Heil, Block mark last commission meeting of their terms

BERNALILLO — Outgoing Sandoval County Commissioners Dave Heil and Jay Blocked marked the last meeting of their tenures during the Dec. 11 meeting, the final one of 2024 for the commission.

Heil started by thanking former County Manager Diane Maes, whom he and Block worked with before her retirement.

“She turned the county from good old boys environment to an actual professional organization. Diane, we thank you for that,” he said.

He expressed his appreciation for the past eight years but had a few requests of the future team of commissioners. “When the new team of commissioners begin in January, I have hopes our commission will continue to build on foundations established,” he said.

Heil mentioned some of the things he hopes continue, such as jobs for the economic development fund, Discover Sandoval, other economic development organizations and the county strategic plan. He also mentioned keeping Paseo del Volcan as a priority as a key road to support the I-40 TradePort, creating West Side jobs and reducing traffic crossing the river.

“Also continuing to invest in public safety, our sheriff, our fire department, our EMS and the detention center, which, along with Rio Rancho Police Department and Rio Rancho Fire, have made Sandoval County the safest county in the state, implementing the Sandoval County dispatch timely to assure efficient response without wasting taxpayer dollars. Tonight, after four years of disagreements about the structure of the joint powers agreement, we will be approving an agreement with Rio Rancho that will allow them to focus on urban dispatching while the county focuses on rural dispatching,” Heil said.

He made some suggestions for how taxpayer dollars could be best spent: “Utilize our Sandoval County Fire facility and the public safety building along with its state-of-the-art EMO and training center, which, by the way, is only 162 paces from the new dispatch building — doing this instead of wasting $18 million in taxpayer dollars on the dispatch training center. This money could be better spent on Commissioner [Mike] Meek’s idea to build a badly needed new bureau of elections warehouse to be located on this county complex and then make that old warehouse an asset to attract new business,” he said. “We had a plan in 2018 to build the public safety building so he could move the sheriff out of the courthouse and then move the magistrate court out of the detention center to allow the expansion of behavioral health and substance abuse to support our DC inmates. When the new courthouse is completed, I would hope that the behavioral health and substance abuse support is expanded.”

Heil added that he hopes for enhanced care for animals in the new Animal Resource Center as well as continuing support for libraries, public lands and the landfill.

Heil used the last part of his speech to address commissioner Block.

“Been a pleasure working with you over these eight years. Well, most of the time anyway. You take your tenacity to the roundhouse to change New Mexico, from being the first in crime and last in education to being the last in crime and first in education,” he said.

After that, as chair of the commission, he passed the gavel to commission Vice Chair Michael Meek.

“I assure you we will continue to work towards all the goals that you and Senator-elect Block have put into motion,” Meek said.

Block spoke next, thanking Heil for his words and echoing the sentiment.

“It has been eight years where I think we have learned so much about government leadership, cooperation, conflict and so forth. I want to thank, first of all, the people who come here every meeting and just irritate the hell out of me; you guys are here every meeting, and I just want to say thank you to the public for being here. Thank you for speaking up,” Block said. “Thank you for your opinions and please keep doing it to be heard by your government.”

After thanking a lot of the staff county staff, he touched on a few recognitions of his own.

“Dave touched on a lot of it, but I just want to say real quick, it’s been a period of ups and downs with wins and losses as a commissioner and personally in my life, but it’s truly been an honor to serve the people on this commission, especially the people in the District 2 that have entrusted me to serve for two terms. You know, in the Air Force as an officer, one of the things they tell you is the best job you’ll ever have in your life, this command to be a commander. I was fortunate enough to command twice on foreign soil, representing the country as a senior American officer. But I got to tell you, County Commissioner, it’s up there. It is really, really good,” he said.

Commissioner Katherine Bruch took her turn to thank Heil and Block.

“The chairman, I cannot imagine how he has kept up this pace, in all honesty. He is an incredible role model for how to be present in your community. He is everywhere all the time, and if we can emulate that, we’ll do a great job. And I always I sit next to someone that I often disagree with, but the value of that is that we still walk away from here having a conversation about one of the items or something else. It’s not an adversarial situation, and that’s how government’s supposed to work. It’s supposed to work where we can’t all be right all the time, that’s the bottom line,” she said.

Commissioner Josh Jones was brief but expressed how grateful he is to Block and Heil.

“I want to thank Chairman Heil and Commissioner Block for their leadership, for their conversation, for their opinions. I’ve learned a lot from both of you, and I look to take on the things that I’ve learned and implement those things along my journey as being a county commissioner. I will say don’t be a stranger. If there’s anything that I can do as a commissioner as a friend, please reach out to me at any time, and I’m more than happy to help,” he said.

He and Bruch also both joked that they’d be going to the Roundhouse in Santa Fe to ask Block for some money for Sandoval County.