Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Sorted by date Results 76 - 93 of 93
I doubt if there is any law on the books that is more flagrantly and routinely violated every year by otherwise law-abiding residents of our state than city restrictions on fireworks. Under the “Safe and Sane” fireworks law, the only things that can legally be set off in my city of Las Cruces are ground and hand-held sparkling and smoking devices, cylindrical fountains, flitter sparklers, illuminating torches, smoke devices and wheels. That leaves out bottle rockets, cherry bombs, black cats … pretty much anything that bangs...
Otero County Commissioner Gerald Matherly smells something fishy with the results of the recent primary election. Matherly didn’t come right out and accuse the winners of cheating, but said he knew of at least one case where “ghost” ballots were returned from an address where the homeowner had died. “I don’t even know if it’s one ballot, 10 ballots or 20 ballots,” he said. He also shares the concerns of fellow commissioners Couy Griffin and Vickie Marquardt that the Dominion voting machines used by the county to tabulate the...
The old system of cash bonds that was in place before voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2016 reforming the bail system was not equal justice under the law. It included a schedule that set the amount of bond for each offense. Those who could pay the bond stayed out of jail; those who couldn’t pay the bond went to jail. Let’s say a big company held a party where folks had too much to drink and then drove off. On the way home, the company president, manager and janitor all get arrested for the same offense. The pre...
I understand criticism of the Biden administration for not acting sooner to address the baby formula shortage before it became a crisis. That’s justified. What I don’t understand is the criticism he’s received for fixing the problem. Political commentators from both parties have claimed it is “shameful” to be receiving assistance from other countries. No, it isn’t. It’s wonderful, and it’s bringing immediate relief to desperate mothers throughout the nation. The only reason to think it would be shameful is pride, which is a q...
House Bill 51, sponsored in 2019 by Rep. Joanne Ferrary of Las Cruces, was the most consequential bill not to pass the New Mexico Legislature in the past two decades. It would have removed a law then still on the books from 1969 that made it a fourth-degree felony for doctors to perform an abortion; and a second-degree felony if the mother died as a result of the procedure. After passing on a 40-29 vote in the House, the bill was defeated 24-18 in the Senate. Eight Democrats, including some of the Senate’s most senior and h...
As things stand now, there may not be any presidential debates in 2024. And I’m not sure that would be a huge loss. The Republican National Committee has announced it will no longer participate in debates managed by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has been in charge since 1988. RNC officials say they will find “newer, better debate platforms,” but anything they propose will have to be agreed to by the Democrats. With so much division and distrust between the parties, I won’t be surprised if the election cycle p...
The recent federal court ruling to relieve the state from judicial oversight of its mental health system stemming from the Jackson lawsuit of 1987 is a huge victory for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, state officials and taxpayers. The governor estimates the case has cost the state $80 million during the last three decades. The federal class action lawsuit was filed against the state by parents of those with developmental disabilities who were being held at state-run institutions in Fort Stanton and Los Lunas. The court found...
One of the questions in a recent news quiz for the Saturday morning show from the farmers market on KTAL-LP FM community radio was, “Can you name any of the five Republican candidates running for governor?” Not only was the contestant stumped, but so was just about everyone else who was there. Greg Zanetti, Ethel Maharg, Mark Ronchetti, Rebecca Dow and Jay Block are engaged in a spirited battle for the opportunity to take on incumbent Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham this November. Campaign filings show the five have spent a combi...
The top priority for our state’s leaders, not just this year but for the next several years, must be to diversify our economy and break free from our complete dependence on oil and gas revenue. It was with that goal in mind that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called legislators back into a special session last year after the regular session had failed to produce legislation legalizing the sale and production of marijuana. The state’s nascent cannabis industry took its first steps April 1 as doors opened to customers for the fir...
The state of New Mexico has two different sets of rules when it comes to funding capital outlay projects for new construction or repair of basic infrastructure. All funding for education projects is governed by the Public School Capital Outlay Act of 1975. It requires that all school districts go through the same evaluation process, which uses a set of adequacy standards to identify and address the most critical needs first. The state Supreme Court has made it clear to the Legislature that it has a constitutional...
Can the United States avoid war with Russia? Should we avoid war with Russia? Does a nation that spends so much on weaponry that it has built the strongest military force in the history of mankind have a moral obligation to act when lesser armies are slaughtering innocent people in another nation? Why are the innocent people in Ukraine more worthy than the innocent people in Chechnya? It’s estimated that as many as 40,000 civilians were killed in a sloppy, brutish, relentless Russian attack there that included torture, r...
On Jan. 29, a convoy of ticked-off truckers rolling across Canada reached its final destination, Parliament Hill in the capital city of Ottawa. They proceeded to use their trucks to shut down the core of the downtown area to all incoming traffic. They disobeyed police orders, ignored the law and effectively took over as occupiers of that part of the city. We saw those same tactics put to use in the summer of 2020, when protesters demanding police reform temporarily occupied several blocks in Portland, Ore. The Canadian...
State Sen. William Sharer is a marvelous storyteller with the ability to go on at length on a wide variety of subjects. Recently, he regaled his restless Senate colleagues on the final day of the session, as time ran out on a voting rights bill that had been one of the top priorities for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Sharer took the floor during the “announcements and miscellaneous” portion of the session, when lawmakers can talk about whatever they want for as long as they want. He began by thanking legislative staff for thei...
From the day in 2005 when the agreement between Bill Richardson and Richard Branson for what would later become Spaceport America was first announced, the business model for southern New Mexico has always been to separate wealthy tourists from their not-so-hard-earned vacation money. “... First flights of a suborbital spaceliner [are] now planned in late 2008, early 2009,” Virgin Galactic announced in a 2005 press release, the first of what would be many overly optimistic projections. As the opinion page editor for the Las...
Las Cruces native Stephanie Valencia writes with pride about the role she played in helping Sonia Sotomayor become the first Latina confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Valencia, who had worked on both the campaign and transition team for Barack Obama, was serving as his deputy director in the Office of Public Engagement when Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced his retirement in 2009. She urged Obama to select Sotomayor. When he did — a decision announced when Valencia was back here getting married — she helped lea...
When former Gov. Bill Richardson ended the gross receipts tax on food in 2005, I thought it was a no-brainer. Food and water are the two things we can’t live without, so of course they shouldn’t be taxed. But the experts at New Mexico Voices for Children — who understand the intricacies of our tax system much better than I do and know that when it comes to setting tax policy, everything’s a brainer — disagreed. They predicted correctly that shifting the burden from food to other purchases would hurt the poor more than help th...
Republican lawmakers in New Mexico have alleged for years that our elections are plagued by massive voter fraud. They finally had their chance to prove it in 2011, with Susana Martinez as governor and Dianna Duran as secretary of state. Duran was the first Republican secretary of state since E.A. Perrault in 1929. And, she came into office bound and determined to prove that claims of rampant voter fraud were real. Enlisting the help of the State Police, they combed through seven years of voter registration records, from 2003...
Watching Montana State play in the Football Championship Subdivision national title game Jan. 8, I wondered if Waded Cruzado was still the president there. Sure enough, she has been president since 2010, leading the university through significant increases in enrollment and retention; an all-time high in research expenditures; and advances in academic achievement, including three Rhodes Scholars. She is also, I assume, well liked and respected in Bozeman, just as she was in Las Cruces after being named interim president of...
