Columns

By Thomas M. Sanchez

The Mora County Commission held two public meetings in recent months to hear public input on steps to move forward with the Mora County Complex.

Last December, local residents participated in an open public meeting to express concerns about the project as well as suggestions for taking steps to complete the project. Additionally, during a commission meeting in late January, residents had another opportunity to provide input on a request for funding for the Mora County Complex for submission to the New Mexico State Legislature.

The response to last week’s Work of Art, in which I planned and planted misuses of the English language, was great. The reaction ranged from the concern that your resident Language Cop somehow had “lost it” to a let’s-do-it-again attitude.

A half dozen readers either e-mailed or dropped off their responses, and one person went even farther, finding a stray question mark in my column and catching me on my capitalizing a word that shouldn’t have been.

The little priest from old Albuquerque, who could neither speak nor understand English, won the election to become the Territory’s delegate to Congress in 1853. When he arrived in Washington, Padre José Manuel Gallegos requested an interpreter, a gesture truly symbolic of the great divide between New Mexico and its new American sovereign.

The Las Vegas Community Water Board held two candidate forums last week to exclusively address — you guessed it — water issues.

They did so for good reason. The city’s water system has long been a No. 1 concern because of what could happen and what’s already happening.

What could happen is a wildfire, an earthquake or a prolonged drought. Since 90 percent of our water system comes out of the Gallinas River, ash from a major fire in the canyon could make it too polluted to use.