Less than three weeks after the Corrales Village Council put off updates to the local parking ordinance, an apparent attempt at a workaround has drawn the ire of at least one resident.
In a letter to the council, Mayor Fred Hashimoto, Village Administrator Melanie Romero and others, Nancy Baumgardner wrote that she spotted several pieces of heavy machinery laying down a layer of rock over a large part of the front of the Gonzales Field. That property is across Corrales Road from the Village Administration Complex.
Baumgardner wrote that public works director Steve Lesku told her he was putting down base course — a mixture of crushed stone, gravel, and sand — for a parking lot. The letter states Baumgardner then asked to see a site development plan or a drawing for the lot and was told neither existed.
At the March 24 Village Council meeting, the panel elected to delay adoption of a new parking ordinance. One suggestion made by councilors and others was that the village could create municipal parking lots to ease the parking shortage in Corrales and thus reduce the number of vehicles tied to businesses parked on residential streets.
The Anderson lot, adjacent to the reported parking lot construction area, was identified during that meeting as a possible place to put parking spaces.
The Village Council is expected to discuss the parking ordinance again at its June 9 meeting.
In her letter, Baumgardner expressed concerns about several issues, including Hashimoto’s professed support for not altering the Gonzales Field, independent decisionmaking by village staff with consulting the mayor or council and the possible cost of the work being done.
She ended the letter by urging other residents to voice their opinions during the Corraleños Forum at the April 14 Village Council meeting.
“Please request that this blight on our village be removed immediately,” Baumgardner wrote.
Hashimoto and Romero could not be reached for comment.
That meeting is at 6:30 p.m. at the Council Chambers, 4324 Corrales Road. The agenda will be posted here at least 72 hours before the meeting.