By Rick Nathanson
Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE, NM — The days are numbered for the Probation and Parole office located across the street from Monte Vista Elementary School in the Nob Hill neighborhood.
On Wednesday, the state Board of Finance approved the General Services Department’s $7.28 million purchase and renovation of the Plaza Maya building Downtown.
Consequently, the Correction Department’s Monte Vista Probation and Parole office will close, hopefully by the end of the year, as some of the operations of that office move to Plaza Maya, said department spokeswoman Alex Tomlin.
Meanwhile, members of the Monte Vista Elementary School community are breathing a collective sigh of relief, said principal Leith Page.
The Corrections Department has operated the Monte Vista office for more than 30 years, but in the last year immediate and specific safety concerns for the nearby elementary school were raised.
In November, the school was locked down as police disabled two live pipe bombs left at the Probation and Parole office; the preceding April, a parole violator slipped out of her handcuffs and fled to the school, where she hid in a bathroom until arrested.
“Our community will be relieved, this is certainly good news,” said principal Page. “To go through situations like a lock down or shelter-in-place interrupts the learning and teaching process and increases the anxiety of children, who don’t feel safe in their school environment.”
Page praised the “valuable work done by Probation and Parole,” but having these services operate from a building so close to a school makes the school community “uncomfortable.” She added that the Corrections Department “can’t always predict or control” the actions of people who report to Probation and Parole.
Tomlin noted that Corrections Department Cabinet Secretary Gregg Marcantel “has been working for almost three years to find an appropriate place to relocate.” More than 20 properties were looked at before the Plaza Maya was recommended, but even this location caused problems for some nearby organizations that work with kids and didn’t want them exposed to people who were on probation or parole.
As a result, she said, only administrative functions will be housed there and “offender contact will be done out of the Gold Street office,” also in Downtown.
Tomlin said purchase of the four-story building should be completed by the end of February with renovations to be done by the end of March 2015, although some staff will be able to move in sooner. At that point, offender contacts will switch to the Gold Street location.
GSD spokesman Tim Korte said that because the Corrections Department agreed that offenders will not report to the building, enhanced security will no longer be required.