T or C Commission’s Jan. 13 meeting roundup: public surveillance cameras disclosed, smart-meter appeals process sketched, and more

by Kathleen Sloan | January 13, 2021
7 min read
T or C police surveillance camera across from denny's
Despite Manager Madrid’s assurances that no private property is being monitored, four of the cameras are set up near businesses, including this one across North Date Street from Denny’s. Photograph by Ron Fenn copyright © 2020

Truth or Consequences City Commissioner Frances Luna informed her colleagues at the city commission meeting today that the city police department has mounted half a dozen cameras throughout town to—as she put it—“just watch us.”

While the city is surveilling the public, it has neglected audiovisual upgrades to city chambers, although online meeting attendance is the only means of public participation during the pandemic. During the commission meeting, the camera, sound and phone system blinked in and out, hampering the public’s ability to give comment and monitor the workings of city government.

POLICE CAMERAS

Luna said she learned of the cameras after receiving three phone calls yesterday. She went out to look at them, noting they are all mounted on city electric poles.

The locations of the cameras are:

• south side of South Broadway Street just east of the entrance to the 76 gas station in Williamsburg

• intersection of South Broadway and Central Avenue in front of Reed’s Tire in Williamsburg

• intersection of Kruger Street and Third Street

• south side of Third Street across from the Seventh Judicial District Courthouse

• north side of North Date Street, immediately east of the entrance to McDonald’s

• south side of North Date Street, directly across from Denny’s.

  • T or C police surveillance camera at South Broadway and Central
  • T or C police surveillance camera across from district court
“Unnerving”: Other camera locations include (left) South Broadway and Central and (right) Third Street across from the district courthouse. Photographs by Ron Fenn copyright © 2020

The cameras are aimed at license plate level, Luna said, prompting her to ask City Manager Morris Madrid what the cameras are for and who is on the other end of the camera feed.

Madrid said the city police own the cameras, which were approved as part of the 2020-21 budget. He did not refute Luna’s assertion that city commissioners were never informed it was buying and posting surveillance cameras.

“This is seriously unnerving,” Luna said.

Madrid said such surveillance by a government is “common practice,” and the cameras watch public-property locations, not private property.

SMART METERS APPEALS PROCESS

Four T or C residents are appealing the smart-meter replacement of their analog electric meter, as allowed under city code 14-30 (E). The code states the city will promulgate rules for the appeal process, but it has not.

The code states the appeal shall first be made to the electric department director and then the city manager and then the city commission. The city combined the first two appeals steps in denial letters issued to all four appellants by City Manager Morris Madrid, Electric Department Director Bo Easley and City Attorney Jay Rubin.

Ron Fenn, one of the appellants, spoke during the meeting’s public comment period, noting that he only got a “two-line” response as to why his 27-page appeal was turned down. He requested the city commission give reasons for denying or accepting his appeal arguments and that the hearing be held during a public city commission meeting.

Madrid confirmed that the appeals will be heard during the Jan. 27 city commission meeting.

Rubin responded by noting that appellants can “supplement” their arguments in the appeals to be heard by the city commission. He provided no specific guidance.

SIERRA COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION

Luna asked her fellow commissioners to approve the revitalization of the moribund Sierra County Economic Development Organization, which years ago started as a “volunteer” organization that grew to have a full-time paid director and administrative assistant.

The organization died because tangible results could not be correlated to the work or expense, Luna said.

“I think we are reaping those rewards now,” Luna said, without giving economic growth figures or naming projects or businesses that contributed to growth.

In a recent conversation with state Representative Rebecca Dow and state Senator Crystal Diamond, Luna said it was agreed the governmental entities in the county need to work together on planning and economic development.

Mayor Sandra Whitehead spoke up in favor of Luna’s proposition and exhorted local entities “not to backstab each other,” to communicate better and to work together in “unity.”

Whitehead also said planning documents, such as those related to Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan projects, should be widely circulated. “Everybody needs that information. We need documentation.”

Mayor Pro Tem Amanda Forrister agreed, suggesting that the South Central Council of Governments should be more involved in improving communication and collaboration on proposed economic development projects.

Luna asked permission to be the “city’s representative” in contacting each of the entities she thought should be invited to participate, a list not made available to the public. After claiming “I have experience in this,” she received informal approval from the commission to reconstitute SCEDO.

LAND SWAP

A public hearing was held at today’s meeting on a proposed land exchange between the city and Randy Ashbaugh, a developer who owns (among other properties) several convenience store/gas station establishments named Fast Stop in the area.

No public testimony was given. The city commission approved the land swap unanimously.

Ashbaugh will receive 20 city acres lying between Interstate 25 and the city golf course. The city will receive 17.25 acres of Ashbaugh’s property across the highway.

Assessor's map indicating parcels to be swapped
The land the city will receive borders an old race track. City Manager Morris Madrid said he has received an expression of interest in the site’s redevelopment for dirt track races. Sierra County Assessor’s parcel map with locators and text by Ron Fenn

The 20 city acres were independently appraised at $222,500 and are zoned commercial. Ashbaugh’s 17.25 acres were independently appraised at $136,000 and are zoned transitional.

Ashbaugh will pay the $86,500 difference in property values and will cede utility easements within the 20-acre property to the city.

Madrid said the city will benefit by receiving land in which two businesses have expressed interest. One business, he explained, holds “dirt track races in the southern part of the state and wanted to add this location to the tour before COVID happened.” This business “still retains an interest.”

A second business operates RV parks, Madrid said, and also expressed interest “pre-COVID.” It is still interested, he maintained.

Ashbaugh told the Sun in an interview in November he wants the 20 acres primarily to enable him to build a road that will connect Kopra Street to the Walmart shopping center.

FLOOD DAMAGE REIMBURSEMENT

Commissioners received an update on reimbursement for damages caused by the July 26 flood event. Declaring the flood a disaster, the city filed an application for about $2.2 million in reimbursement with the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management in October. In December, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham issued an executive order stating the city qualified for a $750,000 reimbursement for flood damage.

Madrid said a DHSEM official informed him yesterday the city must submit proof of what repair work has been done and account for the money expended to collect the $750,000. The city may qualify for “more than $750,000” by submitting detailed repair plans for the affected sites.

CDBG PUBLIC HEARINGS

The city held public hearings at 11 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 12 to elicit community input on needed or desired Community Development Block Grant projects.

The U.S. Housing and Urban Development disburses about $11 million for CDBG projects each year to New Mexico. Small rural cities may apply for infrastructure grants up to $750,000 or for planning grants for $50,000.

The city’s input hearings were held online, with South Central Council of Governments official Tiffany Goolsby conducting the meeting. No members of the public attended.

Neither hearing had a written agenda. Although the public notice for the hearings stated CDBG projects the city has completed in the past would be discussed, this information was not made available.

At the 11 a.m. hearing, Manager Madrid said he will give the city commissioners a list of proposed projects at the commission’s Jan. 27 meeting. Commissioners can select one among them or propose others. The public may also propose CDBG projects, Madrid said, by contacting Grants/Project Coordinator Traci Alvarez.

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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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HAVE YOU SEEN?

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.

1 thought on “T or C Commission’s Jan. 13 meeting roundup: public surveillance cameras disclosed, smart-meter appeals process sketched, and more”

  1. Susan Christie

    Picking my subject from the several in this article that merit a comment….

    “Luna asked her fellow commissioners to approve the revitalization of the moribund Sierra County Economic Development Organization, which years ago started as a ‘volunteer’ organization that grew to have a full-time paid director and administrative assistant.”

    We have been here since 2006. Other commentators may post something here about this with direct firsthand knowledge. It would be very good if those that were directly involved previously in this would comment. Was it a slush fund for the last paid manager? Were there any projects that were accomplished? Rumors abound here. Taking a good look at the problems of the past and reformatting this organization for a better outcome seem to be imperative.

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