Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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From Cuba to Clovis, violent crime has surged in at least two dozen New Mexico communities, while fewer and fewer cases statewide are being solved by arrest. Law enforcement agencies are struggling to keep up. And in some places, property crimes aren't being prosecuted because there aren't enough officers to investigate them. Amid the spike in violent crime, the number of offenders sent to New Mexico state prisons on new charges has been dropping, with prison population down some 35% since 2015. The recent public safety...
While state legislators consider a proposal requiring financial literacy be taught in high schools, it might be a good idea if they took a class themselves in investing wisely. Just two years ago, lawmakers and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham created a state early childhood trust fund to help pay for expanded prekindergarten and other early childhood programs. The fund received a $300 million startup infusion from the state and gets energy-related tax collections in years when total state cash reserves exceed 25% of spending...
SANTA FE — With the start of a 30-day legislative session just one week away, a key House budget-writing committee started work Monday crafting a spending plan that would put an unprecedented New Mexico budget windfall to work. During a hearing at the state Capitol, the top budget official in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration said the executive branch would let lawmakers take the lead on bringing forward a plan for spending unallocated funds the state received under the federal American Rescue Plan Act. “At this...
A year ago, we witnessed what many historians and political scientists regard as the biggest threat to democracy in modern U.S. history. For a country that survived the Watergate scandal, the bloodshed of the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam War protests, that’s saying something. Sadly, the threat persists even a year after the violent scene at the U.S. Capitol, where thousands of President Donald Trump’s supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. They stormed the Capit...
Thirty years ago, farmers in dry eastern New Mexico were growing fields of winter wheat and cotton. Over time, many have switched to sorghum, which uses less water. But the Ogallala Aquifer is still on the decline. Megadrought and higher temperatures only add to water scarcity. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded $750,000 to a research team at New Mexico Tech and New Mexico State University for a three-year project studying ways to address agricultural drought in the High Plains region of Quay, Curry, Roosevelt...
The last time state lawmakers were tasked with drawing new maps for the state House and Senate, it took more than a year of fiercely partisan wrangling, four trials and $5.6 million of litigation costs billed to taxpayers. The final House map crafted by a state District Court judge in 2012 and approved by the New Mexico Supreme Court pitted two incumbent Democrats against each other and two incumbent Republicans against each other for seats in the N.M. House of Representatives. The map, drawn by retired District Judge James...
The term “constitutional crisis” isn’t one that should be tossed around carelessly. And it might overstate the importance of the simmering dispute between Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and lawmakers of both political parties over who has authority to decide how to spend roughly $1.1 billion in unspent federal stimulus funding doled out by Washington, D.C., during the pandemic. But if it is an overstatement, it’s not by much - and the term “constitutional emergency of generational importance” used by two state senators ch...
SANTA FE — With many New Mexico cities and counties struggling to staff frontline positions, momentum could be building for legislation that would partially undo a 2010 law that bars retired public sector employees from going back to work while still collecting pension benefits. Several counties have passed resolutions supporting a “return-to-work” proposal, which received largely positive feedback during a Tuesday legislative hearing. Rep. Bill Rehm, R-Albuquerque, said he’s working on a proposal for the upcoming 30-day...
Front-page headlines in recent editions of the Albuquerque Journal paint the picture of a system in crisis. • NM struggles with teacher vacancies; ‘Staggering number’ of 1,000 openings, up from 570 last year (Sept. 22). • Pandemic learning loss may lead to more school; After 43 of 89 districts reject adding days voluntarily, mandate a possibility (Sept. 23). • ‘Alarming’: NM education retirements increase 40%; Wave comes amid severe shortage of teachers (Sept. 25). As has been reported again and again, New Mexico’s K-12 syste...
A toxicology report reveals that a balloon pilot had marijuana and cocaine in his system when his balloon crashed, killing him and four others, including two former Clovis residents. The Federal Aviation Administration report states that the drugs were found in the blood and urine of Nick Meleski, 62. He died after his balloon struck power lines on June 26 and plummeted to the ground near Central and Unser NW in Albuquerque. Also killed in the crash were passengers Martin...
Doctors and nurses have cajoled and pleaded, talking about how they are watching patients struggle to breathe before they ultimately go on a ventilator and die. The governor has offered cash incentives and a lottery and alluded to the possibility of going back to lockdown-style measures much more restrictive than masking up indoors as the highly contagious delta variant takes hold and hospital intensive care units fill up. Despite these efforts and many others, an estimated 500,000 New Mexicans who are eligible to get...
SANTA FE — The more contagious COVID-19 variant flooding New Mexico is reaching vaccinated residents, not just the unvaccinated. In fact, fully vaccinated individuals made up 19% of new COVID-19 infections and 13% of hospitalizations in a recent four-week period, according to a Journal analysis of state data. The numbers do demonstrate that unvaccinated people still make up the vast majority of New Mexico’s coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, even amid the recent surge. But vaccinated residents have been caught in the...
SANTA FE — As Albuquerque faces a record-breaking year of homicides and reels from a school shooting, New Mexico lawmakers said Monday they will ask Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to add crime and firearms legislation to the agenda of the next regular session. No consensus emerged Monday, but the ideas include imposing tougher criminal penalties, authorizing extra money to hire more police officers and requiring gun owners to lock up their firearms. The discussion comes as legislators prepare for two legislative sessions — a spe...
ALBUQUERQUE — On Friday — the third day of the school year — students at Washington Middle School took their lunch break a little after noon, many gathering outside. Amari Asbury, 13, was playing basketball when he heard the sound of gunfire. “I heard boom, boom, boom, boom, boom five times,” said Asbury, speaking with the Journal as he was picked up from school by his mother. “Me and my friend, we thought it came from the park ... Then his best friend came over crying and everything. What happened? He just got shot.” Poli...
SANTA FE — In an attempt to put low-income workers on more solid financial footing, New Mexico lawmakers in recent years have approved a minimum wage increase and a paid sick leave requirement, among other policies. The newest debate on the horizon could center on guaranteed basic income, a policy that provides low-income residents with regular financial payments. At least two New Mexico cities — Las Cruces and Santa Fe — are already considering, or moving forward with, targeted guaranteed basic income pilot projects and s...
A medical sales representative who also owns an indoor shooting range on Sunday became the sixth Republican to announce an attempt to unseat the state’s Democratic governor. Louie Sanchez, 56, announced his campaign in a news release that targeted Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, in part for her handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the state. Sanchez’s work takes him to cities and towns across the state, where he said dilapidated main streets signal a need for change. “You go down the main streets of these towns and they...
State Education Secretary Ryan Stewart is leaving “to address family health issues,” the Governor’s Office announced Thursday. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has picked Kurt Steinhaus, who recently retired as superintendent of Los Alamos Public Schools, to lead the Publication Education Department. She also announced that Jason Bowie, deputy chief of the Rio Rancho Police Department, will take over as secretary of the Department of Public Safety. Timothy Johnson has been serving as the acting secretary of the Department of Pu...
SANTA FE — The head of New Mexico’s chief regulatory agency said she fears a lack of access to bank loans and other financing will keep local residents from entering the new cannabis industry and competing with out-of-state companies. Linda Trujillo, superintendent of the state Regulation and Licensing Department, told legislators Monday that her agency is working “behind the scenes” to examine how the state can help ensure startup money is available to New Mexicans who want to launch a marijuana business. But legisla...
New Mexico lawmakers, in the words of Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, “have got ourselves in a really tough predicament.” Richard Anklam, executive director of the nonpartisan New Mexico Tax Research Institute, gave legislators a presentation this month showing what that predicament looks like — and how it is hitting consumers in the pocketbook and making it tougher for businesses to compete. Testifying before the legislative Revenue Stabilization and Tax Policy Committee, Anklam said rising gross recei...
Rep. Marian Matthews, D-Albuquerque, was asking the right question of Brian Blalock, secretary of New Mexico’s Children, Youth and Families Department. Referring to the death of 4-year-old James Dunklee Cruz of Albuquerque, allegedly beaten to death by a friend of his mother despite repeated referrals and warning signs to CYFD he shouldn’t be in his mother’s care, Matthews wanted to know: “How does that happen?” Blalock, predictably, said he couldn’t answer because to do so would be contrary to confidentiality laws to spe...
Work on the results of the decennial census in New Mexico has gotten off to a rocky start, and the members of the newly appointed Citizen Redistricting Committee missed a golden opportunity to boost its legitimacy by demonstrating they are not afraid to be open about how they intend to represent all corners of the state. After committee members were named, criticism came quickly from people with various points of view as well as those who live in the far-flung reaches of the state. It was apparent this group was not going to...
Belen High School has moved quickly to find a new head football coach. Andrew McCraw, 34, who was coaching at Eastern New Mexico the last five seasons, accepted the job Wednesday. McCraw was the offensive line coach and run game coordinator — and, for the past two years, the assistant head coach — in Portales alongside former Greyhounds coach Kelley Lee. Lee departed in March to become athletic director and football coach at Veterans High School in Brownsville, Texas. McCraw served as interim coach before Tye Hiatt was hir...
SANTA FE — You can't legally buy it yet, but cannabis is no longer prohibited in New Mexico when it comes to possession and home growing. After years of debate, New Mexico became the 17th state to legalize recreational cannabis for users 21 and over Tuesday when a new law greenlighting the long illegal drug took effect. But the task of setting up a new weed industry from scratch is far from finished. A virtual rules hearing on the initial batch of proposed state rules governing marijuana licensing and plant count limits s...
Pressed by NBC’s Lester Holt earlier this month about why she hasn’t visited the U.S.-Mexico border to personally witness the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the unforgiving desert, Vice President Kamala Harris tried to make light of a deadly serious situation. “I haven’t been to Europe. I don’t understand the point you’re making,” Harris quipped, her words falling as flat as a TV sitcom missing its laugh track. Holt’s question seemed pretty straightforward: Why hasn’t Harris, who was tapped by President Joe Biden in March t...
The U.S. Air Force has spent more than $31 million to address groundwater contamination at Cannon Air Force Base near Clovis, base officials said Wednesday. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, leaked into the Ogallala Aquifer on and off-base from firefighting foam used in training exercises. A $16.6 million water treatment pilot project at the base's southeast corner is set for construction as early as March 2022, and would likely begin operating in April 2023. Christipher Gierke, Cannon's remedial project manager,...
