Local News

Years ago, Christian Garrett founded a conservative Christian church in Las Vegas and he preached that homosexuality was a sin.

Now he’s returned to Las Vegas a different guy: He’s come out as gay, and he doesn’t consider it a bad thing.

The 40-year-old isn’t shy about telling his story.

In 1999, he formed the New Life Christian Church in Las Vegas. It started with 24 members, and within a year, that number rose by a hundred more.

City Councilman Cruz Roybal contends that city employees are developing a phobia of talking to elected officials.

“I used to freely talk with employees. Now people are afraid of council members,” Roybal said at this week’s council meeting. “How can we not allow people to talk with me?”

He said that while a gag order may have been imposed on city employees, that won’t stop him from talking with people he has known for much of his life.

“We are family here, vecinos, primos. That’s our culture,” he said.

The state’s chamber of commerce is taking heat for canceling a forum at the last minute after one of the congressional candidates decided against showing up.

For more than a month, the Association of Commerce and Industry and the Clovis-Curry County Chamber of Commerce had planned a candidate forum for northern New Mexico’s four congressional candidates, Democrat Ben Ray Lujan, Republican Dan East and two independents, Carol Miller and Ron Simmons.

The City Council approved Mayor Tony Marquez’s appointments for a number of city committees on Wednesday, but it delayed action on his selections for the housing committee.

For the housing committee, the mayor recommended the appointments of Lorenzo Flores as chairman, former Councilman Macario Gonzalez, Pamela Daves, JoAnn Elliott and Grover Durham.