No strategy in strategic planning

The city is once again hosting a series of public meetings on the Las Cruces Strategic Plan. The theme: What changes could the City of Las Cruces make next year to improve your quality of life?

Sounds encouraging; they want to hear from us about infrastructure improvements, parks, programming, public safety, funding initiatives. But there’s a catch: all but one of the meetings is slated for 3:30-5 p.m. What usually happens at 5 p.m. on weekdays? Or, more specifically, what usually happens before 5 p.m. on weekdays?

The overwhelming majority of us are busy with work and school commitments, so if you are going for maximum participation, you’ve already lost the plot before it even begins.

To be fair, the city has also offered an online survey in lieu of meeting attendance. This is helpful for those seeking ease of participation and perhaps they will garner sufficient interest from this tactic.

For full meeting schedules and to access the online survey, visit LasCruces.gov/StrategicPlan.

If this sounds at all familiar, the city attempted similar meetings last year to determine potential projects and initiatives on which to spend the city’s new Gross Receipts Tax windfall. The problem? Everyday Las Cruces didn’t participate much at all and special interest groups attended en masse to influence the vote away from funding the police driving track, security for first responder campuses and other pro-public safety initiatives.

And then those same groups counted the voting at each of the six district meetings, tabulated the results and decried the process in city council meetings for nearly a year about how unfair it was that the Las Cruces Police Department was even being considered for funding from the GRT pot. Many of the other programs also received funding (via GRT or other funding source, like the GO BOND ballot question seeking to fund $26 million for the library renovation).

Voting in an election is apparently akin to voting on GRT funding expenditures, and I will agree, just like elections, people are eager to complain and yet don’t take the time to show up and cast a vote. But election day runs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and early voting is at the height of convenience.

I would argue that voting on what our city needs, like the examples cited above and others, is extremely important to our community and how they live their lives in Las Cruces. And thus, it should be given the same opportunity for maximum participation for residents to voice their opinions.

An online survey, buried on the city website or behind a QR code that a lot of people don’t understand how to use, as well as five meetings running prior to quitting time, does not accessibility make. And for the sixth meeting, show of hands on who knows where the WIA building is at? Parking around Pioneer Women’s Park will be at a premium that night (I hope). That meeting will, thankfully, run 6-7:30 p.m. on Aug. 6.

My point is that, for a city of over 100,000 people where you are heavily relying on a majority of them to be contributing to your tax base by working a job, you aren’t being especially inviting of them to participate in their local government processes by excluding them from all but a select few narrow timelines and a QR code.

I would be willing to bet that 100,000 people, if asked, would absolutely have an opinion about how the city could improve their quality of life in the coming year(s). In order to get a representative sample, you have to meet people where they are in their busy lives. And expecting them to take off work to do it is not responsible or realistic. So do you really want public input, after all?

Shawna Pfeiffer is a life-long Dona Ana County Resident, graduate of NMSU, small business owner, hobby farmer, dog-lover, outdoor enthusiast and mother to two young children. She can be reached at srpfeiffer1@gmail.com.