Sunland Park City Council meeting could spark more heated discussions on annexation
UPDATE: Sunland Park City Council expected to hold meeting Tuesday night at 6:30pm at 1000 McNutt Road.
ABC-7 was sent what appeared to be a portion of the meetings agenda.
It stated Councilman Kenneth Giove will propose that council approve a resolution concerning annexation of unincorporated areas surrounding Santa Teresa.
That has not been confirmed by the city of Sunland Park.
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Sunland Park City Council is exploring the possibility of annexing nearby Santa Teresa.
But Santa Teresans want nothing to do with it.
The two communities sit right next to one another, just across the state border from El Paso in New Mexico. And a Sunland Park city council meeting on Tuesday could get heated. Sunland Park has had its problems in recent years. And residents in Santa Teresa are doing all they can to avoid possible annexation.
“They don’t have the best reputation at Sunland Park for managing or governing, either one,” said Santa Teresa resident Johnny Stanfield. “I wouldn’t care to be a part of that.”
There’s a lot not to like: Former mayor-elect Daniel Salinas’s arrest on corruption charges, a lap dance video turned campaign issue, financial mismanagement that led to a state takeover, and another former mayor admitted he was drunk when he signed contracts that got the city sued.
That’s left many Santa Teresans wondering why anyone would want to be annexed by Sunland Park.
“It’d be the worst thing that could happen to us,” said Santa Teresa resident Vickie Stanfield “If this is what you moved here for and what you believe in, you have to fight for it.”
“I just cannot imagine how it would be a benefit to anyone in Santa Teresa?” said Johnny Stanfield. “We’d be much better off incorporating into a township or village.”
“The people up here are very, very agitated,” added Kraig Carpenter, who is leading an effort to incorporate Santa Teresa. “Out of the approximately 600 to 700 signatures we’ve gathered, 99.5 percent are against annexation.”
Residents in one Santa Teresa neighborhood are ready to fight their annexation. They’ve posted signs all over the neighborhood pointing to that Tuesday Sunland Park city council meeting.
“The only way to effectively stop annexation,” Santa Teresa resident Judy Adams said, “is to incorporate and develop our own city.”
“I don’t deny there was some problems in (Sunland Park) and there’s still some problems,” current Sunland Park Mayor Javier Perea said. “But that’s not going to change until we all start working together and fixing those issues.”
Perea said he favors annexing Santa Teresa, but hasn’t settled on what parts of it to target.
“I do support growing the city boundaries,” Perea said. “What those boundaries are going to be in the short term future, I don’t know.”
Perea told ABC-7 New Mexico law allows cities to expand within five miles of their boundaries. That means it may be a race against time for the residents of Santa Teresa to create their own city.
