Redistricting finished

At the Otero County Commission meeting on redistricting held on March 19th the Commission voted to keep a 3 member Commission. They adopted "Concept A" in their unanimous vote.

The turnout was rather sparse but that is to be expected on a Monday at 10:00 AM

Some interesting points to ponder.
Every Commissioner stated that they favored staying with a 3 member Commission.
Commissioner Rardin had 2 emails that he read in favor of a 5 member commission.
The few people that were able to attend the meeting were in favor of a 5 member commission.
It was stated by Commissioner Rardin that he had not heard from many people that were in favor of a 5 member Commission.
What no Commissioner stated was that they had talked to anyone that was in favor of staying a 3 member Commission!

Commissioner Rardin did point out to me that if they should adopt "concept D" which I was in favor of it would put me at a real disadvantage in running for this office.
And he would be correct. However "concept D" is the concept that was most widely liked by the people that I have talked to about this issue.
I guess maybe my putting forth the wishes of the people ahead of what is in my best interest is not the way things are supposed to be done. Or at least not the way they are currently done!

Now lets take a quick look at the process of redistricting and getting the public engaged with that process.

When the Alamogordo Public Schools redistricted they held a number of public meetings where this was a listed agenda item. Public input was sought out and listened to.
But the school district is a smaller scale than the entire county.

Looking around the state at what some other areas did finds that Rio Rancho held 10 public meetings before their process was completed.
San Juan County had a committee that met 5 times with the public to discuss redistricting prior to making a proposal to the County Commission.
In fact looking around the state finds that most cities and counties held multiple meetings on this important issue.

Otero County held a single 52 minute meeting, on a Monday morning at 10:00 AM, on the day the County Clerk needed to have the information to the Secretary of State's office.

What was that I said about "Government Transparency" ?