Cruces commented: What impresses me is that both the proposed standards and some of the criticisms of them are equally grotesque. I make this bold statement on the basis of my experience as a peripatetic high school and college English teacher for 45 years in many states with many students differing in race, religion, gender and socioeconomic background, and as a civic activist (PTA) in public education (My career, however, was as an independent consultant mainly in defense, energy and the environment.)

The proposed social studies standards are conceptually and instructionally flawed. For starters, a “performance standard” is not a standard at all; it is a task. Asking someone to explain something is not unlike asking someone to water the lawn. Nothing measures the performance, but without a measure, there is no standard. The teacher’s subjective judgment will be all that matters, and almost anything will count as satisfying a “performance standard,” even just trying. Students will be left to wonder “what is on the teacher’s mind?” or “have I sucked up enough.”

Four other quick criticisms of the performance standards. One, they are nearly unintelligible because they are written in jargon. PED’s use of jargon in a document intended for the public is worrisome. Bureaucrats often use jargon to confuse or conceal something uninformed, wrong or unworthy. As a result, most parents, some school board members and more than a few teachers do not understand them.

Two, the performance standards are so vague that they fail to define the education which teachers are supposed to teach, students are supposed to learn, and parents are supposed to understand. PED does not define words like “explain” or “describe” so that teachers can apply “standards” consistently and fairly. The standards do not indicate what teachers are supposed to know in order to teach or specify what students are supposed to learn. Supervisors cannot know whether teachers are teaching social studies well or poorly. The standards are so vague that the public, especially parents or guardians, cannot know the content of public education.

Three, many performance standards are simply unrealistic, especially at grade level. Under “Ethnic, Cultural and Identity Performance Standards”; then under “Diversity and Identity”; then under “Kindergarten,” one such standard is: “Identify how their family does things both the same as and different from how other people do things.” Do six-year-olds know how other people do things? Do they know whether these things are relevant to diversity and identity? Or another standard: “Describe their family history, culture, and past to current contributions of people in their main identity groups.” (A proficient writer would have hyphenated the compound adjective to avoid confusing the reader.) Do six-year-olds know so much about these things in relation to their “identity group”? Since teachers obviously do not teach them about these other people and have not taught them about these groups, why are these and similar items in the curriculum; or do teachers assign them to go home and collect this information?

Point four follows from “three”; some information relevant to some performance measures requires a disclosure of personal or family matters. The younger the students, the easier it is for teachers to invade their privacy and not only their privacy, but also the privacy of their parents or guardians, or neighbors, who may never be aware of these disclosures or not become aware of them until afterward. PED has no right to design a curriculum which requires teachers to ask students for information about themselves, parents or guardians, or neighbors, or puts teachers on the spot if the disclosures reveal criminal conduct. (Bill says Jeff’s father plays games in bed with his daughter. Lila says Angelo’s mother gives herself shots in the arm.) Since teacher-student communications have no legal protection to ensure privacy, those disclosures may become public accidentally or deliberately. The effect of these proposal standards is to turn New Mexico schools and teachers into investigative agents of the state and students into little informants or spies.

This PED proposal for social studies standards is a travesty of education despite its appeals to purportedly enlightened principles. It constitutes a clear and present danger to individual liberty and civil liberties. It should be repudiated; its development, investigated; its PED perpetrators, dismissed. No state curriculum should encourage or require the disclosure of private personal information.

I am equally outraged by the comments of some of T or C’s school board members: Christine LaFont and Julianne Stroup, two white Christian women, who belong to one of the larger minorities in America and assume white and Christian privileges. In different terms but for essentially the same reason, both oppose an education which includes lessons about historical events and trends, and social movements and developments, of other minorities. They object to the proposal for the new social studies standards because of its emphasis on individual and group identities not white or Christian. I am not going to reply with specific objections; they are too numerous and too pointed.

Ms. LaFont urges: “It’s better to address what’s similar with all Americans. It’s not good to differentiate.” Ms. Stroup adds: “Our country is not a racist country. We have to teach to respect each other. We have civil rights laws that protect everyone from discrimination. We need to teach civics, love and respect. We need to teach how to be color blind.”

Their desires for unity and homogeneity, and for mutual respect, are a contradiction and an impossibility. Aside from a shared citizenship, which implies acceptance of the Constitution, the rule of law and equality under the law, little else defines Americans. We are additionally defined by our race, religion, national origin, etc. So mutual respect requires individuals to respect others different from themselves. Disrespect desires blacks, Jews or Palestinians to assimilate or to suppress or conceal racial, religious or national origin aspects of their identity. The only people who want erasure of nonwhite, non-Christian, non-American origin aspects of identity are bigots. Ms. LaFont and Ms. Stroud want standards which, by stressing similarities and eliding differences, desire the erasure of such aspects. What they want will result in a social studies curriculum that enables white, Christian, native-born children to grow up to be bigots and all others to be their victims. This would be the academic equivalent of ethnic cleansing.

H.E.L.P.

This postmortem of a case involving a 75-year-old women who went missing from her home in Hillsboro last September sheds light on the bounds of law enforcement’s capacity to respond, especially in large rural jurisdictions such as Sierra County, and underscores the critical role the public, as well as concerned family and friends, can play in assisting a missing person’s search.

Reader Jane Debrott of Hillsboro commented: Thank you for your article on the tragic loss of Betsey. I am a resident of Hillsboro, a friend of Rick and Betsey, and a member of H.E.L.P. The thing that most distresses me now, is the emphasis on Rick’s mis-naming of the color of their car. I fear that this fact will cause Rick to feel that if he had only gotten the facts right, Betsey may have been rescued before it was too late. The incident was a series of unavoidable events, out of everyone’s control, and we will never know what place the correct color of her car may have had in the outcome. It breaks my heart to think that Rick has had one more thing added to his “what ifs” concerning this incident.

Diana Tittle responded: Dear Jane, the Sun undertook this investigation at the request of a Hillsboro resident concerned about the town’s inability to mount a prompt, coordinated response to the disappearance of a neighbor. From the beginning, I shared your concern about how our findings might affect Betsy’s family and friends. After I completed my research and began writing, I weighed each detail I eventually chose to include against my desire to cause no pain and the public’s right to know about the strengths and limitations of law enforcement’s response and the public’s need to know about how to be of meaningful assistance.

There was information I withheld about the state police investigation and the recovery. But I decided to include the issue of the car’s color because the individuals who spotted Betsy’s car emphasized how its color had been key to their identification of it as the vehicle described in Betsy’s Silver Alert. Because the misinformation was corrected within a couple of hours, I also included in this story the following editorial comment meant to put the error in perspective: “The fact that law enforcement throughout the state was on the lookout in the crucial early hours after Betsy’s disappearance for an elderly woman driving a “light blue” instead of a “silver” Accord would, in retrospect, likely not have changed the outcome of the search” [emphasis added].

I would also point to the story’s overarching conclusion about the inadvisability of assigning blame for what happened: “In this case, a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances, many of them beyond human control, hindered the search that it would fall to Hamilton’s department to lead.”

It is my hope that any pain caused by my reporting will eventually be outweighed by its contribution to a better community understanding of what it will take in the future to mount a successful missing person’s search in rural Sierra County.

1 thought on “Local governments missing out by competing, rather than coordinating, with one another for capital outlay monies”

  1. Le Roy Henderson

    Well, all I can say this time is, let’s wait watch and see. Over the past 24 years that I have been back in Sierra County, I have seen a whole lot of bluster and claims of “I know what is best for you people,” but not a single advancement or improvement to our community!

    I grew up at old Elephant Butte and graduated from HSHS. Old Elephant Butte is now a neglected eyesore with persistent economic problems, and our T or C downtown can only boast of a new brewery, which we had to kick in $120,000 to get! Many of us old “locals” lived here in a time of economic joy and community growth, returned here for retirement based upon what it was back then.

    Not to totally knock the newcomers, for many of them have both contributed and have tried to contribute with little success, but we keep getting more control-freak, pie-in-the-sky purveyors in positions of power than anything else. A lot of the newcomers feel the same as I do when we see these bottom of the barrel bureaucrats and their buddies planning out our lives based upon their skewed view of our unique community…and our very limited resources. Even Swingle’s idea of two vans to haul the disabled from the lake to town is in the dark! Make our community disabled-friendly so disabled folks can get around easier. They are not helpless, and the bus would be underutilized if used at all. Nice of Swingle to think of us disabled, but geez, man!

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