Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 9

METROPOLITAN Friday, July 22, 1988 Albuquerque Journal Page 1, Section City Ignores Advice, Holds Planner Search To Local Area Giving Mayor Council Seat Wins Positive Discussion By Ellen Marks By Jim Martin JOURNAL STAFF WRITER JOURNAL STAFF WRITER i I 'II- tSPS i Mayor Ken Schultz's administration limited advertising for a new city planner to local newspapers and within City Hall despite business and development groups' recommendations that it conduct a national search for applicants. Planning Department Director Terry Nighbert said his past experience in filling the position convinced him advertising nationally would have been a waste of time. The Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce's executive committee and the local chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Parks earlier took positions that the job warranted advertising outside New Mexcio and surrounding states. The job, for which applications closed last Friday, involves direct supervision of the city's professional planning staff. The city planner also advises the City Council and developers on land use issues.

"Now that we're at the 500,000 population threshold, the next five to 10 years are critical to the ultimate development of Albuquerque's urban fabric," said Ron Brown, who serves on the board of the association that represents local developers. "Our board encouraged the city to do everything possible to get the best qual ified professional for that very important slot," Brown added. The chamber's executive committee de JIM THOMPSON oOURNAL Sandra Lente sniffs the water from a tap in her house, sister once fainted from the fumes coming from a She says the water smells of gasoline so badly that her shower. The idea of making Albuquerque's mayor a non-voting member of the City Council was endorsed by several former and current officials Thursday at a public hearing on possible amendments to the City Charter. Former Mayor Harry Kinney said he favored the change as a way to ease relations with councilors a problem he said Albuquerque's three mayors have faced.

"Each of the mayors have had difficulties working with the councils," Kinney said. "An awful lot of it is a lack of communication." Under the charter, the mayor is not on the nine-member body and must find a councilor willing to introduce legislation on behalf of the administration. Most of the two dozen people who showed up at the evening hearing were former or current government officials who reminisced about personal experiences to back up their opinions. The public hearing was the first of three the 15-member City Charter Review Task Force will hold, chairman Donald Jones said. The panel also will meet regularly before deciding to recommend any changes to the charter.

The task force plans to submit its recommendations to the council by Dec. 19. Changes other than those dealing with election rules and the Ethics Code must be approved by voters. Ethics and election rules do not need to go before the electorate, but must be approved by seven of the nine councilors. Among the suggestions offered Thursday were making city elections partisan, raising councilor salaries currently about $5,000 or making them full-time positions and strengthening the Board of Ethics' ability to investigate complaints.

Councilor Pete Dinelli, who pushed for EPA arm Cleanup Plan May Official Says Firms Could Resist Efforts 1 Potentially Responsible Parties i GENERAL I By Nolan Hester ELECTRIC JOURNAL STAFF WRITER WHITFIELD TANK LINES Woodward San Jose Well 6 formation of the task force, said the mayor should be a council member with the power EXACO to sponsor bills and preside over meetings. livered a letter to the administration earlier this month suggesting a national search, and saying private funds could probably be raised to help pay for the effort. "This is not the first time we have disagreed, but our relationship with the! mayor and his top officials remains an excellent one," chamber president Sherman McCorkle said when asked about the administration's decision. Councilor Nadyne Bicknell, head of the council's Land Use and Planning Committee, expressed surprise that the administration rejected a national search. "I certainly think that is a mistake," Ms.

Bicknell said. "I don't see how advertising locally will get us the best pool of qualified applicants." Nighbert said he is convinced a national search would bog down the process without raising the level of applicants. "I served on the selection committee when we hired the last city planner after advertising the job nationwide," Nighbert said. "I was not really impressed with the qualifications of some of the individuals who applied through that process." Only four of the nine finalists interviewed by the committee came from outside New Mexico, said Nighbert, who was a division head in the Planning Department at the time. The committee selected Phil Garcia, a 20-year veteran of the city's planning staff, who took early retirement last May after serving in the job less than two years.

Sifting through a mound of applicants lured by the national ads took nearly three months, according to Nighbert, who said the process he is following now shouldn't require more than 30 days. VAN WATERS ROGERS State officials warned during a heated meeting Thursday night that federal plans to pull out of a cleanup effort in Albuquerque's San Jose area could unravel all other work to combat polluted groundwater there. The federal Environmental Protection Agency has proposed leaving cleanup of petroleum and solvent pollution in the Broadway and Woodward SE area to the state and private firms. However, Paul Karas of the state Environmental Improvement Division said the EPA's plan is fueling resistance by some of the firms not to clean up their share of the problem. Six firms, which the EPA believes contributed to the area's pollution General Electric, Van Waters and Rogers, Texaco, Chevron, Duke City Distributing and Whitfield Tank Lines have been negotiating with the EID and EPA over cleanup plans for their properties.

Because the EPA has argued that industrial solvents found in the San Jose water do not pose a health threat, Karas said officials of the U.S. Air Force, which once owned the G.E. plant, are using the same argument to resist cleanup of solvents beneath the plant. Karas warned that the oil firms could adopt the same stance. Without EPA leverage, Karas explained, the firms might avoid cleanup through court battles and regulatory loopholes.

Area residents joined city and state officials in condemning the EPA's plan. Despite residents' accusations, the EPA's Steve Gilrein stressed that some cleanup work will still be done. "This is only one part of a multi-phase approach," said Gilrein. The EPA wants to spend $4 million to plug 16 wells including San Jose No. 6, the contaminated city drinking water Dinelli said the council should continue to elect a president, and that person still would be in charge of committee appointments.

Kinney said having the mayor become a council member would give the mayor a more formal way of getting involved in council meetings. The former mayor recalled starting his first term in 1974 by sitting near councilors, while attending meetings, and ending his second term in 1985 at the back of the room because he felt unwelcome. But former Councilor Tom Hoover, a frequent critic of current Mayor Ken Schultz, said the change would serve little purpose. "The mayor's always been welcome," Hoover said. "Harry may have felt unwelcome at times, but hell, I've felt unwelcome at times." Hoover drew laughter when he noted that although Schultz attends more meetings than Kinney did, relations between the two branches of government have not improved.

He also suggested changing the charter to allow partisan races, with candidates aligning themselves with political parties. That move would allow voters to put into office a set of candidates with similar philosophies, he said. But Dinelli said partisan politics at the city level would be a mistake. "Issues councilors face do not fall across party lines," he said. CAROL COOPERRIDER JOURNAL Gloria Moya, whose mother and sister, Sandra Lente, live in the 2800 block of Arno SE two blocks north of the Superfund study boundary said her family has been plagued by rashes, stomach problems, hair loss and dizziness.

Her mother, she said, has switched to city water, but pollution from their old private well has contaminated their house pipes so badly that their tap water still reeks of gasoline. The meeting got off to a rocky start when more than 100 people tried to squeeze into the small room at the Radisson Inn. EPA asked people to fill out special cards to speak then quickly ran out of the cards. Defending his rebuttal of remarks by each witness, Gilrein drew hoots from the crowd when he said, "This is EPA's meeting." well that triggered the Superfund study in 1981. EPA argued that the solvents found in San Jose No.

6 do not threaten public health. The real threat, Gilrein said, springs from petroleum-based pollutants, which are exempt from Superfund cleanup. For that reason, the state had been negotiating separate cleanup work with the oil firms. Karas agreed that the petroleum pollution is serious. However, because solvent levels in 10 city water-supply wells are greater than state and federal limits, he said that problem is a greater health risk.

Though most people in the area now use city water, Jonathan Vandecar said his brother's family, which lives near the G.E. plant, still uses a private well. "I'm a little worried about that," said Vandecar. "It doesn't taste good at all." Nighbert declined to say how many people applied for the job, which according to the ads will pay between $3,312 and $4,661 a month. Nighbert said he will release the number of applicants who make it through the Personnel Department's screening process.

"I can understand the concerns of the groups who thought we should have a national search," Nighbert said. "I hope they will respect my decision as planning director." City, County Endorse Study of Cerro Colorado Landfill Site By Johanna King JOURNAL STAFF WRITER ft MB the request of the city and tounty, which solicited information on potential landfill sites earlier this year, The two proposals that were rejected by the committee were from Tri-Sect Landfill and RECA'Suh Ranch Land Co. Cerro Colorado is located just east of the Rio Puerco. It was originally measured at 23 miles from the center of town, but the city has talked with Westland Development Corp. about constructing a road through its property.

Such a road would cut the distance to 16 miles. The cost of developing Cerro Colorado would run an estimated $6.3 million, with $1.5 million going toward the construction and improvement of access roads. The land, which would be purchased from the city's Open Space Division, would cost $330,000. The site selection committee also rejected four proposals for a transfer station, which the city wants to build in or near town where route drivers could dump their loads. Trucks designed for highway hauling would then make the trip to the landfill.

Dewey Cave, acting director of the city Solid Waste Department, said one proposed site, on Bluewater between Coors and Unser, was too close to the Cerro Colorado site. The proposed location on Second NW between Montano and Osuna was too close to residen After months of rejecting the city's proposal to build a regional landfill at a site nearly 20 miles west of Albuquerque, county officials now appear willing to again study the location as a strong contender. City and county officials dined on croissants and orange juice early Thursday at the city-owned, 471-acre Cerro Colorado site before touring it and voting to endorse a plan to further study the location to determine whether it is suitable for a landfill. Previously, the county had criticized the Cerro Colorado site as too far from the city, citing concerns that it would lead to increased illegal dumping. But on Thursday, the city councilors and county commissioners who make up the Intergovernmental Committee supported a city administration proposal to spend $200,000 to further study such aspects of the location as soil conditions and groundwater.

The administration plans to ask the council for the $200,000 appropriation, which would come from the Solid Waste Department's budget said Gene Romo, chief administrative officer for the city. He said the city needs to hire an engineer to conduct a geotechnical survey studying the soil and groundwater, as well as to work with the state Environmental Improvement Division to assure that state permit requirements are met. The vote favoring the study came after the Intergovernmental Committee joined more than 20 city, county and state officials on a tour of the scenic open-space area. They then discussed its propects as a landfill as they ate breakfast prepared by inmates of the Bernalillo County Detention Center. t-.

Si U5 Wmm. turn itift'HM iVv I wnarii L-h-y-ife tial areas. The site at 1-25 and Los Picaros was too close to the Mesa del Sol property, where the current dump is. The committee's favorite site for a transfer station, at Broadway and Rio Bravo SW, was too costly, Cave said. The city administration is now negotiating with the landowners of a 10-acre site on Second SW, just south of Rio Bravo, as a possible transfer station location.

JOURNAL Romo, center, and landfill superintendent Everett Naranjo tour the Cerro Colorado site. includes representatives of the city and county staffs, rejected two other proposed landfill sites, both located in Valencia County, because of their distance from the city and projected operation costs. The proposals were submitted by private vendors at County Commission chairman Lenton Malry, left, city Chief Administrative Officer Gene A city-county selection committee has named the site as the best replacement for the city-county dump on South Broadway, which must move before its lease expires in May 1990. The Property Selection Advisory Committee, which.