Catron County Delays Action on Road Closure

By Ben Neary

NMWF

The Catron County Commission on Wednesday postponed addressing a controversial road closure that has blocked hunters from tens of thousands of acres of public land in the northwestern part of the county.

The commission voted last December to close County Road A009, which crosses a small segment of the Great Western Ranch before heading into state lands and U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands that hunters have accessed for years. The ranch erected a gate last month, blocking public access. 

The county commission was addressing the issue again at its Wednesday meeting in Reserve because commissioners failed to execute a required written closure resolution after the December vote. That omission came to light recently after the New Mexico Wildlife Federation filed a request recently under the state’s inspection of public records law to see the resolution. 

The agenda for Wednesday’s commission meeting stated the commission could address the road closure in one of two ways: it could either approve a resolution based on the vote last December, or start the process over again by appointing a new panel of private “freeholders,” or landowners in the county, to examine the issue and report back to the commission whether the road should be abandoned.

Commissioners Audrey McQueen and Haydn Forward voted to table the issue until a future meeting. In the meantime, McQueen said she intends to inspect the area of the road closure.“I’m going to take time, and I’m going to drive up north and see where the access is, and if there’s access to those lands. So I can see it for myself, because I can see both sides of it,” McQueen said.

McQueen, who runs an outfitting business, said she has no business interest in hunting on the Great Western Ranch. “I just want to do what’s right for the community, and I will go look at it,” she said.

County Commission Chairman Buster Green manages the Great Western Ranch. The locked gate leaves the Great Western Ranch with hunting access to the public lands that used to be open to the public. Green has abstained from public votes on the road closure.

Before the commission vote last December, Green wrote to County Manager Deborah Mahler and Catron County resident Dustin Armstrong, one of the freeholders assigned to make a recommendation on whether to close the road, stating there was no reason for the county to continue to maintain the seven miles of county road.

Armstrong wrote to county officials last December that he opposed the ranch’s application to close the road. The other two “freeholders” supported it.

“The A009 road is going to set a very bad precedent of closures because of the small amount of private at the beginning and the vast amount of public behind there,” Armstrong reported to county officials before last December’s commission vote. “If we vacate it, there is a chance in the near future that a private gate will be installed restricting public access.”

Armstrong said Wednesday the gate remains locked.

Green said Wednesday that reports by the NMWF that County Road A009 provided the only practical public access to thousands of acres of public lands in the area were false.

Green said state and BLM lands,“remain accessible from the north, south, east and west.”

Green said designated routes are being developed across deeded land that will allow hunters to maintain access to state and federal lands.

 Willie Lucero, Socorro District resource manager with the New Mexico State Land Office, told commissioners that Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard opposes the closure.

The New Mexico State Land Office wrote to Catron County Manager Mahler voicing strong opposition to county efforts to close Road A009 as well as another county road the commission closed at the same time, Road A028.

”These roads provide important public access to state and federal land that is important for hunting, recreation and regional connectivity for this area,” Dana Vackar Strang, assistant commissioner in the SLO’s Surface Resources Division, wrote to Mahler. “The County’s prior (December 2025) and prospective future vacation of the roads impedes the New Mexico State Land Office’s ability to manage state land and would restrict access to about 25,000 acres of public lands.”

Matthew Atencio, field manager at the Socorro office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, told commissioners that  he had expected more coordination from the county on the road-closures, given that BLM is one of the largest stake-holders.

Atencio told commissioners that his agency had designated both County Road A009 and County Road A028 in 1982 as “primary systems.”

“And the definition of a primary system is routes that are considered to be essential access for the management of BLM administered routes, routes whose closure would constitute a crisis,” Atencio said.

Atencio said he looks forward to coordinating with the county if it decides to reconvene a new committee to consider abandoning the roads.