One of the two Las Campanas Golf Courses - July 2002

This is a belated update on the City/County Complaint for a Declaratory Judgment against Las Campanas Limited Partnership filed in The First District Court, on or about 8/29/2002 (No. D-0101-CV-2002-01878) to determine whether Las Campanas Partnership is subject to the City Water Shortage Emergency Ordinance (Emergency Ordinance).

Subsequently Las Campanas Limited Partnership filed an Answer and Counter Claim to the City/County Complaint on or about 9/16/2002.

Following this Answer on 10/10/2002 the New Mexico Environmental Law Center filed a Complaint in Intervention against Las Campanas on behalf of several Santa Fe plaintiffs including Thomas R. Pennington and his Agua Fria Nursery.

This Complaint in Intervention seeks a court order declaring that Las Campanas is required by the City Lease of Water Facilities and the County Development Agreement to comply with and abide by the restrictions, on the use of City water, imposed by the Emergency Ordinance now and in the future.

Please see articles on these court filings on this web site.

In late October The City of Santa Fe and Las Campanas Limited Partnership collaborated against the New Mexico Environmental Law Center and the Santa Feans that it represents by claiming in Court that these Santa Fe plaintiffs do not have standing to intervene!

The Santa Fe businesses that have been most directly and adversely effected by the City’s water restrictions are plant nurseries, as a result of planting prohibitions. And Santa Fe residents who have lost their landscaping and have seen the value of their homes depreciate as a result of the Emergency Ordinance certainly have been negatively impacted.

To say, in effect, as the City has done, that its residents and constituents, who have been greatly harmed as a result of the Emergency Ordinance and Las Campanas Partnership’s blatant disregard of Santa Fean’s welfare, do not have a legitimate interest in this vital issue is a contemptible assertion!

The County did not join the City in its action against its residents.

It is clear that the City wishes to bar residents from intervening so that it can continue to conduct negotiations and any settlement with Las Campanas Partnership in “executive session” from which the public is excluded.

It should be recalled that in 2002 Mayor Delgado met privately on several occasions with Bill Deihl, president of Las Campanas Partnership in an effort to accommodate this owner of the two private golf courses that were using over one million gallons of fresh water daily from the City’s Buckman wells.

Mayor Delgado and Mark Sheridan, the lawyer representing the City against Las Campanas Partnership, refuse to return calls from newspapers, preferring to keep the public in the dark.

Santa Feans fear that this secrecy will lead to another “sweetheart” deal with Las Campanas Partnership like the original Lease of Water Facilities (Lease) between PNM/Sangre de Cristo Water Company and Santa Fe County Ranch Resort, a partnership including Lyle Anderson, the chairman of the organization that controls Las Campanas Partnership.

It also should be recalled that when the City of Santa Fe purchased the Sangre de Cristo Water Company in 1995 it failed to take issue with this Lease that is clearly unfavorable to city residents and businesses.

Furthermore From 1995 until 2002 the City refused to enforce Emergency Ordinance water restrictions upon Las Campanas Partnership as it did upon all homeowners and selected businesses in Santa Fe. It wasn’t until aroused residents in 2002 finally expressed their outrage at this unfairness that the City belatedly and reluctantly filed the Complaint For a Declaratory Judgment against Las Campanas Partnership.

Las Campanas Partnership is continually referred to because the Complaint is against the owner of the two private golf courses for its egregious overuse of Santa Fe’s fresh water and not against the residents of Las Campanas.

In its Answer and Counterclaim Las Campanas Partnership has accused the City of failing to maintain the water system in good repair and implement other procedures relating to the water system that would require additional revenues. Yet Las Campanas Partnership has been content to pay the City less than half the price for fresh water that the City charges all other residents and businesses within the city.

In effect the City of Santa Fe is subsidizing Las Campanas Partnership at the direct expense of city water users.

The nub of the matter is whether the profits of Las Campanas Partnership, the owner of the two private golf courses and hundreds of residential lots priced at $ hundreds of thousands in a private gated sub-division not in the city, should take precedence over the general welfare of the 70,000 residents of Santa Fe.

On January 31 at 9 AM there will be an open hearing, in the First District Court in the Steve Herrera Judicial Court House, on the City and Las Campanas Partnership’s effort to prevent New Mexico Environmental Law Center and affected Santa Feans from having a say in this crucial water issue. For additional information please call the Law Center at 505-989-9022.

William J. Salman