Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 123, No. 63 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
March 13, 2014
www.rdrnews.com
THURSDAY
City Council to discuss e-cigs, Legion liquor license JILL MCLAUGHLIN RECORD STAFF WRITER
Newly elected Mayor Dennis Kintigh and city councilors will meet for a regular City Council meeting tonight to discuss issuing a club liquor license to the American Legion and a ban on electronic cigarettes. Council will discuss taking a first step to amend the city’s Clean Air Ordinance to include banning electronic smoking devices in public places.
Lock of love
Councilors are expected to decide whether to publish the ordinance in the newspaper so a public hearing can be held in April. The Building and Lands Committee approved the ordinance amendment in February, allowing it to be considered by council. Councilor Steve Henderson proposed the idea, saying he felt e-cigarettes contained a vapor with nicotine. The battery-powered devices vaporize a nicotine-
filled liquid that can be flavored. They are often used as an alternative to traditional cigarettes.
Henderson said allowing e-cigarettes in public places, where cigarettes are banned per city ordinance, was objectionable.
“A number of communities have already taken action on this deal,” Henderson told the committee in February. “It’s a big problem and I think we owe our citizens the same right under the tobacco ordinance.”
Henderson has worked on the issue with City Attorney Barbara Patterson since November, he said.
The city’s proposed amendment to the Clean Air Ordinance would change the definition of “smoking” to include electronic smoking devices.
According to the council staff report: “Recent studies show that electronic smoking devices, such as e-cigarettes, emit nicotine in their expelled vapor. To continue keeping Roswell a clean-air city, the need to
Mark Wilson Photo
Stylist Ciara Colby prepares to cut more than 12 inches of Mary Rubio's hair at Just Cuts, Wednesday. Rubio, a cancer survivor, is donating the hair to Locks of Love and it is her second time to give her hair to cancer patients.
Prison ministry event set for weekend RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Johnny Gonzales will bring his prison ministry back to Roswell Correctional Center this weekend with the help of about 100 volunteers. Prison Door Ministries holds its annual tent ministry for the hundreds of inmates at the state correctional center, bringing a bit of light to the incarcerated. “I have been doing this for over 20 years, and every year it is really special,” Gonzales said on Friday. “We try to reach out, heart to heart, with the people who are incarcerated here at the Roswell Correctional Center.” Gonzales said this year’s event will kickoff at 6:30 p.m. on Friday with an appreciation dinner for volunteers and inmate families
at Los Cerritos Mexican Kitchen in Roswell. The ministry is a cooperation of many churches and about 100 individuals who work for two days under a great tent to see men come to the Lord, Gonzales said. “We couldn’t do this without all the volunteers who come out year after year,” Gonzales said. “We share the Lord with the prisoners, bring them some cookies and Kool-Aid, and give them some fellowship.” Gonzales said the people who are often forgotten in prison ministry are the families of the inmates, and that is why he hopes to include them in the appreciation dinner as well. “These are just regular people, they go to work every day, and they are no different than you or me. They just happen to have a
son, or a daughter, or a spouse who is in prison.” The incarceration of an individual often times means hardships for the family, especially if that individual is the family’s breadwinner, Gonzales says. “Sometimes, the families are the forgotten victims of crimes,” Gonzales said. “One of the goals of our ministry is to help the families as well as the inmates.” “The New Mexico Corrections Department appreciates the hard work and dedication of our faithful volunteers who serve our incarcerated and those returning from prison to the community,” Homer Gonzales, New Mexico Corrections Department volunteer services and faith-based program coordinator, states on the corrections department website, corrections.state.nm.us.
Retired Roswell middle school teacher Andrea Tafoya shows a photo of her son, Fidel Alarcon, on Wednesday. Alarcon, who is in need of an emergency liver transplant, has seen his weight drop from 310 pounds to a little more than 160 pounds in the past year, Tafoya said.
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TODAY’S FORECAST
Kintigh is also expected to elect a new mayor protem at the meeting. Former mayor pro-tem, Councilor Barry Foster, was defeated in the recent election by new Councilor Tabitha Denny. Councilors will also be given new committee assignments, Kintigh said. “It’s one of the big responsibilities of the mayor,” Kintigh said. Kintigh said he’s looking forward to his first City
JESSICA PALMER RECORD STAFF WRITER
dence, including blood swabs from the Escalade. He also photographed the scene, showing the length of a debris trail and the condition of the two vehicles. The photos revealed the Sonata’s roof had been crushed and the driver’s side torn away. One rim from the Escalade was bent; the front end smashed and the roof flattened. Daniel collected the driver’s airbags from the Escalade and the tail lights belonging to the Sonata for examination by the Department of Public Safety’s Crime Lab. Det. Scott Stevenson described the scene. “There was debris literally all over the place.” He ascertained the defendant’s identity using the
Witness: Damage to the victim’s car was ‘catastrophic’
New Mexico v. Joel Cordoba-Lopez entered its second day of state’s evidence, Wednesday. Cordoba-Lopez is charged with two counts of vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of an accident and speeding. The crash occurred on Aug. 5, 2012, around 3:54 a.m. when a 2007 Cadillac Escalade driven by Cordoba-Lopez ran over a blue Hyundai Sonata at the intersection of Brasher Road and South East Main Street, leaving Mandy Miranda and son, Joe Alvarez, dead inside the vehicle. The state’s first three witnesses set the stage for the information provided by the Escalade’s “black box.” Det. Jonathan Daniel testified to gathering evi-
Sweets for soldiers
See COUNCIL, Page A3
See WITNESS, Page A2
Mark Wilson Photo
Nicole Vargas accepts a donation of candy bars on behalf of Adopt a Soldier and Wounded Warrior of New Mexico from Walgreens and assistant store manager Manuel Roman, Wednesday. Walgreens has sold more than $2,100 worth of candy bars that will be distributed to soldiers in Afghanistan and to the Wounded Warrior project.
Roswell man in dire need of liver transplant
RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Randal Seyler Photo
ban the use of electronic smoking devices in public places is necessary.” The public hearing would be scheduled for April 10. In other expected action, councilors are scheduled to hear an application from the American Legion Post 28, on North Montana, for a new club liquor license. The organization’s club is located in a community commercial district and has been granted preliminary approval by the state Alcohol and Gaming Division.
Fidel Alarcon is dying. The 27-year-old Roswell man’s liver is shutting down, and doctors do not know if he has weeks, or days, left before his condition claims his life. “He’s very well-known by the people of the community,” said his mother, Andrea Tafoya, a retired Roswell middle school teacher. “He grew up here and he worked for years at the north Sonic and at the
• HENRY MENDEZ TRUJILLO • ELIZABETH LEE LARA • DANIEL R. LICON
Taco Bell on West Hobbs.” Alarcon graduated from Roswell High School in 2004, and he has worked his entire adult life here in his hometown — until January 2013, when he was diagnosed with liver failure. “If a transplant doesn’t come through in time, he is going to perish,” Tafoya said. “The doctors can’t say if he has days or weeks left, this is progressing so fast. “The doctors don’t really know what is happening, or why it happened so
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGE A6
fast,” Tafoya said. “They have him on the emergency list for a liver transplant, but we don’t know if that will happen in time.” Alarcon began feeling ill in 2013, and after several doctors’ visits, it was discovered that his liver was failing following an MRI. In the past 12 months, Alarcon’s condition has worsened, and one of his kidneys has also failed. “They can’t do a kidney transplant until after his liver is replaced, and he can’t do kidney dialysis, because it would kill him,”
CLASSIFIEDS ..........B6 COMICS .................B4 ENTERTAINMENT .....A8 FINANCIAL ..............B3
Tafoya said. The young man has no medical insurance, but is covered by Medicaid, his mother said. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing website, transplantliving.org, the estimated U.S. average in 2011 of billed charges per liver transplant is $577,100. Alarcon has been living with Tafoya’s daughter Linda Encinias in Socorro County to be closer to the
See TRANSPLANT, Page A3
INDEX GENERAL ...............A2 HOROSCOPES .........A8 LOTTERIES .............A2 NATION ..................A6
OPINION .................A4 SPORTS .................B1
WEATHER ..............A8