KC Counts:
When you were elected Sunland Park Mayor, how old were you?
Javier Perea:
I was appointed actually the first time at age 24.
KC Counts:
And where did that put you in terms of historically young mayors?
Javier Perea:
I was actually at that point, I was the youngest mayor in the state and I think I held onto that title for about 3 years.
KC Counts:
It can be tough following the politics of our small communities.
Javier Perea:
Absolutely, absolutely.
KC Counts:
As we look to Sunland Park, a lot’s happening. We just recently marked one year of legal adult use cannabis sales for New Mexico. How has that impacted Sunland Park?
Javier Perea:
it's been something positive for our community to be quite frank. It's creating excess revenue that the city didn't have before and we haven't actually budgeted any expenses against that because we want to have a little bit more history as to how that's going to pan out before we really commit any expenses to that. But we're averaging anywhere from, you know, 50 to $60,000 extra a month. That's been coming into our budget and if that continues to grow as more dispensaries open throughout the community, that's going to mean a lot more money for our community and more services that we can provide.
KC Counts:
How many dispensaries are there now? It seems like right across the street from Sunland Park Race Track and Casino, there's a little bit of a, maybe a shopping mall full of dispensaries.
Javier Perea:
Yes, yes. So my understanding there's about 20 right now that have been approved or are along the process to opening up their business. Including the two farms, if I'm not mistaken, but they can be somewhere along that process, but that have been approved. I'm thinking we're about around 20 right now and actually, just this week or last week, we had one open up, Field of Dreams, and they have their “now open” signs. Which is a good indication for us.
KC Counts:
When you get around to spending that money on services, what are your priorities?
Javier Perea:
One of the biggest issues that we have to address is public safety within our Community. We are still one of the safest cities in the entire state of New Mexico, which we're very proud of. I think that's a reflection of the people that live with there, there within the city of Sunland Park and the great job that that our law enforcement personnel does out there, but there's still a big need. A big void that needs to be filled compared to other cities, we still fall behind in the number of police officers per individual that are there within this municipality. So we hope to maybe grow that and also grow our fire department as well, where we're falling behind in comparison to other municipalities as well, and get a little bit more competitive as you've heard maybe throughout the news, that that New Mexico has given raises. Dona Ana County has given races to law enforcement even Las Cruces is giving, you know, $35,000 bonuses to law enforcement. So that's putting us behind and and it creates a suction of police officers going into these larger metropolitan areas. So we're trying to get a little bit more competitive there as well with both police and fire and I'm happy to report that Tuesday's council approved the pay increase for the fire department as well. So we're trying. We're trying to get up to, to more competitive rates and it's a slow process, but hopefully cannabis sales will provide an additional revenue that we can use against that.
KC Counts:
You know, it's no secret that smaller communities do struggle in terms of hiring and keeping law enforcement officers on duty, because there are more lucrative opportunities in bigger cities and with those cities are also benefiting from legal adult use cannabis. Are there other things that Sunland Park has to look to in terms of making that more attractive?
Javier Perea:
Absolutely. The salary is the biggest thing, but also I think what Sunland Park provides, is, it's the fact that it's in a large urban area. So that includes El Paso and Juarez. So we might have the amenities that maybe you won't find across the entire state of New Mexico other than perhaps Albuquerque. So a lot of people do see our area as a as a viable area to move to, so that's something that sets us apart from the rest of the state. Because if you think about it, the borderland has more people than the entire state of New Mexico, and that's something very unique that sometimes we forget about what exists down here.
KC Counts:
I wonder about the dynamic for Sunland Park, how it affects Sunland park in terms of what El Pasoans are dealing with right now in terms of their property values, they've had revaluations now three years in a row, which is unusual and causing big increases in property values. Obviously, that leads to big increases in taxes as well. What does that mean for Sunland Park in terms of property values there? And in terms of growth to the community?
Javier Perea:
So Sunland Park is actually one of the fastest growing cities in the state of New Mexico as well, and over the next 5 to 10 years, we probably anticipate another 5 to 10,000 homes to go up in the area. We continue to see annexation petitions for annexations into the city, which we process and and we are anticipating this. Both over the next several years, which brings that pressure on to law enforcement and fire, and, you know, Fire Protection services, but a lot of this is fueled because some people are trying to escape the higher taxes in El Paso. And also there's the job opportunities that exist in these areas, the Industrial Park, and people want to be closer to their jobs, and Sunland Park is the closest municipality with, you know, the municipal amenities that can make life comfortable. So we are seeing a lot of growth and that's a good problem to have. I think for our community, our size, that wants to progress and wants to change. But that does bring challenges, including infrastructure and fire protection.
KC Counts:
Let's talk a little bit about, you mentioned people trying to escape - there are, you know, many thousands of people who are escaping far-away places and coming to the border. And they've been waiting on the other side of the border for a long time and we expect that Title 42, the Pandemic-era asylum restriction will end May 11th. And how do you think that will impact someone park and what has someone park been seeing as a result of these border policies along the way?
Javier Perea:
What, in the last couple of years, we have seen an increase in migrants crossing over. We are not seeing the migrants that's necessarily crossing over and turning themselves in for asylum protections. What we're seeing in our area is, is those migrants that are trying to go through undetected and and that's not something that’s completely new to our community. It's been in existence for many, many years. The big difference has been that there's just a huge volume of crossings over the last several years.
KC Counts:
And more injuries during those crossings as well, right?
Javier Perea:
Absolutely, absolutely.
KC Counts:
Due to the border wall.
Javier Perea:
So we have people who jump over the wall, they fall from the wall. You know, they've broken, we have people with broken necks. We have people who unfortunately have died, you know, jumping over the wall and also on Mount Cristo Rey, which is a, it's a mountain. It's pretty dangerous if you don't stay on one of the trails there too. Look up there, and also the people are not cognizant that the desert here is very dangerous and people get dehydrated and we find dead bodies across the desert because of that particular issue. It gets hot and people dehydrate and pass.
KC Counts:
Now the state of Texas has sent military personnel to the border in El Paso off and on do you think the state of New Mexico needs to send National Guard soldiers to the border?
Javier Perea:
What National Guard can do is is pretty limited, it's observe and report to be quite frank. They don't have the authority for immigration enforcement. My pitch to the elected officials in Washington, DC, and anywhere that I can, you know, get to someone’s ear is the fact that we need to further support Border Patrol and bring additional personnel and technology to Border Patrol so they can address these concerns, these growing concerns. Until we have that, you know the issue of people crossing over is going to continue. But that's a safety component and the second element of it is immigration reform within the United States, unless we have immigration reform to make it easier for people to access the proper channels to migrate to the United States, we're going to continue to see this problem. People going through the back channels through the Coyotes and the, you know, the black markets to cross over. Until that happens, we're not, we're not going to see an improvement in this problem.
KC Counts:
We've seen the city of El Paso take some action, a lot of action to accommodate people as they move through. Are there similar things happening in Sunland Park in that community?
Javier Perea:
Not as much and because they are larger groups that that are around us that address these concerns, there's a lot of dependency on that at this point.
KC Counts:
I see. Do you think Sunland Park will need to be looking at that as we see the end of Title 42 come along?
Javier Perea:
Potentially, potentially, but I think that's where I think the nonprofits and the other agencies that provide those services can come into help with this particular situation.
KC Counts:
Right. Well, let's get back to some economic growth opportunities for Sunland Park. We, just a few months ago, heard about plans for a new entertainment venue that would include an indoor and outdoor concert venue. Do you have an update on that project for us?
Javier Perea:
So, there's been a couple. There's been a lot of entertainment news coming out of the city of Sunland Park and one of them is independent nation, which is a private entity that wants to open up a concert venue as well. But it's a small concert venue up to up to 5000 people. And then including a little arcade area, food area as well for when people want to go in and out of that particular venue. That one, my hope is, should be breaking ground in the next couple of months or so.
KC Counts:
And where will that be?
Javier Perea:
That's going to be right next to the casino and also next to between the casino and the state line restaurant, the famous BBQ Place there in Sunland Park. So that's exciting news there. That's about a $40 million plus investment there within the community. And so we're excited about that. Another is the Sunland Park Pavilion, which is, they've turned in some conceptual drawings to the city. I believe they have some financial documents submitted as well. We're going to be looking at that and see how we fit into the scheme of that particular project, but that would be a slightly larger venue. I believe up to 10,000 people and once that continues to develop then hopefully we can have a much, much bigger announcement.
KC Counts:
What are plans for managing traffic along that stretch there?
Javier Perea:
You know it's, I think the area thereis, there are several connecting points which include Southern Park, Racetrack, Dr. and then if you want to go through New Mexico, you can hit Mcnutt and then out onto Paisano. So there are different access points to that particular area. Now that area, we're also looking at, you know, connecting to Mexico with a New Port of entry. So we're making a big push on the Mexican side to obtain a federal registry number there. Once we obtain that, we have, we’re moving on connecting. We’ll, get it, accessing our government officials on the US side to approve our presidential permit on the other side. It'll take some time, but all of that - making all of those connections I think is important for these projects in particular and also for the entire development of the entertainment district, which is a bigger part of the what the cannabis business is doing within our community.
KC Counts:
And recently, El Paso's international bridges were closed to cargo traffic. I think they had seen a decrease of something like 700 to 200 vehicles coming through there, the Paso Del Norte bridge and so a lot of that was attributed to traffic moving from Texas Bridges to New Mexico bridges after Governor Abbott's actions on the border, do you see that as an opportunity as well for Sunland park?
Javier Perea:
But our port of entry right now, we're looking at just non-commercial traffic. We want to make sure that the commercial traffic continues to go to something that is and the other commercial ports in the region. But we were strong supporters of something in support of entry, even after the state made over $50 million investment in doing the concrete overlay on the access road to that port of entry. So we want to make sure that gets its full use, but ours is looking at non-commercial traffic and once we take some of that traffic from the other ports as well, we will see an increase. Our studies projected an increase in both Santa Teresa and Sunland Park Port of entry. If both are in place, it is something positive for the entire region and and hopefully it helps. It helps reduce the wait times of the border because without without that particular port of entry, wait times are expected to grow over the next 10, 15, 20 years, so it it is a project far beyond the city of Sunland Park. It's an entire borderland region project.
KC Counts:
I'm gonna ask you one more question before I let you go.
Javier Perea:
Sure, sure.
KC Counts:
This is about some of Sunland Park’s neighbors, the city government in Anthony, NM. There's just been a lot of drama going on in terms of how the City Council is interacting with calls for the mayor to resign. When you stand back and look at that from your perspective, what do you think needs to happen?
Javier Perea:
Well, I can't tell other people how to run their business, but. It's, I mean, the city of Sunland Park, and I mean in its time also went through some troubles in the past. And the way to get beyond situations like this is to work together and understand that there are situations where you're not going to agree on everything, but at least if there's a consensus or an agreement of the majority of the Council, then everyone has to get behind those decisions. As long as they're good, rightful and and lawful. But it's unless everyone starts working together, it can be difficult. Personal attacks are never good and government and business in any situation because it also helps create instability within the organizations and hurts employee morale. It hurts, it hurts public morale too and and further defeats the trust that many have worked to establish in organizations over the years. So I think it is important to always come together to a table and figure out, OK, these are the things that we can work on together and these are the differences that we need to address or can't address. But let's set those aside and work on the things that we can progress on.
KC Counts:
Javier Perea, Mayor of Sunland Park, New Mexico - thank you so much for spending some time with us today.
Javier Perea:
No, thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
