Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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LAS CRUCES — The rebuild begins. New Mexico State University officials at a news conference Wednesday said the once-proud men’s basketball program has become “infected” and that additional student-athletes and coaches could face discipline in connection with a hazing scandal that prompted university officials to cancel the remainder of the season and fire the first-year head coach. NMSU Chancellor Dan Arvizu said the university fired coach Greg Heiar for cause and did not enter a settlement with him. Heiar was under contrac...
SANTA FE — This year’s legislative session could bring a dose of sunshine to lobbying inside the Roundhouse. And it could curtail public scrutiny of applicants to serve as school superintendents, county managers or other high-level government positions. The ideas — for more government transparency and for less — are among the hundreds of bills introduced in the first two weeks of the 2023 legislative session. The push for more secrecy in the hiring process for top government jobs gained momentum Wednesday as it cleared...
SANTA FE — The debate over New Mexico’s minimum wage is far from settled. Just weeks after the state’s minimum wage increased to $12 an hour under the final step-up mandated by a 2019 bill, two new proposals calling for future increases generated heated debate Tuesday at the Roundhouse. After more than three hours of discussion that ranged from enchilada prices to poverty rates around New Mexico, the House Labor, Veterans’ and Military Affairs Committee advanced one bill dealing with the minimum wage, but held off on voting...
New hires for an organization. Helping Native American artisans get their work on e-commerce sites. Those are just some of the areas in which small businesses organizations are planning to use federal money they received through the Omnibus Appropriations Agreement for fiscal year 2023. At a press conference last Wednesday, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., announced $774,000 for small business organizations — including WESST, the New Mexico Minority Business Development Agency Business Center and the New Mexico Small Business D...
The constitutional amendment voters approved in 2020 changing the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission from five elected members to three appointed ones was aimed, in large part, at ensuring a more qualified board to handle technical and important issues. The belief also was that the commission would have more credibility than previous boards, which had their share of controversy — even scandal. So much for good intentions. It turns out the Republican grocery store owner from Clayton, appointed to the PRC last month by D...
New Mexico is comprised of 121,697 square miles. With more than 300 days of sunshine a year, it’s easy for New Mexicans to get out of the house and visit an area around the state. Luckily there are 35 state parks, which can be pure fun to explore. Here’s a list of the parks located in the southeast quadrant of the state: Bottomless Lakes State Park Located just 14 miles southeast of Roswell, it is home to non-motorized boating in your kayak or canoe, camp, fish, picnic, swim, hike, go birding. The unique lakes are sin...
COVID-19 is still with us. Just when we think we've got it whipped, it comes back at us in a different guise. It's still sneaky dangerous. But for the first time since it emerged in New Mexico in March 2020, the pandemic did not make the annual list of top stories in the state. That would be great if it were not for the fact that the virus was edged off the list by more distressing news. In 2022, New Mexico not only experienced the worst wildfire in its history, but its two most destructive wildfires ever. It was during a...
You don’t have to be an animal lover to appreciate why a recent federal court order involving the future of more than 30 chimpanzees at an Alamogordo research facility is a big deal. The case is as much about the rule of law, reining in a rogue federal agency, and wise use of tax dollars as it is about the moral aspects of denying mankind’s closest living relatives the space and freedom they deserve to live out their lives the way nature intended. The ruling paves the way for the National Institutes of Health to relocate the...
A one-game suspension. Really? That’s what New Mexico State University officials determined was the proper discipline for three basketball players who broke curfew early Nov. 19 to take possession of and hide evidence in a fatal shooting on the campus of the University of New Mexico. Police records say NMSU player Mike Peake was lured to UNM the morning of the highly touted NMSU-UNM rivalry game by a group of UNM students seeking revenge for an earlier brawl at the Lobo-Aggie football game. UNM student Brandon Travis was o...
The Bernalillo County District Attorney's Office is investigating the conduct of New Mexico State University employees and players in connection with a fatal shooting by an NMSU basketball player in Albuquerque after it took hours for police to obtain the gun used in the shooting from a coach. Meanwhile, NMSU officials said Tuesday the school will hire an external, third-party investigator to review the Nov. 19 fatal shooting and the university's response to it. The announcements came a day after the Albuquerque Journal and...
The prep football season is over, but it remained a topic of conversation Thursday at the New Mexico Activities Association's latest board of directors meeting. There was a bit of a two-pronged discussion Thursday — one focused on the quality of facilities that are hosting playoff games, and another (and lesser) give-and-take about whether higher seeds should possibly be allowed to start hosting postseason games in every round and not just through the quarterfinals. That second item didn't have much traction Thursday. "...
Ten days after his starting power forward was shot and hospitalized after a 3 a.m. shootout on the University of New Mexico campus that left a UNM student dead, New Mexico State University basketball coach Greg Heiar was apologetic Tuesday, and said he takes responsibility for what happened. It was the first time the first-year Aggies coach has spoken publicly about the shooting. He, and the school, remain tight-lipped about what, if any, discipline has been taken on players who snuck out of their Albuquerque hotel the...
SUNLAND PARK — Customers begin lining up on a hot Friday afternoon in mid-October at Ultra Health in Sunland Park. Just a three-minute drive away, others are pulling into the parking lot of the building that houses the Pecos Valley Production and soon-to-be-open OSO Cannabis Co. dispensaries. At both locations, there’s a familiar sight on this “mellow Friday,” as Ultra Health District Manager Jesus Muñoz puts it: a whole lot of Texans. Those customers have been a driving force in Sunland Park’s successful adult-use...
Just weeks after buying the Sandoval Signpost, Albuquerque city councilor and cannabis consultant Pat Davis bought the Edgewood Independent with his publishing company CTRL+P. Davis now owns four papers: the Corrales Comment, and The Paper, as well as the two recently purchased papers. Davis said buying another paper wasn't on his "radar," but former Independent owner Leota Harriman reached out to him recently about taking over the Independent. Unlike the purchases of the Sandoval Signpost and the Corrales Comment, Davis...
A Hobbs man is accused of using his former employer's gas card to rack up more than $1.2 million in gasoline charges over several years since leaving the company. David Rochel, 50, is charged with six counts of fraudulent use of an illegally obtained credit card of over $20,000 and one count of theft of a credit card in the case. An attorney for Rochel could not be reached Tuesday. Although the fraudulent charges were ongoing for years, court records show more than $120,000 in diesel fuel was charged to the company card...
The 2022 New Mexico State Fair recorded 475,318 visits, making it the third best-attended fair since 2012, when the fair went from a 17-day format to an 11-day schedule. How that translates to revenue won't be known until mid- to late-November after all the bills have been paid and final numbers are tallied, said State Fair General Manager Dan Mourning. Still, he was confident that "revenue was up," adding that vendors of liquor, food and merchandise all reported booming sales throughout the fair. Last year, visitors were...
SANTA FE — There weren't many surprises during Friday's televised debate when it came to Michelle Lujan Grisham and Mark Ronchetti's stances on abortion, crime and education. But the incumbent Democratic governor and her Republican rival found some unexpected common ground on the issue of homelessness, with both saying they would crack down on certain activities while expanding services to those willing to utilize them. Specifically, Lujan Grisham said she would push for legislation to restrict panhandling and criminal t...
An altered image of darkened hands cutting a white child's hair sure does appear to play on racist fears and should be denounced by the political party that created it. The Republican Party of New Mexico recently mailed flyers to voters in several state House districts showing a barber with darkened hands. "Do you want a sex offender cutting your child's hair?" the flyer asks. The flyers cite two unsuccessful bills related to occupational licenses and accuse House Democrats of voting to allow convicted sex offenders to obtain...
SANTA FE — With Election Day less than six weeks away, Republican Mark Ronchetti continues to hammer away at Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's record on crime. In a recently launched TV ad, Ronchetti criticized a Lujan Grisham executive order from April 2020 that, over two-plus years, authorized more than 700 inmates to be released early from prison due to the COVID-19 pandemic, provided they met specific criteria that included being scheduled for release within the next 30 days. A spokeswoman for the Democratic governor said t...
Article V of the state Constitution says a person must have “resided continuously in New Mexico for five years” prior to the election to be eligible to serve as governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, attorney general or commissioner of public lands. But Article VII of the state Constitution says no one absent New Mexico while employed in the service of the United States or the state shall lose residency in New Mexico, no matter how long they’ve been gone. The state’s Uniform Military and Ove...
New Mexico lawmakers in recent years have passed laws expanding background check requirements for firearm purchases and allowing guns to be seized from individuals deemed to pose a threat to themselves or others. But with the state’s firearm violence rate still high, many voters want lawmakers to enact additional gun control measures. Specifically, 72% of voters surveyed in a recent Albuquerque Journal Poll said they support increasing the minimum age to buy an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle from 18 to 21, while 73% said t...
SANTA FE — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's reelection campaign is hitting GOP rival Mark Ronchetti with an unexpected attack with just over three months until Election Day — that he supports "defunding the police." The assertion is based largely on comments Ronchetti made during a May primary election debate, but the comments appear to have been taken out of context and Ronchetti's campaign called the claim a "flat-out lie." During the KOAT-TV debate, Ronchetti accused the Democratic governor of making it more difficult for...
Both of the main candidates in New Mexico's race for governor are making their children a visible campaign presence. Most recently, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's reelection campaign on Monday launched a TV ad that features her eldest daughter talking about her family's struggles after Lujan Grisham's first husband died of an aneurysm while jogging in 2004. The governor's daughter, Taylor Stewart, says in the 60-second ad that Lujan Grisham was forced to balance being a single...
A high-ranking Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office official and three other first responders battling a small wildfire in northern New Mexico were all killed when the helicopter they were in crashed Saturday evening in a remote area near Las Vegas. A sheriff's office spokeswoman said the crew had been "providing bucket drops and other air logistics needs to fire crews on the ground" prior to the crash. The BCSO helicopter - dubbed Metro 2 - crashed about 7:20 p.m., spokeswoman...
SANTA FE — The day Roe v. Wade was overturned, Republican Mark Ronchetti said he would pursue a 15-week abortion ban — with some exceptions — if elected governor of New Mexico. But Ronchetti’s longer-term goal, according to the pastor of an influential mega church, would be to end abortion in the state, not just after 15 weeks of pregnancy — remarks that have roiled the governor’s race and been seized on by supporters of Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham as abortion emerges as a defining issue of the campaign. In a sermon this...
