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Today's Opinions

  • EDITORIAL: Thumbs

    UP thumb ... GOOD TURNOUTS. More than 100 people turned out for this week’s school board election forums, sponsored by the Committee for the People and this newspaper. All candidates attended (except one, who has all but bowed out) and all but two of the city’s school board members turned out as well (only Ralph Garcia from West, who isn’t seeking re-election, and Ramon “Swoops” Montaño from East, who is not up for election, were no-shows).

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  • COLUMN: Change to the better

    At first I resented the corporate executives for pushing the issue as they did. The Optic could best pull out of its slump, I argued, if we merged our newspaper and our website into a dynamic new product. But for reasons I still don’t understand, I was told it wasn’t that simple, that our new Web platform, with all its blemishes, had to stay.

    Meanwhile, the numbers were becoming increasingly clear: We would have to downsize or face a tenuous future.

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  • COLUMN: Moving forward by looking back

    Hindsight is 20-20, as politicians who insist they want to move forward like to say.

    But sometimes it’s important to take a look back to see if some things could have been done better.

    Let’s hope Mayor Tony Marquez and the City Council do just that.

    In June, a City Council majority fired six of 10 department directors then immediately proceeded to hire a new city manager. In other words, the manager, Sharon Caballero, started with less than half of the city’s management team in place.

    Talk about a recipe for problems.

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  • LETTERS: A comprehensive energy program

    Congress and the Administration are touting alternative energy sources to replace power production derived from foreign oil. They want to generate 10 percent to 20 percent of the U.S. energy needs from alternative sources.

    Most of the alternative energy would have to be generated from wind power systems.  If we assume 10 percent of the U.S. energy requirements consists of 100,000 megawatts, and each wind turbine produces approximately 2 to 3 megawatts, it will take about 40,000 wind turbines to produce the 100,000 megawatts.

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  • EDITORIAL: Keep process entirely open

    No company should get any special treatment when it comes to city business, especially when it involves a major housing project.

    Last week, the Las Vegas City Council’s agenda stated that the council would be asked to approve an agreement with Santa Fe-based Western Trails Inc. The proposed agreement would have meant the company would build 60 units of rental housing as part of a federal tax credit program. The units would be built on land along Mills Avenue, where the city demolished housing a couple of years ago.

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  • EDITORIAL: Pass around the blame

    The city of Las Vegas recently received some bad news — it lost a $1.2 million state grant for a water project.

    The state Water Trust Board approved the money for the city in 2006, but reversed itself a couple of weeks ago. We can’t blame the board. After all, the city originally wanted to use the money to pipe water for the Storrie Project Water Users Association in exchange for more storage water rights at Storrie Lake.

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  • EDITORIAL: Highlands progress is evident

    It’s amazing how far Highlands University has come along in the last couple of years. If you question whether that’s the case, look no farther than Highlands’ effort to take over the struggling College of Santa Fe.

    Last week, Highlands and the Santa Fe school signed a letter of intent giving the university a 120-day window to buy the college. Highlands needs the approval of several agencies, but it looks as if  the purchase will happen.

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  • LETTER: Thoughts about Montoya’s help

    Regarding your thumbs up last week: I agree — Less [sic] Montoya should be a great help.

    Perhaps, now we can find the money missing from the city’s safes. An outside source usually works better, as Les owes no allegiance to anyone at the city.

    I look forward to Les’ investigation into restoring citizens’ monies back into city coffers.

    Everyone in town should support Les’ efforts to find the culprits who took our hard-earned city revenues, and probably used those revenues for their own business interests.

    Emilio Aragon

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