Back on 12/22/22, "Save the Elena Gallegos" filed a lawsuit against the City of Albuquerque to uphold the deed to the Elena Gallegos Open Space, which prohibits buildings in her acreage. We finally have a development in our case.

Last Thursday 2/23/23, the City filed a motion for summary judgment in their favor on the grounds that:

1) Our 18 citizen plaintiffs cannot enforce the deed to the Elena Gallegos because citizens are "not the intended beneficiary of the deed." (!!!! Yes, our own government is making this claim!)

2) Our lawsuit is “premature." While the City admits that the deed contains specific prohibitions, the deed does not explicitly prohibit “feasibility studies,” which is all the City has completed to date.

We are underwhelmed by this filing (to say the least!) and plan to disprove them in court.

WE THE PEOPLE of Albuquerque are the intended beneficiaries of the deed. If not us, then who??

And the City can claim that we can't enforce the deed against their "Feasibility Study" ONLY if they can ALSO claim that they have no intention of actually building the building described inside it. Which would mean the City gave a $250k taxpayer-funded "no-show" contract to the architecture firm Dekker/Perich/Sabatini -- which would be a whole different betrayal of Burqueños!

Our fight continues, and we'll keep you posted every step of the way. Thank you for standing alongside us to save this beautiful land! We're very close to 11,000 signatures on our petition.

And just for fun -- this is a photo of Winston the Boston Terrier, living his best life in the Elena Gallegos! Winston was born to Cat and Albert Simms III in Taos and adopted at 8 weeks old by Mary and David Metz of Albuquerque. Yes, he's (sort of) a descendant of THE Simms family, so of course he feels a calling to the Elena Gallegos!