Font Resize
LAS CRUCES - Come January, Do-a Ana County's governing board will be lacking a familiar face: that of District 1 County Commissioner Oscar Vásquez-Butler.
Vásquez-Butler, a Democrat, at the end of this month concludes an eight-year tenure. He's term-limited and couldn't run for re-election.
During his time on the commission, Vásquez-Butler has been a vocal advocate of improvements to the county's colonias, rural neighborhoods not up to development standards. Twenty-five of the county's 37 colonias are within the expansive District 1.
Soon after joining the board in January 2003, Vásquez-Butler heavily promoted an effort, called the Colonias Initiative, which directed county staff to review and rank colonias' needs and seek funding to address them.
Vásquez-Butler "spearheaded" the Colonias Initiative, just as the county had begun experiencing some success in securing funding for projects, said Diana Bustamante, director of the nonprofit Colonias Development Council, affiliated with the Catholic Church. But in addition to that, she said, he attended numerous meetings in county facilities and residents' homes regarding problems that had been long-ignored. She said that helped establish a rapport.
Learning the needs
"He was very visible and very approachable, and that helped gain the confidence of people who'd been waiting for many, many years on the infrastructure projects," she said. "He was important in opening dialogue and bringing
Vásquez-Butler recently highlighted a culmination of that effort - a bill that passed the Legislature this year that establishes a dedicated funding source for the colonias. He lobbied for it in Santa Fe, and the legislation was carried by state Sen. Mary Kay Papen and state Rep. Joseph Cervantes, both D-Las Cruces.
Rodey resident Virginia Bustamante, who was married to the late Chon Bustamante, an activist in their community, said Vásquez-Butler's attention to colonias has paid off.
"We've had a lot of improvements here," she said. "We used to have dirt roads. Now paved roads, gas lines and lights. Before, we had nothing."
Vásquez-Butler's district is geographically large. It covers the northwest portion of the county and runs from Garfield to just north of Anthony. It includes not only colonias but neighborhoods such as Picacho Hills, one of the most affluent parts of the county's unincorporated areas.
Bumpy road of politics
Not all constituents have been pleased with Vásquez-Butler's tenure. A group that backed John Zimmerman, the Republican candidate for the District 1 commission seat, invited supporters to a fundraising event before the election with an e-mail saying that a "true conservative" was needed to replace Vásquez-Butler.
Zimmerman lost the race to Democrat Billy Garrett, a retired National Park Service administrator, who'll take office Jan. 1.
In other key votes, Vásquez-Butler opposed a casino project for Anthony and voted against placing a spaceport tax before Do-a Ana County - a referendum that wound up narrowly passing in April 2007. The one-quarter of 1 percent tax is being directed to the construction of Spaceport America, a launch site for commercial space vehicles, in southern Sierra County. Vásquez-Butler said he's changed his stance toward the project because of voters' decision to accept it.
Vásquez-Butler has advocated open space and what he considers "smart growth" - often to the ire of the development community, such as when he proposed a moratorium on building until the county could figure out a way to prevent construction near arroyos. He made that proposal in 2006, soon after heavy flooding in Hatch and other areas of the county, but it didn't pass. He also has opposed the structure of the Extra-territorial Zone, a 5-mile-wide swath around Las Cruces in which development is governed by a city-county board.
Vásquez-Butler has been chair of the county commission since January. On Tuesday, the final meeting of the year, he said his time on the five-member board has "been a great ride." He said being an elected official is "really a test of your principles and values."
"And if you keep them, you survive," he said.
Diana M. Alba can be reached at (575) 541-5443
