Please Vote! Here Are Some Thoughts

If you care about nothing else, vote for Harris-Walz at the top of your ballot. Mr. Trump is wholly unqualified: he’s a danger to our country not only in his narcissism but in his incompetence, his dictatorial inclinations, his complete indifference to policy details, and how easily foreign leaders manipulate him. Harris and Walz are interested in government, interested generally in helping average people, and seem to be decent, highly competent human beings who care.

U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich is experienced and highly effective, and speaks of tackling climate change and expanding health care access. Nella Domenici spouts generalized accusations that everything she dislikes in our state is Heinrich’s fault. She’ a privileged, private-equity person from elsewhere who hopes we’ll vote for her because her father was Pete Domenici and she grew up in New Mexico. She ain’t Pete. Oddly enough, he was a friend of mine. And a good and highly competent man, despite our ideological differences. (He once told me that when, as non-partisan mayor of Albuquerque, he considered a Senate run, choosing his party was a close call.) His daughter is further right; her private-equity career means sympathy for our wealthiest citizens; if elected, and if Mr. Trump were President, she’d be in his possible majority in the Senate, helping him do whatever nutty thing enters his head. Pete wouldn’t have been Trump’s puppet. Heinrich will be a strong member of the loyal opposition. That’s important.

Similarly, former Las Cruces City Councilor Gabe Vasquez is a better Congressperson than was Trumpist Yvette Herrell. This campaign has gone way negative: he emphasizes her draconian position on abortion, she stresses some out-of-context remarks he made regarding the police. The reality is that she’d help pave Mr. Trump’s road, while Gabe wouldn’t; and she simply doesn’t get the fact that we should not be effectively murdering young ladies for getting pregnant, whether they were unwise or victims of rape or incest. Their bodies are theirs, not mine or Yvette’s.

Samantha Salopek Barncastle is challenging two-term incumbent NM Senator Carrie Hamblen (D-38). Barncastle has long been attorney for Elephant Butte Irrigation District, which has frequently drawn fire from environmentalists and some small farmers.

The District Attorney race ain’t the easy choice I wish it were. I’ve known Fernando Macias at least slightly for 50 years. He’s highly experienced and has done a lot of good. Some also find him a little grandoise and imperious: “My Way or the Highway!” Some very good friends, Democrats, some holding office here, say they would never vote for him. Michael Cain, while charming and an experienced criminal lawyer, is simply not as strong a candidate as Fernando, although Cain argues that his decades specializing in criminal law outweigh Macias’s wealth of experience as judge, county manager, commissioner, and state legislator. Friends passionately support both. Which would rescue the office? Bottom line: if I thought this race were close, I’d vote for Fernando. If not, I’d wish I could write in Atticus Finch.

I discuss local races in my blog post on http://www.soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/. County Clerk Amanda Lopez Askin, Tara Jaramillo, Bill Soules and Nathan Small, among others, have served us well and deserve re-election. I’d also vote for Sarah Silva if I could.

I think I favor all four proposed constitutional amendments, and the bond issues. Despite strong distaste for our state’s use of the gross receipts tax, I’d approve Las Cruces’s small requested increase.

                                              – 30 --

[This column appeared Sunday, 27 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and will be up soon  on the newspaper’s website and on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[What else should I note here?

> That our County Clerk, Amanda LopezAskin, is a star in that position. I’ve thought so more and more strongly. And the lady challenging her in this election basically promiss to do stuff Askin is already doing, such as being transparent and outgoing and pro-active about educating voters and increasing registration. So that’s an easy one.

> We had District 3x state representative Tara Jaramillo on our radio show recently, and she was distinctly more impressive than most folks realize. It came through in the depth of her commitment to public service and all that inspired it. Runs deep in her family, and in her. And she’ll be fierce about giving kids he best chance we can, particuarly kids with an extra helping of problems.

> I touched on the state senate race between Carrie Hamblen and Samantha Salopek Barncastle. I’ve run into Barncastle in court, representing right wing interests who didn’t seem to have our community’s best interest at heart, and as EBID’s lawyer, pushing for water issues to come out in ways EBID would prefer; but I haven’t seen her out just doing good for our community. Meanwhile, I think her pals at EBID have lost their taste for her company, or at least for her professional help. By contrast, Hamblen seems a straight-shooter, she’s effectively progressive, and a top conservation group gives her 100% approval for the whole time she’ sbeen in ofice. Hamblen makes sense for the modern and growing community we are. Barncastle pobably doesn’t.

> This morning I looked again at a seven-minute black&white film about the passionately Nazi American Patriots rally that drew 20,000 to New York’s Madison Square Garden in February 1939, about when Hitler was completing construction on his 5th or 6^th concentration camp. It doesn’t answer any questions. Just documents that they were there, listening to an orator and finding some way to mix love of Hitler with love of George Washington, who maybe they didn’t know turned town office a few times, including after serving two terms as our president. Shows ‘em sincere as hell, conflating our democratic tradition with hatred and prejudice. I alwas wondered how. We might be finding out, the next few years. ]

On Following its own Ordinances, Let's Give the City an Incomplete for Now

After a 2018 scandal, which some Las Cruces city councilors thought might trigger criminal charges, the City followed an independent investigator’s recommendations to keep a keener eye on handling of public funds. A 2019 Ordinance created an Oversight Committee and an Inspector-General position to be filled with Oversight Committee approval. Another ordinance created a Public Safety Select Committee. (“PSSC”).

Then-City Manager Ifo Pili didn’t like oversight. The IG position sat unfilled for years, violating the ordinance. The oversight committee did some good work we’ll never know the details of. (The Ordinance required publication of Committee findings; but that mostly didn’t happen.)

In 2023, the City hired an IG, but he reportedly clashed with Pili and left. Then Pili [without required Committee approval] appointed as IG an oversight committee member whom Pili reportedly didn’t consider a threat. Mandatory committee meetings stopped in 2023. The committee dwindled to one voting member, former City Councilor Jack Eakman. I was told the problem was filling committee positions that required folks with solid experience in Business (Eakman), Auditing, and Law. Eakman kept urging action. In April he served an IPRA Request. The City denied him 33 documents on dubious attorney-client privilege claims.

When some some councilors seemed quite interested in a proposal for citizens’ police oversight, Mayor Ken Miyagashima, who opposed it, referred the proposal to the PSSC to die. The PSSC never even invited further discussion!

The PSSC looked like an improper “executive committee.” It was supposed to report information to the full council, but no one saw that happening. It appeared that the committee either wasn’t doing its job or was possibly violating the Open Meetings Act.

In June 2023, citizen Michael Hays requested documents concerning the PSSC. The City stiffed him, violating IPRA so blatantly that settling the lawsuit cost the City nearly $200,000 plus paying its own lawyers. [Full disclosure: I represented Mr. Hays.] I hope the new city manager and city attorney are improving things. When Eakman re-submitted his document request, the City gave him all the documents it had wrongly denied him. The documents showed that by late 2023 a professional auditor and three apparently qualified attorneys had volunteered to serve on the Oversight Committee and been vetted.

Violating the Ordinance, the City delayed appointments, saying staff needed to amend the Ordinance. Recently the City Council adopted amendments that somewhat weaken the Oversight Committee and have it report to the city manager. (The amendments don’t seem so urgent that we needed more than a year with NO oversight committee.) The ordinance is silent on handling misconduct allegations against the city manager, but I’m told that the city clerk would appoint an “Ethics Committee” from among citizens serving on boards. Not ideal.

A simple plan – to have three qualified citizens use their expertise to investigate city affairs that seemed to need that – seems less promising now. I hope good people take this on and prove me wrong.

Citizens have asked whether those committees still exist, or still function. No straight answer was available, probably because city officials were trying to figure out the right course of action. But that wasn’t a good look.

I asked again recently. The City hopes to appoint a new oversight committee ASAP. The PSSC? High city officials couldn’t really answer that yet.

I’m glad we have a new city manager and attorney, but doubt the long wait and the amendments have helped curb official misconduct.

                                                           – 30 –

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 13 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and on the newspaper's website and will shortly be up on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[This was a harder column to write than some are. I wanted to be neither too critical of the city nor insufficiently critical. Opinions vary on whether or not, or by how much, the amendments mentioned actually weaken the committee. Further, how strongly should one factor in positive expectations of Ikani Taumoepeau and Brad Douglas? Certainly our experience of Douglas’s predecessor made her departure likely to be an improvement. I hope we can discuss all this on a radio show soon, hopefully with divergent points of view represented.]

[Vote! I’m feeling extremely pessimistic about the national election. These are demented and dangerous times. What can we do when climate-change-charged storms are killing folks in Florida and pushing most to vote for a climate-change-denier who’ll do nothing, when unions in Pennsylvania are leaning more and more toward voting for a man who loathes unions, and that voters worry Kamala Harris “can’t handle Putin” while her opponent is a Putin-admirer and such a Putin toadie he sent Putin hard-to-get COVID tests when in office. Of course, he has denied that, and accused reported Bob Woodward of having “lost his marbles” for reporting such a thing, but the Kremlin has now confirmed Woodward on that point. I’d hate to have to explain all this to Dwight Eisenhower.

The local and state situation is not so discouraging.]

                --  30  --

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 13 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and on the newspaper's website and  on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version aired during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .   APOLOGIES for not getting this one posted here until now AND for not doing a column at all this week. ]

[This was a harder column to write than some are. I wanted to be neither too critical of the city nor insufficiently critical. Opinions vary on whether or not, or by how much, the amendments mentioned actually weaken the committee. Further, how strongly should one factor in positive expectations of Ikani Taumoepeau and Brad Douglas? Certainly our experience of Douglas’s predecessor made her departure likely to be an improvement. I hope we can discuss all this on a radio show soon, hopefully with divergent points of view represented.]

[Vote! I’m feeling extremely pessimistic about the national election. These are demented and dangerous times. What can we do when climate-change-charged storms are killing folks in Florida and pushing most to vote for a climate-change-denier who’ll do nothing, when unions in Pennsylvania are leaning more and more toward voting for a man who loathes unions, and that voters worry Kamala Harris “can’t handle Putin” while her opponent is a Putin-admirer and such a Putin toadie he sent Putin hard-to-get COVID tests when in office. Of course, he has denied that, and accused reported Bob Woodward of having “lost his marbles” for reporting such a thing, but the Kremlin has now confirmed Woodward on that point. I’d hate to have to explain all this to Dwight Eisenhower.

The local and state situation is not so discouraging.]

Remembering Anne Frank in Challenging Times

It’s an odd time to see a very moving, thought-provoking play about antisemitism, the LCCT’s excellent production of The Diary of Anne Frank (Oct. 4-20 at 313 North Main). The original version won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize plus Tony and Drama Critics award as best play.

These times display both renewed antisemitism and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s human rights abuses against Arabs. The antisemitism comes from not only the usual right-wing “Nationalists,” such as Nick Fuentes, but also apolitical or leftist folks appalled both by Hamas’s October 7 massacre and by Israel’s predictable overreaction, which Hamas had hoped to trigger.

In such times, maintaining fairness, tolerance, and human decency is both harder and more urgent. We should not punish or discriminate against Muslims or Jews in this country based on what other countries and groups are doing elsewhere. All ethnic prejudice, against Jews, Christians or Muslims, Blacks or Hispanics, Irish or Italians, or gays or political opponents, is stupid, hurtful, and wrong. Hamas leaders and Netanyahu are bad actors with understandable reasons. Protesting either’s conduct shouldn’t cause harassment of Jews or Palestinians. But sometimes it does.

Soon after Trump invited Fuentes for supper, Trump ally Tucker Carlson gave a holocaust denying anti-Semite a two-hour platform. As a journalist I might talk with a Nazi apologist, but I’d ask tough questions and sure wouldn’t call him “the best and most honest popular historian in the U.S.” That Carlson thinks that, and J.D. Vance holds a campaign rally with Carlson, sure says something about whom Mr. Vance hopes to appeal to.

Less obviously dangerous are Mr. Trump’s recent statements that a Trump defeat will be “on the Jews,” or “the fault of the Jews.” He shouldn’t lump all Jews together. In a world where Trump’s words were followed by an invasion of the Capitol, and his lies about election chicanery led to threats and harassment of election workers, it should occur to him that some follower might attack Jews for costing Trump the election – even if, as I assume, Trump doesn’t intend that Jews be harmed or harassed. (Followers are threatening Springfield schools with shootings and bombs because Trump claims Springfield residents from Haiti eat people’s pets)

“The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.” As their “betrayal” cost Germany World War I? Until decades after Hitler, the Catholic Church still taught that the Jews were responsible for killing Jesus.

This ain’t important just for Jews. History teaches that if you let governments unlawfully mistreat segments of the population, those governments will use the same illegal means to persecute others, or just eliminate political opponents or persons of conscience who stand up for fairness and justice.

I applaud director Norman Lewis for spraying this excellent show on the “dormant noxious weed [antisemitism] needing only a drop of encouragement to burst into full bloom.”

Watching is tough, at times. As we leave the theater, I feel grateful for the experience, impressed by the production – and troubled by vicious ethnic abuse surrounding us. Folks should see it. This production is well-crafted and more than moving. ([For info and tickets: https://www.lcctnm.org/ .) Like any good play, it takes you out of your life into another world; but this world contains important information we all ought to have, maybe an inoculation against ethnic hatred. An election-season reminder of where that can lead, and that some political conduct is just not even decent.

                              – 30 –

 

 

[This column appeared Sunday, 6 October, 2024, in the Las Cruces Sun-News

and on the newspaper's website and will shortly be up on KRWG’s website, under Local Viewpoints. A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM, streaming at www.lccommunityradio.org/). For further information on the topic of this column, please go to my blog, https://soledadcanyon.blogspot.com/ .]

[It’s a good play, well done. And timely. (Five years ago, we got to meet in Las Cruces Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, a childhood friend of Anne’s in Amsterdam, right before the events depicted in the play.) Let me stress that by point out the antisemitism of Trump’s allies and himself I do NOT mean to equate Mr. Trump with Adolph Hitler. Trump has no such sense of mission, little concern with government policy, and lacks Hitler’s drive, and, so far as I can tell, harbors no desire to destroy any ethnic group. He’s a garden-variety somewhat racist and antisemitic product of our times. (He was born in 1946, almost six months before I was, and in Queens rather than Brooklyn.)  Managers of his casino used to have to try to get black dealers off the floor when he visited; and his comment on Jews, that he liked his accountants to be Jewish, while antisemitic, isn’t vicious. He grew up liking money and with a deeper need than most of us to keep proving he’s okay. And now political convenience has aligned him with folks who are more actively antisemitic and racist.) So he’s no Hitler. But his lack of compassion for those who are different from him is concerning. And since he’s demonstrated that callousness with regard to Mexicans, immigrants, Muslims, U.S. veterans and prisoners-of-war, handicapped journalists, and quite a few others, maybe in that previous sentence I shouldn’t have limited the statement with the words “those who are different from him. Shit, he ain’t even compassionate toward his wives.]