An emotional Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell today reaffirmed the importance of the Organ Mountain Desert-Peaks (OMDP) National Monument and highlighted the economic impact that the monument has had on the local community.
Speaking to a diverse roundtable of local business and community leaders, Jewell expressed her support for OMDP, the importance of it remaining a national monument to the community and to the American public, and said it would be absolutely the wrong move for certain special interests in Congress to try to undo what the Las Cruces community has embraced and championed for decades.
The Secretary started her day with an early morning hike with members of the community at Soledad Canyon in the OMDP monument, and continued the morning later by joining community members at Beck’s Coffee, which sells and markets an OMDP monument coffee blend – one of it’s best sellers. Beck’s has seen great success since opening in the historic Mesquite District.
At the roundtable, Jewell was presented with a plaque from the Girl Scouts of the Deseret Southwest for her years of service and commitment to the OMDP monument. The Girl Scouts offer a special OMDP monument patch, and just introduced a similar patch for the White Sands National Monument.
She heard from diverse business leaders from Las Cruces representing the retail, homebuilding, real estate, wildlife biology, restaurant, telecomm, and arts and culture districts, among several others. All expressed direct or ancillary positive impacts to their businesses. Nora Barraza, Mayor of the Town of Mesilla, mentioned that Gross Receipts Taxes in the town had increased by 30 percent since the monument’s designation. According to the Bureau of Land Management-Las Cruces office, visitation to the monument has increased by 102 percent from 84,197 visitors in fiscal year 2015 to 170,451 visitors in fiscal year 2016.
Jewell wrapped up the meeting by thanking the community for their years of support and advocacy on behalf of Americans’ public lands and expressed strong skepticism that the monument’s designation could be reversed. She strongly emphasized the need to ensure that more diverse communities enjoyed and accessed the OMDP monument and highlighted the successes of local community groups such as the Friends of the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks.
Gabe Vasquez, our Southern New Mexico Outreach Coordinator, was invited to the meeting for his work with the Las Cruces Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
