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Editorials

  • Forum impressions

    Moderator Alex Aragon and the Community Committee for Better Schools, which did the bulk of the work to make last week’s candidate forums successful, should be pleased with one thing over all else — the turnout. More than 200 people attended the West and East  forums, which is a good showing by any account. And while there were simply too many questions and not enough time to get to them all, the crowds themselves were a dramatic statement to the candidates. People in both districts are paying attention.

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  • Thumbs Our high country lowdown on the news

    THE STAGE IS SET. Gov. Susana Martinez opened the legislative session with a call for bipartisanship. Then the very partisan Ben Lujan got re-elected Speaker of the House. The stage is set for a rough-and-tumble legislative session, not because our New Mexico officials are so emphatically loyal to party ideologies, because they’re not (at least compared to the national political arena), but because they have to figure out a way to offset a $400 million budget shortfall. Such a task is never easy.

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  • Growth we need

    We look forward to seeing the city’s master plan as it will surely contain some dynamic ideas on how to move Las Vegas forward. Annexation, we’ve been told, will be in there, as well it should be. Areas such as Camp Luna should have been brought into the city years ago.

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  • American dreamer

    This Optic editorial first appeared on Jan. 17, 2005.

    “... I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”
    — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
    Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963

    • • •

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  • Thumbs - Our high country lowdown on the news

    BUDGET CUTS. The state Legislative Finance Committee has recommended, as a way to help offset a looming budget deficit, that state employees contribute more to their pension plan while the state reduces it payout by $50 million. It would result in a cut in take-home pay for state workers — and less in disposable income that they could be spending in our local economy. And Gov. Susana Martinez likes the idea.

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  • Caring for the animals

    Paul McCartney reportedly said, “You can judge a man’s true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.” If that’s the case, we as a community have plenty of room for improvement. It’s not uncommon to see stray dogs and cats wandering our streets, often abandoned or dumped by their owners, or seeing dogs living their lives bound to a chain while their owners ignore all but their most basic needs of food and water.

    But, overall, we are a compassionate community, and we know we can do better than that.

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  • Cleaning up this town

    Joe Aragon Jr. and his son Joe Aragon III are justified in their frustration with the city’s solid waste transfer station. It’s unnecessarily messy, with trash blowing all over the place on a regular basis. So when they complain to city officials that they regularly have to pick up the city’s trash on their neighboring property, it’s believable. And when they say it’s not just a transfer station, that it’s a dump and a junkyard to boot, no one can really argue with them.

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  • Thumbs Our high country lowdown on the news

    RIGHT DIRECTION. As staunch believers in openness in government, we applaud the efforts of the Community Committee for Better School to have a say in the selection of a new superintendent in the East district. Also commendable is the reaction of school board President Gabe Lucero, who says he’s open to the committee’s participation. He even extends the invitation to current candidates, which totals nine on the East-side ballot.

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  • Martinez off to good start

    So far we just don’t see the Big Bad Boogiewoman that some feared would come out of Susana Martinez once elected. So far, we can only applaud the moves she’s made.

    First thing, shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, she signed executive orders that opened up state government, by prohibiting state departments and boards from hiring lobbyists, directing agencies to cooperate with any federal investigation and limiting the administration’s use of executive privilege to deny public records requests.

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  • Daunting circumstances

    Ahhh, the ebbs and flows of party politics. Two years ago, when the Democrat Barack Obama was sworn in as president, he faced a tremendous federal deficit due to the excesses of his Republican predecessor. And now, with Republican Susana Martinez as New Mexico’s governor, she enters office on the heels of a Democrat who spent the state’s tax dollars as if there were no sign of a rainy-day tomorrow. Obama and Martinez, it seems, have something in common — they’ve inherited a fiscal mess.

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Copyright © 2013

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