At the recent Board of County Commissioners meeting of Jan. 28, I initiated the discussion of setting up a collaborative (joint) meeting between the governing body of the city of ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe and the ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe County commissioners. I was happy to hear that our chair, Commissioner Camilla Bustamante also was thinking along these lines.
Since then, I have broached the subject with a few city councilors and have received unanimous encouragement to start working on this and we will be presenting a joint resolution to this effect. Two councilors, Pilar Faulkner and Amanda Chavez, have offered to lead this on the City Council.
Let me discuss my vision of this effort. Our community needs a collaborative meeting for our two jurisdictions to build intergovernmental partnerships at our highest levels of governance. Whether at the state or federal level, I frequently hear that funding and program support is greater and more likely when the projects show partnerships.
We have had a rough few years between our governments, but with new members of both bodies over the last 13 months and over 10 years since our last meeting of this sort, I think the time is right.
We already work on a bunch of issues together: Buckman Direct Diversion, Solid Waste Management Agency, the Metropolitan Planning Organization and the ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe Film Office are a few that work well. Our staffs work together on many of these issues every day, including the topics I bring up below, but we need upper-level discussions to foster more trust, transparency and understanding between our organizations.
Economic development including jobs and workforce training.
Public safety.
Homelessness.
Water and wastewater.
Housing affordability.
Education.
Health: mental, behavioral and physical.
Child care and youth services.
Senior services.
Parks and recreation.
Infrastructure and transportation.
Land use and growth.
Tourism, arts and cultural events.
Sustainability and the environment.
This isn’t the complete list, to be sure, but it illustrates how many topics we have in common. Some of these topics overlap and could be combined. But let’s get the first meeting set up and we can build on this.
How could this work? I propose that we set up teams made up of a councilor and commissioner to lead the discussion on topics for which they have knowledge and passion. I believe this will give “ownership†and create a team-building structure between the individuals on our organizations that will become the foundations of our collaborative approach.
We could bring in other governmental partners. For instance: the ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe Public Schools Board of Education or the board of trustees from ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe Community College on subjects relevant to education and workforce development. For public safety issues, we can bring in the sheriff and the district attorney. For land use, the Planning Commissions of each jurisdiction. Each issue has stakeholders who need to be included so that we can work collaboratively and comprehensively.
Ultimately, we all want (and deserve) results. Working together, we should get more traction and actionable plans for how we can make ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe more livable and safe for our residents.
To the residents of ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe city and county who want to see this happen, please reach out to your representatives and voice your support for this collaborative effort.
Justin Greene is a ·è¿ÍÖ±²¥ Fe County Commissioner representing District 1. He serves on multiple collaborative city-county boards. Contact him at jsgreene@santafecountynm.gov.
