CNM opponent says school lacks plans

By ERIC MADDY
The Score

The leading opponent to Central New Mexico Community College’s proposed expansion into Rio Rancho says CNM has no plans on how it will begin its operation even if the proposal passes.

Harry Gordon, a retired government employee who lives in northern Rio Rancho, provided The SCORE with responses from CNM to his formal request under the New Mexico's Inspection of Public Records Act to see  “all preliminary and final design layouts, site plan(s) and cost estimates for construction of the proposed Rio Rancho campus, to include estimated yearly facility operational costs” for the first five years of a proposed campus.

“The documents the college president (Katharine Winograd) sent me had no preliminary or final design layouts, site plan(s), cost estimates for construction or estimated yearly facility operational costs,” Gordon writes in an op-ed submission to area publications. “Why?  Because those document don't exist.

“In her response to me, Winograd states, ‘CNM's formal planning process for a campus in Rio Rancho will not commence until the district expansion election is complete, thus many of the items requested do not yet exist.’

“No idea how much the project will cost!  Does this make sense? Is this smart business?” Gordon writes. “The reality is CNM has yet to undertake a planning process, formal or otherwise, for this project, but they want the taxpayers to pay the bills.
 
“What CNM is asking Rio Rancho taxpayers to agree to is comparable to someone asking a home builder to build them a new home and the builder saying, ‘OK, give me $50,000 down, but I cannot and will not tell you what the final home will look like or what the final cost will be until after the project is completed.’  Who in their right mind would agree to such a deal?"

CNM spokesperson Samantha Bousliman did not return a phone call seeking comment.