Morning Word: Powell Wants To Halt Vote Recount

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• Before a mandatory vote recount begins in the razor close Commissioner of Public Lands race, incumbent Ray Powell wants the state's Supreme Court justices
• to temporarily halt it
• . He contends the process violates state law and election code and won't result in an accurate check of tabulating machines. .

• In part, the Canvassing Board’s recount order calls for 100 ballots from each tabulator, or voting machine, in each county to be used to test the machines’ accuracy.

• 
  

• Powell contends state law requires that 2 percent of all the ballots cast in each county be used in testing each tabulator’s accuracy. “There is not any basis in statute or regulation for the 100 number,” according to Powell’s petition.

• 
  Powell trails Republican Aubrey Dunn by 704 votes.
  
• While Powell and Dunn wait for a recount, Sen. Tim Keller, D-Albuquerque, is transitioning to the State Auditor’s Office. His election leaves one seat open in the upper chamber. Bernalillo County Commissioners will pick Keller’s replacement. Dan McKay reports applications for the unpaid legislative position are being accepted until Wednesday. State Rep.
• Mimi Stewart has signaled
• she wants Keller's senate seat.
• 
  
• 
  
• As expected, Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Eden decided to terminate veteran cop Jeremy Dear on Monday. Dear’s lapel-camera failed to record the shooting death of alleged truck thief Mary Hawkes in April. Eden said he
• made the decision
• because Dear had been insubordinate and “untruthful.” Dear had been on administrative duty since the shooting. His attorney Thomas Grover, a former police officer himself, told reporters Dear made a good faith effort to use his lapel camera as often as he could.
• 
  

• If they did an audit of every field officer who has a lapel camera, I think they would find 100 percent noncompliance. It’s just not possible to use the camera all the time. You’re going to have a margin of error..

• 
  
• Law enforcement agencies around the country are under pressure to use label cameras and it looks like President Barack
• Obama is a big proponent of recording police interactions
• with citizens. He wants Congress to fund the purchase of 50,000 cameras.
• 
  
• WisePies Pizza and Salad hopes to get on camera a lot during the upcoming college basketball season. Businessman Steve Chavez's
• restaurant will sponsor the University of New Mexico’s infamous Pit
• for the next 10 years. The $5 million sponsorship agreement is about half of what UNM originally wanted for the arena naming deal.
• 
  
• Change is difficult and Lobo fans reaction to WisePies Arena
• was mostly negative
• .
• NewsCastic
• collected the sport’s world reaction to the deal, the largest in UNM Athletics history.
• 
  
• Progressive Albuquerque City Councilor Rey Garduno
• was elected president
• of the panel. .

• Brad Winter, a Republican from the Northeast Heights, will serve as vice president, and Klarissa Peña, a Democrat from the West Side, will serve as chairwoman of the council’s budget committee.

• 
  
• It took a few votes, but Las Cruces City Councilors
• have passed a new timeline
• to roll out minimum wage increases.

• The measure, reached after a seven-hour meeting, keeps the main hourly rate hikes called for in a September ordinance passed by councilors: $8.40, $9.20 and $10.10.

• The first phase rolls out Jan. 1. Business owners applauded the delay in subsequent increases.
• 
  
• Nearly three dozen people will be hired to help launch a new $5 million
• transloading facility
• in Albuquerque. .

• Large-scale freight operations will be able to use the facility once it's completed in early 2015 to move fluids, building materials, heavy equipment and more directly to BNSF's coast-to-coast lines. The only option now in Albuquerque is to use trucks to move large goods to other transloading facilities, the closest of which is in Santa Teresa.

• 
  
• With annual salaries of $84,000 the new employees will make well above the minimum wage. Gov. Martinez says her administration is providing about a quarter million in Job Training Incentive Program funds. Eventually, the facility is expected to employ 200 New Mexicans.

Santa Fe Reporter