Editorial: Tres Amigas vote welcome resolution

The next step toward the creation of an electrical power connection in eastern New Mexico to better serve all Americans occurred last week when the Clovis city commission voted 5-0 in favor of issuing $1.65 billion in Industrial Revenue Bonds for the proposed Tres Amigas project.

The vote is a good one in that it moves the three-phased project closer to starting construction next year, without obligating the city to finance the project.

Tres Amigas would connect the country's three major power grids north of Clovis, within the 15-mile limit that allows a New Mexico city to legally issue IRBs for such projects.

And its presence would attract other energy businesses to locate in the region.

Now, the city with input from local public schools and Curry County will negotiate payments from project owners to pay in return for not paying property or gross receipt taxes they normally would. That amount is estimated at $230 million.

The payment in lieu of taxes (PILT) revenues would offset up to 100 percent of the tax credits and help pay for impacts this industrial growth would create on public facilities and infrastructure such as schools and roads.

We urge these talks be completed quickly and, certainly, that they benefit all parties. This project and the others that could tie benefit from it and locate here are projected to eventually create 362 direct and indirect, high-paying permanent jobs; and add some 250 city residents to the tax rolls.

National media slant evident

The presidential debates prove once again to be a theater of the absurd more than of substance. Yet they have many national media hounds pontificating ad nauseum about this or that twist of the facts by one candidate or the other, as though they were offering valuable insights.

They do not. Most Americans have come to expect misstatements, lies and silly quips from the men who seek our votes.

When the national media pundits utter their presumptions, they come across as arrogant fools who vow to educate all the rest of us unwashed masses in the good ol' U.S.A., by golly.

In doing so, what many of them really do is emphasize their leanings strongly favor President Obama positions, of course. That includes the first two debate moderators who work for liberal media stalwarts PBS and CNN.

Yet, despite their overstated observations — and the absurd effort to limit Mitt Romney's response time last week — most recent, and more believable, national polls point out the Romney gains from the first debate have not eroded.

Now we come to the week of the final debate, which could shed light on the important foreign policy area and the stances of the two major party candidates. Like many Americans we want to understand how four Americans, including the Libyan ambassador, came to be killed by al-Qaeda terrorists in Benghazi after U.S. security teams were pulled out of that dangerous city just before.

Sadly, Americans won't get to hear any other candidates' foreign policy views, including those of the solid number three contender, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party. That he or others are not allowed on the national television stage lends credence to the idea that these debates are merely shows to raise campaign cash more than they are to provide Americans a forum filled with real information.

Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Clovis Media Inc. editorial board, which includes Publisher Ray Sullivan and Editor David Stevens.