Placitas Group Schedules March 9 Board Meeting at Community Library

The Eastern Sandoval Citizens Association held its public board meeting March 9 at the Placitas Community Library, five days after posting the agenda on March 4. Members unable to attend in person could join via Zoom, continuing a practice the organization has offered for remote participation.

ESCA posts agendas and minutes on its website ahead of each meeting, a pattern consistent across recent months. The February 9, 2026 agenda went up February 7; the January 12, 2026 agenda was posted January 6, with minutes from that meeting published January 21. The organization maintains a publicly accessible archive of minutes stretching back to 2018.

President George Franzen leads the board, which at its February 10, 2025 meeting included directors Wayne Gaede, Jim Harre, Gary Madee, Phil Messuri, Jacques Ramey, Rich Reif, and Jean Roberts. Mary-Rose de Valladares, Co-Chair of ESCA's Land Protection Trust, also attended that session, which Franzen called to order at 4:02 p.m. Jim Harre posted the minutes from that meeting to the ESCA website on February 26, 2025.

Past ESCA meetings have drawn county officials and state agency representatives to address issues directly affecting Placitas. At a recent annual meeting, Sandoval County Commissioner Katherine Bruch told residents the county has purchased land at the corner of State Route 165 and Camino De Las Huertas for a potential senior or multigenerational center. Bruch also said the county is working to fix problems with a new emergency dispatch center that lacks the capability to handle incoming 911 calls, and she outlined plans for a new courthouse, a new sheriff's office, and a new animal shelter, all expected to go out for bid before the end of the year.

Fire insurance has also been a recurring topic. Elouisa "Lou" Macias of the New Mexico Office of the Superintendent of Insurance spoke at the annual meeting about the state's Fair Access to Insurance Requirements program, a last resort for property owners who cannot obtain coverage on the open market. Macias said "the cost of catastrophic coverage has tripled in recent years, partly because of the lack of mitigation efforts," and noted that FAIR "covers the actual cash value of a structure, not replacement costs, of up to $750,000."

Franzen has also briefed members on changes at the Vulcan Materials Co. site in Placitas. "Vulcan Materials Co. has ceased mining at its Placitas location but will continue to process and sell materials already extracted," he said.