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Corrales residents criticize edits to volunteer comprehensive-plan draft; council schedules review
Summary
Multiple residents and volunteer committee supporters told the council that an administration-edited 'redline' version of the comprehensive plan removed committee input and watered down community priorities; councilors and staff said planning-and-zoning will review redline changes before council consideration.
Residents and several members of the volunteer comprehensive-plan review committee told the council they were blindsided by an edited version of the draft plan that they said removed language and weakened recommendations compiled over more than a year of public work.
Sabine Schroeder told the council the redacted version "deleted" villagers' input and diluted committee work; Bill Perkins said the administration's edits felt like "treating its citizens with contempt" and urged the governing body to support the committee's draft. Fred Hashimoto summarized the contention with a quote he attributed to a committee member: "The village administration does not write the plan. The community does." Those comments and similar remarks from other public speakers drew several follow-up questions from councilors.
Councilors acknowledged the public frustration and outlined next steps: Planning and Zoning will hold a work study session to review the redline edits and, if P&Z approves the attorney-suggested changes, the redlined and original versions will be sent to council before the Jan. 28 meeting. Council members were told they would receive both a clean committee draft and a redline showing legal edits so they could compare them before acting; the mayor said a vote on the comprehensive plan was not guaranteed at the Jan. 28 meeting.
Legal limitations also shaped the discussion: the village attorney and others warned that a municipal governing body cannot bind future councils to expenditures or mandates (the Bateman Act and constitutional principles were cited), so the administration removed wording that could be read as mandatory obligations on future councils. Those legal constraints were raised repeatedly as an explanation for language changes and for why some committee proposals were reframed as goals rather than binding requirements.
Councilors said they wanted to respect the committee's work and invited committee members to participate in the review process; some councilors also said they plan to ask for clearer attribution of redline changes (for example, whether edits came from the village attorney). Planning-and-Zoning will meet in a work study before its next regular meeting to consider the redline edits and any legal commentary, and councilors encouraged residents to review both versions now posted on the village website.
The council did not take action on the comprehensive plan at this meeting; it directed staff to provide both versions for council review and to continue the P&Z process.
