Standing Pat: Former Rio Rancho Mayor D'Arco helped set the city on the road to success

Apr. 7—Most people use retirement to take their foot off the gas and relax.

Former Rio Rancho Mayor Pat D'Arco, who died Jan. 13, 2012, was not one of those people. He would serve the city for years and is most remembered for his longtime efforts to improve road conditions there. He was instrumental in getting New Mexico 528 expanded and in 2007 the New Mexico State Transportation Commission named a 9.7-mile stretch of the main arterial after him, crowning him "Mr. Rio Rancho."

After spending a lifetime in government service on the East Coast, D'Arco "retired" in 1975 to a small settlement perched on a top of a hill, with nothing but dirt and weeds for miles. It was just west of the big city. That big city being Albuquerque and that settlement being Rio Rancho. Back then Amrep — the city's first home builders — heavily marketed the area to East Coast families and quite successfully if its once-upon-a-time nickname of Little New York is any indication.

D'Arco made an unsuccessful run for city councilor in 1984 and mayor in 1986 but would be appointed to fill a vacant council seat on the governing body in 1987. He even refused a salary, instead directing the city to use the money for its first annual Fourth of July fireworks show.

A Sunday, Dec. 6, article in the New York Times that year bore the headline "Rio Rancho's Tangled Legacy" and discussed the city's bumpy history with Amrep. The company was the first to begin developing the area, calling it the Rio Rancho Estates. Through "high pressured sales pitch(es)" during free dinners offered to potential New York investors, the company tried to sell residents on the investment potential of a place with "natural beauty," according to the article.

It worked, according to the story. Thousands of people bought homesites, paying up to $11,800 an acre. But they had no idea what they were buying.

"Some construction began right away, but many unhappy buyers soon went to federal and state authorities," the article recalled. "... Rio Rancho was no more than a barren stretch of desert and there was no resale market for the lots."

Amrep was eventually fined $45,000 and in 1977, four of its top officials were convicted of mail and land fraud charges and sentenced to six months in jail. That didn't stop Amrep from continuing to sell land and build homes. The settlement officially became a city in 1981 and by the time the New York Times wrote its 1987 article, Rio Rancho was home to 30,000 people.

D'Arco's time on the council would be short. Voters shut down his attempt to keep his seat in 1988. However, his attempt at becoming an elected official in Rio Rancho would finally come to pass in 1990 when he became mayor. During his mayoral victory speech, D'Arco expressed his desire to strengthen Rio Rancho's relationship with the city down the hill.

"We need Albuquerque as a friend," he said. "I want to pick up the ball there because it was dropped."

By that time, the city's population had risen to 32,500 and it was grappling with serious growing pains, including transportation issues. D'Arco began attending the transportation commission meetings.

"The native of New York, Mr. D'Arco soon developed an even stronger vision behind improving transportation," his obituary said. "Because of the fruitful effort and negotiations with the Amrep Corp., D'Arco was able to get the corporation to donate the rights of way to widen N.M. 528 from U.S. 550 (in Bernalillo) to Northern (Boulevard), a central road in (Rio Rancho)." He also helped form a partnership between the city, Intel and the New Mexico Department of Transportation to make further N.M. 528 improvements south of Northern.

D'Arco was born on Sept. 30, 1920, in New York and moved from New Jersey to Rio Rancho when it was nothing more than a cluster of houses. He was a disabled World War II veteran, serving in the Pacific Theater and had spent his professional career as a federal civil servant working for the U.S. Customs Bureau, the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Postal Service. He and his wife Bette D'Arco had seven children.

He was not a shy man and not afraid to speak his mind. A story in the Albuquerque Journal following his death described D'Arco as a "blunt talker with a no-nonsense attitude." The Journal profiled him in March of 1990 after he was elected mayor, and he demonstrated just that. Some had questioned whether he would send then City Administrator Bud Bentley packing after being elected.

"No way in hell do I see changes at City Hall," he told the reporter. "I have no qualms with anybody ... What has the guy done that I should say 'You're out of a job?' "

Multiple-term Rio Rancho Mayor Tom Swisstack was in office when D'Arco died in 2012. Swisstack's first stint as mayor in 1994 followed D'Arco's term. He was also D'Arco's campaign manager during his unsuccessful 1986 bid for mayor. Swisstack described D'Arco as someone who was determined to give Rio Rancho a voice and have it seen not as a suburb of any city, but its own entity.

He vowed to lobby legislators in Santa Fe for Rio Rancho's piece of the state pie, and said he had established a rapport with the state's elected officials to do it.

"I'm not going to sit on my ass in the office here while they're debating all this stuff up there (in Santa Fe)," he told the Journal in the March 1990 interview. "These are my kind of people. I'm going to kiss ass as long as it's going to get things. I'm good at it if I know we're going to get the help we need."

There is no telling how many people he had to schmooze and for how long, but miles of blacktop running straight through the city are proof he was indeed "good at it."