MARIJUANA BILL HELD HOSTAGE BY IMPACT FEES

Legislation to restrict Albuquerque's impact fees and a bill to legalize
medical marijuana may have fallen victim to last-minute political squabbling.

House Bill 805 and its sister, Senate Bill 1005, which would have
prohibited cities and counties from using impact fees as a tool to control
growth, died early Saturday morning when the Senate's Judiciary Committee
didn't have a six-member quorum to vote.

The Judiciary Committee chairman contends his medical marijuana bill was
subsequently allowed to "die" on the House floor in retaliation.

State Sen. Cisco McSorley said impact fee bill co-sponsors Reps. Dan Silva
and Kiki Saavedra were angry that their bill did not get out of his committee.

"They retaliated by killing the medical marijuana bill on final reading,"
McSorley said Monday.

Silva countered that McSorley and Senate Majority Leader Michael S.
Sanchez, D-Belen, were to blame for the impact fee bill not making it to
the Senate floor.

"He refused to hear (the impact fee bill) in Judiciary," said Silva, a
Westgate resident and Albuquerque Democrat. According to The Associated
Press, Silva said last week he was working to delay the medical marijuana
bill because of the holdup on his impact fee bill.

McSorley's medical marijuana bill passed the Senate and had been waiting on
the House floor since March 13. The Legislature adjourned at noon Saturday
without the House taking a vote on the marijuana bill.

"It was clearly money over mercy," McSorley said. "This will possibly be a
life and death matter to people who may not take marijuana."

Saavedra, a South Valley Democrat, said the House didn't vote on medical
marijuana use "just like Cisco McSorley never got to the impact fee bill."

"It was scheduled," Saavedra said. "And the speaker never got to it."

Silva said Albuquerque's new impact fee structure was regressive and
unfairly charges first-time home buyers on the West Side. The new fee
structure charges higher impact fees for building in newly developed areas
such as the city's West Side.

"They refused to hear my bill," Silva said. "I was there till 4:30 to 5
o'clock in the morning on Saturday morning. They still wouldn't hear my bill."

Both McSorley and Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque, who also represents part
of Silva's area, say time ran out before the impact fee bill could be
considered by the Judiciary Committee. However, they said it likely
wouldn't have gone to the Senate floor because the committee was expected
to split 5-5 on the impact fee bill.

"The bill would've died," McSorley said.

He said only three of the 10 committee members showed up for the 4:30 a.m.
meeting, and six were needed for a quorum. Several of those missing were
Democrats attending a caucus at the same time, he said.

"That's just the way the committee structure works," said Lopez, who sits
on the committee but was instead attending the early morning Democratic
caucus. "There was just too much on the plate."

Lopez said the impact fee bills would have been detrimental to the West
Side because of its heavy infrastructure needs.

"I'm glad in all honesty the bill did not pass," she said.

McSorley said he had known since last Monday that the marijuana bill was
being held up for the impact fees, a practice he called "unethical."

The impact fee bill was one of about 10 bills that didn't get out of the
Judiciary Committee, McSorley said.

"I made no apology," said McSorley, who represents the University of New
Mexico area. "There were plenty of other bills, all of which deserved the
same consideration. I was hearing the bills, more-or-less in the order of
how I got them.

"In effect, Kiki and Dan Silva wanted preferential treatment for their
bill, and I wouldn't give it to them."

McSorley said he believed the impact fee bills would have placed a greater
burden on Albuquerque residents to cover West Side streets, sewers,
schools, parks and fire services.

"My constituents in my neighborhoods are paying for all that sprawl out on
the West Side," he said. "... there's no money for the city to renew the
infrastructure in the rest of town."

Joe Valles, president of the Westside Coalition of Neighborhood Association
who had been actively campaigning against the impact fee bill, called
McSorley's loss of the medical marijuana bill "political hardball" in an
e-mail Saturday afternoon.

"Our position to oppose this legislation was based primarily on protecting
our home rule-- local control," Valles said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.