Sunland Park residents file petition to disincorporate

Sunland Park residents walked into the Dona Ana Clerk’s Office, asking their city be disincorporated Friday afternoon. Dona Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins confirms with ABC-7, residents of Sunland Park filed a petition asking to dissolve Sunland Park’s government.

Ellins said the petitioners have an unlimited amount of time to get signatures from 25 percent of registered voters in Sunland Park. Once the signatures are verified, the petition is presented to the commission. The commissioners would have 14 days to adopt a resolution directing an election to take place.

This comes after the second arrest of a Sunland Park councilor in just the past couple weeks.

According to police, De Los Santos admitted to bringing a 12-pack to the party. When asked if he knew there were minors drinking, De Los Santos allegedly said he was aware and didn’t stop anyone because “it wasn’t his life.”

Just 10 days ago, Sunland Park City Councilor, Sergio Carrillo, was arrested and charged with Possession of Marijuana.

Back in May, U.S. Marshals helped an El Paso couple reclaim their Sunland Park home after City Councilor Francisco Jayme had allegedly occupied the home without paying rent.

In 2012, Mayor-Elect Daniel Salinas was prevented from taking office because of his role in a blackmailing scheme targeting one of his political opponents.

“It never ever ends,” petitioner Penelope Gray said.

Built up frustration is what prompted 14 community members to file a petition to disincoporate Sunland Park.

“It is a bit of a shock,” Sunland Park Mayor Javier Perea said.

Perea tells ABC-7 one of the biggest consequences would be a loss of services.

“This doesn’t mean that only elected officials are going to be gone. No, absolutely not,” Perea said. “This means the entire payroll for the city of Sunland Park would be completely eliminated.”

Petitioners say they are fine with that, since they’ll be under the supervision of only Dona Ana County instead.

“To me its better to be part of the county because that thing’s going to have a long ways to be set right, you know,” Jorge Motta, a long time Sunland Park resident, said.

The petitioners say they considered the petition even before the recent arrests of councilors Sergio Carrillo and Daniel de los Santos.

Some of their complaints include a number of building issues, including a history of corruption and fraud by city officials, poor annual audits, high property and sales taxes and inadequate road and water facilities.

Perea tells ABC-7 those audits have been cleaned up. He says the city’s fixing other internal issues and they want community input.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done and we will be tackling those issues one step at a time,” Perea said.

But the petitioners say change isn’t happening fast enough.

“How many chances do people need before they get it right?” Gray said.