Hello Alamogordo!
The commissioner’s meeting, largely focusing on the gathering of public comment regarding the proposed ordinance 1710, happened last night with yours truly in attendance.
Before I get into the details, I would just like to express how much I love the people in this community who keep showing up to try to make this city better for all of us.
First up was Courtney McCary-Squyres from With Many Hands. Her comment was about the wording of the ordinance and a suggestion that a working group be put together to actually workshop it, comprised of members of our very passionate community and people who have been working on the issue of houselessness for years, such as those in 100% Otero’s housing sector. McCary-Squyres also invited the Mesilla Valley Community of Hope executive director and the Neighborhood Revitalization administrator from Las Cruces to give a presentation to the commission, including the mayor (who will not be here on the proposed date, February 11th, so hopefully the next on February 25th), about things they have implemented in a slightly larger city that have worked “to support their homeless population in a dignified manner.”
Next up, from our community, was Jeanette Borunda, who has worked tirelessly with the local police department to start up the Mobile Crisis Response Team. According to Borunda, the unsheltered population rose by 12.1% nationwide in 2024, and at this rate, it’s just going to continue rising if we do nothing. In Otero County specifically, 71.5% of those who were unsheltered this past year were individual adults and 28.5% were families living with children. As the county with the 4th-highest veteran population in New Mexico, it’s pretty likely that some of the 38.6% with mental illness and 38% with a traumatic brain injury would include veterans. Point being, this issue effects quite a few marginalized groups.
As of August 2024, the state of New Mexico launched pilot programs aimed at providing misdemeanor offenders with access to resources instead of jail time in an effort to reduce recidivism. This program started here around 4 months ago. On top of that, Jeanette is looking forward to launching a program here, in the works for 5 years, which would have a bit more reach than what MCRT currently does. In the case of criminality, a judge would have the discretion to mandate services for offenders who have been deemed incompetent and therefore unfit to stand trial, by way of competency diversion programs.
Other commenters, such as League of United Latin American Citizens’s Stan Hernandez, Pastor Anthony Torrez, and Pastor Rich Hernandez brought up questions about how cost effective it would actually be to fine (in reality, predominately) unhoused people for using the only option for shelter they regularly have. Instead of using the city’s resources to enact this ordinance over and over again, Alamogordo should be using those monies to revitalize existing resources, investing in new ones, and exploring how to repurpose old ones to fit our currrent needs.
Evan Lambert, president of Community Power New Mexico, along with most commenters, criticized the language of the ordinance. However, Lambert and Heather Flodin questioned directly how the language of this ordinance could not be interpreted to target the unhoused population and those who already lack resources. There is also precedence to consider this targeting as cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment of the federal Constitution.
JoAnn Vullo, president of LULAC, made some comments that were denied, but if true would be a great point of accountability for the city. Gabe Vasquez is said to have offered Alamogordo quite a chunk of money for infrastructure. Instead, it was refused. I am not in the habit of blindly trusting any politician, and I hope to update this post with some fact checking, as is any decent journalist’s duty.
Lastly, commenters such as Jacob Justus and Amber Mayhill brought up the fact that this ordinance, as written, will keep non-violent offenders in a cycle between (again, their only long-term option currently) the streets and jail. This cycle helps no one. Way more on that pipeline to come.
Personally, I’m not going to go through every speaker, because video from the meeting is available to watch on your own time. But the above public comments paint a good picture as to why this ordinance needs to remain tabled, as well as the same outcry from this community as was present at the town hall on January 8th regarding the unhoused and public safety.
I did not give public comment last night because I didn’t have one prepared. However, I hope the powers that be get this in front of all the eyes that need to see it.
There’s a saying in the disabled community. There can be nothing about us without us. The community of Alamogordo has fire. The insistence that there is nothing to be done about these problems is not true. Plenty of community members have been able to do great work against all odds; for some proof of that, you can simply look at my past few months of blogs. We are more than capable of taking care of our own. We just need our local government to work with us. From my estimation, a very good preliminary step from our local leadership would be to fulfill a strong suggestion from the governor: there needs to be a grouping of all the community members currently working on this issue with (at minimum) the mayor in attendance. That kind of organization is the very least we can expect from a leader.
Salud.
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