Coffee with Coss: Residents voice concerns over crime, development projects

Wednesday’s meeting was the last for 2007

Graffiti, burglaries, the Northwest Quadrant development and a possible Rail Runner commuter-train stop off Galisteo Street came up for discussion at a Morning Coffee with Mayor Coss on Wednesday at City Hall.

After several attendees complained about the increase in graffiti and what they called the city’s indifference to it, Deputy Police Chief Benjie Montaño said the recent addition of additional police officers will mean more personnel to pursue taggers.

The two officers handling graffiti complaints now “are not enough,” Montaño said.

Parks Division Director Fabian Chavez said beginning this weekend, there will be two employees standing by to clean up graffiti as it’s reported.

He encouraged residents who find graffiti in their neighborhoods and elsewhere to call the graffiti hot line at 955-2255. Sightings may also be reported to 955-2101, 955-2103 and 955-2104.

“We rely on people to call us up and tell us where (the graffiti) is,” he said.

Chavez promised a response within 24 hours.

The city Graffiti Busters program allows the city to collect fines from people who do graffiti and are caught, but no fines have been collected since the law was passed.

Another resident complained about the increase in burglaries and tried to link that criminal activity to recent immigrants, a claim rejected by Coss and Montaño.

“The majority of burglaries are drug-related,” Montaño said.

Residents of the Casa Solana neighborhood said they were concerned the city’s plan to build 900 homes on city-owned land in the Northwest Quadrant would bring a flood of traffic to their streets.

“We don’t want to be forced out of our neighborhood,” said Nicole DeJurenev of the La Nueva/Casa Solana Neighborhood Association. “We need to put proper roads in.”

Coss said it wasn’t a viable plan to have traffic from the planned Northwest Quadrant development come through Casa Solana. “We need to make a $30 million investment in roads before we start the development,” he said.

Robert Romero, the city’s Public Works Department director, said a road study is ongoing. “Everything is still on the table.”

Coss also said development of the Northwest Quadrant is necessary to give teachers, city workers and others the chance to live in the city they work in. “We need 6,000 homes and apartments for those people.”

Santa Fe, like many other desirable places to live, is caught between residents’ opposition to growth and their desire to have their children return to the city they were born in after graduating from college.

Michael Pease, who lives on the city’s south side, not far from the former pumice plant, wouldn’t want to see a Rail Runner stop in that area, as has been suggested. “It would affect our property,” he said.

Coss said it was unlikely the train would stop near the former pumice plant because it was too close to the Department of Transportation building, located between Alta Vista Street and West Cordova Road. That site has already been chosen as a stop.

Coss said the final decision over where the train will stop on the way to the Railyard area has yet to be made.

Wednesday’s Coffee with Mayor Coss was the last one this year.

Contact Bob Quick at 986-3011 or bobquick@sfnewmexican.com.