Morning Word, 10-12-12

Heinrich, Wilson debate

Debates, debates everywhere.

The big debate in New Mexico was the first televised U.S. Senate debate between Heather Wilson and Martin Heinrich. --- NM Telegram

. The

has one too.

And the

,

.

This wasn't the only news in the day or even in the Senate race. Rasmussen Reports said that

.

The same Rasmussen poll

and an internal poll from the Lujan Grisham campaign

over Republican Janice Arnold-Jones. The group that told Republican poll challengers to ask for voter ID

over the incorrect information they gave the poll challengers.

On to the Word:

  • Voting is going on in county clerks’ offices and absentee ballots are being sent out. Sven days until wider early voting starts. Twenty-six days until election day.
  • The Democratic Party of New Mexico
  • wants to reinstate straight-ticket voting
  • . More on this from NM Telegram tomorrow.
  • It
  • took a "catastrophic failure" in the New Mexico Finance Authority
  • for the fake audit of the agency to go unnoticed.
  • Securities Division Director Daniel Tanaka told a legislative committee that the release of the audit with misleading financial information was a “catastrophic systemic failure in the controls surrounding the audit progress.”
  • Wilson played her best trump card, and
  • has a new ad featuring former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici
  • . Domenici has long been on Team Wilson and in this ad says that a vote by Heinrich would cause a loss of 20,000 jobs. The Heinrich campaign says that this is false.
  • Senator Mary Jane Garcia, D-Doña Ana,
  • is accused of misusing campaign funds
  • by her Republican opponent. The complaint to the office of the Secretary of State says that Garcia improperly took money out of her campaign account and charged it to "cash."


  • Garcia was accused of
  • collecting per diem for legislative meetings she barely attended
  • in 2006 and
  • ranked 3rd in most amount of per diem collected in 2011
  • .
  • KUNM's
  • "Voices Behind the Vote" series continues
  • .
  • Wahlesah Dick is nearly 30 and a single mom. Her daughter, Macy Ridge, is 9 and she’s really into art. So much so, the two often spend Sunday afternoons between catechism class and 5 o'clock mass at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art in downtown Santa Fe. If Macy had her way she'd take home a multimedia painting by Debra Yepa-Pappan, one called Hello Kitty Teepee. "It has a pink and red and purplish TeePee with hello kitty on it," she describes," and a girl that has a traditional dress on."
  • A great public radio series.
  • The federal stimulus funding for a broadband project by Kit Carson Electric Cooperative
  • has been stopped by the Rural Utilities Service
  • .
  • A recent letter from RUS to the co-op states that RUS was suspending funding because the agency "did not receive official nor timely written notice from Kit Carson of the order of the Public Regulation Commission requiring Kit Carson to divest its broadband assets into a separate subsidiary."

    The letter said that separating the Internet business from the electric utility would clearly create an “adverse material effect” on the project, compromising the terms of the co-op's contract with the government.
  • Three attorneys were chosen as potential replacements for Michael Vigil
  • on the bench in the First Judicial Court district.
  • The Albuquerque Journal
  • says the Department of Justice complimented Lujan Grisham
  • for how she handled the Fort Bayard nursing home scandal. It has been an attack that has been lobbied against Lujan Grisham, the former state secretary of health, since it happened.
  • U.S. Reps.
  • Ben Ray Lujan and Steve Pearce will be on New Mexico In Focus
  • . And Michael Coleman will try to shake off the Eastern Time Zone and be the special guest on The Line.
  • Never a good sign
  • when you have to hold a press conference to say this
  • :
  • “Specifically, the sheriff never told any employee that they were an overweight slob or a fat slob,” Martinez said. “In addition, the sheriff never told Jennifer Vega-Brown (the former employee) that she was a whore, nor did he refer to anyone else in that manner at any time.”

    Martinez also said the article inaccurately said Vega-Brown was fired because of her “job performance” and misstated her termination date.

    Journal managing editor Karen Moses said Journal reporter Jeff Proctor recorded his interview with the sheriff, and the story accurately reflects the interview.
  • San Miguel County is
  • trying to establish rules and regulations for oil and gas drilling
  • .
  • The prospect of oil and gas drilling has become a hot-button issue in San Miguel County over the last year, with many local residents packing City Council and County Commission meetings to demonstrate their opposition to it, particularly when it comes to hydraulic fracturing, a process whereby a large amount of pressurized water with chemicals is injected into wells and bores to crack rock and free oil or gas.

    Drilling opponents argue that allowing drilling in San Miguel County will be detrimental to the environment and that drilling and fracking aren’t feasible in this area because of the massive amounts of water the industry uses and the fact that the water supply in the county is limited.

    Supporters of the oil and gas industry have argued that it would bring jobs to the area and boost the local economy.
  • After UNM proposed building a hospital using a large amount of cash, State Rep. Bill Rehm, R-Albuquerque,
  • says UNM hospital's share of property taxes should go down
  • . UNMH officials say all but one of their buildings have been funded the same way.
  • Rep. Steve Pearce
  • doesn't think Heinrich should be a U.S. Senator
  • . Pearce ran for U.S. Senate in 2008 and lost be a large margin to Tom Udall. In that race, Pearce and the current Republican U.S. Senate candidate Heather Wilson had a brutal primary.
  • Animal Protection Voters
  • released their endorsements
  • for the 2012 elections. In the federal races, the group endorsed Heinrich, Lujan Grisham and Ben Ray Lujan, all Democrats. The group made no endorsement in the 2nd Congressional District race.
  • The state legislature's Water and Natural Resources Committee
  • will get a report on the effects of the Little Bear fire
  • .
  • The vice chair of the committee, Sen. Phil Griego, D-San Jose, said the panel is expected to discuss the need to thin overgrown forests and ways to better fight wildfires.

    "We're going to be looking at primarily what has happened since the fire and where Ruidoso is in regards to their availability of water," Griego said. "We're going to have a the state Engineer's Office there and look at the adversity that some of the people have gone through and see how we can prevent this from ever happening again."
  • A candidate for country treasurer in Rio Arriba County isn't so good at his own finances;
  • he owes $30,000 in property taxes
  • .
  • The Santa Fe New Mexican
  • likes the proposal to help the San Juan Generating Station meet federal pollution limits
  • .
  • Hmm.
  • Seems like there's more to this story
  • .
  • After a two-day personnel hearing, former Luna County Detention Center warden John Krehbiel has been reinstated back at the facility in a detention officer position. [...] Krehbiel was fired the same day a criminal complaint was filed against him for allegedly and unlawfully releasing inmates without orders of release through a "Recidivism Reduction Program."
  • Holloman Air Force Base officials
  • explained sonic booms to residents
  • and why some were louder than others.
  • "Atmospheric conditions can be a big factor in why sonic booms occur," Croft said. "When it's colder and drier, sonic booms can be louder. We probably had a lot more complaints of sonic booms from February through April, but during the warmer months not so much so. But that could change once it starts getting colder again."
  • Very interesting.
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