Belen city councilors and the mayor are still fighting back against the belief at least one citizen holds that the city isn’t doing enough to make Belen’s economy thrive.

The citizen, B. Paul Ortega, who works with the community group Our Tomorrow: For a Better Belen, questioned the city’s economic development and business support efforts at a council meeting last month. Ortega has sparked a continuing dialogue among city officials about how to improve the city’s efforts, which one councilor publicly thanked him for doing.

Mayor Ronnie Torres spent part of last week in Clovis for a workshop on small businesses, which was sponsored by the New Mexico MainStreet program. Belen was selected to participate in the MainStreet program in May, opening up state support for downtown revitalization.

“When we drove to Clovis and we drove through all these small communities — if anyone tells me Belen is not doing good,” he said. “They’re in big trouble. So many communities are struggling. They have so many boarded up buildings that are beyond boarded up. And when I drove back into Belen it was like seeing a city that was alive and thriving. And there are cars passing. And there are people. And the stores are open.”

Torres said Belen is doing great in comparison to other New Mexico communities he passed through.

“We tend to forget what’s happening around other places. We forget how lucky we actually are here,” he said.

He said he came back from the workshop with tons of ideas. He learned advertising strategies for businesses, everything from businesses providing cheap internet coupons to partnering up with other businesses for joint advertising.

“It was a lot of really good ideas, good information,” he said.

Andrew DiCamillo, the director of the city’s planning and zoning department, and Claudette Riley, the executive director of the Greater Belen Economic Development Corporation, also attended the workshop. Riley also heads up the Belen MainStreet Partnership, Belen’s new downtown revitalization group currently filing its legal paperwork, writing its bylaws and preparing for membership and citizen involvement.

Councilor Wayne Gallegos has had a different approach to evaluating where the city might need to improve in terms of business recruitment and support. He said he’s been studying up on what it takes to establish a business in Belen.

Recently, he walked into city hall unannounced to find out what city employees do when someone asks about opening a business.

“I got as much information as possible,” he said.

He said the city had a lot of information but he wants the process to be more user-friendly, citing a concept called “Business in a Box,” which is a package some communities put together to welcome an entrepreneur and provide him or her with all the information he or she need to start a business.

“We have a lot of it in place already,” he said, adding, “We need to make it as easy as possible.”

He also said fees the city charges for business-related services, permitting or registration might be too cumbersome for some businesspeople. He’s doing more research on what effect it will have to lower or eliminate some fees.

Councilor Rudy Jaramillo, who owns a local restaurant, said the city needs to focus on older buildings around town, to help the owners bring them up to code and get them filled with businesses.

“They’ve been there for years and some people want to renovate it but they don’t know how,” he said.

Jaramillo said the expenses of strict city regulations have kept people from renovating buildings. He said the city has made it “miserable” for some people trying to open up new businesses in old buildings.

“Why are we going to make it harder to open instead of seeing what we can do to help?” he asked.

Jaramillo said the city’s in “great shape” and, as a business owner, he’s grateful things are working out for many Belen businesses in a tough economy.

“Pete’s Cafe celebrated its 60th year in business on Saturday,” he said as an example, adding, “That’s great to see a business last that long.”

This page was published on October 20, 2009 at 4:07pm and is filed under Archive.