Learning from past mistakes is wise

REMEMBER THE rallying cry in the movie Back to the Future? “Save the clock tower, save the clock tower!” Rio Rancho’s call of late from a select few has been: “Save the golf course, save the golf course!” But Rio Rancho does not have a Delorean with a flux capacitor to travel back in time. Just think what they could do, if they did, to undo the mistakes of yesterday, especially those that put the city in its current financial crisis.

Let’s go “Back in Time” to the 1980s. The land that sits south of Rio Rancho, which the city had no interest in annexing — you know Cottonwood Mall and the surrounding retail businesses that are now providing huge sums of gross tax receipts to Albuquerque. We could (have changed) that.

We also could have avoided many problems with our failing roadways. The city could have adopted development standards requiring roads to be built, not be on a sand base, but to existing standards that required a compacted stone base, thereby preventing many of the current problems.

If we could go “Back in Time” to the 2000s, we could have stopped construction of Rio Rancho’s biggest cash drain, the Santa Ana Star Center. Just think what $3.5 million a year could do for the city’s bottom line today. We could, also, have prevented the squandering of $1.7 million installing wasted infrastructure at the former Green 2V site, yet to be developed.

But Rio Rancho does not have a time-travelling Delorean, so correcting those mistakes will not happen. But our mayor and council hopefully have learned from those mistakes and will govern more wisely, especially when it comes to “saving the golf course.” HARRY GORDON Rio Rancho