By now I’m sure most of the people in Edgewood have heard that the Town of Edgewood approved the ordinance establishing how payment for Fire and EMS services will be made to Santa Fe County going forward. This was done by the Governing Body of the Town at a Special Commission meeting on June 16th. If you are like most people you probably gave a sigh of relief before returning to your life away from local government now that the crisis has passed. Regrettably, doing so could be a costly mistake for every citizen in Edgewood.
Just two nights after the Governing Body passed that final ordinance required to implement the new Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) with Santa Fe County, the Town’s Planning & Zoning Commission held its monthly June meeting. This so called meeting was so bad it is hard to decide where to start when trying to describe it. If you’d like more information about the meeting, I urge you to view the meeting video located under the Updates section of the website:
Why does a failed meeting of the Town’s Planning & Zoning Commission matter?
Planning & Zoning is one of the most important functions that a local municipal government provides its citizens. Like Police and Fire Departments, Planning and Zoning works to protect the public health, safety and welfare of the citizens it serves. It does so by reviewing applications for subdivisions to make sure that first responders like Police and Fire have adequate roadways to navigate when they are racing to someone’s home during an emergency. Planning & Zoning also serves to ensure that people’s requests for making changes to their properties don’t negatively impact neighborhood property values.
This often overlooked department has more impact on the daily lives of citizens than people realize. That is why it was so disturbing to see Edgewood’s P&Z Commission falling apart during the meeting on the night of June 18th.
Edgewood’s change in form of government in 2022, brought the Town’s Planning & Zoning Department to a high level of neglect that has continued. Since none of the elected Commissioners on the Governing Body had any prior knowledge of Planning & Zoning, none of them were able to provide oversight and leadership to either the Department or the Commission. Add to that the fact that under the Commission/Manager form of government, Governing Body members are not supposed to involve themselves in the day to day management of the Town’s staff and its various Boards and Commissions. That duty falls to the Town Manager. Of the five people who have served as Town Manager in the 4.5 years since the change in form of government, not one of those persons has had enough experience in Planning & Zoning to manage the department or define expectations for staff members and the Planning & Zoning Commission.
The disastrous consequences of this willful neglect and often times open hostility toward the Planning & Zoning Department and its Commission were predictable, and on Thursday night, June 18th, everything fell into place to create the debacle that unfolded. No one with any sense of the situation was surprised by what happened only that it took as long as it did to finally collapse.
The collapse of the P&Z Department and Commission in Edgewood has had and will continue to have negative impacts on the citizens of Edgewood for the foreseeable future. One person asked a question that all of us should find an answer for, “What is the point of pursuing economic development here in Edgewood if the people looking to bring businesses to town have to go through the nightmare that is the Planning & Zoning process in the Town of Edgewood”?
If you are one of the many people who sat up and paid attention while the Town wrestled with the Fire/EMS crisis, only to go back to your lives and ignore the financial crisis, and now the P&Z crisis, you should be back in the gallery paying close attention to how these problems are resolved (if they can be) for you and your neighbors. Just as Fire& EMS effects us all so does the P&Z board. It’s actions will change everything about how the town develops and grows. This will, and does, impact everyone.
One of the goals of the effort to disincorporate the Town of Edgewood is to return a sense of normalcy to the lives of our citizens. Instead of careening from crisis to crisis like we have for the last 4.5 years, a return to Santa Fe County could give our area the longer term stability it needs in order to thrive in a manner worthy of the people who invest in our community and promote economic development. I urge everyone reading this to please sign the petition to disincorporate and help all of us build a brighter future for Edgewood.
Together we can Reboot Edgewood!