10/04/2024
"Save the Elena Gallegos" co-founders Viki Teahan and Katrina Sanchez wrote a tribute for STEG attorney Wade Jackson that was published in the October issue of the GRIT, the monthly newsletter for the Sandia Heights HOA. We've posted it below, or you can read it here (pages 7 and 8):
https://www.sandiahomeowners.org/storage/app/media/grit/2024/Oct%202024%20Color%20GRIT.pdf
We are grateful to the editor of the GRIT for publishing this memorial!
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In Memory of Wade Jackson & His Legacy to Elena Gallegos
Our Sandia Heights neighborhood owes our deepest gratitude to attorney Wade Jackson, who helmed the 2023 lawsuit which saved the Elena Gallegos Open Space (EGOS) from development and who died unexpectedly on June 18, 2024.
GRIT readers will know that over the spring of 2023, nine Sandia Heights residents (as well as nine others from across Albuquerque) joined forces with Jackson to sue the City of Albuquerque and stop the construction of an "Education Center" in the EGOS.
The EGOS is a beloved, beautiful wilderness area that lends a backdrop to our city (and especially to our neighborhood) unlike any other. It was first threatened by developers in the early 1970's, but a remarkable citizens movement (which included a petition that amassed thousands of signatures in support of a city-wide quarter-cent sales tax increase) raised the funds to purchase the land for the people of Albuquerque in 1982. With this purchase, the conservationists who led the movement included precise language in the deed regarding “Limitations on the Use of Park Property,” which prohibited buildings in the park and ensured that it would always be preserved as wilderness with minimal human infrastructure.
However, in 2020, our CABQ Parks & Rec Director used taxpayer dollars to hire an architectural firm to design a grand “Education Center" for the space. By the time the project was publicly announced in January 2022, the City had invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in a “Feasibility Study” and architectural renderings. Their vision for a large, modern, multimedia building in the heart of the EGOS was an unequivocal violation of the deed and a reversal of the land’s preservationist history. Furthermore, the construction of a first building in the EGOS would create a legal precedent for buildings and nullify the limitations in the deed, opening the floodgates for future development.
In September 2022, a new citizens movement was launched to protect the EGOS once again. Sandia Heights residents Katrina and Kiko Sanchez and Viki Teahan incorporated a “Save the Elena Gallegos” (STEG) nonprofit, started a new petition, and contacted more than thirty law firms before finding Albuquerque attorney Wade Jackson of Sutin, Thayer & Browne.
Jackson was the first and only attorney approached who was not afraid to sue the City. In his professional life, he was driven to stop government overreach and abuse, and in his personal life, he was an avid hiker, hunter, fisherman, cyclist, and outdoorsman who himself was a frequent visitor to the EGOS. STEG’s lawsuit was the perfect confluence of his many passions, and from the start his investment in saving the EGOS matched that of the eighteen plaintiffs he represented and the 12,000 citizens who signed STEG’s petition.
Jackson’s work on the lawsuit lasted ten months and involved drafting and filing dozens of legal complaints and responses, as well as guiding the plaintiffs as they submitted emotional statements to the judge, fielded numerous media appearances, and navigated a complicated and often contentious battle with City officials over their public messaging. With every twist and turn in the case, Jackson’s talent and intellect shone. To win the lawsuit, Jackson needed to prove that ordinary citizens of Albuquerque would be harmed by the deed being broken and thereby should have standing to enforce it. Most lawyers would have focused on demonstrating monetary harm, but Jackson submitted the bolder (and far riskier!) argument that the plaintiffs would suffer existential harm — from the loss of the myriad intangible benefits offered by wilderness, and from the loss of their faith in government. In the case’s sole hearing, Jackson made this argument so brilliantly that the judge waived future hearings on the subject and granted standing to the plaintiffs as an order. The City quickly capitulated, and on June 21, 2023, Jackson secured a permanent injunction upholding the limitations in the deed — and forever protecting the Elena Gallegos Open Space from development.
Jackson’s wife, Courtney, shared with STEG that of his many career accomplishments, saving the Elena Gallegos was his proudest professional moment and his greatest legal achievement. The permanent injunction is a special legacy to leave behind, and he will forever hold an important place in the history of the Elena Gallegos as one of the lawyers and environmentalists who safeguarded it for posterity. All of us in Sandia Heights offer him, his wife, and his two daughters our deepest respect and gratitude.
