Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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ESPAÑOLA — Unassuming, dressed in sweatpants and wearing white running shoes, early, just past 7 a.m., and looking for that first cup of coffee from Artesia’s Kith and Kin, Nella Domenici, with hopes of knocking Sen. Martin Heinrich out of the U.S. Senate, pulled up a chair in the middle of an all-male group and listened. “She’s a great listener,” said one of the men. “Her father was the same way — approachable.” The group discussed construction work, lack of an available workforce, local projects, and most likely some poli...
Incoming president of Northern New Mexico College, outgoing Attorney General Hector Balderas, will be paid more than his three predecessors. His incoming salary has been set by the college’s board of regents at $232,500. Both interim president Dr. Barbara Medina and her predecessor, Richard Bailey, were paid $180,000 a year. Balderas has a 3 1/2 -year contract. The almost 30% increase in the salary seems excessive for someone who has never operated an institution of higher learning. Balderas has no record of work in academia....
Few persons would think of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as appropriate Thanksgiving-season reading. Many among us, for some strange reason, prefer to imagine him delivering it under a searing sun and in soggy humidity. Perhaps we confuse the month of the battle with the month of the ceremony initiated to honor those who died at the Battle of Gettysburg. Absurdly and challenging the imagination, over 7,000 soldiers died. The fighting lasted three days, from July 1 through July 3, 1863. Lincoln’s spellbinding address at...
For years, the city of Española’s water has contained elevated levels of naturally-occurring fluoride. On March 14, the City of Española posted a public notice on the city’s website about fluoride levels in the water system. It showed test results from three fluoride tests at what is called the Miox tank #4 (where water from various wells are blended) from December 2016, July 2017 and January 2021 that showed concentrations (in milligram per liter) of 2.92, 2.29 and 3.28, respectively. According to the Environmental Prote...
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed House Bill 8 March 2 at the Tierra Amarilla County Complex in Rio Arriba County. The bill creates a land grant assistance fund that is registered with the state and provides funds to land grants proportionally to how much revenue they generate. Funding will help the land grants maintain and manage historic communal lands throughout the state. In House Bill 2, $2 million was approved for the fund. Steve Polaco, president of Merced de los Pueblos de Tierra Amarilla, said the bill...
So much for public involvement, input and fair redistricting. The law the Legislature passed in the 2022 spring session provided for a committee, the Citizen Redistricting Committee. This group of chosen people would travel the state and listen to public input to provide for a fair, almost apolitical, redrawing of Congressional, legislative and state education positions. It was all for naught. The typical redistricting circus took place as state Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Doña Ana, and his committee disregarded almost all...
It feels like supporters of New Mexico’s Healthy Workplaces Act are living in a different world, have no idea what it’s like to operate a small business in New Mexico and have tied rhetoric to perhaps big box store employee horror stories. The Act would force all employers to provide one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours an employee works, topping out at 64 hours annually. The House has approved it already and it’s likely to pass the Senate. Our experience is most employees use very little sick leave during the year...
Yes, we’re all tired. Tired of the isolation, the restrictions, the lines, the shortages, the rude people and the ignorant ones who don’t understand safety practices, the cumbersome way we must operate, the dull routine and inability to socialize and travel. It shows in our state’s positive case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths. To make matters worse, Thanksgiving came along and people hit the apathy button and traveled against health officials’ recommendations. Add to that the good news of a vaccine arriving any time, w...
It’s become a perennial expectation that a senator or representative feels the need to tweak the lottery scholarship formula. They can’t stand to leave it alone. This year the honor has gone to Sen. Jacob Candelaria, D-Bernalillo. His Senate Bill 283 is titled as limiting the operational expenses and, if passed, it would do that. This is assuming no one comes along next year and changes the law again. History dictates, that is likely. However, it also removes the 30 percent of minimum revenue that would go toward sch...
New Mexicans voted Nov. 6 overwhelmingly (75 percent) in favor of Constitutional Amendment 2, establishing an ethics commission to oversee the foxes in the hen house, aka the Roundhouse. That message can’t get much clearer for those representing us in the state Legislature. A 75 percent affirmation loudly states several things to legislators: • we don’t trust you; • we don’t trust you overseeing yourselves; • we want to know that when an ethical violation occurs, someone holds you accountable, other than your buddy sitti...
Basketball is a religion in Northern New Mexico. More people attend a Thursday night basketball game than all the churches in the Valley combined on Sunday morning. There is no doubt the passion and emotion of the game is strong here. However, we’ve reached a point where it either needs to be dialed back or kept in check by referees and officials. The New Mexico Activities Association takes sportsmanship seriously. So much so that a few years ago it was forced to create rules not governing children playing sports, but the p...
This isn’t about a sexual predator being allowed to run loose in our schools for many years. Gary Gregor moved from Utah to Santa Fe to McCurdy Charter School to Los Alamos to Española. He cut a wide swath through leaving a trail of broken children. His many sordid actions and subsequent investigations revealed Gregor had co-conspirators in some schools and administrators willing to look the other way, ignore his penchant for little girls and allow him to move from district to district with impunity. This isn’t about the...
City officials think we have a gang problem. It’s more like we have a delinquent teenagers problem that festers, becoming an adult felon problem. This is one of the many reasons the New Mexico Supreme Court should not seal juvenile records. The Court has already closed them but is allowing new input until Thursday about its action. Ironically and frustratingly, juvenile court proceedings are still open. However, without documents, the public is lost watching two lawyers argue. Since charges aren’t public, there’s no telli...
ESPANOLA — Three sanctions have been imposed on the Valley High School football team after a brawl broke out between players in their Oct. 5 Homecoming matchup versus Bernalillo High School. The game was forfeited by the Sundevils with 6:23 remaining in the first quarter after the scuffle between the teams happened following a punt by Española on its second possession of the game with the Spartans, who held a 7-0 advantage at the time. The New Mexico Activities Association confirmed the forfeit Oct. 10 and that all players in...
The cliché is, we’re a litigious society. Two clearly frivolous lawsuits were in the news recently. Both should remind everyone that we learn to walk about age 2. As a child, surely your parents admonished you, “Watch where you’re going.” Yet there are adults still stumbling around who either didn’t learn that toddler lesson or they’re just after a small payday. We suspect the latter. The first suit stems from an incident outside the Kimo Theater in Albuquerque where a couple was leaving a play and walking to their car. I...
ESPANOLA — Paramedics rushed a married couple to the hospital just past midnight Oct. 8 after they each sustained serious injuries when a tree fell onto their tent near Trampas Lakes. Luke and Meredith Austin, of Amarillo, were camping at the lakes with their four children when high winds caused the tree to fall onto the tent and across each of their midsection. Jeff Cone, Meredith Austin’s father, said the couple’s four children were sleeping in a separate tent and were not injured. Meredith Austin was transferred to a Lev...
ESPANOLA — Finally: a win for the good guys, when it comes to keeping government processes open to the public. Justice Miles Hanisee wrote in a Sept. 24 Court of Appeals ruling that Marcy Britton had the right to attorney fees, costs and damages, contrary to the finding of District Court Judge Shannon Bacon of Bernalillo County. Bacon had found that Britton could not seek punitive damages and could only seek actual damages. Actual damages usually must be demonstrated in a way to show loss to convince a judge to award up to $...
