Preview of Truth or Consequences City Commission meeting June 24:  Public hearing on County—not City—handling local elections; Massive budget adjustment;    Hospital and utility board appointments

by Kathleen Sloan | June 22, 2020
6 min read
Preview of Truth or Consequences City Commission meeting June 24:

               Public hearing on County—not City—handling local elections;

               Massive budget adjustment;

               Hospital and utility board appointments

​By Kathleen Sloan
June 22, 2020

There are three major items on the Truth or Consequences City Commission agenda June 24.

LOCAL ELECTIONS GIVEN OVER TO COUNTY?

New state election law went into effect about a year ago with cities being given a choice to continue handling local elections or let the counties handle local elections.

Truth or Consequences City Commissioners didn’t have a public hearing on the matter, deciding for the people that the city clerk would continue to handle local elections.

Elephant Butte and the Village of Williamsburg decided to let Sierra County handle their local elections, both entities stating it would save them thousands of dollars.

In addition it may raise voter participation, since local-elections schedules will correspond with county, state and federal elections, putting city candidates on a major ticket Nov. 3 in odd years.

Recently-elevated City Clerk Angela Torres introduced the ordinance to have Sierra County handle the City’s local elections.

The current City Commission agreed it was a good idea, voting May 27 to “publish” or give notice of the ordinance that legally makes the switch to county-led elections.

A last minute change has been made to the ordinance. The first version lengthens 2022 and 2024 terms of City Commissioners by one year and nine months so the terms fit the County’s odd-numbered-years requirement for local elections.

Mayor Sandra Whitehead and City Commissioner Paul Baca would stay in office until Dec. 31, 2023 in this version of the ordinance, instead of serving until March 31, 2022.

Similarly, Mayor Pro-Tem Brendan Tolley, City Commissioner Randall Aragon and City Commissioner Amanda Forrister would serve until Dec. 31, 2025 instead of March 31, 2024.

The City, in the intervening month, realized it could shorten their terms by three months instead of lengthening them to fit the odd-numbered-years calendar.

Whitehead and Baca would stay in office until Dec. 31, 2021 instead of March 31, 2022 in this version of the ordinance.

Tolley, Aragon and Forrister would serve until Dec. 31, 2023 instead of March 31, 2024.

The City Commission will therefore have a choice of two ordinances that lay out two different term lengths for themselves.

This time, because the matter is being passed by an ordinance or local law, which requires a public hearing, the public can weigh in on the term length and whether to switch to county-led elections.

MASSIVE BUDGET ADJUSTMENT

The City is closing the books on the fiscal year ending June 30. It is also working on the upcoming budget for the next fiscal year that begins July 1, which is due to the State by July 15. In preparing the close-out and new-start fund totals, a massive budget adjustment for the current year is on the agenda.

The first part of the budget adjustment is to the General Fund, which is supposed to handle revenues and expenses for “governmental activities,” as opposed to “business-like activities.”

The City budgeted nearly $3.8 million in Gross-Receipts-Tax revenue to go into the General Fund, which is the same amount City Manager Morris Madrid has plugged into the upcoming-year’s budget, despite other cities, such as Elephant Butte, cutting it 25 percent to account for business shut downs due to COVID-19.

The nearly $3.8 million makes more sense in light of the budget adjustment. The GRT was under-budgeted nearly $700,000, close to 20 percent of the total.

But over $305,000 of the $700,000 will be expended on an unexplained “loan intercept agreement” that was left out of the budget last July.

The budget adjustments for the General Fund total about $940,000 more in revenue and $524,000 more in expenses.

The second part of the budget adjustment corrects fund and department revenues and expenditures.

Parks and Recreation spent $80,000 more than budgeted, perhaps partially explaining unannounced work on Ralph Edwards Park that will continue into the next fiscal year.

The Streets Department estimated $174,000 in Gross Receipts Taxes but got $185,000 more, for a total of $359,000 GRT. Again, an unbudgeted $151,000 “loan intercept agreement” expense will eat most of the extra GRT.

The Water Department budgeted $55,000 in emergency repairs but spent $42,000 more for a total of $97,000.

The Wastewater Department budgeted nothing for emergency repairs but spent $60,000 on them.

The City did a major refinance and refunding of an old debt late July 2019 instead of planning for it in the budget. It is recognized in the budget adjustment, with nearly $3 million in “loan proceeds.”

Expended from those loan proceeds is $444,000 for another “GRT intercept.”

“Issuance expenses” ate up another $127,000 of loan proceeds.

Total expenditures from the loan proceeds was over $2 million, with a little over $1 million left over that will go “to pay off future debt.”

The third part of the budget adjustment is for “cash transfers.”

The City’s General Fund has subsidized the Golf Course and Airport for years, but no subsidies were budgeted. The Golf Course will get $65,000 and the Airport $60,000 this year from the General Fund, about half the amount from prior years.

The Swimming Pool was budgeted to get $207,000 from the General Fund but that transfer has been reduced $75,000 for a $132,000 total.

There is no total given for all the budget-adjustment expenses and revenues and transfers.

BOARD APPOINTMENTS

The City Commission will consider whom to appoint for two positions open on the Sierra Vista Hospital Governing Board. The City has three seats on the board as one of four local-governmental-entity owners.

The Governing Board oversees day-to-day hospital operations, while the Joint Powers Commission oversees long-view operations.

At the last City Commission meeting the board reappointed Peggy “Cookie” Johnson to a second term on the Governing Board.

Three people have applied for the other two spots.

Kathy Clark, a City Commissioner up until May 31, who served as the City’s representative on the Joint Powers Commission, has applied to be on the Governing Board.

Bruce Swingle, Sierra County manager, has served three years as the City’s Governing Board appointee and has applied to continue as its representative.

Rolf Hechler, a City Commissioner until May 31 and also the City’s Joint-Powers-Commission representative, has applied to be on the Governing Board.

The City Commission will also consider whether to reappoint Ron Pacourek and Jeff Dornbusch to the Public Utility Advisory Board.

A third seat is open on the PUAB, but the City is advertising that position, according to City Clerk Angela Torres, and will not consider filling it at the June 24 meeting.

So far, only George Szigeti has applied for the third spot, which was occupied by Ed Williams. He served on the PUAB for six years until he was tapped by the City Commission to finish out Steve Green’s term on the City Commission, who resigned. He ran for City Commission last March, but didn’t win the seat.

HOW TO ATTEND AND GIVE PUBLIC COMMENT

The following are the City’s instructions:
 
Submission for public input shall be submitted by email to
torcpubliccomment@torcnm.org, by fax at (575) 894-6690, or a hard copy can be dropped off at the City Clerk’s Office at 505 Sims Street, Truth or Consequences, NM. Please submit any input you may have by Monday, June 22, 2020.

There will be a limited amount of in-person attendance allowed in the Chambers based on Covid safe practices.

The meeting will be broadcast live through KCHS on 101.9 FM. You may also access the meeting using the information listed below:
Please join my meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone.
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/407360053
You can also dial in using your phone.
United States: +1 (646) 749-3122 Access Code: 407-360-053
New to GoToMeeting? Get the app now and be ready when your first meeting starts: https://global.gotomeeting.com/install/407360053
NEXT REGULAR CITY COMMISSION MEETING JULY 8, 2020

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Kathleen Sloan is the Sun’s founder and chief reporter. She can be reached at kathleen.sloan@gmail.com or 575-297-4146.
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Understanding New Mexico's proposed new social studies standards for K-12 students

“The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.”
—National Council for the Social Studies 

Reader Michael L. Hayes of Las Cruces commented: What impresses me is that both the proposed standards and some of the criticisms of them are equally grotesque. I make this bold statement on the basis of my experience as a peripatetic high school and college English teacher for 45 years in many states with many students differing in race, religion, gender and socioeconomic background, and as a civic activist (PTA) in public education (My career, however, was as an independent consultant mainly in defense, energy and the environment.)

The proposed social studies standards are conceptually and instructionally flawed. For starters, a “performance standard” is not a standard at all; it is a task. Asking someone to explain something is not unlike asking someone to water the lawn. Nothing measures the performance, but without a measure, there is no standard. The teacher’s subjective judgment will be all that matters, and almost anything will count as satisfying a “performance standard,” even just trying. Students will be left to wonder “what is on the teacher’s mind?” or “have I sucked up enough.”

Four other quick criticisms of the performance standards. One, they are nearly unintelligible because they are written in jargon. PED’s use of jargon in a document intended for the public is worrisome. Bureaucrats often use jargon to confuse or conceal something uninformed, wrong or unworthy. As a result, most parents, some school board members and more than a few teachers do not understand them.

Two, the performance standards are so vague that they fail to define the education which teachers are supposed to teach, students are supposed to learn, and parents are supposed to understand. PED does not define words like “explain” or “describe” so that teachers can apply “standards” consistently and fairly. The standards do not indicate what teachers are supposed to know in order to teach or specify what students are supposed to learn. Supervisors cannot know whether teachers are teaching social studies well or poorly. The standards are so vague that the public, especially parents or guardians, cannot know the content of public education.

Three, many performance standards are simply unrealistic, especially at grade level. Under “Ethnic, Cultural and Identity Performance Standards”; then under “Diversity and Identity”; then under “Kindergarten,” one such standard is: “Identify how their family does things both the same as and different from how other people do things.” Do six-year-olds know how other people do things? Do they know whether these things are relevant to diversity and identity? Or another standard: “Describe their family history, culture, and past to current contributions of people in their main identity groups.” (A proficient writer would have hyphenated the compound adjective to avoid confusing the reader.) Do six-year-olds know so much about these things in relation to their “identity group”? Since teachers obviously do not teach them about these other people and have not taught them about these groups, why are these and similar items in the curriculum; or do teachers assign them to go home and collect this information?

Point four follows from “three”; some information relevant to some performance measures requires a disclosure of personal or family matters. The younger the students, the easier it is for teachers to invade their privacy and not only their privacy, but also the privacy of their parents or guardians, or neighbors, who may never be aware of these disclosures or not become aware of them until afterward. PED has no right to design a curriculum which requires teachers to ask students for information about themselves, parents or guardians, or neighbors, or puts teachers on the spot if the disclosures reveal criminal conduct. (Bill says Jeff’s father plays games in bed with his daughter. Lila says Angelo’s mother gives herself shots in the arm.) Since teacher-student communications have no legal protection to ensure privacy, those disclosures may become public accidentally or deliberately. The effect of these proposal standards is to turn New Mexico schools and teachers into investigative agents of the state and students into little informants or spies.

This PED proposal for social studies standards is a travesty of education despite its appeals to purportedly enlightened principles. It constitutes a clear and present danger to individual liberty and civil liberties. It should be repudiated; its development, investigated; its PED perpetrators, dismissed. No state curriculum should encourage or require the disclosure of private personal information.

I am equally outraged by the comments of some of T or C’s school board members: Christine LaFont and Julianne Stroup, two white Christian women, who belong to one of the larger minorities in America and assume white and Christian privileges. In different terms but for essentially the same reason, both oppose an education which includes lessons about historical events and trends, and social movements and developments, of other minorities. They object to the proposal for the new social studies standards because of its emphasis on individual and group identities not white or Christian. I am not going to reply with specific objections; they are too numerous and too pointed.

Ms. LaFont urges: “It’s better to address what’s similar with all Americans. It’s not good to differentiate.” Ms. Stroup adds: “Our country is not a racist country. We have to teach to respect each other. We have civil rights laws that protect everyone from discrimination. We need to teach civics, love and respect. We need to teach how to be color blind.”

Their desires for unity and homogeneity, and for mutual respect, are a contradiction and an impossibility. Aside from a shared citizenship, which implies acceptance of the Constitution, the rule of law and equality under the law, little else defines Americans. We are additionally defined by our race, religion, national origin, etc. So mutual respect requires individuals to respect others different from themselves. Disrespect desires blacks, Jews or Palestinians to assimilate or to suppress or conceal racial, religious or national origin aspects of their identity. The only people who want erasure of nonwhite, non-Christian, non-American origin aspects of identity are bigots. Ms. LaFont and Ms. Stroud want standards which, by stressing similarities and eliding differences, desire the erasure of such aspects. What they want will result in a social studies curriculum that enables white, Christian, native-born children to grow up to be bigots and all others to be their victims. This would be the academic equivalent of ethnic cleansing.

H.E.L.P.

This postmortem of a case involving a 75-year-old women who went missing from her home in Hillsboro last September sheds light on the bounds of law enforcement’s capacity to respond, especially in large rural jurisdictions such as Sierra County, and underscores the critical role the public, as well as concerned family and friends, can play in assisting a missing person’s search.

Reader Jane Debrott of Hillsboro commented: Thank you for your article on the tragic loss of Betsey. I am a resident of Hillsboro, a friend of Rick and Betsey, and a member of H.E.L.P. The thing that most distresses me now, is the emphasis on Rick’s mis-naming of the color of their car. I fear that this fact will cause Rick to feel that if he had only gotten the facts right, Betsey may have been rescued before it was too late. The incident was a series of unavoidable events, out of everyone’s control, and we will never know what place the correct color of her car may have had in the outcome. It breaks my heart to think that Rick has had one more thing added to his “what ifs” concerning this incident.

Diana Tittle responded: Dear Jane, the Sun undertook this investigation at the request of a Hillsboro resident concerned about the town’s inability to mount a prompt, coordinated response to the disappearance of a neighbor. From the beginning, I shared your concern about how our findings might affect Betsy’s family and friends. After I completed my research and began writing, I weighed each detail I eventually chose to include against my desire to cause no pain and the public’s right to know about the strengths and limitations of law enforcement’s response and the public’s need to know about how to be of meaningful assistance.

There was information I withheld about the state police investigation and the recovery. But I decided to include the issue of the car’s color because the individuals who spotted Betsy’s car emphasized how its color had been key to their identification of it as the vehicle described in Betsy’s Silver Alert. Because the misinformation was corrected within a couple of hours, I also included in this story the following editorial comment meant to put the error in perspective: “The fact that law enforcement throughout the state was on the lookout in the crucial early hours after Betsy’s disappearance for an elderly woman driving a “light blue” instead of a “silver” Accord would, in retrospect, likely not have changed the outcome of the search” [emphasis added].

I would also point to the story’s overarching conclusion about the inadvisability of assigning blame for what happened: “In this case, a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances, many of them beyond human control, hindered the search that it would fall to Hamilton’s department to lead.”

It is my hope that any pain caused by my reporting will eventually be outweighed by its contribution to a better community understanding of what it will take in the future to mount a successful missing person’s search in rural Sierra County.

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