Top student Q&As chosen

After the Portales News-Tribune ran Q&A features with Portales City Council candidates, teachers from Portales Junior High School and Lindsey-Steiner Elementary gave the five-question Q&A to their fifth through eighth grade students as an assignment to answer the questions as a city council candidate.

The Portales newspaper ran a selection of the Q&As each day the week of Feb. 10-16.

Portales News-Tribune staff members thought students did such a great job, we decided to pick the top three Q&As and honor those participants with a certificate of appreciation and a Wal-Mart gift card.

Here is a brief recap of the winners’ answers:

First place winner

Taryn Wood

Seventh grade

Portales Junior High School

If you are elected to be a city councilor, what strengths do you think you will bring to the position?

If I were elected as a city councilor, I think I would be very valuable in the way of my strengths. I would be able to bring creativity, understanding and my strong work ethic to the position. To help with the problems of the city, you have to think of creative ways to fix them. It is also very important to be understanding, because you have to be able to respect other people’s opinions, and be able to consider those opinions in a polite manner. Lastly, my strong work ethic would be a suitable trait in office, because if you can’t stay on task or get work done in time, you won’t be any help to the city, because you won’t be making any improvements in the city in a timely manner.

Our city (and others nearby) are running out of water. What solutions/projects do you think could correct this problem? How do you plan to make those solutions/projects happen?

The lack of water has become a big issue in eastern New Mexico. To correct or at least improve this problem, I believe we could start using hydroelectricity. Although this would require a lot of money, it will definitely pay off when Portales is no longer running out of water. This process would take place over a few years. To accomplish this, we could have two to three community events a year, where all the profit goes to investing in hydroelectricity in eastern New Mexico. Along with using hydroelectricity, we need to educate people on how to save water in their own homes. Of course there are some people that don’t care about saving water in the first place; some people do want to save water — they just don’t know how. We would advertise monthly meetings about saving water, and anybody that wanted to be involved would be welcome.

Second place winner

Rae Ruiz

Fifth grade

Lindsey-Steiner

Elementary

Our city (and others nearby) are running out of water. What solutions/projects do you think could correct this problem? How do you plan to make those solutions/projects happen?

Our city and many others are running out of water and to fix that we would all have to work together; the whole city would have to help out to get more water. We all need to help each other and say that we need to not keep the water on, take shorter showers, reuse water. Water can be used for all sorts of things, such as watering plants or giving animals water. Leftover water that you use can be used for gardens and farms instead of having to get new water from the sink every day. We all need to protect our water. As individuals, we are all smart and know different ways to reserve our water, and we need to do that. Our people need to be more conservative and be aware that water is running out of water.

Are there other issues in the city which concern you? How do you plan to address/solve them?

There are issues in our city that concern me, such as our playgrounds, which everyday get more dangerous and dangerous. Our playgrounds also are very vandalized, and we need to let our kids know that that isn’t nice and with little kids, it is a bad example. Also we would need to fix some of our streets, which have large potholes and bumps, rocky roads. Our city always wants to fix the roads that really don’t need to be fixed. There are other roads that really concern me. On the Floyd highway, in front of La Casa, there are terrible potholes that really do need to be fixed. This is a huge concern on my part. And when our city fixes the roads that don’t need it, our city runs out of money.

Third place winner

Kinsey Bilberry

Eighth grade

Portales Junior High

If you are elected to be a city councilor, what strengths do you think you will bring to the position?

I am a good money manager with my own money. I also see many things in Portales that need improving. Things such as beautification of the city and streets. I will be a good listener to the people who have complaints and will consider their ideas.

Are there other issues in the city which concern you? How do you plan to address/solve them?

I think we should have more recreational activities for our youth such as a movie theater or skating rink. That could potentially keep our kids out of trouble. We could also provide incentives to encourage new businesses to come to our city. I will investigate to see if there are any other avenues through the state or federal governments to appropriate money through grants or other programs that might be available. I am also concerned with our trains that pass through. They often will stop on the tracks to grab a drink at Stripes or do whatever they need to do, though they are blocking traffic. I see this as a hazardous issue, because if the fire or police department needed to get through to an emergency that would slow the process down. Sometimes when the train goes through in the morning and stops, it could also make kids late to school and parents to work. I think this is definitely a problem that I can and will fix.