Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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A mediation hearing is scheduled for Friday in Albuquerque federal district court in a civil case against Tucumcari city and police officials filed by owners of the Payless Inn, which was destroyed in an arson fire in 2014 started by former Tucumcari police officer Dustin Lopez while he was still on the police force. Last Thursday, the Tucumcari City Commission approved $25,000 allocation for the deductible portion of the settlement of this case, indicating a settlement might be near. In the case, Maggie Ventures, L.L.C. of Nevada, the...
I’ve been trying to get a handle on what’s going on with Trump and Russia, Hillary and Russia and all the dossiers, secret meetings and bipartisan obfuscation. I did a little research and came up with this possible guide to the apparent components of what may be going on, maybe: Trump-Russia The key question: Did the Donald Trump campaign get illegal help from the Russian government in the process of electing Trump our president? Robert Mueller is the special counsel in charge of the official investigation into that question. He’s not sayin...
Solowork, which has been presented to the Tucumcari City Commission and the Quay County Commission, is part of a revolution in the way Americans think about work. The idea of Solowork is that if employers won’t come to Quay County, at least work can be sent to them. Communications technology has made such remote work commonplace. Pat Vanderpool, the county’s economic development director, sees major benefits to Quay County’s workforce through this idea, which has taken a while to catch on, even though it has been around in some form or other...
As a journalist working for a rural local newspaper, I am heartened by what I’ve been reading about rural newspapers lately. Over the past 20 years or so, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have disgorged editorial staff and shrunk their daily products from the size of a mid-size city phone book to something you could easily fold into a paper hat. The one bright spot in the newspaper world seems to be little old rural dailies and weeklies like the one you’re reading. And, by the way, thank you. The bright spot is that little has cha...
Tucumcari City Manager Jared Langenegger has resigned from his post, effective April 11. Langenegger made the announcement at Thursday’s city commission meeting. After an executive session following the meeting, the commission, all expressing reluctance, accepted Langenegger’s resignation. District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya, smiling, voted “no” on accepting the resignation. Moya, as did the other commissioners, expressed gratitude to Langenegger for his service and regrets at his leaving. “You’ve done a good job,” Moya said to Langenegger d...
The Tucumcari City Commission Thursday resolved to support efforts to establish a “Solo Work” facility in the city, which would provide offices and equipment for area residents who work for remote employers. The Greater Tucumcari Economic Development Corporation (EDC) is responding to a request for proposals from the New Mexico Economic Development Department to establish a Solo Work program in Tucumcari, EDC Director Pat Vanderpool said. He also requested the city commission reserve up to $105,000 in Local Economic Development Act funds to...
While New Mexico Department of Tourism officials marveled at the passion they saw in the owners of businesses and volunteer leaders they met Monday as they toured Tucumcari and Quay County, Tucumcari officials who hosted them countered that local residents complain there's nothing going on in Quay County. The tourism department officials got a day-long tour of Tucumcari and Quay County, hosted by city officials and other community leaders. Tucumcari City Manager Jared Langenegger drove the...
Tucumcari’s Kmart store, which survived numerous announcements of Sears and Kmart store shutdowns over the past several years, finally got its death notice last week. It will shut down in early April, according to Sears Holdings, which owns or controls Sears and Kmart stores throughout the U.S. This means Tucumcari and Quay County no longer have a “big box” store. ALCO, the other big box store, shut down in early 2015, due to the bankruptcy of its parent company. By comparison, waiting for the closing of the Kmart has been like getting pecke...
Tucumcari City Manager Jared Langenegger has resigned from his post, effective April 11. Langenegger made the announcement at Thursday's city commission meeting. After an executive session following the meeting, the commission, all expressing reluctance, accepted Langenegger's resignation. District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya, smiling, voted "no" on accepting the resignation. Moya, as did the other commissioners, expressed gratitude to Langenegger for his service and regrets at his leaving. "You'v...
Determined Nara Visa residents in 2017 successfully marshaled opposition to a proposed three-mile-deep borehole to test a way to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste until the project was abandoned in late May. Their efforts, and parallel opposition efforts in three other locations nationwide proposed for test boreholes, persisted until the DOE's abandoned the idea. The boreholes were to be drilled to test the feasibility of the deep borehole concept as a possible final storage solution...
Tucumcari’s nuisance law, which seeks to enforce yard and building standards in a city riddled with abandoned, deteriorating buildings and weed-choked lots, survived opposition in 2017 that included an attempt to recall all city commissioners. Keith Hayes, 74, owner of Hayes Trucking and Concrete, responded to the city’s attempt to enforce the ordinance on some of his properties by seeking a recall of all the sitting commissioners. He succeeded in obtaining enough signatures to force a recall election for three of the commissioners, coming shor...
As I write this column, I have just finished assembling the Quay County Sun’s “year in review” stories. The two major, long-term stories were about protests. Both were underdog stories. One started as one man against a city, the other was about a rural community taking a stand against two corporations and a major department of the federal government. In the first case, the underdog seems to have lost. He was not alone in his fight against the city, however, since he got enough signatures on petitions to launch a recall election against three...
Seamus Wray remembers that he painted his first wall mural when he was six years old. Then he got punished, but his current wall mural will bring him $10,000, he said. This is his nearly completed work on the south- and east-facing walls of Tucumcari's long-abandoned Princess Theater on Main Street downtown. Restoring the theater for community use has become a centerpiece of continuing efforts to revitalize Tucumcari's downtown area through city government and Tucumcari Main Street. Wray is...
A small army of government officials, college professors, students and local officials from as far away as Manhattan, Kansas, near Topeka, are focusing talents and expertise on a patch of Tucumcari's west end that includes the city's old Shell Truck Stop. The area, which also includes two abandoned motels, will be the subject of expert advice on cleaning up environmental hazards, then developing the property through a program called Technical Assistance to Brownfields (TAB), sponsored by the...
Holiday season financial news has been dominated by the Republicans’ tax plan and rush to bitcoins. Both leave me scratching my head. The Atlantic Monthly and Fox News agree the tax plan will mean lower taxes for just about everybody. At least next year, maybe. The mainstream media, however, say the plan is a disaster for the middle class. I don’t know who to believe. If the Republicans’ tax plan is confusing, bitcoins are baffling, but I wish I had bought a few back in January when their value was $894 per coin. On Friday, the value per coin...
A computer with an internet connection and a cell phone are the only hardware devices many jobs require these days. That means that many residents of rural communities, like those in Quay County, could work for employers located all over the planet without leaving the county. That’s the idea behind Solowork, an idea that the New Mexico Economic Development Department, through its Job Training Incentive Program (JTIP), would like to develop, especially in rural areas. Pat Vanderpool, executive director of the Greater Tucumcari Economic D...
The Tucumcari City Commission Thursday approved a $500,000 grant to install increased-capacity water lines and make other improvements on Hancock and College streets on Tucumcari’s east side. According to grant documents, The federal Community Development Block Grant will cover: • Construction of 10-inch- and six-inch-diameter water mains on Hancock from Rock Island Street west to Dawson Street, then on College Street north from Hancock Street to High Street, according to a grant document. • Installation costs for three fire hydrants, five...
A central theme of Thursday’s Tucumcari City Commission meeting was marketing. The commission decided to solicit bids from firms that could put together a comprehensive marketing and branding strategy for attracting tourists into the city, but commissioners also saw presentations from a musician and comedian who also produces promotional events and materials, and a video producer who has done promotional programs for the city. Before the commission approved putting out a request for proposals for a marketing plan, City Manager Jared L...
Tucumcari's Five Mile Park is the focus of an effort led by the U.S. National Parks Service to develop the rugged property for increased visits from both Quay County residents and tourists. Attila Bality, an outdoor recreation planner for the National Parks Service, guided city and county leaders in setting up a framework for determining how Five Mile Park can meet community needs as defined by community members, then plan actions that need to be taken to ready the park for community and...
The federal Centers for Disease Control denied it over the weekend, but for a while, the country thought there were seven words that the CDC was prohibited from using in reports to Congress. There was no prohibition, it turns out, but there was apparently some advice against using these words floating around several federal departments. The words are “vulnerable,” “diversity,” “fetus,” “transgender,” “entitlement,” “science-based” and “evidence-based.” Ma, put your hands over Junior’s ears. We can’t have language like that in our house...
In about six months, Quay County should have a new comprehensive plan that will include results from citizen comments and outline a path to achieve county goals, according to Phyllis Taylor, a principal with Sites Southwest, an Albuquerque architecture, design and planning firm. Taylor told the Quay County Commission on Monday during a “kickoff meeting” to begin the process that plan development would begin in January with public outreach to seek suggestions on land use, transportation, housing, economic development, infrastructure, hazard miti...
Two ribbon-cutting ceremonies Friday helped launch two new businesses in Tucumcari. One marked the beginning of a new chapter for a Tucumcari landmark, a Victorian mansion in the downtown area, as a bed and breakfast. The other announced the opening of a counseling service, owned and operated by Sabrina Gaskill, a licensed clinical social worker. The office is located at 706 S. First St., Suite 111. The century-old, two-story Victorian home at 401 S. First St. has become the Doll House Bed and...
President Donald Trump recently reduced the size of a couple of national monuments in Utah. This has the environmental community up in arms. The environmentalists apparently think that opening this land to agricultural and industrial use will destroy the land. Implicit in that argument is that hikers, campers, picnickers, photographers, movie-makers, and recreational vehicles have less impact. I tend to disagree with that assessment. That is based on my observations of northeastern New Mexico, which consists mostly of several million acres of o...
I’ll lay my cards on the table: I do not like President Donald Trump. I would not like him as a Republican. I would not like him as a Democrat. Here’s why: Trump is the answer to what would happen if that opinionated guy down the street, who doesn’t know any more than I do, were to be elected president. Trump loyalists still think Trump should have some kind of immunity from what we used to call common courtesy and decency, because he’s showing them, by golly, just like they would. To me, we’ve elected a neighborhood blowhard, who used to b...
I think fantasy literature is supposed to appeal mostly to the young. Being a retiree, however, does not stop me from being fascinated by what I consider the best of this kind of literature in print or on screen. The holidays of “Miracle on 34th Street” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” are upon us, so I think it’s a good time to reflect on fantasy . I got caught up in Middle Earth by reading the “Lord of the Rings” books by J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson’s lovingly executed and lavishly budgeted films of the three volumes. I started reading G...