Rep. Elias Barela said over the weekend that not supporting the development of a master-planned community in Rancho Cielo’s 6,000 acres west of Los Chavez could lead to unwanted development there.

“It’s a quality development. It’s private land. If we drive Rancho Cielo out, who’s going to take over it? What’s going to happen with it?” Barela asked. “Is a better company going to come in? Is it going to be developed in a better fashion or a worse fashion?”

Not helping the developer, Coast Range Investments, build Rancho Cielo there could mean the 6,000 acres turns into Valencia County’s next Meadow Lake, he said.

“If people don’t have good jobs here, the only people who are going to be buying that land are ones who basically will do what they’ve done to other parts of the county, literally a spew of mobile homes and lack of infrastructure,” he said.

That’s why he and Rep. Andrew Barreras worked to get the North Belen interchange reconstruction and Signet Solar’s infrastructure funding out of bills at this year’s legislature that Barela said threatened to cut the funding. He said efforts to pull Rancho Cielo’s funding would have “ensured its utter destruction.”

Sen. Michael Sanchez placed the North Belen interchange money on a list of projects to be cut during the regular session. Sanchez said last week he did that to highlight how the developer of Rancho Cielo won’t pay its portion of the money needed to improve the interchange, which will provide access to Rancho Cielo.

“The thing that I think is really important is that we just be honest about what our policy decisions are and what our policy choices are,” Barela said.

Barela said Sanchez has been trying to cut funding for the North Belen interchange and Signet Solar since the special session last year.

The two legislators have a significant policy disagreement when it comes to how Valencia County and Belen should grow.

Sanchez is opposed to the growth of Rancho Cielo west of Los Chavez, instead wanting to focus on downtown redevelopment in Belen.

“I’d rather fix Belen and do what we can in the city of Belen. Why are we moving the city from one area to the next?” Sanchez said last week in Santa Fe.

Barela, on the other hand, believes Rancho Cielo will provide development that downtown Belen can’t, manufacturing jobs like those that could be created by Signet Solar, a solar technology manufacturer.

Barela said the best way to help small businesses is by providing jobs in major industry, which can in turn provide a stronger consumer base for small businesses. The failure of Signet Solar to build in Rancho Cielo is one way to harm small business, he said.

“It’s devastating to people. You’re hurting people who don’t have work and are having trouble putting food on the table, not only the ones who are going to work in Signet Solar, but the ones who buy dinners, the ones who buy gas, the ones who buy flowers, and the ones who buy building materials,” he said.

Last week, local business owners began meeting to save the funding for the North Belen interchange project, even traveling to Santa Fe to meet with Sanchez.

“It’ll really help all the small businesses. I’m not surprised businesses came out and said they’re for this,” Barela said.

In the meeting with Sanchez, however, and during a later meeting with Jim Wood, executive vice president of Coast Range Investments, the business owners found out the state’s $3 million in funding for the interchange reconstruction was never at risk of being cut. The project is instead being halted because Coast Range Investments said it wouldn’t yet put forward the $4 million it “pledged” for the project.

Signet Solar, which was expected to be the first to build in Rancho Cielo, was denied a loan guarantee from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) in January, which led Coast Range Investments to decide to hold back its funding for the North Belen interchange improvements. The denial is now in a DOE appeal process that could take nine months to a year.

“I am very disappointed that the debate suddenly became about when and where they’re supposed to pay this and that,” Barela said.

The debate about funding cuts and Rancho Cielo’s viability is “unnecessary” and a “cat fight,” he said, adding that both Valencia! and the Valencia County News-Bulletin got “sucked into” irrelevant concerns characteristic of “gotcha” politics.

“I’m not a mind reader. We don’t know if the project will fall apart. But I know that it hasn’t fallen apart. This action and this debate are making it more likely that it will,” he said.

Barela said the city, county, state and federal governments have put thousands of hours of work into Rancho Cielo and Signet Solar. Coast Range Investments has put $40 million into the master-planned community.

Barela said the worst thing local leaders can do to Signet Solar because of the denial of the loan guarantee is “kick them and throw them and use it as an opportunity to walk away” from the project. He said that would show Valencia County is “closed for economic development.”

“It’ll ensure nothing comes to this area anymore. It’ll create a stigma,” he said.

Barela said the project shouldn’t end this way. He wants locals to take a deep breath and show “some real leadership.”

He said he believes Coast Range Investments and Signet Solar are acting in good faith and have given him no reason for pause.

“The road’s not without bumps, and I think real leadership requires people to step up and say, ‘Look. Time out.’ I don’t think the way to do this is to pull the rug out from under them. If we’ve got some issues with delays, if we’ve got some issues with how the contracts are written, we’ll deal with that. And if the project’s completely unviable, we really need to look at it,” he said.

Fred Mondragon, the secretary of the New Mexico Economic Development Department, is a “huge supporter” of Signet Solar who says the project is “an extremely viable venture,” according to Barela.

“If we pull the rug from under this, it’ll be an extremely negative message that we may never recover from,” he said.

He said Sanchez’s efforts to pull funding from Rancho Cielo are “premature” and “punitive,” because there hasn’t been open debate in Valencia County about the viability of the project and the future growth of Valencia County.

When asked if he would debate Sanchez face-to-face on issues related to Belen’s growth, Barela said he welcomes it.

“I’ve been very upfront about my position on this issue. What is his position?” Barela asked, adding, “If he would want to talk about it and do it, I’d be more than happy to do it.”

He also plans to push his ideas for how Valencia County should grow with local officials in Belen, Los Lunas and at the county.

“When I talk to people who have lost their jobs and people who have lost their homes, when I talk to people who have lost family to drug use because there’s not any opportunity for them, when I see there are rampant Children, Youth and Families Department complaints in this county because of stresses on the family — when I see what the lack of a good job does, I have become one of those people who understands what Franklin Roosevelt meant when he said the best social program is a good job. There’s dignity in work far beyond the economic benefits of it,” Barela said.

This page was published on February 23, 2010 at 7:24am and is filed under Budget, Economy, Infrastructure, Rancho Cielo.