Preview of Truth or Consequences Planning and Zoning Commission June 24 meeting: Three public hearings

by Kathleen Sloan | June 23, 2020
4 min read
The brand new Planning and Zoning Commission has been organizing the last two meetings, but will take on the heavy load of conducting three public hearings at its June 24 meeting at 5:30.

320 BROADWAY

The first public hearing will be the special-use permit application by Anna Scattoloni and Corrinne Farmer, who own Galactic Digs Gallery and Other Treasures at 320 Broadway.

They want to live and work in the building, using the front half as art gallery, studio and retail space and the back half as living space.

To live and work in the downtown C-1 commercial zone requires a special-use permit, a process that requires the P&Z to evaluate the application based on seven criteria to formulate its recommendation to the City Commission, which will make the final decision.

The seven criteria are:
-Will the use increase street and right-of-way congestion?
-Will the use diminish safety from fire, panic and other dangers?
-Will the use diminish the health and general welfare of the public?
-Will the use degrade light and air for the properties in the vicinity and increase overcrowding and concentration of population?
-Will the use have adverse effects on transportation, water, sewer, schools, parks and other facilities or increase the effect of natural hazards?
-Will the use increase the unlawful use of structures, buildings and land?
-Will the use promote the use of or the waste of energy?

If the adverse effects outweigh the benefits of granting the special-use permit it is to be denied, according to the City Code.

408, 410 and 412 MAIN ST.

The second public hearing will be the application for a summary replat and variance for 408, 410 and 412 Main St.

The applicant is Gerald Bush, who wants a “walkway easement to lots 13 and 14.”

The documents included in the P&Z packet do not state if the walkway is in the front, back or side of the buildings.

410 Main St. is occupied by the not-for-profit MainStreet Truth or Consequences.

A variance is needed to do the summary replat because the lots “do not meet the minimum standard width for the C-1 zone.”

323 W. RIVERSIDE DR.

The third public hearing is also an application for a summary replat and variance.

The owner wants to change the internal lot lines “to cleanly separate the houses from the mobile homes,” at 323 W. Riverside Dr.

Lots 15, 16 and 17 have houses on them and lots 18 through 26 have mobile homes on them in the R-3 residential zone that allows higher density.

The applicant is the owner-representative Epifanio Buenaventa.

A summary replat requires the property put in curb, gutter and sidewalk. A variance from this requirement is requested as a “financial hardship.” In addition, the applicant states no curb, gutter and sidewalk currently exist along the property.

The City Code on variances states they can be granted if compliance causes “a substantial or unreasonable hardship to the subdivider because of exceptional topographic, soil or other surface or subsurface condition, or that strict compliance with this code would result in inhibiting the achievement of the objectives of this Code.”

There is no reference to financial hardship in the code.

The Planning and Zoning Commission must make findings of fact on seven conditions before making its recommendation to the City Commission, which will make the final decision.

The seven conditions are:

-Shall not constitute a grant of special privilege inconsistent with the limitations on other properties in the area of notice;

-Shall not result in detriment to the public health, safety, or welfare, or be materially injurious to properties or improvements in the area of notice;

-Is justified because a physical hardship to the applicant is caused by existing size or shape of the lot;

-Upholds the spirit and intent of this Code, public safety and welfare will be secured and substantial justice done;

-Will not result in the City being caused to absorb costs over and above those typically associated with subdivision approval;

-Is not contrary to the requirements of state law;

-Will not cause negative impacts on adjoining properties, properties in the area of notice, or to the public wellbeing.

HOW TO ATTEND

The meeting will be held at City Commission Chambers at 5:30 p.m. at 405 W. Third.

According to the agenda, the public may attend and participate in the public hearing by doing the following:

There will be a limited amount of in-person attendance allowed in the Chambers based on COVID safe practices. You may also access the meeting using the information listed below:
June 24, 2020 Planning & Zoning Commission Meeting
Please join my meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone.
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/996007693
You can also dial in using your phone.
United States: +1 (408) 650-3123 Access Code: 996-007-693
New to GoToMeeting? Get the app now and be ready when your first meeting starts:
https://global.gotomeeting.com/install/996007693

author
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.

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