Bernalillo County Commissioners discussed how to get a handle on the future of the Mountain View Neighborhood area, accepted close to $1 million to keep the national supply chain moving and approved an agreement to upgrade the call buttons in cells at the Metropolitan Detention Center during their regular meeting held Tuesday, March 5.
Getting Proactive
Two discussions were held back to back that were related to getting a handle on issues related to industry growth in the Mountain View Neighborhood.
As part of that, commissioners directed the county manager — through the county’s Planning and Development Services — to collaborate with the City of Albuquerque and state and federal agencies to develop a Sector Development Plan for the Mountain View Area.
According to a draft resolution, the sector development plan will outline permissive, conditional and prohibited uses for locations within the plan area. The sector plan can further adopt regulations that can incentivize more desirable uses to occur in an identified area. It also states that the county will not engage in regulatory taking actions through the compulsory downzoning of private property in any given area.
Commissioner Steven Michael Quezada, who represents that part of the county, said he has been trying to change the atmosphere of Second Street and Broadway Boulevard in the Mountain View area since he was elected.
“That’s been my goal and my plan since I started as a commissioner to make it look more like the Journal Center, so when you fly into Albuquerque you look down and you see a city growing and booming and providing opportunities for its residents, that’s what we want to look like,” Quezada said.
The Mountain View neighborhood area is a historic agricultural and residential neighborhood that has been the center of heavy industry in Bernalillo County since the 1970s. The area is located along Second Street and Broadway Boulevard, south of Rio Bravo Boulevard, on the east side of the river. It is home to three asphalt plants, numerous auto salvage and other heavy industry. It also is home to the Valle Del Oro Urban Wildlife Refuge and the Rio Grande bosque.
“The old adage about the rising tide lifting all boats that’s really what we would like to set out to do here, to elevate the quality of life for the folks that live down there, to leverage some of the cultural resources that are down there,” Nicholas Hamm, the county’s planning and development director said about getting the sector plan process going for this area.
Commissioners, led by Quezada, also discussed reconstituting the county’s Environmental Health Section. The county used to have this section but at some point county departments were reorganized and it was consolidated into a planning and development department.
The draft resolution encourages the County Manager to “reconstitute” the county’s Environmental Health Section to be able to more quickly address public health concerns in the community. Quezada said in part this would allow the county to respond faster to industrial incidents where the health and safety of the surrounding residents could be jeopardized. Quezada said this is important to the Mountain View area where the heavy industry is located to expedite communication about possible public health violations.
No decisions were made about either of the proposed resolutions.
Help Button Agreement
Commissioners approved filing a stipulated agreement in U.S. District Court regarding call buttons in the ongoing class action lawsuit McClendon et al v. City of Albuquerque et al. The 2015 class action lawsuit settlement agreement outlined more than a couple hundred requirements for mental health services, medical services, inmate housing conditions, staffing and many more that the County has to meet in its running of the detention center.
Call buttons are supposed to be in working order and in each detention cell for inmates to use to get help in case of an emergency. The agreement says the county contends that the delay in finishing the facility wide call button improvements is mainly due to the unavoidable and unforeseeable delays in the production of the materials needed to manufacture the call button upgrade.
The filling says the emergency button changes were supposed to be done by November 11, 2022. The county now has until March 22 of this year. If all of the upgrades are not completed by then – the county has to put aside $210,000 into a special fund. A jail operational expert will then make recommendations regarding how to spend the money on measures aimed to improve safety and security at the regional lock-up that Bernalillo County oversees.
Several people spoke during public comment about the heartbreak of having a loved one die while in custody at the detention center. Valentina Muñoz, the mother of Pete Adrian Salazar, who died Jan. 27 at the facility spoke during public comment.
“I just don’t understand why this keeps happening with no change. Why is the facility still allowed to keep housing inmates they clearly can’t take care of. I am the voice for the silenced inmates, the unheard voices screaming for help just like my son did the night before he passed at MDC,” she said “MDC needs to save lives rather than losing them to neglect. Let’s save the broken heart of another grieving mother like myself.”
Champaigne Bustos said she was there to make a stand with hopes that she could use her voice to help others be heard.
“My main goal right now is to help those that are incarcerated in seeking ways to make MDC a safer and more organized detention center,” Bustos said. “The amount of abuse, neglect, and death that have occurred in this facility is very alarming. If MDC does not have the staff and proper training to keep their inmates safe and alive then something must be done.”
Keep It Moving
In a multi-agency collaboration, Commissioners accepted $974,000 from the US Department of Transportation Regional Infrastructure Accelerator Grant on behalf of the I-40 TradePort Corridor. The I-40 TradePort Corridor is meant to modernize the I-40 corridor from the Port of Los Angeles headed east.
The goal is to ease the burden on the country’s largest ports and simplify the supply chain.
The plan for Bernalillo County is to build a fueling station for hydrogen and electric powered vehicles and to build warehouses for goods transported along I-40. This grant money will be used as seed money for development of an infrastructure project that will act as a mini port to keep the critical supply chain moving along I-40.
How To ParticipateBernalillo County meetings are conducted at 5pm on the first and third Tuesday of the month in the Ken Sanchez Commission Chambers at 415 Silver Ave SW or via a hybrid manner through GOV-TV or online at the county’s website or on Bernalillo County’s YouTube channel.