Secretly moving squirrels is wrong

It nearly slipped by most of us at The News last week.

That can happen sometimes when an announcement appears as a “Legal Notice” in the Classifieds pages without any kind of accompanying press release. It’s typically a “trick” by a government entity to officially announce a grant approval, but draw as little attention to it as possible.

Not this time, my friends.

Last week, the city of Clovis received a state grant of $75,000 for the “transference and relocation of squirrels from the Colonial Park golf course and yards of neighboring homes.” Apparently, the city wrote the grant application following an executive session — or secret meeting — last October. Approval came Monday.

City officials were tight-lipped about just how the money would be spent and whether a comprehensive plan had been approved. Most declined comment, however one city employee spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“We really didn’t want the residents to know about this,” he said. “We knew it would only upset the residents and cause potential complications in carrying out our plan.”

One thing the source did make clear — the eradication of most of the squirrels from the Colonial Park area would begin this Monday. The city’s intention is to transfer them to Hillcrest Park, with hopes and plans that colonization there would be successful given its close proximity to the zoo and its encompassing lake.

It seems that the Colonial Park golfers, as well as the groundskeepers, have grown annoyed with the damage that the pesky squirrels have done and reached out to the city for assistance.

“On Monday, we’ll begin setting out traps across the golf course and in many backyards,” the city source said. “There’s probably between 750 and 1,000 of them out there and we’ll work hard until we capture every single one of them.”

There’s no telling how successful the relocation plan to Hillcrest Park will work — not executing an environmental study in advance is just poor planning.

If you have an interest in helping me address the problem of sneaking this plan past us as Clovis residents, I’d welcome you to join me on a trip to Colonial Park on Monday morning to help put a halt to the work.

I would have organized an outing for today, but it is April Fools’ Day after all and some folks might think I was just pulling their leg, which, of course, I am.

Yank, yank!

Rob Langrell is the publisher of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at: [email protected]