We hope you are doing well, staying safe, and staying connected as we all adjust to new forms of life during social-ist distancing and quarantine. We encourage you to stay engaged, and to stay hopeful. With that in mind, and in keeping with the resolution passed at our last business meeting, we have been working hard in partnership with Chainbreaker and other allied organizations in the Nuestro Corazon alliance in order to halt development plans for the former SFUAD campus. The city is currently attempting to rush through selection of a developer without adequate community feedback and accountability. In solidarity with Chainbreaker, we ask that DSA Santa Fe members submit statements online through the Midtown campus development website in tune with some talking points, which we will list below:
Talking Points template -- please re-state in your own words:
Dear [MAYOR WEBBER & COUNCILOR ___(YOUR COUNCILOR)_],
As a resident of Santa Fe and your constituent, I am writing today to provide my input on the development efforts of the mid-town campus.
I respectfully demand that the city halt any ongoing plans for development until the COVID-19 crisis has passed. We need a process w/ valid community input-- that cannot be rushed, and using web-based technologies excludes many Santa Feans. As such, these public meetings cannot be equitably accessed and made transparent to our whole community.
I commend the city’s ongoing efforts to house our unhoused neighbors on the mid-town campus. I hope the city continues to use the mid-town campus to bolster social safety net. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to show that Santa Fe can come together and respond to this crisis in an organized, innovative manner -- and for the long-term health of our community.
[Share a personal anecdote about what you would like to see on the campus, or about how development would impact you].
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter, [Your name].
In addition to this action by individuals, we as Santa Fe DSA have also prepared a statement in opposition to proposed development plans. We will be circulating this statement today, and throughout the rest of the week. You can read the statement below, and circulate it freely.
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We, the Santa Fe chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, call on Mayor Webber and the City Councilors to immediately halt planning & development of the former SFUAD Campus until the COVID-19 crisis has ended. We commend the ongoing efforts of the City to house people on the SFUAD Campus, and urge that those efforts be centered by the City amidst the crisis. Furthermore, the City must restructure the SFUAD development process in order to center community engagement with economically vulnerable Santa Feans. We must not allow anyone to capitalize on our community in the wake of COVID-19.
The City must hear from the people and be accountable to our demands. There is no way to ensure meaningful community engagement or a transparent process when people are preoccupied with how to deal with COVID-19 and the associated economic fallout. Any potential “community engagement” that the City might try to initiate during the crisis is invalid; Internet and phone access are not a given for many Santa Fe community members and face-to-face interaction is prohibited for the safety of all. Waking up at the end of the crisis and discovering that a development plan had been passed entirely in the dark – during the greatest public health crisis of our time-- would be an outrage.
Now, more than ever, we need a robust social safety net that is for the good of the people, not developers. We call on the City of Santa Fe to create that net; to divert efforts and resources otherwise spent on development plans towards providing community support. The City has already begun to house people on the SFUAD Campus, and these kinds of efforts should be furthered. This is a historic opportunity for Santa Fe to show New Mexico and the world what it means to respond to this crisis in an organized, innovative manner. The SFUAD campus is a unique asset to Santa Fe that presents ready-to-use resources for distributing aid to local residents.
The City, working alongside the community, should be focused entirely on making sure that each and every Santa Fean does not fear for their life and livelihood as a result of COVID-19 and the concurrent economic crisis. These efforts will allow us to not only get through the crisis, but come out stronger on the other side. Initiating development at this time, however, would divert resources and attention away from crisis response efforts, and instead sow ill will and distrust.
We, the Santa Fe DSA, stand in solidarity with Santa Feans suffering as a result of COVID-19 and call on the City of Santa Fe to do the same: halt all development plans on the SFUAD campus and instead focus on delivering aid and protection to the people who need it.
