Photo by Steven St. JohnTribune

Tribune

Horses pace around a corral near Zartman Road and Lagunitas Lane Southwest while waiting to be fed. Proponents of incorporating a large part of the South Valley say they hope the effort will help maintain the area's rural character.

Photo by Steven St. JohnTribune

Tribune

Carlos Montes rides down Valley High Street in the Mountainview neighborhood south of Rio Bravo Boulevard. The slow pace of life and the age-old culture of the area are prized by residents interested in incorporating the South Valley as a community separate from Albuquerque.

More Local

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
• Former Marine to serve two years in jail for killing Albuquerque robber
• Wilson-Pearce battle for U.S. Senate exemplifies party's disparity

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

Mike Ciesielski navigates his dusty red pickup truck down an unnamed public road marked only by hand-made signs for alfalfa.

The truck stops at an 11-acre farmstead, where the landowner grows the alfalfa, offers day care and lets goats and dogs mingle freely.

This pastoral spread off Isleta Boulevard Southwest represents to Ciesielski all that's great about the South Valley, a place where an agrarian culture perseveres on the edge of an encroaching metropolis.

It's a lifestyle he and a collection of other "South Valleyans" - as he calls himself - hope to preserve by creating their own self-governing municipality.

"You don't want it to change and look like the city of Albuquerque," he said.

Ciesielski is one of about a dozen South Valley residents who are part of an advisory group looking into incorporating the area - now governed by Bernalillo County - into its own municipality. It's a move meant to preserve the culture and lifestyle of the area and its estimated 50,000 people.

"Some of us are looking at the possibility of incorporation to preserve our identity as a historic New Mexico community," said state Rep. Miguel Garcia. "The city of Albuquerque has already passed Rio Bravo (Boulevard) forward in its development. That's really a threat to our identity as a community."

Garcia, a six-term South Valley Democrat, is leading the charge, which thus far is more preliminary exploration than full-fledged endeavor.

He appropriated $45,000 during the last legislative session to be used for an economic analysis of whether such a move would be affordable.

Lee Reynis, director of the University of New Mexico's Bureau of Business and Economic Research, is conducting the analysis. It's work that includes examining the South Valley's gross-receipts tax base and comparing it to the costs associated with the services provided to the area by Bernalillo County.

By spring, Reynis is expected to present the group with results showing whether an incorporated South Valley would have enough self-generated revenues to afford providing the same level of services it receives now.

It was the affordability issue that caused the last attempt at incorporation to fail miserably. A campaign in 1996 to create a South Valley County was defeated by voters 80 percent to 20 percent.

Garcia said he was one of the many who opposed the measure, largely because the high costs associated with becoming a county - particularly the responsibility of managing a jail. Both he and Ciesielski argue that the cost of the Metropolitan Detention Center has been prohibitive to Bernalillo County, keeping the South Valley from receiving the attention it deserves.

By pushing to become a municipality, they believe they won't have such obstacles. But thus far, it has been nothing more than a work in progress, and one with its own learning curve.

The group recently met with leaders from Peralta, a town near Los Lunas that incorporated in March, to learn about how an area becomes an independent municipality. They've also met with officials from the New Mexico Municipal League to learn the necessary bureaucratic steps.

Bill Fulginiti, the municipal league's executive director, said that even though the land is within Bernalillo County's jurisdiction, Albuquerque officials must sign off on an incorporated South Valley.

State law dictates that an area within five miles of an urbanized municipality such as Albuquerque must receive a resolution of support from that government.

That resolution "allows them to go forward to the county to get a plat approved and get an election to be called," Fulginiti said.

As much as the incorporation effort is about preserving the South Valley's rural heritage, Ciesielski said there is also concern over the city spreading southward, eating up the area's potential for adding to its tax base.

Recent state laws make it so the county commission must approve any new city annexations of county land. But Garcia believes "the county turns the other cheek when it comes to city annexations."

"We can't afford to lose any more of our land base in the South Valley to leapfrogging subdivisions and developments," Garcia said.

County Commissioner Teresa Cordova, whose district includes the South Valley, said she appreciates any effort to preserve the area's heritage. But she cautioned that any effort to incorporate should first be studied thoroughly.

She said any economic analysis should reach past the revenues and expenditures, and look also at the costs needed to maintain and improve the area.

"Take something like Isleta Boulevard. Just the improvements from Arenal to Rio Bravo, that was a $22 million project. Just for that little strip," Cordova said. "It takes a lot of money to provide the various capital improvement projects as well as provide the services."

She also said rampant city annexations are a thing of the past.

"I certainly value the importance of trying to hold onto and as much as possible preserve the sense of place of the South Valley," she said.

Ciesielski is standing along the edge of another alfalfa field. It's an otherwise unremarkable patch of green, except for the idea that there may not be many of them left.

"You can cut it, bale it and sell it," Ciesielski says, grasping a sense of wonderment from it all. "You don't see this in the city of Albuquerque. It provides you with this visual relief which is so, so important.

"That is one of the reasons why we want to preserve this."