New Valencia County Arroyo Flood Control District formed

A district court judge set out the process by which a nonpartisan, unpaid five-member board of directors will be selected to serve the newly-formed Valencia County Arroyo Flood Control District on Tuesday afternoon.

The formation of the flood district was put to the voters on the Nov. 5 General Election ballot, passing 23,029 to 7,427.

However, the establishment of the board was separated from that process in August after the New Mexico secretary of state intervened in the formation process of a similar flood control district in Sierra County.

The Seventh Judicial District Court granted an order separating the two actions, leaving the question of whether to form the district on the November 2024 ballot and pushing the election of a board to the November 2025 local election.

The Valencia County Commission amended its district court petition to do the same, and 13th Judicial District Court Judge Cindy Mercer granted the amended order, which said the court will temporarily appoint a flood control district board of directors 30 days after the district’s organization.

At a status hearing on Tuesday, Dec. 3, Mercer heard from Valencia County attorney Adren Nance and the procedure for gathering names for the board was established. Once the judge signs an order and decree submitted by Nance, interested parties living in Valencia County will have 30 days to submit a letter of interest, resume and petition with at least five signatures from qualified county electors.

Statute requires anyone running for a flood control district to submit a petition, so Nance suggested those wishing to be appointed follow the same process. After the hearing, he said a petition form would be created and will be available through the Valencia County manager’s office once the judge signs the order, which he anticipates will be by the end of this week.

“That should put the deadline to submit in the first week of January,” Nance said. “We’ll have an exact date once the order is signed.”

During the hearing, the attorney said the county administration and commissioners were willing to help facilitate the gathering of names of those interested in being appointed to the board. Any county resident interested in serving on the temporary board can submit their letter of interest, resume and petition to the county manager’s chief administrator, Lichelle Armstrong, at lichelle.armstrong@co.valencia.nm.us, or by mail to Valencia County Manager’s Office, P.O. Box 1119, Los Lunas, N.M., 87301.

If there aren’t five interested parties at the end of the 30 days, Mercer said the contingency plan will be to ask county commissioners to submit names for consideration. The judge will select the five members of the board, who will serve until the November 2025 local election.

The board members will be at-large, meaning they are not assigned to or selected from specific districts within the county. The appointed members can file to run to retain their seats, and an elected board would have to draw lots to determine a proper election rotation, meaning some would serve for two years and others would serve for four.

The district includes and has jurisdiction and taxing authority in the entirety of Valencia County, both incorporated and unincorporated areas. One authority the flood control board has is the ability to impose property taxes. The board of directors can impose a half mill levy — a property tax of 50 cents per $1,000 of taxable value — without a public vote, and any future flood district mill levy increases would have to go to the voters for approval. The appointed board would have the authority to impose the half mill.

Since flooding has traditionally come from the arroyos that run down off the east and west sides of the county, rather than from the Rio Grande in the valley, the proposed flood control district will only address flood abatement of the arroyos.

The formation of an arroyo flood district would create an agency that could take on the operation and maintenance of flood control infrastructure of a proposed flood mitigation project in the Belen watershed, which has federal funding attached.

In April, the Natural Resources Conservation Service updated the community on a project entering the design phase to construct flood control infrastructure for an area of about 250,000 acres south of the city of Belen.

The cost of the NRCS flood control project is estimated at more than $25 million, with the conservation service willing to take on the construction of the project. Once completed, there needs to be an agency willing to take on ownership of the completed infrastructure and maintain it, both of which the arroyo flood control district can do.