Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Sorted by date Results 426 - 450 of 470
A $1 million renovation of downtown Tucumcari’s Princess Theater is one of the key elements to the final stage of the Metropolitan Redevelopment Area (MRA) plan, according to Sites Southwest planners. Josh Johnson and James Foty, planners for Sites Southwest, the Albuquerque design and planning firm that has guided the MRA process, summarized the plan for the Tucumcari City Commission on Thursday. The plan also includes improvements to storefronts facing on downtown streets and demolition of some buildings. Johnson said public commentary w...
Plains Regional Medical Center Administrator Vince DiFranco, who is now administrator for the Dan C. Trigg Memorial Hospital in Tucumcari, will focus his efforts on "tying two communities together." DiFranco said Presbyterian Health Services has combined two administrations into one in order to streamline the process of unifying the two operations and pave the way for more sharing of physicians and other medical specialists between the two hospitals. Trigg Administrator Don Weidemann was dismissed from his position as of Feb. 10 and spent his...
Tucumcari city commissioners agreed among themselves Thursday to consider reducing fines in the city’s 11-month-old “nuisance ordinance” designed to improve the city’s appearance by addressing neglected properties and deteriorated abandoned buildings. The nuisance ordinance is a key issue in a recall petition started by Tucumcari resident and business owner Keith Hayes, who has been fined $645 for violations of the nuisance ordinance on four properties he owns in the city that are strewn with unused semi-trucks, trailers, cement trucks and oth...
Based on opposition from Nara Visa residents, the Quay County Commission has withdrawn support for a proposed borehole to be drilled through three miles of granite near Nara Visa. The companies bidding for the borehole contract, however, have apparently not given up. Nara Visa residents based their opposition on unfounded suspicions they might bury nuclear waste there. Nara Visa, however, is an absolutely lousy place to put nuclear waste, though it’s a great place to find out if you can drill straight through three miles of granite. Here are 1...
Don Weidemann, administrator for the Dan C. Trigg Memorial Hospital, will be leaving the position as of Friday. Troy Clark, vice president of regional operations for Presbyterian Health Services, which operates Trigg Hospital, said Weidemann has been dismissed, and his duties will be taken over by Vince DiFranco, who currently administers Plains Regional Medical Center (PRMC) in Clovis. DiFranco will also continue as PRMC administrator. “Don has done a great job for us,” Clark said. “He will be seeking other opportunities, and we will help...
Two companies want to combine forces to drill one or two boreholes three miles deep near Nara Visa to test whether boreholes might be part of the solution to the nation’s high-level nuclear waste problem. The ultra-deep Nara Visa test holes would be an experiment to find out if they are even doable, according to Marc Eckles, the DOSECC drilling company’s project manager for the proposed deep pokes. DOSECC would work with Enercon, the company that is seeking to win the borehole contract from the U.S. Department of Energy, which eventually mus...
The Tucumcari City Commission agreed to apply for $41,210 in grant funds from the New Mexico Department of Transportation for improvements on Second Street from Historic Route 66 Boulevard to Main Street during their Thursday commission meeting. The grant would be matched with about $13,740 in local funds to finance about $54,950 in improvements to the Second Street’s downtown portion, according to Ralph Lopez, a project manager for the city’s community development corporation. While the Second Street project is the most likely use for the fun...
If you’re looking for an instructive experience that is also a lesson in balancing control and chaos, I would suggest a visit to New Mexico’s State Capitol while the Legislature is in session. The Roundhouse, as the building is known because it resembles a four-story doughnut, lies a few blocks beyond the history and luxury around Santa Fe Plaza. I was there to represent the Quay County Health Council at the Legislature’s Public Health Day. I hoped that others would go but ended up going alone. I came to the Roundhouse armed with a displ...
By Steve Hansen QCS correspondent [email protected] Don Weidemann, administrator for the Dan C. Trigg Memorial Hospital, will be leaving the position as of Friday. Troy Clark, vice president of regional operations for Presbyterian Health Services, which operates Trigg Hospital, said Weidemann has been dismissed, and his duties will be taken over by Vince DiFranco, who currently administers Plains Regional Medical Center (PRMC) in Clovis. DiFranco will also continue as PRMC administrator. “Don has done a great job for us,” Clark sai...
Tucumcari Mayor Pro Tem Robert Lumpkin Thursday asked fellow Tucumcari commissioners to consider putting decisions about penalties for failure to correct property nuisances in the hands of the municipal judge, not city officials. Lumpkin’s remarks were part of a commission workshop before Thursday’s regular commission meeting and came on the heels of a petition filed by business owner Keith Hayes to recall all four Tucumcari city commissioners. Hayes is the owner of Hayes Trucking in the 100 block of West Railroad Avenue, which has been fin...
The phrase “alternative facts” has caused a huge uproar between the new Trump administration and the media, whose livelihood depends on facts. When a Trump administration representative said the administration had presented “alternative facts,” the media’s response was that the alternative to facts was lies. In that sense, of course, “alternative facts” are just plain unacceptable, but the lines can get blurry, just as they have become with “fake news.” In politics lately, any news that seems to challenge one side’s assumptions is labe...
President Trump’s inaugural address has been received alternately with adulation and shock and dismay from the predictable sources. The question remains, however, who wrote it? Having done limited work as a speech writer, I can tell you that Trump’s inaugural address had the earmarks of a professionally written speech. Consider this excerpt: “Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. And while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all acr...
Tucumcari city commissioners took time before conducting regular business Thursday to pay tribute to John Mihm, the former District 5 commissioner who died suddenly on Dec. 19 at age 50. Commissioners discussed how his position will be filled. "This is hard for me," Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield said before she read a proclamation honoring Mihm. The proclamation was then presented to Mihm's mother Joan Boue and her husband, John Boue. Mihm's place on the commission's dais was marked with a single...
I have two words of advice for the Republican Congress as it gets ready to perform major surgery on Obamacare: Go slow. Obamacare itself was passed so quickly that even its Democrat sponsors weren’t able to tell you exactly what was in it. The result seems to have been a well-meant but deeply flawed attempt to spread health insurance to everyone and get a handle on reducing at least the soaring rate of inflation in our health care costs. So far Obamacare seems to have achieved neither goal, even though the Democrats, in my opinion, have u...
By Steve Hansen QCS correspondent The Quay County Commission on Monday voted 2-1 to contract with former New Mexico Sen. Clint Harden of Clovis to work as a lobbyist in the New Mexico Legislature on the county’s behalf. Commissioners Mike Cherry and Franklin McCasland voted in favor of the contract, and Commissioner Sue Dowell voted against the measure. Dowell said the county’s state legislative representatives — Rep. Dennis Roch, R-Logan and Sen. Pat Woods, R-Broadview — already advocate effectively for the county, along with the New Mexico...
By Steve Hansen QCS correspondent The Quay County Commission on Monday re-elected District III Commissioner Franklin McCasland to chair the commission through 2017. The commission also heard a report from Dan. C. Trigg Memorial Hospital Administrator Don Weidemann and Craig Cosner, member of the hospital board, and from Tucumcari Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Pat Vanderpool. Weidemann and Cosner discussed the hospital’s three-year strategic plan, which goes into effect this year. The hospital plans to add services from a...
British author George Bernard Shaw observed that England and America were “two nations divided by a common language.” After visiting England recently, I have concluded that phrase is less true now than ever. Even though the English still have those funny accents, and they have for a far longer time than the U.S. has been around, I found much more commonality between the two countries than differences. McDonald’s, KFC and Starbucks are everywhere, especially at English Welcome Break centers along the motorways, the equivalent of U.S. Inter...
I was visiting England last week when I learned that John Mihm had died. His sudden and untimely passing leaves me with a sense of loss. I was not one of John’s close friends, but I was well acquainted with John and admired him and his accomplishments. I had done a little work with John on economic development matters and bought eyeglasses from him. I also covered the five-person race in which he won his Tucumcari City Commission seat and talked to him often about city business and economic development. My sense of loss comes from what he h...
Dan C. Trigg Memorial Hospital will be without surgical services from March through at least September, according to Presbyterian Healthcare Services officials. Dr. Victor Davis, who has provided surgical services for the hospital, is retiring on March 2, said Trigg Administrator Don Weidemann. A replacement for Davis is not likely to begin working for Presbyterian Health Services, which operates Trigg Hospital, until at least September, Weidemann said. In the meantime, Weidemann said, three hospital employees who have worked in the Trigg’s s...
City commissioners and City Manager Jared Langenegger have joined employers in feeling confused about recent federal actions regarding overtime pay. At a public workshop held before the Thursday city commission meeting, the commissioners seemed to agree that the city should not take back some pay decisions made between approval of new U.S. Department of Labor regulations and the federal appeals court decision that overturned the DOL regulations. The commission cannot take action at workshop sessions, but commissioners agreed to put the pay...
The Tucumcari City Commission cleared the way Thursday for a new “cell” at the city’s landfill and part of a water line that will allow business expansion at Interstate 40 and Mountain Road. The commission named Sierra Valley Contractors, LLC, of Truth or Consequences to build the new section for the landfill. Sierra Valley was the low bidder with a price of $429,210, according to the bid summary submitted by project engineer Gordon Environmental PSC. City Manager Jared Langenegger said the project should be completed by March or April 2017,...
For the second consecutive year, Wall Street 24/7, a respected online business news publication, has ranked New Mexico as the worst-run state in the union. WS24/7 faults the state’s high rate of poverty, its low rate of high school graduates and its declining labor force, combined with a high rate of unemployment. Further, WS24/7 notes, the state’s debt and outlook have been downgraded. Our tax shortages were large and unexpected, the publication says. Comparing New Mexico both to the best-performing states and its neighbors raises a lot of...
By Steve Hansen QCSun Correspondent La Placita Plaza Inc. has donated the site of Tucumcari's former ALCO store to the Mesalands Community College Foundation, the college announced Friday in a news release. The 40,000-square foot building located on Historic Route 66 will be used "to support the growth and expansion of programs and services offered at Mesalands Community College," the release said. "The College is always appreciative of the support that we receive from the Mesalands Community...
I find it a little odd that a nation that flocks to stories about heroes who break the rules becomes shocked and outraged when inconsequential misdeeds by candidates for public office and high-ranking officials are made public. I’m going to relate this to a public debate raging about former Gen. David Petraeus and Hillary Clinton. Petraeus is a candidate for secretary of state and Clinton, of course, has already served in that capacity. We admire people who do great things, especially if they break rules that get in their way and defy a...
I hope everybody's Thanksgiving was as good as mine. Some thoughts while reading newspapers over the holiday: Why does "politicizing" an issue mean that "somebody is saying or doing something I disagree with?" It's all politics. If Hillary's "atrocities" were at all serious, why are they being pardoned now? Could it be that they were blown way out of proportion in the first place? The left's hand-wringing long before Trump even gets close to occupying the Oval Office is every bit as annoying as was the right's instant panic over Obama. So is th...