Supreme Court puts Santa Teresa annexation on pause

A group of Santa Teresa residents seeking to establish Santa Teresa as a city in its own right won a procedural victory in Santa Fe this week.

The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a dispute over annexed land in Santa Teresa must wait until litigation over the petition for Santa Teresa to become a municipality is finished.

The dispute, tied up in court for several years, involves a citizens’ group backing incorporation, the city of Sunland Park, Doña Ana County and a private company, Socorro Partners, that has petitioned Sunland Park to annex land for development — a move the city approved in 2016.

The census-designated place at the southern end of the county is home to over 6,000 residents, per U.S. Census data, and located near the crucial Santa Teresa Port of Entry and neighboring El Paso, Texas.

Mary Gonzalez spearheaded a petition to Doña Ana County in 2015 to incorporate part of the territory as its own municipality, which the county denied.

The nonprofit Provisional Government of Santa Teresa lost an appeal of that decision in district court, but in 2018 the Court of Appeals kicked it back to the county, which again denied the petition. The matter is still working its way through the appeals process.

Meanwhile, Sunland Park city councilors voted to annex land within the Santa Teresa territory — including part of the proposed municipality — for private development. Construction work began on new housing in the area. This also ended up in court after the residents and the county both appealed the annexation. After district court affirmed the annexation, it was overruled on appeal, with the Court of Appeals ruling that the incorporation petition was still in litigation and took priority over the annexation.

The state Supreme Court agreed, citing the legal doctrine of prior jurisdiction. In short, the incorporation petition was filed first and that litigation must be resolved first, per the opinion.

The state’s high court also brushed aside an argument that the Santa Teresa residents and the county did not have standing to appeal the annexation, stating in its opinion, “…PGST and the Doña Ana Board suffered injury that was caused by the annexation that is ‘likely to be redressed by a favorable decision,’” citing case law.

The opinion orders that the annexation proceedings be stayed in district court, essentially waiting until the incorporation case, including all appeals, is complete.

Doña Ana County attorney Nelson Goodin said he didn’t have much to say about the development, but suggested it might takes years to untangle the overlapping cases.

Noting that the dispute has continued for nearly a decade already — almost as long as he has worked for the county — Goodin said, “If you had told me this would still be going on nine years later, I would have said you were nuts.”

Gonzalez said in a written statement that her organization “remains committed to representing the interests of Santa Teresa's residents and ensuring a transparent, lawful process in its efforts to achieve municipal status.

“The recent legal ruling reaffirms PGST's position and sets a precedent for prioritizing community-driven initiatives in matters of municipal governance.”

The Bulletin reached out to Socorro Partners’ attorney, who did not respond.