Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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A 50% increase in K-12 English language arts and math achievement by the 2025-26 school year might seem aspirational, until you realize where New Mexico is starting from. At last count, prepandemic, just one in five N.M. students was proficient in math and one in three proficient in reading. If those numbers were still accurate — doubtful with the learning loss remote education inflicted — reaching these goals would mean just one in three students will be able to do math and only half will be able to read at grade level. But...
Before she was elected governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham acknowledged the state’s system of allocating elk licenses was unfair to N.M.’s resident hunters. But instead of empowering the New Mexico State Game Commission to implement a more equitable system, Lujan Grisham has fallen back on a tired tradition of using unchecked gubernatorial power to preserve the status quo, a system that makes New Mexicans an afterthought in harvesting — and protecting — the wildlife that belongs to them. This isn’t a new criticism, nor exclu...
An 85-page U.S. Forest Service review of the origins of the Hermits Peak Fire suggests the biggest wildfire in state history was caused in large part by a breakdown in protocols. But the review also revealed a troubling culture problem within the service. The review conducted by the Forest Service itself said a local team faced pressure to “accomplish the mission,” possibly leading to the crew to take greater risks in a rush to catch up on prescribed burns after postponements in many burn projects due to the COVID-19 pandemic...
The same day an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, two students were found with guns at Albuquerque-area schools. The boy who allegedly brought a handgun to Cleveland High School in Rio Rancho on May 24 was arrested, booked into the Bernalillo County Juvenile Detention Center and the incident was summarily cloaked in secrecy. The 14-year-old boy who allegedly brought a gun fitted with an extended magazine filled with 20 hollow-point bullets to Volcano Vista High...
SANTA FE — New Mexico turned deep blue over the last decade as Democrats dominated races for U.S. Senate and the state’s presidential electors. But Republican Mark Ronchetti will have one bit of history on his side as he challenges Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham this fall. Since 1990, the party in control of the White House has lost every governor’s race in New Mexico. Lujan Grisham herself crushed a Republican opponent in 2018 as Donald Trump held the presidency. Brian Sanderoff, president of Research & Polli...
SANTA FE — Public Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus is giving up some of his day-to-day job duties as he handles a personal health issue, state officials say. Steinhaus, who’s 68, said he expects to pull back from travel around the state as he transitions to a less-intensive role leading the department. In an interview Monday, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Steinhaus said they had talked earlier that day about a personal health matter involving the secretary. In response, the governor said, her administration will make cha...
Art Schaap remembers the day in 2018 when people from Cannon Air Force Base knocked on his front door and asked to test his water. The Clovis dairy farmer had seen airmen use firefighting foam during training exercises. But he soon learned that toxic chemicals from that foam had leaked off-base into the groundwater beneath his land. "That's when the nightmare began," he said. In the years since, Schaap found himself unable to sell the cows' contaminated milk or meat. He has...
Customers had more than five on it, as the state said cannabis businesses realized about $21.1 million in recreational sales in the month of May. Medical cannabis sales did $17.4 million — combining for a total sales month of about $38.5 million, according to data released by the state’s Cannabis Control Division on Thursday. The sales number for both recreational cannabis and medical cannabis were slightly lower than in April, when adult-use sales began and when the state realized nearly $40 million between the two. In Apr...
SANTA FE - With wildfires igniting around New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called on state residents to heed evacuation orders and brace for a long fire season. In a weekend briefing, the governor said there were 20 active wildfires burning in 16 different counties around New Mexico - or in nearly half the state's 33 counties. "It is only April and yet we are seeing fire spread ... that we have only ever seen in late May or June," Lujan Grisham told reporters. She also...
SANTA FE — Attorneys for the state Republican Party asked a judge Monday to bar New Mexico from conducting this year's congressional elections under the new map adopted in last year's special session, describing it as an illegal partisan gerrymander. Lawyers for the Legislature and Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, by contrast, urged the judge to dismiss the lawsuit altogether, contending the map complies with every requirement in the state Constitution. The clash played out before Clovis-based District Judge Fred Van S... Full story
Bosque School students came face to face with living history Monday — namely one of New Mexico’s last remaining Holocaust survivors — who came to teach them about the different sides of humanity. Around 40 juniors gathered in a visual and performing arts hall to listen to the story of Andy Holten, a docent for the New Mexico Holocaust Museum who between 1943 and 1944 lost the vast majority of his family to the genocide that claimed the lives of 6 million Jews. “I’m incredibly glad to have had this opportunity, since we...
It’s something when your work rises to the level of a bumper sticker. In Rio Arriba County and the Española Valley, the “Shut Your Trapp” decals refer to the family that founded the scrappy Rio Grande SUN in 1956. Owners and publishers Robert E. and then Robert B. Trapp have not only stressed watchdog journalism, but successfully sued or settled open meetings or records lawsuits against just about every governmental agency in Rio Arriba County, making their SUN one of the most aggressive newspapers in the state. And it’s b...
April is National Donate Life Month. And a total of 1,010,536 New Mexicans with driver’s licenses or state-issued identification cards are registered as donors, according to New Mexico Taxation and Revenue. Last year, through March 31, 2021 (the latest figures available) 74,540 out of about 136,000 people issued credentials during the preceding 12 months chose to become organ donors. That gave New Mexico a donor designation rate of around 55%, well above the national average of 47%. It’s heartening to know so many are willing...
The $50 million “junior” spending bill Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham vetoed last week provided a current-events lesson in just one of the dysfunctional aspects of our state’s legislative structure. The bill provided supplemental spending for a host of purposes picked by individual lawmakers. The $50 million would come from the state’s general fund, even though about half of it was earmarked for capital projects, usually funded through general obligation bonds. In vetoing the legislation, the governor noted some of the project...
SANTA FE — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday signed into law a bill expanding the in-state preference that New Mexico-based businesses get when applying for government contracts. The new law, approved by lawmakers during this year's 30-day session without a single "no" vote, will also extend a bidding preference for veteran-owned businesses that would have expired in June. "Keeping more state dollars right here in New Mexico supports local businesses and grows our economy," Lujan Grisham said in a statement. "Smart p...
After posting a narrow victory at the GOP state pre-primary convention over the weekend, Jay Block declared himself as the “front runner” of New Mexico’s Republican crop of governor candidates and quickly went on the attack. He called for fellow GOP candidate Mark Ronchetti to drop out of the race, saying he “kicked the crap out of him” at the convention, and criticized another candidate who is facing an ethics complaint. Block, a Sandoval County commissioner and retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, said in an interv...
SANTA FE — With bipartisan support, legislators adopted a revised budget proposal Monday that would grow state spending by 14% as New Mexico enjoys a revenue boom, allowing new investments in education and public safety. The Senate voted 37-3 in favor of the plan, sending it back to the House. Under the proposal, New Mexico’s budget would grow to almost $8.5 billion, or about $1 billion more than this year’s spending plan. The legislation includes especially healthy raises for educators and State Police, in addition to reten...
Six bucks a month. With state revenues projected to exceed $9 billion, a paltry $6 a month, about the price of a pound of premium bacon. That’s how much a family would save under the latest “tax cut” package limping along with a week left in the Legislature’s 30-day session. The tax cut backed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham would reduce the state’s GRT base rate by 0.25 percentage points — from 5.125% to 4.875% — and only if state revenue levels remain high. But as state Rep. Jason Harper notes, this GRT cut would amount...
We join the many New Mexicans and others around the nation who are pulling for a full and speedy recovery for U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján. News on Feb. 1 that the congenial 49-year-old lawmaker from Nambé had suffered a stroke five days earlier shocked New Mexicans and national leaders in Congress, the White House and beyond. Luján’s chief of staff, Carlos Sanchez, says Luján is expected to make a full recovery. That’s very good news. As many New Mexicans know from the experience of their loved ones, strokes are serious disease...
SANTA FE — “Guardedly optimistic” is how state Education Secretary Kurt Steinhaus said he feels regarding the chances that a $3.87 billion education budget makes it through this year’s short legislative session, underscoring his “year of literacy.” The House last week approved that budget, which now goes to the Senate — where, Steinhaus acknowledged, it could be amended, approved or rejected. Even so, “I’ve never seen the executive branch and the legislative branch come together so quickly and so clearly aligned,” he said...
From Cuba to Clovis, violent crime has surged in at least two dozen New Mexico communities, while fewer and fewer cases statewide are being solved by arrest. Law enforcement agencies are struggling to keep up. And in some places, property crimes aren't being prosecuted because there aren't enough officers to investigate them. Amid the spike in violent crime, the number of offenders sent to New Mexico state prisons on new charges has been dropping, with prison population down some 35% since 2015. The recent public safety...
While state legislators consider a proposal requiring financial literacy be taught in high schools, it might be a good idea if they took a class themselves in investing wisely. Just two years ago, lawmakers and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham created a state early childhood trust fund to help pay for expanded prekindergarten and other early childhood programs. The fund received a $300 million startup infusion from the state and gets energy-related tax collections in years when total state cash reserves exceed 25% of spending...
SANTA FE — With the start of a 30-day legislative session just one week away, a key House budget-writing committee started work Monday crafting a spending plan that would put an unprecedented New Mexico budget windfall to work. During a hearing at the state Capitol, the top budget official in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration said the executive branch would let lawmakers take the lead on bringing forward a plan for spending unallocated funds the state received under the federal American Rescue Plan Act. “At this...
A year ago, we witnessed what many historians and political scientists regard as the biggest threat to democracy in modern U.S. history. For a country that survived the Watergate scandal, the bloodshed of the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam War protests, that’s saying something. Sadly, the threat persists even a year after the violent scene at the U.S. Capitol, where thousands of President Donald Trump’s supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. They stormed the Capit...
The last time state lawmakers were tasked with drawing new maps for the state House and Senate, it took more than a year of fiercely partisan wrangling, four trials and $5.6 million of litigation costs billed to taxpayers. The final House map crafted by a state District Court judge in 2012 and approved by the New Mexico Supreme Court pitted two incumbent Democrats against each other and two incumbent Republicans against each other for seats in the N.M. House of Representatives. The map, drawn by retired District Judge James...
