Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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CLOVIS - A car chase that went throughout Clovis Monday afternoon landed a Clovis man in jail on 11 charges, according to court records. Michael Padilla, 37, was booked Monday into the Curry County Adult Detention Center, where he remains with a pretrial detention motion hearing pending. His charges include false imprisonment, battery upon a peace officer, reckless driving and aggravated fleeing of a law enforcement officer. The public defender's office was appointed to Padill...
CLOVIS — Eight current or former inmates of the Curry County Adult Detention Center have recently filed tort claims against Curry County on allegations they contracted COVID-19 while housed in the facility. The tort claims were acquired by The News via a public records request. A tort claim is a notice sent to government entities within 90 days of an alleged date of injury or property damage, and gives the filing party a two-year window to file a lawsuit. The claimants, listed alphabetically, are Jason Bernal, Leo Duran, A...
SANTA FE — Starting Feb. 8, all school districts across New Mexico will be cleared to bring back in-person learning for grades K-12, the state announced Tuesday afternoon via Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s state of the state address. According to updated guidance from the Public Education Department: • All schools will be eligible to enter hybrid learning mode, with up to 50% of students at a time in order to maintain social distancing. • Districts and schools with less than 100 students can bring all students back in a 5:1 r...
SANTA FE — A total of six counties — neither Curry nor Roosevelt — reached the “yellow” designation Wednesday for COVID-19 infection rates under the state’s Red to Green reopening plan. Out of New Mexico’s 33 counties, 25 remain in the red designation. But state metrics indicate all but two counties have seen improvements on daily cases and test positivity rates. Since Nov. 30, the state has given a color-coded designation based on the preceding two weeks of data and whether it reaches benchmarks of 8 daily cases per 100... Full story
CLOVIS — Whoever wins the next two election cycles for Curry County positions, they’ll see a significant bump in their paycheck. The Curry County Commission, by a 3-2 vote, approved a 10% increase for elected official salaries, effective when the next elected term for each office begins. When fully implemented, the change would run the county about $400,000 annually. The current salaries of elected officials are $64,346.77 for the sheriff, $61,699.85 for the assessor, clerk and treasurer, $24,599.45 for each commissioner and...
Portales woman receives honor PORTALES — Portales’ Fidelia Viera was awarded H&R Block’s 2020 Henry B. Bloch Excellence in Client Service awards, according to an H&R Block release. Viera, who has been with the company since 2009, was one of 23 company and franchise associate to receive the honor, named in honor of the company’s co-founder and honorary chairman. Award winners were selected for helping and inspiring confidence in clients and communities and demonstrating good company behaviors. “Each year the Henry Bloch Exc...
Booked The following were booked into local jails (Friday-Tuesday): Clovis • Patrick Woods, 29, larceny, criminal damage to property, breaking and entering, resisting, evading or obstructing an officer, criminal trespass • Christopher Garcia, 33, driving under the influence of liquor • Daniel Acosta, 24, probation violation • Jonathan Melendrez, 28, shoplifting • Franchesca Worthen, 34, aggravated driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or any drug, leaving the scene of an accident, failure to give immediate...
Tomorrow, as I write this column, is Inauguration Day. It’s a particularly good time to think about our citizenship, I think. And I think it’s a particularly good time for me to stay off of Facebook and other social media for at least a day or two. Even as I think social media companies’ increasing censorship of free speech is unwise, I think my increasing censorship of my own speech is a responsibility of my citizenship. Whatever rants from whatever blusterers (and I can b...
SANTA FE — A proposal to establish a New Mexico Civil Rights Act began moving through the state House on Monday over the objection of city, county and school agencies — all of which expressed fear about the cost of new legal claims. Supporters, in turn, offered blunt testimony about the need to hold law enforcement and government bodies accountable in state court for wrongdoing. They cited the wrongful arrest of a teenager later cleared of a murder charge, sexual abuse of foster children and the shooting of a woman by she...
Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin’s initial court appearance related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is scheduled for Monday. He will appear telephonically, according to court documents. Federal authorities have asked Griffin be held in pre-trial detention, saying he is a flight risk and a danger to the community. “(Griffin) is the founder and leader of a political committee called, ‘Cowboys for Trump,’ on whose behalf he has engaged in inflammatory, racist, and at least borderline threatening advocacy,” court records s...
CLOVIS — Owners of the Crafters Mall and Brick Street Warehouse in Clovis are opening a new store in Farwell after facing difficulties running their businesses in New Mexico during the pandemic. Ernie Kos, executive director of the Curry County/Clovis Chamber of Commerce, was not aware of businesses that have closed permanently due to Covid-related issues. But many if not all, she said, have been forced to adapt. While introducing online sales or curbside shopping have been more common changes businesses have made, this m...
SANTA FE — A total of 150 entities in Curry and Roosevelt counties received a total of $2.518 in small-business CARES Act grants awarded by the state of New Mexico late last year because of the economic hardships from the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the awards were between $10,000 and 25,000 — 51 awards of $10,000, 35 awards of $15,000 and 22 awards of $25,000. Five different recipients received the top grant award of $50,000 — the Community Services Center in Portales, the Clovis/Curry County Chamber of Commerce, Hamil...
On this date … 1951: Three boys, ages 8 to 10, had gone before Assistant District Attorney J.C. Compton to address vandalism allegations. The boys admitted they broke multiple windows and “smashed in the door” at an uninhabited Portales home owned by John Fairley. The boys agreed to pay all damages. Their parents were issued a warning “urging them to care for their children and not let them run loose to commit pranks such as this one,” The Portales Tribune reported. 1966: Par...
Curry and Roosevelt counties are going to be close, but will likely fall just short of the yellow designation for relaxed public health orders when the state provides an update today on its county-based “Red to Green” reopening. Every two weeks since Nov. 30, the state has measured each county based on whether they meet the two gating benchmarks of 8 daily cases per 100,000 residents and test positivity of 5% or less. The state gives a green designation to counties that meet both, yellow to counties that meet one and red to...
CLOVIS — As of Monday Clovis' vaccine clinic administered all of the COVID-19 vaccine doses allocated to Roden Smith and Clovis Family Healthcare last week. The clinic will continue to run this week as the state has allocated another 2,500 doses. “Last week it went really well. It wasn't the ideal scheduling system doing it internally trying to schedule 2,500 people in a couple days notice, so we are happy we're set up on the state's system now,” Dr. Micah Lansford, owner and head of Roden Smith Pharmacy said. The clini...
CANNON AIR FORCE BASE — Cannon Air Force Base began rolling out COVID-19 vaccines to personnel in mid-January. Like the rest of the country, they are administering it in phases. “Medical personnel who are providing direct medical care, security forces and first responders will be the first to receive the vaccine. The next phase will be national critical capabilities personnel, then mission essential personnel and essential support personnel. The DoD is following the CDC’s prioritization guidelines for distribution,” Staff S...
In the fall of 1928, only weeks before she got her first tooth, little Norma Mozelle Estes of Portales was named the "prize winning baby in the Best-All-Around Baby contest" at the Woman's Club picnic held at Arch. The memory is captured in a yellowed clipping pasted in a pink leatherette baby book, which arrived in the mail at the Portales Chamber of Commerce last fall. Chamber Director Karl Terry shared the book with me. The woman who sent it to Portales said she had...
One of the offshoots of social media times is the meme, that clever little snippet of wit and/or wisdom that unknown creatures create and agreeable people share. These little “attention hackers” can be pearls of wisdom or pebbles of propaganda — sometimes serious, occasionally funny and most-of-the-time witty. From what I’ve seen, they are often designed for one political camp or another, and in their own subtle way, they spin us down paths of thinking the way they want us to think. I don’t know if they transfer to print ver...
John Brennan, an ex-CIA director from Obama’s administration, claims the federal government is targeting “religious extremists,” conservatives, and libertarians for extra scrutiny. All these people are said to be potential domestic terrorists. He recently stated on MSNBC, “(M)embers of the Biden team ... are now moving in laser-like fashion, to try to uncover as much as they can about what looks very similar to insurgency movements that we’ve seen overseas, where they germ...
Joe Biden wants to turn the page on Donald Trump. But on Day One, he began copying his methods. In fact, Barack Obama’s administration (Joe Biden, vice president) did exactly what Trump was criticized for doing, before many thought of the latter as a serious candidate. Remember the “national security” implications of importing Canadian aluminum or French wines? Trump was rightly criticized for abusing the language of a 1960s law to do what he wanted. He used executive orders, on the flimsiest of excuses, to raise tarif...
CLOVIS — After voting down a transition to county-issued email addresses in their Jan. 12 meeting, the Curry County Commission reversed course. By a 4-1 vote, with Chairman Robert Thornton voting a begrudged, “Yes,” the commission agreed to have currycounty.org email addresses tied to a county-issued tablet or laptop that would only be used for county business. Commissioner Chet Spear, who was part of a 3-2 vote against county email addresses last meeting, brought the issue back to the table because he was made aware of th...
The Air Force is measuring public interest in establishing a Restoration Advisory Board at Cannon Air Force Base. An Air Force news release issued Tuesday defined an RAB as “a working group of local community members, the Air Force, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other State and local regulators to exchange information and discuss Air Force environmental restoration activities associated with Cannon Air Force Base. The RAB is also a forum from members of the community to provide feedback at certain points t...
SANTA FE — A renewed attempt to repeal a long-dormant 1969 New Mexico abortion ban cleared its first Roundhouse hurdle Monday after an emotional debate and a lengthy delay caused by technical problems. The law is unenforceable now because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, but supporters said they fear the court will revisit the landmark abortion ruling given changes to the court’s makeup during the presidency of Donald Trump. “If the Supreme Court decides to change the law, as anticipated, the 1969 st...
New Mexico officials have repeatedly stressed that the data, not the date, would determine when public health orders would be relaxed for various activities around the state as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. Sports teams in the Land of Enchantment finally got a date, as Tuesday afternoon the New Mexico Activities Association announced it can tentatively begin sports seasons on Feb. 22. New Mexico Activities Association Executive Director Sally Marquez said Tuesday afternoon...
