Who could miss the lurid tale of the Las Cruces Municipal Judge who got a little too cozy with the cartels? While stories of hubris and falls from grace have great appeal, there is another story out of Las Cruces that is one of optimism and hope for the future. Residents united to save their neighborhoods in a last-ditch petition drive to put zoning changes to a vote of the people.
The overwhelmingly progressive city council jumped on a national trend of ending single-family zoning that started in the Obama years. However, most people don’t want businesses and apartment buildings going up in their residential neighborhoods. The city council thought they had a fait accompli, but the citizens said otherwise. The petition campaign, which ended on May 1st was organized by community advocate Sarah Smith and 50 volunteers who worked for two and a half months gathering signatures door-to-door. I spoke with Sarah about how the petition got started, how momentum grew and what it was like to pull together a petition drive in one of New Mexico’s biggest cities.
At a February hearing the Las Cruces City Council took public comment on a planning proposal entitled “Realize Las Cruces,” which includes allowing businesses and apartment buildings in formerly single-family zoned neighborhoods. Similar to what I’ve observed at the Roundhouse, it seems the progressive councilors had already made their minds up and the discussion was little more than a formality on the way to passing the new ordinance. At these types of hearings, you will often see college students and union members filling up seats as their grades or next paycheck are on the line. This is also known as astro-turfed, in other words manufactured support, not real grassroots support.
Sarah stated “I’m fed up with the city council not representing the people that they’re elected to represent. They immediately called the vote without even discussing the public input at that meeting. And that just felt like a slap in the face. And so, I was just determined at that point that if we had a way to challenge what they did then we were going to do it.” Sarah decided to start a petition drive to place “Realize Las Cruces” on the November ballot, where citizens could actually have a voice in the outcome.
I worked on the state-wide referendums in 2023, attempting to place several “bad bills” on the ballot for a vote of the people. The rules on ballot initiatives and referendums are byzantine, and the Secretary of State and local clerks have wide latitude to obfuscate and delay, thereby crippling these attempts of the people to control their own destiny. Let’s just say these grassroots efforts are not for the faint of heart. The amount of hard work and dedication required is formidable.
After an initial couple of weeks ironing out issues with the city clerk, the petition drive was off and running. Using Facebook groups to spread the word, Sarah pulled in volunteers, rapidly expanding the reach of the non-partisan petition. In front door canvassing encounters it was clear that most people had no idea the city council had voted to radically transform their residential neighborhoods. Sarah reported an estimated 80% sign rate once voters understood the stakes.
The number of signatures required for the petition is 15% of the turnout of the last two Las Cruces municipal elections. Based on this formula, at least 3,240 signatures will need to be validated. At the deadline on May 1st over 4000 signatures were turned in to the clerk. That’s 25% more than needed, which should leave room for the inevitable invalid signatures that always get rejected on petition drives. As I write this, the city clerk has not finished counting the signatures, but I will update when I find out the final results.
New Mexico has a large number of elected officials who are prioritizing their own personal political goals divorced from public opinion. They are often part of national groups and receive out-of-state funding for their elections. Once these politicians attain office there are few options for the citizens to respond. Grassroots community action is the way to push back on captured politicians with out-of-touch agendas. As Sarah points out: “In the long run, this is what we’re going to have to do to get New Mexico back, to claw it back, because while we’ve been asleep, other forces have been coming in and sort of co-opting our communities and we didn’t even realize it. You better get involved now or it’s all going to be gone.”
Robert Witsenhausen is a Santa Fe based sound engineer and electrical contractor with an interest in politics and current events.
