It's 4:30 am-do you know where your City Council is?
It was city politics at its most dramatic, most bizarre and, sometimes, most incomprehensible.
When it was all over at approximately 4:30 am the morning of Aug. 16, despite lingering confusion, at least some attendees were happy.
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After a marathon five-hour debate which raged all through the night, Mayor Larry Delgado broke a 4-4 City Council deadlock to allow backers of the proposed Entrada Contenta development 30 days to assuage city concerns that the project will create too much traffic on the south side of town. The development is slated to include the controversial Super Wal-Mart [Cover Story, July 13: "
"].
The decision came after a wild series of events in which the project was initially rejected by the Council and then resurrected by Councilor David Pfeffer. Pfeffer changed his vote from yes to no because by doing so Council rules allowed him to resurrect the issue.
Pfeffer's parliamentary chess move was followed by a motion by Councilor Matt Ortiz to allow developers more time to work out the traffic kinks, the major concern that led the councilors' discussion.
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The motion passed. The Super Wal-Mart plans, which initially died just before daybreak, had been effectively resuscitated. The chain of events was made even stranger when Ortiz-who helped put Wal-Mart back on the table-lambasted Wal-Mart for being a bad company-bad to its employees and bad for America-before casting his vote.
"I don't want to see another Wal-Mart here," Ortiz told SFR later, "but I have to vote with my constituency, not my personal philosophy."
When the dust settled, councilors' heads were spinning, as were those of the sleepy souls who'd waited until the bitter end for the outcome. Wal-Mart supporters, however, took the Council's decision as a measured victory.
"Well I'm still confused on what happened but everyone seems happy," Dr. William Herrera, who owns the land on which Entrada Contenta is to be built, told SFR. "It looks like we just have to work out the traffic details."
Wal-Mart planning consultant Richard Gorman went a step further, describing the Council's actions as an outright "approval."
"We look forward to negotiating the traffic problems with the city," Gorman said.
It all proved a dramatic ending to what was surely one of the most memorable city gatherings in recent Santa Fe history and one that, at its height, brought an estimated 600 to 700 people to the hallowed halls of Santa Fe High School's Toby Roybal Memorial Gym.
About a quarter of those people had come to weigh in on a proposed affordable housing ordinance [Outtakes, July 20: "
"]-which passed 7-1-and were gone by the time discussion on Wal-Mart began, at just short of 11:30 pm.
After a brief presentation by Herrera and Gorman, the Council began hearing a myriad of complaints from those in opposition to the project. The complaints ran the gamut from scathing critiques of Wal-Mart's treatment of employees to pointed concerns about increased traffic flow to rambling poems about the company's corporate manifest destiny.
Easily the most dramatic moment came when former Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall was helped to the podium to speak against the project.
Udall, who in his old age still has the oratory gifts of a Roman senator, moved even Wal-Mart supporters with a powerful speech which seemed more suited for Spartacus than Santa Fe.
"I realized sitting here that the rough-and-tumble city politics is not the business of an old man…and this might be my swan song," Udall said. "This is a small box city. It has always has been…We are inviting in the richest and stingiest corporation in America."
After nearly three hours of anti-Wal-Mart speakers-close to 100 of them-Herrera requested the Council continue the meeting at another date because, he said, many of those who were for the project had gone home.
Mayor Delgado denied the request, and the high drama continued, this time with a markedly smaller pro-Wal-Mart faction making its case.
Kathryn Erickson, store manager of the existing Wal-Mart in Santa Fe, tearfully defended Wal-Mart's treatment of its employees, pointing out that 57 percent of the store's employees are women, and 55 percent of management are women as well.
After speaking, Erickson told SFR that the 18 employees from Santa Fe and 20 from other Wal-Marts around the state who were in attendance were being paid their normal wages for spending time at the meeting.
Others, like Tom Keesing of the Santa Fe Real Estate Agency, Inc, a partner on the project, urged the Council to consider the needs of 41,000 residents living on the south side without nearby access to grocery stores.
It was traffic concerns, however, that resonated most with councilors. Following public comment, Councilors Karen Heldmeyer, David Coss, Rebecca Wurzburger, Patti Bushee, and Ortiz peppered city and project staff with questions about whether existing south side roads and intersections around Entrada Contenta would be able to absorb increased traffic flow from the development, slated for the perpetually clogged Cerrillos Road.
With sunrise only a few hours away and tempers running increasingly short, the Council was deadlocked on the project. Delgado, seemingly confused by the early hour, initially tried to abstain from voting, before Ortiz pointed out that the mayor expressly had to vote because of the tie.
Following the whirlwind of votes and motions that followed, it seemed somewhat clear that Entrada Contenta and Super Wal-Mart were destined for eventual approval, as long as Herrera, Gorman and Wal-Mart brass tinker with the traffic flow at the Council's behest.
Their work done, councilors and pro- and anti-Wal-Mart folks alike stumbled slowly out of the gym into the brisk, morning Santa Fe air.
Said Pfeffer with a wry grin: "I have a meeting in three hours. I might as well just stay up."
