Valencia County’s communication breakdown
Monday, July 20, 2009, 1:24pm
The biggest problem we seem to have in Valencia County — bigger than any metal recycling plant, bulk fuel facility or housing subdivision — is communication.
The county’s five primary governments don’t know how best to communicate with their constituents, lawmakers don’t know how to communicate with each other and civic groups don’t know how to communicate with their governments. There’s more interplay among interested parties than that, but those three areas are where most of the failure seems to occur.
It’s not tone or content or method. It’s simply that there’s little effort to communicate about issues that may have a serious impact on neighborhoods and communities. Sometimes it that there’s no avenue for the communication and other times it’s that the communication isn’t required so it doesn’t happen.
As a news organization, more than anyone else Valencia! is privy to conversations that most people aren’t. We hear about the failure of communication and the impact it has on issues. Here are some examples:
Last night a Valencia! reporter was barred from entering a meeting of the Historic Tome-Adelino Neighborhood Association. The group had a good reason for keeping Valencia! and about five citizens out — they wanted to have a closed meeting so they could strategize their approach to critical issues affecting them. That’s fine, but the meeting was publicly announced in the Valencia County News-Bulletin.
Last week we heard about an ongoing, under-the-surface feud between two local elected officials. These officials keep getting mad at each other and at others because they’re not being involved in several local issues with impact to the areas they represent.
And just this morning Valencia! reported about officials at the Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area who are upset with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD). The MRGCD didn’t forewarn Whitfield that it would be working on a drainage canal near the conservation area, and now they’re battling over the impact the work is having on wildlife habitat.
The solution is an easy one. Anytime an issue comes up, or an action will be taken, think at least one thing: Who will be impacted? And then take steps to inform them, listen to them and work with them.
