Thinking about running for office with village government?  Want to be mayor? Councillor? December is the time of year when villagers —for a variety of  reasons— beginning seriously considering a run for elective office. If you’re one of those, you’ll have to make up your mind soon. Tuesday, January 4 is candidate filing day for the municipal elections to be held in early March.

You can pick up a candidate packet at the Village Office to learn what’s involved. But if you can’t make up your mind —not actually a qualification for an elected official— or can’t get to the Village Office that day, you can run as a write-in candidate if you file the paperwork on January 11. New Village Clerk Melanie Romero will accept a declaration of candidacy between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on those days, January 4 and January 11.

Three seats on the six-member Village Council are available, now held by Kevin Lucero representing Council District 1 in northwestern Corrales; Mel Knight in District 3 in the central part of the village west of Corrales Road; and Tyson Parker representing District 4 for  neighborhoods north and south of upper Meadowlark Lane. See the council district map published in this edition of the Comment, or at the Village of Corrales website, http://www.corrales -nm.org.

Terms are not expiring for the other three members of the Village Council: Bill Woldman in District 2; Zach Burkett in District 5; and Stu Murray in District 6. Their terms end in March 2024, as does that for Municipal Judge Michelle Frechette.

None of the incumbents has publicly stated whether he or she intends to seek re-election.

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Although relatively new to the council, Parker’s term ends in March because he is filling out the term for former-Councillor Dave Dornburg, who resigned. Incidently, Dornburg had filled the term of John Alsobrook who also resigned, in 2016.

The municipal election will be held March 1. Early voting will start with the Village Clerk in the Village Office February 1, when requested absentee ballots will also go out.

Whoever is elected in March, major decisions likely will be needed for the following questions:

  • should Village government take over Corrales Road which is State  Highway 448, as the N.M. Department of Transportation would like?
  • should Corrales relax or abandon its restriction against more than one dwelling per acre (or one home on two acres in the southern part of the village?)
  • should the commercial growing of marijuana be banned or restricted in residential neighborhoods?
  • what, if anything, should be done to make Corrales more “business friendly?”
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