Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Sorted by date Results 201 - 225 of 470
The July 4 temblor that rattled Southern California and even Las Vegas, Nevada, shook up some memories for me. The last time Southern California had a quake that measured as high as 6.4 on the Richter scale was about 20 years ago, and I was living there for that one. It registered 7.1, a big one, and occurred at 2:45 a.m. on Oct. 16, 1999. Its epicenter, for which quakes are named, was at Hector Mine, an abandoned quarry in the middle of California’s desolate high desert. It rumbled all over all over Southern California and even in Nevada, b...
Street projects received most of the Tucumcari City Commission’s action Thursday. The commission voted to contract with J&D Contracting Co. of Albuquerque for $470,615.73 for water line work on East Hancock Avenue from Rock Island Street to Choctaw Street. Assistant City Manager Mark Martinez said the work will include new sidewalks, curbs and wheelchair ramps. Sharayah Sisneros, a Community Development project manager, told the commission the city’s share of the cost is about $50,000, with the rest coming from federal Community Dev...
I did not watch the Democratic debates last week. I had more interesting things to do, like play with the Linux operating system on my computer, which for me might replace Windows 7 as Microsoft drops its support for it. Times change. At this point, the debates resemble nothing more than the old circus act in which a vehicle the size of a Smart Car rolls into the ring and 20 clowns emerge, some running, some doing cartwheels, some beeping old car horns, amazing and amusing us all. At this point, the spectacle of 20 people sharing a debate...
The Supreme Court last week made a decision whose minority opinions matter more to the future of federal, state and local government than the majority opinion that prevailed. That’s because one of the justices who upheld the majority signaled he would be willing to hear challenges to a principle that could render most of the government regulations written since 1935 unconstitutional. Under that principle, called “non-delegation,” Congress is supposed to be prohibited from passing laws, then transferring the power to the executive branch to es...
Tucumcari City Commissioner Ralph Moya, speaking as a citizen at Thursday’s city commission meeting, said his arrest June 8 on a warrant from Tucumcari Municipal Court for failing to appear in court came about because of a lack of communication. Moya, police records show, was not jailed as a result of the arrest, which he said was the result of a misunderstanding because he had called animal control officers earlier to report his sister-in-law’s dog had gotten loose. He was out of town at the time, and his sister-in-law had called to tell him...
The Tucumcari City Commission faces a delicate balance as it considers whether to adopt a code of conduct for the commission and city government employees. While the rest of the commissioners and Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield, not to mention City Manager Britt Lusk, are in favor of the code, District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya is dead set against it. He thinks it’s aimed at him. There is reason to believe that. Moya seems to think he was elected to fight City Hall, not to cooperate with an otherwise agreeable governing body. Other commissioners o...
There’s a lot of talk these days about “intellectual humility,” which most consider a virtue. It means you will occasionally admit when you’re wrong. It also means you’re open to new ideas, even from those who you think are wrong and learn from the experiences of people you disagree with. I try. President Donald Trump, the ultimate practitioner of intellectual arrogance, has a few ideas I actually agree with, even though, having never met the man, I hold him in deep disdain. I like the fact that he’s treating China like an enemy. I wish he’d t...
Here’s my scorecard on questions related to Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the campaign of President Donald Trump conspired with Russia: Did President Donald Trump or his campaign cooperate with Russian efforts to affect the outcome of the 2016 election? Republicans, 0.75; Democrats, 0.25. Mueller says he did not find enough evidence to indicate the Trump campaign criminally conspired with Russia. He did find evidence that the campaign might have known about and encouraged Russia’s anti-Hillary Clinton efforts. Reasonable doubt...
Where there’s art, there’s innovation, especially in rural communities. So says Richard Florida, who is described by Wikipedia as an American urban studies theorist focusing on social and economic theory. He teaches at the University of Toronto and has a consulting outfit called the Creative Class Group. The creative class — artists and innovators of all kinds — is something he writes about frequently. In a recent article called “The Rise of the Rural Creative Class” for a publication called “CityLab,” Florida demonstrates that creativity and...
House Schools Superintendent Bonnie Lightfoot received a two-year renewal on her contract and a 6% raise on May 20 after the House Municipal School Board held an executive session. The contract was renewed through school year 2020-21, and Lightfoot’s salary will increase from from about $96,000 to about $101,600, according to figures provided by Derrick Terrell, the district’s business manager. The 6% raise was included in legislation passed by the 2019 New Mexico Legislature that provided raises for teachers and school administrators across th...
It’s over. The “Game of Thrones” television series, which has treated viewers to epic-movie-quality episodes for eight years, aired its final cliff-hanging installment on Sunday. I didn’t watch it. I’m too cheap to subscribe to cable or satellite television or to pay the added fee for HBO. I’ll see it later, when the DVDs for Season 8 are available at reduced rates. I did manage to watch the first seven seasons through means both fair and foul. I also have managed to read the books on which the series was based, the five existing novels in t...
The Tucumcari City Commission on Thursday approved a preliminary budget for the next fiscal year that begins July 1 that leaves a $622,000 deficit in the general fund but a positive balance of about $91,000 overall. The commission voted 3-1, with District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya casting a “no” vote, to approve one of three options City Manager Britt Lusk and Treasurer Rachelle Arias presented in a two-hour public work session before the regular meeting Thursday. The option the commission approved would allow the Tucumcari Police Dep...
The investigation into Russian involvement in President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign has inevitably been compared to the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon in 1974. The same fierce battles are raging and both sides are using means both fair and foul. The presidents, however, are a stark contrast. If I had to choose between them, Nixon would win hands down. Nixon grew up poor in California towns. Trump was born rich and stayed that way in spite of huge business losses. Nixon made his own way through Whittier College a h...
The Constitution according to President Donald Trump: The Pre-Ramble Me, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union (the MOST PERFECT EVER), establish Justice against WITCH HUNTS, insure domestic Tranquility but not Health Care, provide for the common Defense with a WALL, promote the general Welfare but not Welfare in general, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourself and our Prosperity, do ordain and establish this Constitution ... yadda yadda. • The president is elected by the people, so I am the people. I c...
The title of a New York Times op-ed for April 23 looked ridiculous on its face: “The Best Way to Rejuvenate Rural America? Invest in Cities.” The report by Nathan Arnosti and Amy Liu did not disappoint. It made as much sense as another recent opinion piece that said one solution to rural America’s problems would be to make it easier for country folk to afford living in cities. People live in rural areas for a reason: They like it there. The consensus of recent opinions I have read seems to be that rural towns like Tucumcari, Logan, San Jon a...
Nine events and organizations received final approval for lodgers’ tax funding Thursday from the Tucumcari City Commission, all at the levels recommended by city staff after review of the city’s lodgers’ tax board. In some cases, the city granted more than the lodgers’ tax board recommended. City Manager Britt Lusk said the city was able to raise those amounts because it is expecting to receive more in lodgers’ tax revenue than expected in the fiscal year that begins July 1. The city was budgeted $315,000 in lodgers’ tax funds for fiscal 2020...
The Tucumcari City Commission took these actions at its regular meeting Thursday in city council chambers at Tucumcari City Hall: • Terminated a federal grant administered through the New Mexico Department of Transportation for $120,000, designed to help resurface Second Street south of the downtown area. Project manager Ralph Lopez told the commission $80,000 of the grant money would have had to be spent on historical and other studies, leaving only $40,000 for resurfacing. Lopez said the city would seek grant funding from less-restrictive s...
I should read the Mueller report but I have not. It is plain, however, that it makes President Donald Trump look too desperate in his efforts to stop Robert Mueller’s investigation, whether or not they reached the level of criminality. The continued steadfast loyalty of President Trump’s base to “their” guy, who has shown himself to be delusional, amoral, dishonest, and narcissistic enough almost to declare “I am the state,” is even more of a mystery in light of the Mueller report’s revelations. To fire up his base to come blindly to hi...
HOUSE — The fate of House Schools Superintendent Bonnie Lightfoot’s contract was not on the House school board agenda April 15, but it was on the minds of teachers, parents and students who spoke at the meeting. Two teachers, a parent and a student spoke in Lightfoot’s favor, and parents of a special education student spoke against renewing her contract after the current school year. Speakers indicated that parents had said during March’s House school board meeting that some teachers had received low ratings, which they apparently blamed on fav...
A discussion of whether the Tucumcari City Commission should adopt a code of conduct according to guidelines of new state legislation Thursday turned on whether parts of the code would stifle dissent. At a public work session before Thursday’s regular commission meeting, City Manager Britt Lusk showed commissioners a preliminary draft of a code-of-conduct ordinance, using material gleaned from similar codes adopted in Hobbs, Alamogordo, Silver City and Roosevelt County, as well as from New Mexico’s Government Conduct Act. District 1 Com...
From what I’ve seen, I really don’t like Julian Assange. He is reputedly as narcissistic as they come and apparently lived somewhat piggishly as a citizen of Ecuador in London to escape sexual assault charges in Sweden, which, I understand, have been dropped. The Ecuadoran embassy was ready to kick him out because he was a sloppy cat owner and wouldn’t fix the toilet. In the end, the Ecuadorans got so fed up with him for these and other reasons, they let London police carry him off last week so he could face charges in the U.S. Offic...
Another decade, another bubble, and then another recession, beginning either this year or next. At least that’s what some Wall Street wizards are saying. One, Robert Kessler, recently appeared on a show called Wealthtrack on PBS, which advises high rollers who rise early on Sundays about ways to preserve or grow their riches. Kessler sees a bubble getting ready to pop in low-grade corporate debt, which could be accompanied by a long fall. Consumer spending rallies usually pull ailing economies back to health, but Kessler doesn’t see that hap...
The report from Robert Mueller’s apparently meticulous, exhaustive investigation of who may have committed what campaign no-nos in the 2016 campaign has had the nation holding its breath for weeks now. You know what happens when you hold your breath too long? Brain damage. Here are some things to do while breathing and waiting for the Mueller report: • Wait for Santa Fe’s George R.R. Martin to finish “The Winds of Winter,” the sixth book in the “Song of Ice and Fire” series that gave us the wildly popular “Game of Thrones” TV series. The serie...
The Tucumcari City Commission reached a consensus in a public work session Thursday that shrines should not be allowed in the future at the Tucumcari Memorial Park cemetery, but existing shrines will be allowed to stand unless they are damaged. The ban on new shrines will be outlined in an ordinance, City Manager Britt Lusk said, and the city’s Cemetery Advisory Board will assemble the first draft of the ordinance and present it to the city commission at a later date. Further, if shrines are damaged, Lusk said, they will be removed and p...
We who work in literary forms, even journalism, often become enamored with scientific principles that we systematically misapply to our own work. Two of these are the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and entropy, the tendency of atoms and electrons toward chaos and heat to dissipate into cold. The Heisenberg theory says you can change an atom you are watching just by observing it. The photons, or subatomic units of light, you’re using to see the atom might muck up its structure. Literary folks have jumped all over entropy and applied it to r...