Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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The Tucumcari City commission on Thursday approved an agreement with organizers of the proposed "Bands of Enchantment" television series through which the city will support production of the series' first four episodes in three payments totaling $60,000 in Lodgers Tax funds. Tyson Chavez, one of the organizers with Elkhorn Entertainment, told the commission that timing of the funding was critical and that the $60,000 covers only part of production costs. Organizers plan to make Tucumcari the...
One of President-elect Joe Biden’s top priorities should be determining what ignited the mania for President Donald Trump and keeps it aflame, then finding ways to address the unmet needs of the74 million people who voted in favor of a second Trump term. Biden should immediately begin to address their needs rather than merely stoke their suspicions as Trump has done for the past four years. It won’t be easy, and it will probably require years of replacing the mistrust that elected Trump in 2016 — and that Trump reignited at every oppor...
I am writing this on Thanksgiving, when I shouldn’t be working on a column. But here I am, working on a column while I anticipate the annual feast. It’s going to be about being thankful. Gratitude is good for you and the people you thank. The usual thing columnists do on Thanksgiving is talk about what they’re thankful for. I’ll continue that tradition. In 2020, the year whose name denotes perfect vision, ours was dimmed by a world-wide pandemic. But those who read this column, whether I can count them on one hand or both, are alive, and, I...
To promote the city's new logo, the Tucumcari City Commission voted to spend $5,000 in lodgers tax funds to help produce promotional items sporting the city's new emblem. The logo is the product of a branding effort that included city government, the city's Lodgers Tax Advisory Board and Tucumcari MainStreet. District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya reminded the commission and those watching or listening to the meeting that lodgers tax funds are reserved for promotional activities. Lodgers taxes are...
The last time our election results were as fraught as they are today was in 1877, when a candidate who lost the popular vote in 1876 won the election quite literally by an act of Congress. Of the four candidates involved in the 1876 and 2020 races, three were honorable. It's sad to note that the exception is currently sitting in the White House with the apparent intent of occupying it in the same sense that Occupy Wall Street wanted to overturn the corporate world, without adequate popular support and, it seemed, by any means fair or foul. Acco...
In theory, there is a point where the economic impact of shutting down for the coronavirus is greater than the impact of the virus in terms of lives lost and reduction in quality of life. Where that point is continues to be debated by economists and, as we have seen, policy makers. The policy makers, however, are often guided by party affiliation and politics instead of the realities of the pandemic and economics. Economists, who are often guided by equations that provide numerical support for theories, find themselves in the same quandary as...
Watching the election returns trickle in as vote counts drag on is like waiting for a root canal to be over even with two people and four hands working as fast as care allows on a tooth the size of pea. But all the networks and news organizations predict winners, usually quite accurately, before the counts are done. I’m writing this on Friday when we still didn’t know if we’d be congratulating a president or a president-elect. So, how do the prognosticators practice their magic? It’s not magic. It’s science, statistics and probabili...
With the image dancing in my head of a triumphant Harry Truman holding up the newspaper headline “Dewey Defeats Truman” after he defeated Dewey, I refrain from predictions. So I am writing two very brief columns today, the Friday before Election Day, one for either outcome in the presidential race: Congratulations, President Donald Trump Congratulations, Mr. President. I did not vote for you, but I accept your victory. Please prove me wrong about you. I am shaking my head at the prospect of another four years of chaotic, impulsive mis...
Tucumcari continues to be entitled to up to 6,000 acre-feet of water from Ute Lake and agrees to pay $9,000 to the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer to preserve rights to that water for one year under terms of a joint powers agreement the city commission approved Thursday. The agreement has been in effect since 1995. Other participants in the pact who are united as the Ute Reservoir Water Commission include Quay County, San Jon and Logan, as well as Clovis, Portales and other communities in Curry and Roosevelt counties. Tucumcari’s 6...
If you get your news from New Mexico commercial TV, you would think there are two U.S. congressional races in the state, not including the one in the Third Congressional District that includes Quay County, Clovis and Portales. In our district, we have heard a lot of noise in the races for U.S. Senate race and for the U.S. House in the Second Congressional District but relatively little about the race in our own district. We have plenty of attack ads from both parties in our U.S. Senate race between Democrat Ben Ray Lujan and Republican Mark Ron...
Two proposals to promote Tucumcari via entertainment received funding authorization Thursday from the Tucumcari City Commission. “Bands of Enchantment,” a proposed music television series approved by the New Mexico Public Broadcasting System and primarily featuring New Mexico musicians, received up to $60,000 in city lodgers’ tax proceeds to produce four of eight episodes planned for the series, as recommended by the city’s lodgers’ tax board. Vince Chavez, owner of La Tewa Media LLC, based in Sapello, said the series will be produced...
After hearing the Oct. 6 vice presidential candidates debate by Queensbury rules, I had to ask if I were the only one left wondering if vice presidential candidates should have been leading their tickets, especially after the barroom behavior of the ticket headers the week before. The best part of the vice presidential debate wasn’t the fly on Vice President Mike Pence’s head, it was the debate — the usual kind between candidates, complete with talking points, verbal jabs at each other and the tops of their tickets, deflections and dodge...
Just in case I was missing life in Southern California, eastern New Mexico has been getting a little bit of California in the air over the past several weeks. Westerly winds have carried smoke from California’s catastrophic wildfires to Quay County in varying quantities. On good days, it was a light haze that created an eerie orange glow with a red sun in the morning and evening. On bad days, it shrouds even the passes through the mesas. In that way, it reminds me of most days in Southern California. Smog routinely fogged the valley we lived i...
The city of Tucumcari had a choice between principle and practicality in dealing with an abandoned pontoon boat that haunted a Tucumcari street for months before city officials hauled it to city lot, where it stands today. Tucumcari Police Chief David Lathrom told a City Commission work session Thursday that when the boat first was brought to the attention of city officials, he presented then-city manager Britt Lusk with a choice: Tag it, tow it and dispose of it, or find owner James Napier of...
President Trump has been calling Democrats “radical socialists” and just last week, he said they might be “Communist.” Trump knows that words like “socialist” and “Communist” are bad. But I wonder if he knows what these words mean. There are two common meanings for “socialism.” One is moving toward economic equality among people. The other is state control of goods and services. The U.S. is a capitalist country, we are taught to believe, so we think free markets should control just about everything in the way of goods and services. Most econ...
Ross Douthat is a New York Times columnist who occasionally throws cold water onto the Times' generally red-hot liberal editorial opinions. Douthat's Sept.12 column, to me, was one of his most thoughtful and disturbing to those who, like me, tend to think President Donald Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented, world-class disaster. After reading Douthat and probing a little more, I have to conclude that while Trump's response certainly made our COVID-19 response worse than it could have been, we should consider...
After serving as Tucumcari’s interim city manager twice in three years, Mark Martinez has become city manager without the “interim.” The Tucumcari City Commission voted to hire Martinez as the city manager Thursday and approved a two-year contract with Martinez that includes an annual salary of $80,000. As interim city manager, Martinez’s salary had been the equivalent of about $76,000 a year. “We’re very pleased and happy to welcome Mark as our city manager,” Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield said in introducing the contract for commission vo...
Last week, we began learning about what President Donald Trump knew about the coronavirus and when he knew it as Watergate journalist Bob Woodward previewed a new Trump book called “Rage.” On Feb. 7, Trump apparently told Woodward that COVID-19 is “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” “This is deadly stuff,” he added. Woodward has been justly criticized for not revealing the facts of this interview much earlier, but Woodward isn’t the president of the United States. Trump is. Well, the president didn’t want to cause a panic, he told...
President Donald Trump recently tweeted, “The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to @starsandstripes magazine under my watch. It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!” The events leading up to this tweet have been confusing. Did the Pentagon or Trump shut down Stars and Stripes, a decision that Trump later reversed? Stars and Stripes is a venerable military funded yet independent news outlet for service members. The Stars and Stripes story broke in the wake of an Atlantic magazine art...
A house on a residential block of Tucumcari may become the site of a liquor license, according to the property owner, Ralph Moya, and a notification on the doorway of the abandoned residence. Moya, who is District 1 Commissioner on the Tucumcari City Commission, recused himself and spoke as a citizen Thursday after two neighbors complained to the commission about the potential liquor license and what it could mean in terms of late-night music and drunk driving, Both neighbors spoke Thursday in public comments. Moya, however, said the...
Political conventions have never presented the most honest version of American politics. If the economy is good, the party in power has always taken credit. If not, it’s always been because of the failed policies of the other party. If the polls are good, you flaunt it. If not, you say you never rely on them anyway. Political conventions have always been where the parties trot out their best, hide their worst, and everybody downplays or exaggerates, as needed. The Republicans this year played faster and looser with rules and laws than any p...
In their convention last week, the Democratic Party strongly signaled a return to American politics as usual. At least one party has gone back to the “big tent” concept, which tries to unite occasionally fractious divisions behind a single candidate, who then works to appease all factions in some way. If Joe Biden wins the election in November, which to me is not assured despite the chorus of mainstream media polling that shows Biden way ahead, I hope the Republicans will rethink their strategy. I would hope they would abandon their cur...
Warning: The following is not true. I make my point at the end: Call me R, not Q as in QAnon, just R. Welcome to my anonymous “dark web” site. The evidence for this story has been buried in a place more secret than Jimmy Hoffa’s grave, so don’t even try to find it. I was a soldier in the New York Mafia in the 1970s and 1980s. I knew Henry Hill of the “Goodfellas” movie and Tommy Desimone, the real name of the character in “Goodfellas” played by Joe Pesci. There was only one non-Italian in history who ever became a made guy, an actual Mafia memb...
The Tucumcari City Commission on Thursday delayed action on hiring a new city manager and whether the city will be a part of unknown current or pending litigation. The commissioners voted unanimously on the measure to hire a city manager and whether to pursue action related to mitigation. Both matters were discussed in a private session before the commission’s regular meeting Thursday. Commissioners voted to delay action to obtain more information on both matters. On July 31, the commission met in a private session to interview two c...
I was surprised to learn recently through a New York Times story that protective face masks were required during the great flu epidemic of 1918. I also learned that a very small contingent refused to wear masks for essentially the same reasons that today’s virus-deniers won’t wear them. They thought the masks violated their rights and actually caused wearers to get sick. The anti-maskers of the early 20th Century were ridiculed and called the same name as those who dodged the draft in World War I — “slackers.” The earlier anti-mask...