Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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Confusion over the status of the Chaparral Apartments on Thursday led the Tucumcari Housing Commission to delay turning over the 24-unit complex to the Eastern Regional Housing Authority, though the housing commission turned all other housing authority properties to the regional authority. The decision to delay turning over the Chaparral units while authorizing the turnover of other properties passed on a 4-2 vote. The housing commission includes all Tucumcari city commissioners and Timothy Durkin, a public housing resident. Commissioners...
A resolution asking New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to consider allowing businesses in the state’s rural cities to reopen to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus received narrow approval Thursday at a regular meeting of the Tucumcari City Commission. The measure was approved on a 3-2 vote. District 4 Commissioner Chris Arias and Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield joined district 5 Commissioner Todd Duplantis, who proposed the resolution, in voting for the resolution. District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya and District 2 Commissioner Paul V...
Revenue shortages because of the COVID-19 economic freeze and increases in state minimum wage likely would result in loss of jobs, conversion of some full-time city jobs to part-time positions and reductions in city services, Tucumcari city commissioners learned during a public workshop Thursday. Acting city manager Mark Martinez and city Finance Director Rachelle Arias on Thursday presented two versions of a bad-news budget for fiscal 2021, which begins July 1 and ends June 30, 2021, to the commission. In one version, the city would change as...
With plenty of time to muse in COVID-19 isolation (not that I didn’t have time as a retiree), I am wondering if social distancing away from jobs and social obligations is giving people a new appreciation of leisure time. In Tucumcari, you can maintain social distancing and get some fresh air and exercise without compromising the six-foot rule. I have seen more people out walking than usual since the COVID-19 freeze began. Couples, families, dogs. I see more kids on bikes on otherwise empty streets. I see them because I am outside more, too. A...
The Tucumcari Housing Authority board on Thursday approved another step in handing over authority for operating it to the Eastern Regional Housing Authority of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, based in Roswell. The board, which includes all five members of the Tucumcari City Commission and Timothy Durkin, a resident of Tucumcari public housing, voted 4-2 to give the THA board’s consent to the expansion of the ERHA’s territory to include Tucumcari’s boundaries. District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya and District 2 Commi...
Since President Donald Trump’s election, relations between China and the U.S. have been strained. Trump doesn’t like China much, and, frankly, I don’t either. In recent years, however, the U.S. has done between $750 billion and $650 billion a year in trade with China. Last year about $450 billion of that was still exports to the U.S. Does this mean China is our friend? Well, yes and no. Business-to-China relations seem to be good, but U.S.-to-China are as strained as they should be. Their form of what we have called communism — a state-r...
Some day soon, we hope, we’ll wake up to learn that the COVID-19 viruses have gone to that place in the cosmos where the nanometer-size undead go when they can’t cause diseases any more. “Ah-h,” we’ll say as we stretch and yawn, “back to normal.” “Normal? Not quite,” economists and other business forecasters are scoffing. We’ll recover, all right, they say, but it won’t be the same. “The coronavirus is not only a health crisis of immense proportions,” according to McKinsey economists Kevin Sneader and Shubham Singhal, “it’s also an imminent re...
After only 18 months, Mark Martinez again has officially become Tucumcari’s interim city manager. At Thursday's Tucumcari City Commission meeting, Martinez signed a contract to become Tucumcari’s interim city manager after the resignation of Britt Lusk, whose last day in the job was April 5. Two years ago, Martinez was named interim city manager after the resignation of then-city manager Jared Langenegger. Martinez’s new contract to serve as interim city manager covers 90 days, and his pay for that period will be $19,000, he said, which is 15...
Some people just can’t admit they were wrong. Too many of these, unfortunately, turn out to be the staunchest backers of President Donald Trump. They are so unable to admit they were wrong that even after Trump recanted his previous pooh-poohing of the coronavirus threat, they stand by Trump’s original opinions. The prime examples, in my humble opinion, are: • Tony Spell, the Louisiana pastor of the Life Tabernacle Church in Central, Louisiana, who continues to crowd his church for worship services despite the pandemic. It keeps the colle...
The city of Tucumcari is officially included among designated emergency areas in New Mexico in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as of Thursday. The Tucumcari City Commission unanimously approved a resolution that declared the city an emergency area and authorized the city to exercise “necessary emergency powers,” expend resources and request aid as needed. The commission amended the resolution Thursday to grant emergency power to Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield as well as to the city manager. • City manager Britt Lusk’s last day in the post is Apri...
COVID-19 has us all living through a great story. We’re in the middle of the excitement now and all waiting to see how it comes out. COVID-19 has a lot of heroes and villains, too. The disease itself is a great villain. It can be nasty and deadly. It sneaks around in healthy people with no symptoms and then insinuates itself into the vulnerable. The disease is also unpredictable. It can leave one body after only a few sniffles, and devastate or even kill even young people who carefully watch their health. The human heroes and villains are f...
The Tucumcari Housing Authority board agreed to surrender its property and management responsibilities to the Eastern Regional Housing Authority of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, based in Roswell. The housing authority board’s vote at a special meeting March 19 ended an effort to keep THA independent that began in August when state-level officials of the federal housing authority informed the THA board of their intention to bring THA under regional control. The March 19 decision came on a 4-1 vote of the THA board. T...
Here are some first-person accounts of what it’s like to go through COVID-19. Bottom line: You should stay home or do whatever you can to prevent its spread. A Korean man told Vice.com that three days after what started as a mild sore throat, he could no longer breathe properly. He went for a test and while standing in line, he fainted. When he got medicine and oxygen, he said, “I felt better to breathe, but (it) felt like having a heavy metal plate on my chest.” U.S. Rep. Ben McAdams, D-Utah, told CNN, “I feel like I have a belt around...
Rachelle Arias, the city of Tucumcari’s finance director, has filed a complaint with city manager Britt Lusk accusing two city commissioners of violating three sections of the city’s Governmental Code of Conduct ordinance. The complaint will be the subject of a public hearing tentatively scheduled for April 30, the commission decided at its March 12 meeting. Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield announced the grievance and the need for a hearing during the March 12 meeting. The Quay County Sun received Arias’ complaint from the city through an Inspe...
Clashes over the city’s marketing efforts and nuisance ordinance marked Thursday’s meeting of the Tucumcari City Commission, as well as an announcement that city employees had filed complaints about public mistreatment by two city commissioners. The complaint likely will become the first test of the city’s ethics ordinance passed in August. It was filed against District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya, who opposed the ordinance, and District 2 Commissioner Paul Villanueva, who was elected to the commission in November, according to an annou...
The impact of coronavirus has struck locally, even in isolated, rural Quay County, New Mexico. To my knowledge, as of this writing, Quay County has not recorded a case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but the state of New Mexico is doing everything it can to stop or slow the spread for the time being, and Quay County has not been exempted. Nor should we be. Thanks to our hosting of an iconic segment of Historic Route 66, we draw tourists from all over the world, so Tucumcari cannot claim to be isolated from a world-wide epide...
In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a gift to the idea of freedom of expression with its ruling in the New York Times v. Sullivan case. It is important to point out that the case could just have easily involved the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Breitbart, the National Review or the Atlantic — any outlet that either reports news objectively or openly advances an opinion. Times v. Sullivan established that proof of libel against a public figure must demonstrate actual malice in the form of falsity and “reckless disregard” for truth...
The Tucumcari Housing Authority board delayed action Thursday on a resolution that would have transferred jurisdiction over Tucumcari public housing to the Eastern Regional Housing Authority, which covers 12 counties in eastern New Mexico. The Tucumcari housing board decided on the delay to allow attorneys for the city to review the resolution. Thursday's vote to delay action continues a standoff between the city and the New Mexico office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development,...
With a deadline looming to apply for grants from the New Mexico Department of Tourism’s New Mexico True marketing arm, the Tucumcari City Commission decided to assign one of the city’s grant writers to attend an internet seminar this week to qualify the city to apply for a grant. That was a stopgap while the commission wrestles with longer-term issues, including whether to use New Mexico True at all, that were raised during discussion about the commission’s decision Feb. 13 to end a contract with Sunny505, an Albuquerque marketing firm that...
Well, President Trump’s first reaction to the Center for Disease Control’s announcement two weeks ago that a coronavirus epidemic was nearly inevitable was his usual stamping of feet. He denied facts that disagreed with his gut, which is motivated by what favors his immediate political needs. His lackeys moved in. They said nefarious, insidious, crafty, sinister Democrats had infiltrated the CDC to make it say horrible things about a major outbreak of corona virus’ COVID-19 with the sole purpose of scoring political points against their fanta...
Michael Bloomberg may not be my first choice for president, but I very much object to some of the objections that have been raised against him. Let me take those one at a time: 1. He’s rich: Yes. He built a media empire through innovative entrepreneurial skill and effectively led a growing business through all the stages of its development to the point where it’s now worth $60 billion (with a “B”). His opponents hold that against him. Most of us out here call that success. 2. He’s a racist: He instituted “stop-and-frisk” policing in high-crime...
Amid questions about its validity, the Tucumcari City Commission on Thursday passed by a 3-2 vote an ordinance designed to help the city keep historic neon signs in place. Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield, District 2 Commissioner Paul Villanueva and District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya voted in favor of the ordinance. District 4 Commissioner Chris Arias and District 5 Commissioner Todd Duplantis voted against it. The ordinance applies only to sign owners who volunteer to participate but imposes fines...
Tucumcari city manager Britt Lusk on Thursday evening announced his resignation from the city manager’s post and gave the city commission his 60-day notice at a regular meeting of the commission. Lusk said his last day will be April 5. Lusk has accepted a position as the city manager of Pilot Point, Texas, a lakeside community north of Dallas that has seen strong growth in the past 10 years. Pilot Point has about the same population as Tucumcari, he said. Lusk said working for the city “has been a pleasure,” and he was grateful for the exper...
The Tucumcari City Commission voted Thursday to end the city’s contract with Sunny505, an Albuquerque advertising and marketing firm, after the recommendation of the city’s lodgers tax board. The commission voted 4-1 to drop the contract, with District 4 Commissioner Chris Arias voting “no” and Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield reluctantly voting “yes,” to support the advice of the lodgers tax board. City manager Britt Lusk defended Sunny505's performance, saying its efforts had resulted in significant growth in gross receipts tax and lodgers tax...
Some observations on the presidential campaign so far: n Making predictions on the outcome of the Democratic nomination race based on results from two small, non-representative states is like predicting the winner of the Super Bowl based on pre-season games, which are essentially practice days. n In “All the President’s Men,” we learned about the GOP’s “Dirty Tricks Squad,” and its role in assuring the Democrats’ weakest candidate, George McGovern, got the nomination in 1972. Substitute “Russian trolls” for “Dirty Tricks Squad” and I think you...