County Takes Another Look at Sun Zia Lines

By John Severance

SOCORRO –Eastern Socorro County ranchers paid a visit to the commissioners Tuesday night and they were not happy.
On the agenda was a resolution that the Commission would only approve routes for the Sun Zia project that would traverse the Rio Grande River in the vicinity of Arrey and traveling northerly and parallel to the western boundary of the White Sands Missile Range.
The ranchers, though, led by Land Use Commssioner John Banks and resident John Saiz, said that route would be going through their property. They were not too happy about it.
“I urge you to look at this closely and preserve our open spaces,” Banks told the commissioners.
“They are powerful and they make big bucks,” Saiss said of Sun Zia. “Now what are we going to do about it? Instead of them telling us what to do. We should be telling them what to do. We should set up a criteria requirement for them. That is what other states do. We just heard about this in the last two or three weeks. As you can probably tell, I’m against the line.”
Another resident told the commission, “I don’t envy you in the decision you have to make.”
Sun Zia project manager Tom Waray said, “There seems to be an air of finality in here and I don’t understand it. You don’t have to do anything. I still don’t know what the route is going to be.”
The date for BLM’s deadline for comments on the Sun Zia project was June 10, but county manager Delilah Walsh said the BLM would accept comments after that date. The commissioners, meanwhile, were in a quandary and vice chair Danny Monette finally made a motion to table the voting on the resolution so he could talk to some more people.
After about 20 minutes of more discussion, commissioner Philip Anaya finally said he would second the motion. The commissioners then voted unanimously to table the resolution until its next meeting on June 22.
In other business:
• The Commission approved a contract with Dona Ana County in regards to compensation and medical care for inmates staying at their detention facility.
• The Commission appointed Celeste Griego, Les Torres, Evangel Maldonado, John DeCosta, Viola Montoya, Lewis Auerbach, Ray Padilla, David Naranjo, Jerry Wheeler, Zabrina Montoya and Theresa Rosales to the Loss Prevention Committee.
• The Commission awarded a bid to Don Chalmers Ford for $52,854 to purchase two 4x4 four-door pickups. The bid was $10,000 lower than the one offered by Monette Ford. Monette recused himself.
• The Commission appointed a committee to monitor an election for the adoption of the municipal police member coverage Plan 5. Appointed to the committee were Debbie Wiliams-Baker, Celeste Griego and Jennifer Amato. The election will be June 28 at the county manager’s office.

County Takes Another Look at Sun Zia Lines