ISSUE 02-19-22 WHO’LL BE NEXT MAYOR?

An attempt has been made to give equal weight to each candidacy with regard to profile length and most relevant position on current issues. Responses by the candidates or their supporters (or detractors) to these profiles are encouraged as letters to the editor submitted by email to jradford19@comcast.net.

All registered voters living in Corrales can vote for mayor, but only those residing in Council Districts 1, 3 and 4 will be able to cast ballots for the person to represent their district on the council. Elections here are non-partisan; none is running as Democrat, Republican, Green or Libertarian, so none is identified here as such unless that candidate chose to self-identify.

Early voting ends February 26. To take advantage of that, see the Village Clerk in the offices at the northeast corner of Corrales Road and East La Entrada. Election day is March 1 when polls will be open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Corrales Recreation Center.

Mayor

Two candidates want to be Corrales’ next mayor after Mayor Jo Anne Roake declined to seek re-election. They are former Mayor Gary Kanin and former Village Councillor Jim Fahey.

Jim Fahey

Specializing in surgery on the hand, Jim Fahey was in charge of general surgery on a Navy submarine in the Arabian Sea, North China Sea and other deployments in the early 1970s.

After military service, he practiced surgery in Texas and Oklahoma before moving to New Mexico in 1997 to work at the VA hospital and at UNM Hospital. He moved to Corrales in 1998. He is now 75 years old.

In 2006, running at-large, Fahey was elected to the Village Council. But not long after, Corrales switched to council districting; district boundaries drawn then resulted in Fahey and another councillor living in the same district, so he couldn’t seek re-election until the new district seat became open.

When it did, he ran and won in 2012 and again in 2016 in what is now District 5. He served on the council until March 2020.

He said among his major accomplishments during those terms were removal of nearly all stop signs along Loma Larga so that road could serve as a traffic reliever for Corrales Road as intended; establishing districted representation on the council; and construction of a sewer line in the business district that connects to Albuquerque’s sewer.

While on the council, Fahey began attending meetings of the board of directors of the Southern Sandoval County Arroyo Flood Control Authority which attempted to address chronic flooding problems here and in Rio Rancho. He was elected to that board in 2010, and has been re-elected ever since. He is currently the board’s chairman. His SSCAFCA term ends next year.

Neither he nor his opponent for mayor liked the project which eventually installed a small-diameter wastewater line down Corrales Road to serve the commercial area, but they helped implement it to end a decades-long impasse. “Ultimately, we got only a STEP system,” which is a pressurized septic tank effluent line that accepts only liquid waste, and serves only the business district. They both want to reconsider their options now.

Based on statements during the candidate forums February 7 and 10, Fahey thinks the next Village Council may be ready to consider switching to a more conventional gravity-fed sewer system.

“The system we have now is not the best. It appears, after the discussion we had the other night, that all the five people who participated are for a sewer line. So if they’re all in favor of a sewer line, we should start thinking about planning for a sewer line.

“That’s where the Interior Drain project comes in, and that’s where the Comprehensive Plan comes into play,” since the drainage ditch there now could contain a gravity-fed sewer pipe.

That long drainage ditch east of Corrales Road owned by the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District runs all the way from the end of East Valverde  Road to south beyond East Meadowlark Lane. “If we do this first part right, it could be a template for a sewer line to serve other parts of the village. The MRGCD sounds eager to get rid of the Interior Drain. If you put in things you know you need, such as broadband, sewer, a fire suppression system, and then cover it up, then in the middle of this gorgeous pathway area you plant your heritage trees and you make it pretty. You allow bicycles, pedestrians and equestrians —and you close it to traffic. You’ve got to close it to traffic, because it is there, motorists will use it and it will be dangerous. So that’s sort of a pipe dream.”

On another long-running, endlessly delayed proposal, a pathway along Corrales Road, both candidates would like to see it advance. Fahey said he would “absolutely” like to see the pathway implemented as soon as possible.

Fahey does not favor Village government taking over Corrales Road [State Highway 448] because it would be too expensive to manage and maintain. Among the reasons are that the road cannot meet the Village’s roadway standards and the numerous irrigation pipes and culverts under the road will eventually deteriorate requiring enormous repair costs.

If the highway department fixes those things and brings it up to meet the Village’s standards, a transfer of ownership might be possible, he said.”We can certainly discuss it with them, but they need to tell us how much they spend on the road, they need to get the culverts clear and functional and they need to stabilize the road shoulders.”

The candidate said he favors moving ahead with a new full-size gym at the rec center and would like to see a performing arts center built.

Fahey does not want to be drawn into the commercial cannabis cultivation issue again. “The ordinance banning  commercial cannabis in residential areas has been passed, it is the law of the land, and it will be enforced and defended,” he emphasized.

He wants to see tighter controls on construction of casitas or the reversion of existing ones to rental units, although  “I’ll not interfere with ones already in existence, but if this keeps going, we’re going to have issues with our groundwater.”

To allow an ongoing proliferation of casitas “would be a quantum change for the Village of Corrales,” Fahey added. He sees permission for higher density senior living facilities in much the same way, although he noted that is already being evaluated by the Planning and Zoning Commission and would likely be addressed by an update of the Corrales Comprehensive Plan.

Gary Kanin

Having lived in Corrales since 1965, Gary Kanin won a seat on the Village Council in 1989, attracting votes for opposing then-Mayor Laura Warren’s plans to build a four-lane highway where Loma Larga is now. It would have connected  to Highway 528 in Rio Rancho at Northern Boulevard and    ended at Highway 528 (Alameda Boulevard) at Ellison on the south.

Banners, posters, petitions and mailers decried that plan with the motto “No Way a Highway.” Also elected to the council that year was John Callan, who ran for mayor two years later to oppose  Warren, who eventually decided against trying for a second term. Callan became mayor —but resigned after voters rejected his plan to buy the property where Village Mercantile is now for a recreation center.

The Village Council voted in Kanin to replace Callan; Kanin repeatedly won re-election until he declined to seek another term in 2006. Instead, he ran for a seat on the council, but lost to Jim Fahey. He has not held public office since that time.

Kanin, age 88, retired from a long career in television, first as a broadcaster for KOB and then as an advertising account executive for KOAT. He and his late wife, Donna Kanin, were active in the Adobe Theater when it staged at the Old Church, and both were dues-paying members of the Screen Actors Guild; he still is.

He has appeared in six movies, most recently Coyote Waits, by Tony Hillerman. He still gets residual checks for his role in Young Guns.

For more than 30 years, he has raised race horses on his Corrales Road property; one of them won big at State Fair racetrack in 2011. For 20 years, he rode a Harley motorcycle with an American  Legion biker group among whom he was known as “Mayor Dog.”

Kanin said he is running for another tem as mayor  to halt a deterioration  of community values and a country lifestyle.”I think I’m the one who can do it.”

He laments what he sees as lax enforcement of zoning and land use regulations and would re-appoint some members of the Planning and Zoning Commission who had been removed from that board.

Throughout his years as mayor, Kanin strongly opposed relaxation of  residential density rules. He has insisted on no greater density than one home per acre (one per two acres in the former Bernalillo County portion of Corrales.)

When the Village succeeded in a wholesale annexation of territory that included the Seven Bar Ranch pasture between Las Tiendas shopping center and the bosque at the south end of the valley, the owners challenged Corrales’ one-acre zoning in court, insisting on developing that more than 20-acre tract with eight dwelling units per acre.

Kanin was alone among members of the governing body who believed strongly that Corrales’ zoning law could withstand that court challenge. But he persisted and won.

If elected mayor in March, Kanin said he will stop what he considers gradual erosion of restrictions on density. “I will retain and sustain the rural character of Corrales as much as possible.”

His candidacy has attracted support ers who believe he will assure that residential neighborhoods are not impacted by commercial cannabis operations. “I am totally opposed to commercial cannabis growing in residential areas.

“There’s controversy whether cannabis is an agricultural product… some say it is and some say it isn’t.”

While Kanin concedes the Village Council has already passed an ordinance prohibiting commercial cannabis growing in residential areas, he and some of his supporters “are afraid the effort to control cannabis will  lose traction.”

And even though the Village’s new ordinance restricts commercial cannabis operations to the commercial area, “there has to be some regulatory effort to apply to that.”

He said he would explore cooperating with the City of Rio Rancho on the possibility that the city’s water and sewer service might be extended into the designated “neighborhood commercial and office district” on the west side of Don Julio Road in the Far Northwest Sector, abutting the Rio Rancho Industrial Park.

Another might be extending Angel Road beyond the Corrales border to connect to Highway 528 “although we would have to have real control over that.”

Kanin is not convinced constructing bicycle, pedestrian and  horse paths along upper Meadowlark Lane is worthwhile because he observes practically no one trying to use the road that way. “It seems like a waste of money to me,” he said.

The former mayor is opposed to having Village government take ownership of Corrales Road which is a state highway. “I certainly am opposed to that. There are great difficulties in Corrales having that, and it’s not just maintenance costs and liability. I’d like to see what right-of-way that road really has, around Tijuana Bar, for example.”

Kanin would like to bring back the issue of sewer service. “I think the current so-called sewer system we have is a mistake. It constantly needs repair and correction. I don’t know that it will ever serve the purpose as intended.

“It does take some of the water away, but what about the rest of Corrales that has septic systems? As those septic systems and drainfields do nothing except pollute the aquifer. I’m going to investigate the possibility of eliminating septic tanks, or at least reducing the need for them.

“Back when I was mayor, I advocated what they called ‘the big pipe’ right down Corrales Road and it would take everything,” not  just liquid wastewater from septic tanks at homes and businesses in the commercial area. “I could not get council to do that. I’m going to investigate that again, with advice from Village Engineer Steve Grollman.”

Village Council District 1

Neighborhoods in the northwest part of Corrales bounded by Rio Rancho on the north and west have been considered neglected since homesites were created by subdivisions in the 1990s. It was to give villagers living there representation on the Village Council that council districts were established.

The current councillor for that district, Kevin Lucero, is not seeking a new term. Candidates are Cory Frantz, a customer service manager for large corporations, and Rick Miera, a retired substance abuse counselor and former state legislator.

Rick Miera

Once one of the most powerful forces in state government, Rick Miera was state representative for downtown Albuquerque for 12 terms, much of it as Majority Floor Leader. He chose not to seek re-election in 2014. “No one ran against me during ten terms, but I knew when it was time to leave,” he reflected. “I never lost, I just retired.”

During that time in the N.M. Legislature, he also chaired the House Education Committee for 18 years. That made him the longest serving chair in state history. Miera ran for lieutenant governor in the June 2017 Democratic primary but  lost to Howie Morales.

His family’s roots are in the Algodones area, going back 12 generations, although he was born in Albuquerque and grew up in the downtown Wells Park neighborhood.

By profession, he has been a drug and alcohol abuse counselor, mostly working with troubled youth. “I was one of the first people in the state to be licensed for drug and alcohol treatment. By the time I retired, I was working directly with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico.”

Miera earned a bachelor’s degree in urban development and another in business administration at the University of Albuquerque. He later received honorary doctorate degrees from the College of Santa Fe and the Southwest University of Naprapathic  Medicine.

Much of his career was treating patients at the Bernalillo County Mental Health Center (1972-1989) and the Bernalillo County Juvenile Detention Center (2006-2011).

He counts among his formative experiences the summers he spent in Algodones where his grandmother was postmaster and storekeeper. He tended fields of alfalfa and other crops, played in the bosque and “learned how important community was. When you lose neighborhood, you lose everything.”

Although he is basically retired, he maintains a consulting firm for mental health policy, drug abuse treatment and education, juvenile justice issues and health care access. He is chairman for an oversight committee at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

And he is exceptionally busy during sessions of the N.M. Legislature providing advice and strategy on pending bills.

Among qualifications to serve on the Village Council, Miera cites “I know how to govern. I know how to set plans and how to execute those plans. And I do my homework.”

He would give high priority to addressing issues involving water. “We need to preserve Corrales’ traditions and  the rural lifestyle. That means protecting us from impacts from Albuquerque and Rio Rancho.”

He’s a strong advocate for farmland preservation and protecting the Bosque Preserve, noting that he has been endorsed by the Sierra Club. He realizes the inherent conflict between protecting the bosque as a natural area and the need for fire protection for nearby residences. “We need to sit down and talk things out. I’m good at that.”

Miera is skeptical about benefits from a Village take-over of Corrales Road. But if a decision is made to do that and  the Village cannot afford to maintain it, he thinks he can help pull in financial assistance. “I know how the State’s capital improvements program works.”

The former state legislator is more than just skeptical of what might be gained by extending Angel Road out to Highway 528 in Rio Rancho. “You’d get a thousand cars a day making a right turn from Angel Road onto Loma Larga.”

He said he would be especially cautious about allowing greater residential density anywhere in the village to accommodate senior living proposals. Even if occupants can be limited to senior citizens only, the units might quickly, and continually filled with those from Albuquerque or Rio Rancho, he warned. “And what if that project goes belly-up? Now we have an apartment complex with all the ongoing water and wastewater requirements.”

Cory Frantz

Born in Lansing, Michigan to parents who immigrated from Peru, Cory Frantz has lived along Paseo Tomas Montoya, west of the Fire Department substation, since 2004.

Her father was one of nine siblings raised in the Peruvian highlands. He earned a scholarship to a military academy in Lima where he gained a civil engineering degree in the 1950s. The U.S. government brought him to Michigan where he designed and supervised construction of roads and bridges.

Frantz’s father was soon assigned to the Organization of American States  to engineer projects throughout Latin America —which meant she lived in many Central and South American countries while growing up.

Off to college in the United States, she earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Mercer University in 1982. She quickly launched a long career in call center management for telecommunications firms including  Sprint, MCI, BellSouth International and Worldcom. Most of that was based in Atlanta, and used her Spanish language fluency. From 1994 to 1999, she was manager of Coca-Cola’s customer service communications center in Atlanta.

With BellSouth, she was associate director of customer operations development in Latin America, 1999 to 2001 when the firm closed that venture.

General Electric Consumer Finance brought her to New Mexico in 2004 to manage its Spanish language customer service. But that was outsourced to Mexico in 2006, so she took a site manager job with Lockheed Martin Information Technology in Albuquerque. That involved a project start-up for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

That project ended in 2007, and Frantz went to work at the Victoria’s Secret customer service call center in Rio Rancho —until that firm left the state in 2012.

Since that time she has been Verizon’s social media engagement manager.

Among her top priorities if elected to the council is protecting the night sky from light pollution and protecting “our magnificent views and clean air. I will work to protect and enhance our residential property values.”

She and her husband, a lawyer, got into a legal battle with Village officials  about six years ago over a tall water tank installed at the Fire Department substation a short distance from their home. They complained that it detracted from their view of the bosque and mountains to the east. They raised a similar complaint and sought a restraining order to stop adoption of a 2016 cell tower ordinance.

Frantz opposes commercial cannabis  operations in neighborhoods for much the same reasons. “These operations produce sewer-like odors and consume large quantities of water. The gases created can result in toxic ground-level ozone; these operations consume large amounts of energy and often emit intrusive lighting. Such enterprises are highly likely to decrease residential property values.”

Frantz said she anticipates these and other land use policies will be addressed in a thoughtful updating of the Corrales Comprehensive Plan. “I will work to update the Village of Corrales Planning and Zoning Ordinance,” she assured. “I am prepared to work diligently on this project.”

She said when they bought the property here and moved into their new  home, “I felt I had arrived in paradise. The stress just dissipated from me.”

She feels strongly that Village officials need to retain low-density neighborhoods, although a senior living compound might be acceptable in the commercial district along Corrales Road. “If it’s done in the commercial area, that’s fine.”

The candidate said she is running for the District 1 seat because “I feel strongly that we need to protect what people moved here to enjoy, and that includes the majestic views, the animal-friendly community and the feeling of safety. Here we can commune with nature, and you don’t feel that in other places.”

Council District 3

Council District 3 includes the heart of Corrales’ commercial district along Corrales Road and stretches all the way to Rio Rancho where chronic drainage and flooding problems originate. The incumbent councillor, Mel Knight, wants a second term. A challenger, Andy Dilts, is an electrical engineer. Both grew up in the Chicago area.

Mel Knight

A speech pathologist for the Albuquerque Public Schools system for 31 years, Mel Knight retired in 2013, and now helps run a vineyard and winery on her property. She is seeking a second term on the Village Council.

She and her first husband bought and combined four half-acre lots on the west side’s Reclining Acres in the mid-1980s. He died, but she did not want to move back to the Chicago area where they both had lived. She stayed on, caring for a horse and two dogs while commuting to schools in Albuquerque to work with disabled and emotionally disturbed children who “had been kicked out of every school they’d been in.”

She met a Corrales builder and adobe craftsman, Al Knight, on a blind date; they married in 1990. Their first child, Liam, died in an accident at a friend’s house here. To honor his memory, they organized construction of a pond in the southwest corner of the Corrales Recreation Center using mostly volunteer labor and donated materials.

She had been volunteering for several Corrales organizations, including Friends of Corrales Library and the Corrales Soccer Club, and helped start the Hot Flash Riders, a competitive team riding group, as well as a women’s investing group.

In 2013, she was appointed to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Knight served for three years and then resigned in frustration because its rulings and regulations were not being enforced; the P&Z department had no enforcement officer.

Then in 2018, she ran unopposed for the District 3 position on the Village Council after the incumbent declined to seek another term.

Among the top issues for her constituency are road maintenance and flooding from stormwater run-off on steep terrain below the escarpment. A long-running controversy is how that can be addressed, especially for privately owned roadways.

“Corrales cannot take care of private easement roads. Part of the problem is that the Village has tried to do that. For 37 years, my kitchen window has looked out onto West La Entrada, and I would see big earthmoving equipment coming up and down that road to maintain it for wash-outs and washboardness.”

Two West La Entrada homeowners objected when the Public Works Department tried to address complaints about such problems because the roadway is a private easement. Knight sought a solution: “I tried to get an ordinance passed that would allow individuals to hire Public Works crews to go in and maintain their stretch of the private road. But the council voted it down.”

Then along the east side of her district, a major issue is chronic problems with the municipal sewer system and the need to extend it to neighborhoods east and west of Corrales Road. Knight has proposed the Village extend wastewater collection lines into higher density neighborhoods east of Corrales Road, such as the Coroval-Priestley Road area, and west to the Mountain Shadows neighborhood.

She has also warned that the existing sewerline along Corrales Road is vulnerable to blockages, requiring a parallel, bypass method.

The east side of District 3 has two other perennial controversies —the “pathway” project in the commercial area and noise and odors from eateries and breweries —plus a new one: commercial cannabis businesses.

“Residents down there are worried about music from places like the Bistro, Ex Novo and even Casa Vieja where music is played outside. They’re also worried about the smell of grains brewed at Ex Novo. When I have smelled it, I didn’t think it was a bad smell, but maybe it is an annoying smell.”

To address the odor complaints, Knight suggests the regulations recently imposed for cannabis operations, such as requiring filters, might have to be set for breweries as well.

The Village Council recently passed an ordinance banning commercial cannabis operations in residential A-1 and A-2 zoned neighborhoods while specifically allowing it in the commercial district, along Corrales Road from Wagner’s Lane to just beyond Meadowlark Lane.

But there are residents living there as well, so regulations and enforcement would be needed to protect them from large scale marijuana production. Often cited nuisances include odors, light pollution and impacts to domestic wells from water use.

She bristles at criticism that she  voted not to ban commercial cannabis in residential areas. “I didn’t do that. The Village Attorney advised us that if we did a total ban, there was a great likelihood we could be sued. And that’s what the attorney for the Municipal League said too. So our task as councillors was to come up with ways that we could really limit cannabis in residential areas but stay within state law and not be sued.

“One of those ways was requiring a 300-foot setback from an adjacent property. That’s what the Village Attorney suggested. That way it would be almost impossible to grow commercial cannabis in a residential area.”

She hears about disturbances caused by motorized vehicles along the ditch banks of the Corrales Acequia. A possible solution would be to erect barriers across the ditch banks through which fire and rescue vehicles could easily pass in emergencies, she suggested.

She favors construction of a performing arts center, creating a municipal park-like feature along the Corrales Interior Drain and a pathway in the business district. “The pathway has been talked about for a long time, and people want to see something done.”

Andy Dilts

An electrical engineer who has worked at Sandia National Laboratories since January 2020, Andy Dilts refers to himself as the black sheep of the family because his father and brothers were all doctors.

He grew up in the Chicago area and earned a degree in electrical engineering at the University of Illinois in 1988.

“By personality, occupation and faith, I am a thinker,” Dilts explained. “I prefer to make decisions based on facts and figures, not just emotions and feelings. As an engineer, I make informed decisions.”

He’s also compassionate. He and his wife have provided a foster home to at least 80 children, most age six or younger. They have adopted three, including two with special needs. His wife has a background as a social worker.

They bought property in Corrales in 2012 and moved here in 2015.

Dilts noted that New Mexico has a high rate of poverty and drug use, which can have severe implications for children.

He is concerned about local issues including villagers’ water use, erosion of residential density policies and the proposed senior living proposal at the corner of Corrales Road and Dixon Road.

Dilts addressed head on a controversy surrounding a political sign attached to his fence facing Loma Larga last year. At both candidate forums organized by the League of Women Voters earlier this month, Dilts decried repeated incidents of vandalism on his sign with the words “God, Guns, Trump” and two images of  assault rifles surrounding a religious symbol, all superimposed on an American flag background.

The candidate conceded that the messages on his political signs and banners “are not necessarily on the popular side of things in Corrales.” But he insists on his right to make those views known without harassment or vandalism.

“We were Trump supporters, okay? Am I a die-hard Trump supporter? No. He was the candidate who was chosen through the process to choose a Republican candidate. Going back to 2016, I don’t honestly remember who I voted for in the primary, but I don’t think it was Trump. But come Election Day in November, you only get essentially two choices.

“I can certainly understand why a lot of people dislike Trump, but at the same time in a lot of ways, he was an effective president.” Dilts said he doesn’t agree with Trump on everything, “but if he runs again, we’ll see. It’s not about who’s the perfect candidate, because that person isn’t running.

“To be  honest, when I agreed to be a candidate, I didn’t entirely know what I was getting myself into.” He said he didn’t realize that municipal elections here are meant to be non-partisan, and that state and national politics are less relevant for such local elections. “If we look at the issues we have locally compared to the issues we have nationally that kind of define Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green Party or whatever else, they don’t really come down to the village level… at least  not in this village.

“So it bothers me a little bit that people would peg me in that way in my run for Village Council. If we look at party platforms, I can’t make any of that happen in the village.”

Among top local issues he ranks water usage. “We need to carefully monitor irrigation usage, probably through the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District.” He suggests applying for grants or appropriations to provide a water meter to all residents.

The candidate thinks it may be worthwhile to further explore the option of having the City of Rio Rancho supply water to the future commercial area in Corrales just east of the Rio Rancho Industrial Park.

He would like to see an ongoing program to track well-pumping impacts to groundwater. Referring to discontinuation of monitor wells to evaluate impacts from Intel’s pumping to produce microchips, Dilts paraphrased Ronald Reagan: “trust but verify. We don’t know what happening when we’re not verifying.”

Regarding Intel’s operations on the escarpment above Corrales, “I don’t know that Intel has been an entirely trustworthy environmental partner with their emissions into the air or into the ground or water usage. I haven’t read anything that makes me think they are entirely trustworthy.”

Broadband access is another big issue in his district.

He strongly supports a careful update of the community’s Comprehensive Plan. “It’s where all of the issues need to be captured. It’s a chance to look at the bigger picture over a longer term. It should direct where the Village is going to be applying its money.”

Although he supports the idea of saving farmland, he would like to know how such land will be used over time. “What’s the village going to do with it?”

He’s skeptical about plans for a performing arts center, especially where it has been proposed west of the post office. When events are underway, “where will cars park? Where will they park when soccer game or soccer practice is