Pat Gaither, a Los Chavez resident and member of the bridge and interchange study’s citizens advisory committee (CAC), writes in a response to some CAC members saying they have little voice in the study:

I am a member of the CAC. Sorry I missed the last meeting. Just to be clear, we were told that this was an 18 month study (started June 2009), the purpose of our committee was to disburse information to our various communities and bring back input from the citizens of our community. We were specifically told we were not a decision making group. We are an advisory group formed to listen to the concerns of the citizens and bring that input back to the group. If you check with [Valencia County Manager] Eric Zamora you will find that all of the information we have gathered has been shared with all the decision makers.

Nothing has been decided at this point in time and we (CAC) will not be the decision makers. The county commissioners, the steering committee and the village of Los Lunas council will decide, based on the input of this group, what the best route will be. The University of New Mexico’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) has provided a lot of demographic growth information which will also be reviewed by the decision makers. BBER has a study showing the growth thru 2030. There are members of our committee that do not accept the evidence being presented by the BBER. This group from UNM has been conducting demographic studies for 60 years and if you look at previous projections there is a small difference in actual and projected numbers. (there is always a % of variance)

I understand the pain of the CAC members who are questioning what reality is, as change is never an easy pill to swallow. Growth is going to happen over the next 20 years and it is important that intelligent planning, and not emotional reactions, be a part of the process. I hope that it can be done in such a way that does not destroy the lifestyle of Valencia County.

Our committee will continue to meet until December 2010 with public input open houses along the way. Everyone will be heard, the decision will probably not be made for a long time and once it is made, then they will need to find the funding. Stay tuned…

Valencia! reported this week that the Valencia County Action Commitee (VCAC) and a related group calling itself Citizens for Change placed a new large sign calling for a four-lane Highway 47 and a bridge across the Rio Grande, between Los Chavez and Tome-Adelino.

VCAC also has been intimately involved in fighting to get the county hospital built and is responsible for the pro-hospital signs around the county.

What VCAC managed to do this week with its new push for the four-lane Highway 47 and bridge is shift the hospital debate away from an argument for healthcare to a debate over development.

It’s the worst decision the pro-hospital movement could have made, because now the hospital opposition is reframing the debate. Up to this point, the pro-hospital movement, which includes VCAC, has successfully painted the plaintiffs who filed the hospital lawsuit and their supporters as anti-hospital and, by implication, anti-healthcare. But the debate was reframed this week, with the anti-hospital locals transforming themselves into a pro-agriculture movement, with the help of the ill-conceived four-lane and bridge attack on the historic community of Tome-Adelino.

Should this new pro-agriculture movement stick with its message and target that message to the agricultural communities, they could successfully sway more public opinion against the hospital.

Public opinion might not matter so much soon, however. The New Mexico Court of Appeals is “ready” to schedule and hear the county hospital appeal.