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EDITORIAL: The Placitas County idea isn't gone. But it doesn't appear to be going anywhere, either.
Until there are signs of visible grassroots support for creation of the county— in the form of a poll, petition or fund-raising for a cost-benefits study— it's unlikely a formal vote on the issue will find institutional support.
A vote is what Placitas County advocate Charles Mellon has been seeking for the past two years; he says it's the best way to gauge public endorsement or disapproval. In fact, Mellon unsuccessfully ran for both the Sandoval County Commission in 2002 and the state House in 2004 mainly to promote this issue.
Last year's victor in the House race, Rep. Kathy McCoy, R-Sandia Park, agreed to carry Mellon's water with a bill for a Placitas County vote during the recent legislative session in Santa Fe.
That she decided against it after some research is understandable. It would have been imprudent to spend much of her time and capital as a freshman legislator in its pursuit in the absence of clear support from Placitas residents. In fact, McCoy says most of the four dozen calls she received from Sandoval County citizens were against the idea.
Mellon has argued that Placitas gets the short end of the stick when Sandoval County doles out services, while its property taxes are a significant source of county revenues. That's a claim at least one Sandoval County commissioner disputed in January, when Mellon made an unsuccessful pitch to the commission to put the county idea to a vote.
It was the second year in a row Sandoval County commissioners rejected a request by Mellon for a vote.
The problem is, no one really knows how much the creation of a new county would cost, and whether the 6,000 or so residents of the 232 square miles in Sandoval County's easternmost edge would be able to support it through property taxes and sales taxes from the few commercial businesses in the area.
Without some numbers to guide them, it's unlikely Placitas residents would entertain the idea of incorporating as a village, let alone considering creating a full-fledged county.
Those who want to create Placitas County will have to find a way to get those numbers before their vision can become reality.
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