Talking trash: May wants new plan

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three-part series about candidates for the upcoming Roosevelt County Commission District 2 primary election.

Charles May wants to be a Roosevelt County Commissioner.

But he’s not ready just yet to throw his two cents in on what the commission needs to do differently and what issues it needs to address in the coming years.

“It’s hard to comment on what issues I would address if elected until I find out what the needs really are,” he said during an interview this week.

However, he is sure that something does need to be done about the delivery of the area’s trash and improvement of roads.

May will face off with two others on June 1 — George Martin and Harvey Teague — for the Republican ticket for Roosevelt County Commission District 2.

The winner of that race will face Democrat David Sanders in the November general election.

Current District 2 Commissioner Chad Davis decided not to run for re-election.

May said it’s a good time for him to run because he finally has the time to do it.

He was a rancher for 30 years and now helps run Bueno Vista Reality in Portales.

“For so many years I just didn’t have time to run for office,” he said. “We had so many other commitments. But I have a good partner in my real estate business and he said I could go off and do this, so I thought I would give it a shot.”

While May is tentative to jump into issues the commission needs to address, he did say that he is somewhat interested in why Portales’ trash is taken to Clovis.

“I think it’s ridiculous we take our trash up there,” he said. “We could do it a lot closer for a lot cheaper. There are lots available around here that we could deliver it to. It’s a county and city problem.”

He also has interest in how the county maintains its roads.

“We need to take care of the roads we have now,” he said. “I would hate to see us build new roads when the ones we have now are deteriorating.”

May said he thought on issues like trash delivery, the county and city needed to cooperate with each other.

“I’m just afraid right now there isn’t a lot of cooperation with each other,” he said.

He does however believe that the county commission has done a solid job in recent years.

“The commission is doing a good job,” he said. “It’s good to stand back and make judgments about this and that, but sometimes it’s like taking a hot bath, when you get in there it’s not as hot as you thought it was.”

May said the demands on government do make things difficult for commissions.

“We have some demands and things we want to do,” he said. “When I was on the school board we wanted to do this and that but we were regulated so much from Santa Fe that we couldn’t. Like President Jefferson said, the best kind of government, is the least kind of government.”

Marlin Poynor, a longtime friend of May’s and

also his campaign manager said he likes the way the Portales candidate thinks.

“When Charles was a rancher I got to know him real well,” Poynor said. “From doing business with him I could tell that he was an honest and upright sort of man. If he says he’s going to be there on Saturday, you can bet that he will be there. As I got to know him better I found out that he is really intelligent and keeps up with politics and the matters that pertain to the city and county. We need someone like him in local politics.”