Bernadette Gallegos is angry. She came home several weeks ago to find a "hot box" being built right next to her house on N.M. 76 in Quarteles.

Gallegos said when she tried to find out about the project — by calling Santa Fe County, the city of Española, the Department of Transportation — each agency pointed her to the other for answers.

She eventually learned the tin shed will contain mechanical equipment needed to run a regional water system being constructed in the area.

Martha Quintana, president of the Cuatro Villas Water Users Association, said the "giant" regional water system will cost about $25 million and will serve the communities of Sombrillo, La Puebla, Arroyo Seco, Quarteles and Chimayó.

Gallegos said she had never heard anything about the water system. When she asked why, she was told meeting notices had been posted in the legal sections of Albuquerque and Española newspapers.

Bernadette Gallegos and her sister-in-law, Tammy Gallegos, said those notices are not enough to truly inform the community.

"I find it incredible that they would feel that, by putting those two legal ads in for one day, that would suffice in terms of letting people know what's going on," Tammy Gallegos said. "It's mind-blowing to me that they can do that. I can't believe our county commissioners and our state legislators are OK with that process, and they think there is community buy-in where there is not."

Gallegos' story illustrates three main themes — water, multiple jurisdictions and transparency — that emerged from three days of planning workshops held last week in Pojoaque. The workshops were part of Santa Fe County's general-plan update and land-use code rewrite process.

What about the water?

Water was foremost on the minds of people who attended the meetings. Dozens of comments criticizing the ongoing Aamodt water settlement were lobbed at the planners who conducted the meetings. Many comments reflected an increase in tension between pueblo and non-pueblo residents as a result of the settlement, which would adjudicate most of the water rights in the Pojoaque Valley.

"Reconsider Aamodt. Stop the water utility. Stop the county/pueblo waste water systems," one person wrote.

"Private water wells for residents. Tribal water system and waste water system for pueblo only," wrote another. Eleven people placed colored dots next that statement, indicating they agreed.

Arcenio Trujillo, a 62-year-old Nambé native, said he grew up with the pueblo people and doesn't have any bitterness toward them.

"So far everything they have done, their buildings, are nice," he said. "They stay with the culture and they make the valley look nice. I'd like to see them succeed. But we kinda dispute on the water rights. I don't think anyone has the power to give the water to the pueblos. We are all entitled to the water — our families helped dig the ditches together and got them running and shared them like brothers. There is no reason for them to cap our wells. We can share the water like we have in the past."

Jurisdiction

One of the planning challenges unique to the El Norte area of Santa Fe County is its plethora of official and unofficial communities. It's confusing enough for residents of the area that straddles the line between Santa Fe and Rio Arriba counties, but adding the pueblos of Pojoaque and Nambé, the communities of Cundiyó, La Puebla, Chimayó, Cuarteles and Arroyo Seco, and the Santa Cruz and Jacona land grants to the mix makes it even harder to reach consensus on what the region's future should look like.

While some residents said they wanted an increase in certain types of development, such as grocery stores, others didn't agree. "To change anything, to me, would be the worst thing that could happen here," said one Chimayó resident.

Residents say the patchwork of jurisdictions results in duplication of some services — there is an abundance of senior centers, for example — while other services are being ignored — road repairs, for instance. When people do get together to decide their priorities, residents said, its difficult to get various government entities to honor them.

"Everything we've attempted has no teeth," said Shelley Winship, a Chimayó resident who said she reads the legal sections of several newspapers each day in order to keep her neighbors abreast of major developments.

Winship said her husband heads the Chimayó Boys and Girls Club, where he has dealt with jurisdictional issues such as getting funding to buy snacks, which he's only supposed to offer to kids from Santa Fe County, even though kids from Rio Arriba County also use the center.

Transparency

"We have no transparency in the county or the state of New Mexico in terms of what they are doing with their projects as far as I can see," Tammy Gallegos said.

"The worst part is they are using the weakness of the public-notification laws to get these projects through," she said. "If you don't know what is happening, you don't have a voice and you can't stop it. The public needs to beware. You don't know what they are doing, and it's because they don't want you to know. From where I'm sitting, that is the reality."

A comment written on paper posted on the wall echoed that sentiment.

"Remember we are the property owners not the state," it read. "We have rights. Stop doing your best to circumvent them and abide by them to the longest letter of the law, not the shortest, most hidden method. Community involvement should be ensured, not half-heartedly tried. You knock on doors for votes, why not for notification?"

County Commissioner Harry Montoya, who represents the northern section of the county, said he doesn't agree that the county is secretive and lazy when it comes to public outreach.

"The reality is, no matter what we do, no matter how we do it, people are still not going to be satisfied," he said. "We follow what's in the statutes. We don't try to subvert or be covert."

Montoya said he thinks much of the suspicion has arisen from people's perception that they were left out of the Aamodt process, a perception for which he said state and federal agencies should share the blame. Allegations that the county conducts secret meetings with the pueblos are fantasy, he said.

"There are no decisions whatsoever in any of these meetings," he said. "They are purely discussions, dialogue back and forth." He added that decisions will continue to be made public by the county commissioners.

Now what?

Contract planners hired by the county to gather public input and draft new land-use plans and rules said they sympathized with the residents' concerns. Los Angeles-based land-use attorney Robert Freilich said the county's practices are "a wreck."

"It's piecemeal, it's unfair, it's discriminatory," Freilich said.

"We are going to take stakeholder groups and give them legal standing," Freilich said. "Anybody that signs up is going to get notice of every building permit, every plan, every subdivision before it is approved, and we are going to create true citizen participation."

Leawood, Kan.-based planner Bruce Peshoff said his team hoped to engage the pueblos in the planning process as well.

"We are going to try to get them involved in the process and get them to participate," he said.

Peshoff said he's consulting with a former colleague at the Environmental Protection Agency about what methods that entity has used to successfully communicate with sovereign nations. "We're going all out to make sure we are doing it properly and appropriately," he said.

Contact Phaedra Haywood at 986-3068 or phaywood@sfnewmexican.com.