County's Rush to Jupiter Sparks Legal Complaints and Transparency Concerns

Our County Commission cares more for Project Jupiter than for following state transparency laws or protecting our environment.

I have my doubts about the project. It’ll have a huge negative impact on our environment, and make a pathetic joke out of the state’s ambitions to cut our greenhouse gas production and help combat climate craziness. Too few of the proponents’ many promises appeared in the actual contract; and that contract is enforceable solely against the specific entity that signed it. If that goes belly-up, the real owners just laugh at those promises.

The process, though, was embarrassing and likely unlawful.

Commissioner Susana Chaparro objected to approving a contract marked “draft,” containing blank pages and material she hadn’t seen. State Senator Jeff Steinborn was appalled that the Commission approved material with missing pages. A lawsuit alleges that the County approved industrial development bonds that didn’t meet certain requirements, including environmental impact.

There were open-meetings concerns, which have now been exacerbated by an obvious violation: in approving the deal, the Commission authorized Commission Chair Christopher Schaljo-Hernandez to tinker with it. After local journalist Heath Haussamen criticized the deal, he received a “final” version of the contract that seemed to make some of the vague promises enforceable. Days later, there was a new version, apparently still not final.

The Open Meetings Act requires such decisions to be made in front of us. Sure, the Commission can delegate purely ministerial tasks such at signing it and filling in the effective date, and that sort of non-substantive change; but where changes actually alter the parties’ obligations to each other, in substantive ways, large or small, that’s not allowed.

For example, such AI data center campuses normally use huge amounts of water for cooling. In a desert suffering from serious drought, that matters. Responding to critics, proponents promised that this was not really a problem because they’d use a closed-loop cooling system that minimizes water usage. Otherwise, this thing could wipe out water supplies of poor citizens in the south county. Altering such a material provision, after the vote, can’t be consistent with the open meetings law. All commissioners must be heard, either representing their constituents or honestly own a failure to do so. We should have some theoretical chance to talk a little sense into them, unlikely as that now seems.

Huge power requirements and degradation are issues. This will be a data center campus. It will definitely use vast amounts of energy – and could possibly keep using gas-fired electricity plants for more than the next twenty years. Elsewhere, the plants have significantly increased people’s electricity costs.

Chaparro said, “There is no permanent document yet, even though we’ve already voted on it, and that is just wrong.” The plain language of the Open Meetings Act seems quite clear. The county ordinance is not to the contrary. Further, NMAG Opinion 98-01, as do guidance letters, confirms that ministerial acts (signing, executing, transmitting) are not “meetings” under the Act. The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government sees this as a clear OMA violation, and likely will tell the county so.

We’ll eventually see what a judge or the present state attorney-general thinks. Meanwhile I’d hate to be the bond attorney who has to give an unqualified opinion that the bonds were properly approved. Or a worker with a family in Santa Teresa worrying about water availability and electricity rates.

Or someone who likes to breathe.

                            -- 30 -- 

 

[The above column in the Las Cruces Sun-News will presently be on KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). That website also contains station show archives.]

[I remind everyone that we’re in the midst of a local election. Please vote.]

[Courts and maybe the New Mexico Attorney-General will sort all this stuff out. Writing the above column was no fun. The county commissioners are mostly people I like and respect, and often agree with. I wish they’d taken more time with this one, despite the proponents’ pressure. Ironically, when I went on line intending to post this, I saw another article about a big data center and alleged lack of transparency about water . Yeah, that was Amazon. I have no opinion on the allegations. But the proliferation of such stories about data centers just emphasizes the basic point, that the proponents here, nice as they may be, are not necessarily our friends. Their legal and ethical obligation is to maximize shareholder profit. That might [Gee, whiz!] not always align with commissioners’ obligation, to make the best deal for the county and its residents. Transparency is not always convenient for the proponents, and thus we do need to get it all down in a writing we can actually enforce. I hope we’ve done that here – or would it be more accurate to say that I hope they somehow do that if and when the contractual documents are complete and final?]

[I hope all that comes out right. I hope the data center’s closed-loop cooling process actually minimizes water use, and never breaks down and requires suddenly greater water, where there ain’t much. I hope the data center doesn’t do a whole lot of harm to the air here, and that the proponents, as one of them assured me they will, maximize their use of renewable energy, because there’s no question their energy needs will be huge and constant. I hope they never need so much electricity that it ups folks’ rates, as has happened elsewhere, but which commissioners and proponents seem sure won’t happen here; and I hope that if anything goes wrong, the county has insisted on all the right contractual provisions to ensure that citizens don’t suffer, and the company makes everything right, and there’s a company that’s both solvent and contractually obligated to make things right. I do hope all that. But if you had charge of a betting site, what would you make the odds?]

[Also, thanks again to Heath Haussamen for all the reporting he’s done on this, including persistence in getting documents. Heath and I don’t work together, we don’t always agree on things, and all that, but check out his website – https://haussamen.com/ – read his reporting, and, if you’re solvent, consider donating to help him continue the good work. ]

Thoughts on the Present Local Election

Here’s how I’m voting (or would, if I lived in the proper district) in the local election for three city councilor positions and three Las Cruces School Board positions, and on school and county bond issues.

For City Council, in a prior column, I unreservedly recommended incumbent Becky Corran (District 5) and Michael Harris (District 3).  Corran is hard-working, progressive, and thoughtful. She’s had a powerful impact on council actions in a wide variety of areas.  With four years’ experience, she’s a superstar.  Harris seems sharp, and has already worked on a city board and spoken up about progressive issues.  His opponent, Isaiah Tellez, seems a good guy and perhaps a promising future candidate, but lacks Harris’s knowledge, experience, and beginning of a record.

In District 6, I recommend John Muñoz for city council.  He's a progressive business leader who is pretty widely respected and liked. He’ll bring an interesting mix of experiences and likely be a strong unifying force helping the city move forward.  He’s probably more conservative than I, but brings a lot to the table.  District 6 will be the sole city district using ranked-choice voting.  I’d put Tommy Black second, and, if John weren’t in the race, I’d happily vote for Black.

I recommend all three incumbent school board candidates.  We have an unusually competent, open-minded, and knowledgeable school board right now.  It’s a tough position with lots of unanswerable questions you have to take your best shot on.  These folks have impressed me, individually and as a team:  Patrick Nolan (District 1 - unopposed), incumbents Pamela Cort (2) and Bob Wofford (3).  Cort and Wofford are former teachers.  Each is hard-working and progressive, and cares about our community. Because of a national effort to turn schools trumpy, it seems particularly important to re-elect all three.  

Other local races feature unopposed candidates of whom I approve, but whom I lack space here to discuss.

I strongly support the proposed Las Cruces Public Schools bond, which won’t raise taxes and will address serious maintenance and other capital needs in our schools.  Because our kids’ minds and health are non-negotiable, I’d go vote for that even if I had no candidates to vote for.

I guess I’ll also vote for the two General Obligation bonds for Doña Ana County, despite my disappointment that the Commission blew opportunities to handle “Project Jupiter” better.

It seems important to revitalize community centers and improve wastewater infrastructure in rural areas of the county.  Unfortunately, the county included so many possibilities that we don’t really know exactly how the money will be used. Even so, I’ll vote “Yes.”

On the bond that would revitalize the County fairgrounds, including building an amphitheater, I was undecided before talking to Southern New Mexico State Fair manager Travis Brown. The fair continues a local and western tradition of raising livestock and crops, and doing other crafts that shouldn’t die out, and I favor that pretty strongly.  It’s also interesting entertainment for many.

Given the location, I have doubts that the amphitheater will draw enough patronage to make the thing worthwhile.  (“It will if you get the right bands,” a friend responded.)  I also definitely favor improving recreational facilities in rural areas of the county.  I gather that the property tax impact would around $15 for a house valued at $285,000.  So I’m a “yes” vote, with reservations about the amphitheater.

                                             – 30 – 

 

[The above column appeared Sunday, 19 October, 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, and on the newspaper's website, and will presently also be on the KRWG website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). That website also contains station show archives.]

[I urge everyone to vote, whatever your views on all this. Too few folks do vote. Early voting is in progress at some sites, including the County Building.]

Did our Guv Put Fingers on the Scale to Help Commerce Trump Science?

What’s to say about Governor Lujan-Grisham pulling a Trumpish stunt to help the oil&gas industry endanger us?

Should treated fracking waste (euphemism: “produced water”) be used in ways that don’t include drinking water or watering crops but would reach streams and rivers? The waste contains hundreds of contaminants, which O&G uses “trade-secret” claims to not even identify for us.

Eighteen months of Water Quality Control Commission hearings led to a thoughtful, evidence-based decision: to prohibit discharges, but initiate a pilot program to identify all the contaminants and figure out how to deal with any dangerous ones. That May ruling, the Wastewater ReUse Rule, sounded sensible.

Guv and O&G disagreed. Within weeks, O&G filed a new petition aimed at overturning that rule. Normally, barring urgent new evidence, few bodies, and not the WQCC, would grant such a motion on something they just spent eighteen months deciding. (If nothing else, it’s awfully wasteful.)

But the Guv stacked the deck. She and her cabinet urged commissioners to vote for advancing the petition, and used the appointment process to put in safe votes. Environment Secretary James Kenney pressured commissioners and even became a commissioner. He also forbade Environment Department scientists, who’d proposed the ban and provided scientific evidence favoring it, from participating in the new hearings! Reminds me of RFK, Jr. firing CDC scientists, so he could ignore science and good health and set rules he wanted.

As one environmentalist put it, “At a time when we’re seeing institutional norms and government integrity disintegrate at the federal level, it’s disappointing to see that in our state.” Notably, the proposed reversal would also remove requirements that companies notify the public (and neighbors) before discharging the waste. Folks with nearby wells, children, cows, or crops would be clueless. And helpless.

This stuff contains dissolved solids, petroleum hydrocarbons, PFAs, metal, emerging contaminants, and naturally-occurring radioactive materials. It’s dangerous without careful and costly monitoring and disposal. Would washing my car with it or swimming in a stream it gets into harm? I’m no scientist. But when scientists and lawyers battled it out, the WQCC didn’t say “Go for it!”

Still, the Guv pushed for a rehearing and stacked the deck to be sure WQCC would set one. A hearing date may not come until next spring, and the Environment Department is following through on the May ruling. Several groups have asked the Court of Appeals to vacate the rehearing order and disqualify seven of the 14 commissioners, based on hard evidence of the state’s improper pressure. WQCC decisions are appealable to the state court of appeals. Note that O&G didn’t do that. I’d infer that they weren’t confident of their case – and were in a hurry. And had a cooperative guv. If she has her way, and the environmentalists and ranchers can use that appeal, and I’d bet on them. When a politician tells underlings to vote a certain way, contradicting their votes after extensive hearings, and denies them testimony from the state-employed scientists who testified in previous hearing, it shouldn’t be hard to convince a fair court that the decision was not based on, or supported by, evidence.

Corporations used to be free to pollute. We’ve so fouled our nest that everyone started paying more attention to people’s health and the environment. But governments are ignoring science and procedural protections to dance to corporate masters’ tunes. Does the Governor have some cogent explanation for this apparent example?

                              – 30 –

 [The above column appeared Sunday, 12 October 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun- News, and will presently be up on the newspaper’s website and on the KRWG website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). That website also contains station show archives.]

[I’m still seeking a reasoned explanation. I may also try to arrange a radio discussion with folks who hold divergent views on these events.]

Thoughts on Two City Council Races - Retain Councilor Becky Corran!

This morning [1October2025] I listened to radio discussions of two city-council candidate races.

District 5 incumbent Becky Corran spoke knowledgeably about many city issues. Her challenger, Ronnie Sisneros, didn't respond to an invitation and didn't fill out the Bulletin 's questionnaire that lets candidates express their views unedited.

Sisneros has said that he would represent the conservatives to whom, he says, the city government doesn't listen to. (Running in 2021, he said he'd recently become a Republican and, if elected, would “oppose all of the present city council and all of the decisions they've been making for as long as I've been here.”)

Corran spoke effectively about issues including law enforcement, housing, roads, secure voter-registration information, food for the poor, recent ordinances, and dealing with the federal budget cuts that not only hurt individuals but reduce municipalities' funding. Though she looks at police with an independent critical view, she spoke knowledgeably and favorably about LCPD's Chief Jeremy Story's leadership.

She had no answer to the increasing acrimony of public comment, which helped fellow Councilor Becky Graham's decide not to seek re-election. Citizens address councilors in an exceptionally angry manner. Councilors can only respond during councilor comments, hours later. Some conservatives share Mr. Sisneros's view.

I've had more opportunity to observe Ms. Corran than I have most councilors. She's a star. A thoughtful teacher who has no political ambitions, diligent, and independent.

In District 3, now represented by Graham, Michael Harris and Isaiah Tellez are the candidates. Harris graduated from Mayfield High then received two degrees from NMSU. He and a friend then founded a small technology company doing software development and other technology projects.

Tellez was also born and raised here, as were his parents. He's a realtor. Public safety and concerns about violence “pushed me to run for office,” and that he will prioritize public safety. He said he wanted to restore youth recreational problems he experienced as a kid here.

Both men were conversant with city problems and actions. Each mourned friends leaving town for better opportunities elsewhere. Asked their highest priority, Tellez cited public safety and Harris mentioned making sure the city's budget was sustainable.

Graham has endorsed Harris. So has Conservation Voters of New Mexico, citing “his deep commitment to climate action and voter protection.” I don't know either man personally, but appreciate Harris's involvement with Cruces Creatives. I like that both are lifelong residents who know the city and care about its people. I would vote for Harris, because he seems to have a wider range of knowledge of issues, has already served on the city's transportation board, is more deeply concerned about climate craziness, and seemed to have a more balanced perspective on law enforcement. Like Corran, I appreciate Chief Story. I support the police and appreciate their challenges. As Corran mentioned, they're now asked to do much that's beyond their training and expertise. That isn't their fault; but incidents of unjustified police violence must also be faced.

The Bulletin asked each to state “the biggest challenges facing Las Cruces.” Harris's answer started, “The biggest long-term challenges to Las Cruces are climate, water, and energy costs.” Tellez started, “One of the biggest challenges facing Las Cruces right now is public safety. particularly the rise in youth crime.”

This local election includes city council and school board races and bond issues. I'd urge folks to study up, or even meet the candidates, then decide.

                               – 30 – 

 

[The above column appeared Tuesday, 7 October 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun- News, and on the newspaper's website and on the KRWG website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). That website also contains station show archives.]

[ Apologies for this typo: In the version sent to the Sun-News I erroneously identified the district represented by Councilor Corran: it is in fact District 5. ]

 

"Don't Trust Anyone over 30!" makes sense -- even when you've long passed 60

“Don’t Trust Anyone over 30!” contained a little wisdom, because the passing years fatten each of us with a career, a self-image, a mission, a mortgage, family, dogs or cats, friends, jobs or political positions, and/or other entanglements with society that demand priority, so that the question of what the village or nation should do doesn’t get answered so purely.

But I saw 60 in my rear-view mirror long ago, and 90’s a dim vision near the horizon. So that retreat from telling pure truths to power seems “mature,” and I’ve been wrong and right enough to recognize that not much is how we see it, and that even the Richard Nixons loved their dogs.

We old folks see the world around us less clearly than the young folks for whom it’s “The World,” the only one they’ve known since they reached consciousness, with all the details precious. To us, it’s a superfluous epilogue to the real world we discovered in our own youth.

During my youth, older folks misunderstood what was happening because they viewed it through the lens ground by their own time. We who questioned the Viet Nam War were traitors or cowards, because anyone who did that in 1941 was. My father, who’d left graduate school to fly bombers in the Pacific, saw it that way, initially. I also remember a German-born janitor at college, who viewed the sixties through the eyes of someone who’d fled Hitler’s Germany, and worried about repression. The Eisenhowers, Dulleses, McNamaras, and Kennedys who made that huge mistake called Viet Nam recalled from youth Chamberlain returning from Munich proclaiming “Peace for our Time,” as Hitler prepared to gobble up all Europe.

Even so, things are especially nutty.

Donald Trump Time is not entirely a spontaneous fire at the intersection of aggrieved population Street and a narcissistic con man Avenue, with the Leader proclaiming his anger every six seconds. We’d like to think so; but he is also the logical end of a road we’ve been traveling a very long time. Yeah, we started with love, of each other and of this wonderfully natural world, and of our freedom, from all the ills and repression and intolerance of where we’d come from. (Unforgivably, we didn’t notice original residents or the humanity of folks we enslaved.)

Along that road we dropped community, caring, and other excess baggage to seek more effectively wealth, position, security, and perhaps a flash of fame; we formed corporations that soon took us over; we created computers, which soon dominated our lives and kindly did our thinking for us, and even our socializing; we divided into political parties, thinking to govern ourselves better, and they grew into huge entities that hated each other, paralyzing government.

But this is extreme. Compare Tom Homan, caught dead-to-rights taking bribes, with the FBI prosecuting, ‘til Donald Trump nixed that and made him immigration czar, with Sherman Adams, a minor embarrassment to President Eisenhower. Back then, vaccines dramatically saved a lot of us. Now Trump’s health guy proclaims unscientific nonsense about vaccines or painkillers, and the rest of the world tells populations not to bother listening. (Ike had actually helped end a war, a pretty significant one, but he never bragged about it a fraction of what Mr. Trump has done.) The world confronts climate craziness – a mere “hoax.”

I think we’re reliving early 1930s Germany. Perhaps we’ll find a better solution.

                                           – 30 --

 

 [The above column appeared Sunday, 4 October, 2025, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, and on the newspaper's website and will presently also be on the KRWG website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). That website also contains station show archives.]

[Sorry that technical issues meant that I mostly haven’t gotten the radio versions done during the last couple of weeks. ]

[I think our country has done a lot wrong, as well as a lot right.  But leaders of any previous era would have been appalled by Mr. Trump.  Our founders understood that just such a thing could happen, warned against it, and erected a structure, now being destroyed by Mr. Trump and his enabler, to prevent it.  Can you imagine Lincoln, with his combination of strength, grace, and humor, conversing with the inane Mr. Trump, who so lacks strength that he has to lunge awkwardly for praise from anyone, and bothers to engage bitchily with anyone who criticizes him? TR or FDR would have laughed at him. Jack Kennedy, Nixon, or George Bush, having fought valiantly in World War II, might have given him funny looks over evading service based on a rich man's diagnosis, then mocking a valiant warrior like John McCain as "a loser" for being captured in action.  Eisenhower would have looked to court-martial him.]

[Certainly our nation is profoundly schizophrenic. Hardly an hour passes without a new announcement by the White House, or discovery about the administration, that’s not only wrong, in the sense of vicious or stupid (or both) but barely sane! Numerous lawsuits have persuaded judges, some of them appointed by Republican presidents, not only holding that Trump’s actions were illegal but doing so in some pretty scathing written opinions. ]

[Consider the scope of Trumpian stupidity: a mortifying, rambling speech at the U.N. where he lectured allies and complained about the failure of a teleprompter his own people were operating; while prior presidents either ignored television stars who mocked them, or engaged with those stars with humor and tolerance, Trump ham-handedly bullied a network into suspending Jimmy Kimmel, then watched the reaction force Kimmel back into his slot, while folks like me who never particularly listened to Kimmel paid a a little attention. And his childish secretary of defense (or war) called all major military officials together in one place (rarely done for security reasons, but the idiot who’d screwed up previous ZOOM efforts was probably scared to try that again) for what could have been said in an email, costing us zillions in travel expenses and lost useful time.]

[Meanwhile, a key Trumpist “spiritual advisor” and cog in the MAGA evangelical works, Robert Morris, who used his megachurch, Gateway to help Trump in 2020, has been convicted of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl.]