Open Space and Trail Network Meeting
1. Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the Interior, will be the featured speaker at a fundraiser for the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, December 9, 6-8 pm, at the Southwest Environmental Center.
2. Nell Sale, an attorney with the Miller Stratvert law firm, presented a paper on Conservation Easements at a statewide Estate Planning conference held in Las Cruces recently. If you want a copy of this resource about how CE’s work and what the tax benefits are, contact Nancy Stotz or Carol McCall.
3.
Fliers for the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro
Trail Association (promoting preservation of and education about the Camino
Real) were distributed (website: www.caminorealcarta.org).
Groundwork
Update
Doña Ana County Commission passed a
resolution of support (resolution number 05-107) for the Network’s Groundwork
Trust application on November 8. Resolution
includes willingness to act as fiscal agent for feasibility study and strategic
plan. Several organizations have
also submitted letters of support for the application.
EBID trails Update
Andy Hume reviewed history of
work on trail plan which began in 2001. Began work on draft Joint Powers
Agreement in December 2001 to formalize agreements between EBID and the City of
Las Cruces, Doña Ana County, and Town of Mesilla for trail development.
When the state DFA reviewed the draft JPA between EBID and City, they
said it couldn’t move forward because one governmental entity cannot indemnify
another (based on a state Attorney General’s opinion). Tried to circumvent
problem by developing a Memo of Understanding (which would not be reviewed by
DFA), which was approved by EBID board of directors, but when it was being
prepared for City Council, the City grew concerned about a clause referring to
liability. Since then, EBID has
worked with the Governor’s Office and some state senators and representatives
to try and find a solution. A bill
introduced in the last legislative session was killed in the House Judiciary
Committee because legislators were concerned about how it would broaden the
state’s liability. There has been a little discussion about seeing if EBID
would be willing to change its charter to include trails; it was suggested that
it might be easier to get the Attorney General to write a superceding opinion
than to change EBID’s charter. Indemnification and liability mean different things; an
organization like Groundwork might be able to take on liability insurance for
trails and avoid indemnification issue.
Susan Krueger volunteered to
organize a meeting for a small group of interested people to meet with Rep.
Cervantes to follow-up on the discussion we had at the June Network meeting.
A sign-up sheet was passed around.
Network
Structure
Susan reviewed the sub-committees
identified at the last Network meeting:
1.
Committee to take care of the Vision: charged with being a “watchdog”
for projects/ideas in the Vision, as well as updating the Vision as appropriate.
2.
Management committee: overlaps with Groundwork committee, charged with
organizing Network meetings, as well as developing organizational structure.
3.
Implementation committee(s): pursue on-the-ground project(s), probably 1
or 2 maximum.
People could participate in
multiple committees.
1.
It was requested that EBID trails be added to list of potential projects.
2.
BLM projects presented by Tim Sanders (see handouts):
3.
River Trail. Carol McCall
provided a handout reviewing river trail as described in Rio Grande Corridor
Project. Existing trail is about
4.5 miles long. Funding
opportunities for extending trail include CARA funding (part of Land and Water
Conservation Fund monies) and state trails funding.
Application for state trails funding needs to be prepared ahead of time,
based on last year’s application request for proposals (Carol has a copy). Issues brought up during Network discussion of potential
trail extension: county no longer has an office to oversee grant administration,
EBID is opposed to having a trail in the vicinity of Mesilla Dam, and potential
conflicts exist between trail development and habitat restoration between the
levees. Would use of levees for
trails be more appropriate in some locations?
4.
Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park. Kevin
Bixby reviewed current status of Bosque Park.
State Parks has management agreements in place with most of the
landowners involved. The
conservation easements and land sale have been completed for the Harris Farms
property. State Parks hasn’t completed agreements with EBID yet, but
they are going ahead with infrastructure development: widening levee road and
creating building pad for visitors’ center.
Environmental Assessment has been completed; because visitor center will
displace a wet meadow, mitigation (salt cedar removal) required elsewhere. State
Parks considering taking top 10 feet off of overlook hill to acquire fill for
road and building pad. IBWC
planning to dredge the river; could state parks use that material as fill
instead? During discussion, the
issue of sedimentation into the wetland ponds was raised; no environmental
management plan is in place for the park, so it’s not clear what solutions
have been proposed/planned.
5.
West Mesa Regional Park. Time
ran out as we reached this item on the agenda; Sandy Geiger passed out a handout
and will go first at the next Network meeting.
Susan passed out some potential ranking criteria for project selection
developed by Network sub-committees in May and June of 2003.
In addition to ranking potential projects, need to address project
management issue to make sure Network doesn’t try to do too much.
Next
Meeting:
To reduce holiday conflicts, next
Network meeting will be moved to second week of December—Dec 14, 10-11:30 am,
Branigan Cultural Center.