Dona Ana County resident frustrated over unpaved road

A Dona Ana County man is frustrated over a 35 year battle with the county. He says the county has forced him to give up 20 feet of his property to provide a portion of the roadway on Harper Road, which is about seven miles south of Las Cruces. He says his neighbors aren’t giving up their share of property to complete the road and as a result, he says the road remains unpaved and unsafe.

“Its stupid, downright stupid,” one Las Cruces resident said.

Driving down Harper Road means mud and deep water every time it rains.

“It’d be really nice if they paved it cause once it starts raining like this they have to grade it all the time,” Garrett Salopek, who frequently drives down Harper Road, said.

Henry Enriquez owns a portion of Harper Road that crosses his property. The county’s in charge in charge of maintaining it.

“I think that I’m against the wall facing the firing squad and I can’t do anything about it,” Enriquez said.

Enriquez says he wants the road widened because people often speed down it nearly causing accidents.

“It’s speeding constant dust and the noise from the vehicles going by,” he said.

But Ryan Hiles, a property owner across the street, says paving the road would be an even bigger inconvenience.

“Being the road left as it is rather then paved and widened reduces a lot of the traffic and a lot of the speed that comes through here,” Hiles said.

Dona Ana County engineer Robert Armijo says there aren’t any plans to pave the road, but they will work with Enriquez to maintain it.

“I agreed to place some reflectors on his side of the property and some speed limit signs on either side to to keep people, try to slow people down,” Armijo said.

But for Enriquez, he says that isn’t enough and the roads current condition causes nothing but headaches.

“Sleepless nights constant anger there’s times i just roll and roll over in the bed because I’m so angry that I can’t do anything,” Enriquez said.

Armijo says the county gets public input on road projects every year. He says they then rank those projects and at this time, Harper Road isn’t on that list.