Another Vista Redonda Break In

A home on Vista Hemorsa was broken into at an undetermined time, according to the owner. A realtor showing the house, which is on the market, discovered that a small, narrow window was broken. An inspection of the premise showed that nothing was not taken.
This is the second house in Vista Redonda to have broken into this year. On February 20, a house on Paseo Encantado, NE was broken into, according to Santa Fe County Sheriff Department.

VR Resident Braniff's New Book To Be Released Monday

The publication of Vista Redonda resident Marty Braniff’s new Book Step Over Rio will be celebrated at Collected Works Bookstore Monday, March 26, at 6 PM. Many residents have already sampled the work as Braniff did a well-attended reading from the manuscript a while back.

    Inspired by her work with underprivileged and abused children, Braniff has written a novel that follows a young Guatemalan boy's triumphant odyssey to find a better life in the United States.
    At night, death squads roam the slums of Guatemala City, where no homeless child is safe. Alex Sifuentes lives in an orphanage, where his dreams of a better life are dashed when a murderous gang targets him. Forced to leave, he flees with a coyote that smuggles him into Houston, Texas.  There, Alex is indentured to a cantina owner who will use him however she pleases, but during a police raid he escapes. Alex eventually forms relationships with a hard-nosed reporter and a federal agent, both of whom are committed to ending youth sex trafficking; they convince Alex to assist with their investigation by joining a gang involved in the crime.  Thus begins another treacherous journey, this time in the United States, a place Alex once considered to be the Promised Land.
    Braniff will be presenting in conversation with Charlie Romney Brown, founder of Defining Destiny, a Woman's Literary Forum.
    If you cannot make the event, you may also order the book directly from the publisher.

Neighborhood Roads Could Be Improved as Early as 2013, Say County Officials

Improvements to the roads in Vista Redonda could come as early as 2013, according to county officials who met with about 20 neighborhood residents at the Tesuque Fire House on Thursday evening, March 15.
    In the hour and twenty-minute long meeting, the officials laid out the various road improvement options for the neighborhood, the different ways the work could be funded, and promised to provide in writing an overview of the options for residents before a planned summer time neighborhood vote.  “We would like for the community to decide what it wants,” said one of the officials.
    Additionally the county officials also promised to send repair crews out soon to fix areas along the roads where erosion has opened up gaps and to make an inspection of the roads in the company of residents.
    Attending the meeting were Daniel Mayfield, Santa Fe County Commissioner; Juan Rios, constituent services director in Mayfield’s office; Adam Leigland, County Public Works Director; Robert Martinez, County Roads Manager; Diego Gomez, County Road Engineer; various Vista Redonda Water and Property Owners Association board members; and residents.

Options
    There are four options for improving the roads in the neighborhood, according to Martinez and Gomez. They are:

• Repairing the roads with new base course, a mixture of crushed rock that is usually used under pavement.
• Putting down chip seal, a surface treatment made of asphalt and fine aggregate often similar to base course.
• Paving the roads with asphalt.
• Using a combination of approaches.

Costs
    Gomez offered some explanations of the cost and durability of each approach.

• The least expensive, but also the least durable, is to put down new base course and reshape the existing roads. This would cost between $170,000 and $180,000 per mile. He estimates that this solution would last about five years before having to be done again.
• Next in price is chip seal. This would cost about $300,000 a mile. More durable than base course, Gomez thought it could last 10 years. However, on the steep hills it might disintegrate faster.
• Asphalt is the priciest of options. It could cost more than $600,000 a mile depending on the additional engineering work required, especially as pave roads create new water erosion problems along their sides. Asphalt could last as long as thirty years if properly repaired and maintained.

Funding
    Commissioner Mayfield laid out four ways that funds could be procured for the work.
    The first would be to include the project in a future bond issue. In fact, according to Mayfield, this would be the preferred approach because road improvement is a capital expense.  When the Vista Redonda neighborhood makes a decision as to its preferred solution, Mayfield promised to put the project in the proposed bonds being readied for the fall elections. However, he warned that there are competing projects in his district as well as around the county.
    The second option would be to tap revenue from the gross receipts tax. These funds are sometimes used for capital expenses.
    The third option, Mayfield described, was to create a special assessment district comprising the residences in Vista Redonda. In such a case, the county would provide the funds for the work and each household would make payments to the county over the course of a number of years. This system was used once in 1999 to design and pave the roads in Hyde Park Estate, according to Martinez.
    Finally it is also possible that the state might fund the work from its annual outlay for capital projects. Already the county’s wish list that it submits to the state includes a $550,000 request for Vista Redonda presuming the neighborhood will provide an additional $150,000.
    In pursuing any of these options, Mayfield and Martinez agreed that a substantial financial contribution by the neighborhood to paying for the work made would increase the likelihood of state or county funding. “Anytime you can come up with matching funds, you gain some leverage,” Martinez said.
    Martinez also suggested that it would be possible to save money if the work was completed over a longer time period using county labor and if the neighborhood purchased the materials.

Disagreements
    In discussing the condition of Vista Redonda roads with residents it became clear that county officials do not share the neighborhood’s view of the state of disrepair. Bill Berra, who for years has acted as the neighborhood’s road liaison to the county, said, “Vista Redonda has never experienced good quality roads.” He and other residents described in detail the problems
    County officials who said they had toured the neighborhood seemed unconvinced of the severity of the problem. “The roads are better than 90 percent of the gravel roads in the county,” Gomez said. “Your roads are in relative good condition in comparison to other roads.”
    The problem areas are due to the fact that dirt roads are a poor choice for steep inclines, dry conditions, and around intersections. Over time dirt roads develop a washboard-like surface at such trouble spots that rattle cars and the occupants as they drive around. “Us putting more base course on the roads will not make the conditions better,” he said.
    Resident Peter Frank asked if it would possible to look at a solution that combined the various approaches. “You can definitely mix and match,” replied Martinez. In fact, he said that no matter what approach the neighborhood favors it is likely the county would pave the entrance to the neighborhood. Any road on which more than 600 vehicles travel a day must be paved according to county code, he said.
    A possible combination approach would then pave the entrance and the two steepest hills on Paseo Encantado.  But Gomez, who is a road engineer, warned that paved roads can actually be more dangerous in the winter than dirt roads, which absorb moisture and don’t thus tend to ice up as much.
    Martinez also forewarned of two changes that will occur no matter what decision is made by the neighborhood. The first is that the county is likely to install guardrails on some portions of the neighborhood roads for safety reasons. The second is that when county crews come out to make repairs, particularly to the ditches, they will remove many of the Chamisa bushes along the roads.