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The Albuquerque City Council on Monday night effectively abolished the current iteration of a joint city and county air quality board and kneecapped its immediate decision-making capabilities—amid a public outburst and one councilor repeatedly taking shots at the Council’s county counterpart.
The Council voted 6-3 to override Mayor Tim Keller’s previous veto of an ordinance to strip the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Air Quality Board’s membership and replace it with new appointees. The Council also voted 7-2 to override Keller’s veto of a temporary pause on any further activity by the current Air Quality Board.
Councilor Dan Lewis, who sponsored both the ordinance and resolution, has repeatedly claimed the board was too representative of environmental activism interests and failed to consider the interests of Sandia National Laboratories, Kirtland Air Force Base and local businesses. The Air Quality Board has been considering a neighborhood petition to add more stringent requirements for getting air quality permits—which the Air Force base and the national labs said would significantly hinder their operations. Lewis also maintained that the board was overstepping its authority by considering more stringent rules. Keller, in his veto message, wrote that even if the air quality board was indeed out of its authority—which the administration later argued it was— replacing its members was the wrong move.
The Council’s more politically left-leaning members—Tammy Fiebelkorn, Isaac Benton and Council President Pat Davis*—voted to uphold the mayor’s veto of the member-stripping ordinance. But Davis broke from Fiebelkorn and Benton when it came to the mayor’s veto on a resolution that would pause further action by the Air Quality Board in order to “create some breathing room” to possibly reconsider the air quality rule-making process.
The dustup over the Air Quality Board’s authority began with a petition filed by South Valley residents aimed at considering the cumulative impact of pollutants instead of the impact from individual permit seekers. The Air Quality Board began a week-long hearing on Monday to consider the petition.
Paving companies, the labs and Kirtland all have said approving the petition would significantly hinder their operations, while residents said their health has been overlooked for too long. One South Valley resident said during Monday’s meeting that his yard regularly “smells like cancer.” Albuquerque Chief Administrative Officer Dr. Samantha Sengel reiterated at the meeting the administration’s stance—that the best course of action would have been to address actions by the air quality board instead of trying to stop anticipated actions by the board. But, she added, “The city will exercise its legal rights to pursue remedy in courts,” if the air quality board were to implement rules outside of its jurisdiction.
Sengel also said the administration is concerned that restructuring the air quality board without consultation from the Bernalillo County Board of Commissioners—which also had a hand in creating the panel—“would open the matter to legal ambiguity” and could still end up in court.
Despite the Air Quality Board’s imminent restructuring, councilors approved, by a 7-2 vote, a resolution to convene a “working group” tasked with evaluating the structure of the board and how it implements air quality rules. The resolution requires the yet-to-be-convened group to finish its work by next month.
Even though the ordinance outlining a moratorium on the Air Quality Board’s actions immediately goes into effect, a news release from the Mountain View Coalition—a group made up of residents of South Valley’s Mountain View neighborhood—signaled that the Air Quality Board is still moving forward with this week’s hearing.
“Despite the horrific decisions by the Albuquerque City Council [Monday] night to override both Mayoral vetoes of the Dan Lewis bills to abolish the current Joint ABQ-Bernalillo County Air Quality Control Board and to establish a moratorium on board action through February, the Air Board made the decision this morning to continue the hearing,” the news release states.
But City Councilor Dan Lewis issued his own news release Monday night signaling any work done by the Air Quality Board after the Council’s vote but before the end of the moratorium in February is basically illegal.
“The Administration and the Environmental Health Department cannot spend any City resources on this hearing including personnel, City finances for rental of space, court reporter, and outside counsel,” the statement reads. “Essentially, the hearing must cease according to the law.”
*Pat Davis co-owns The Paper., but has no editorial control.