Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 123, No. 86 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
April 9, 2014
www.rdrnews.com
WEDNESDAY
City to consider revoking pot shop’s business license JILL MCLAUGHLIN RECORD STAFF WRITER
The city will hold a hearing today to deter mine whether to revoke two business licenses of a medical marijuana distributor that opened operations last week. The swift action came as a surprise to owners of Compassionate Distributors, the Ruidoso-based business. “I am really angry,” said co-owner Mandy Denson. “I’ve never been threatened
by that by any city. We’re responsible business owners. We’ve been responsible with the city of Roswell.” City Councilor Jason Perry announced his intention to seek the action against Compassionate Distributors at the Planning and Zoning Committee meeting April 1. At the same meeting, Perry also presented an ordinance that would essentially ban medical marijuana sales in the city. The medical cannabis nonprofit applied for two
licenses in Roswell after the city altered its zoning codes in December to remove barriers to allow medical marijuana stores to locate in Roswell. Compassionate Distributors purchased a building and applied as a professional medical of fice of alternative health care. During the December meeting that Perry attended, Denson and her attorney explained, in full detail, the business operations of Compassionate Distributors. Denson and her attor-
ney discussed with councilors that they grew and sold marijuana to patients and intended to open a store in Roswell. Councilors voted to remove references to medical marijuana in zoning codes to allow the business to apply for a license in business areas without restrictions. Denson said she applied under the professional medial of fice category because it fit their business. “They knew what we were
Don’t look down
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doing and we told them what we were going to do,” Denson said. “I remember (Perry). He was the bow-tie guy. He didn’t voice an objection once. You can’t go willy-nilly changing ordinances. That leaves the city wide open for lawsuits.” Last week, Perry announced he had asked city staff to research the business licenses of Compassionate Distributors and Grow Happy, a retail commercial and cultivating supplier. “Neither of the applica-
tions mentioned the sale of medical cannabis,” Perry said. “None of them talked about the supply of medical cannabis.” Perry had city staff compare the licenses with several other similar licenses, he said. The other licenses are specific as to what was happening, Perry said. Perry was surprised to learn of the details of the operation from a news article he read in a Carlsbad newspaper. The article
RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Police, so we don’t really have a lot of information,” Oracion said. “We still have a lot of questions ourselves.”
NMSP investigate death at ENMU-R New Mexico State Police are investigating a death on the campus of Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell that was reported Monday night. The State Police Investigations Bureau-Roswell was called to the campus at about 9 p.m. and found a dead man in one of the dormitories, located at 52 University, according to a State Police news release. The name of the deceased has not been released. ENMU-R students and faculty are mostly gone for Spring Break this week, said Donna Oracion, college development director, on Tuesday. She said the college is cooperating fully with the State Police in the investigation. “We have left the investigation entirely to the State
See LICENSE, Page A3
Since the campus is empty, there are no memorial ceremonies planned immediately. Once the students return, and the identity of the deceased is made public, there may be something planned in the future. The body was taken to the Office of Medical Investigators Of fice in Albuquerque to deter mine cause and manner of death.
Two men who were in the dor mitory with the deceased have been detained and are being interviewed by the State Police.
The investigation is continuing, according to the State Police release.
Legislative staff sought Mayor discusses citywide cleanup effort info on lawmaker’s rival A NMMI cadet navigates down the rappelling tower during morning rope exercises, Tuesday.
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — A Republican lawmaker asked the attorney general’s office Tuesday to investigate whether an ethics law was violated by a quickly withdrawn legislative staff request for law enforcement records on a Democratic legislator’s election opponent.
Attorney General Gary King’s spokesman Phil Sisneros said the office will review the request by Rep. Monica Youngblood of Albuquerque and likely will look into the matter. Legislative Finance Committee Director David Abbey requested records on March 6 about possible hunting and fishing violations by a man running against Democratic Rep. Patricia Lundstrom of Gallup, according to a
report by the Albuquerque Journal. Abbey withdrew the request for records on Olin Clawson the same day, after Lundstrom said there had been a “miscommunication” between herself and a legislative staffer. Lundstrom said she had asked the legislative staff how the records could be legally requested. She said she had the request for records withdrawn after learning it had been made. Rep. Monica Youngblood of Albuquerque said in a letter to the attorney general that the request appeared to violate the Governmental Conduct Act by using legislative staff for political purposes to “dig dirt up” on Lundstrom’s Democratic primary election opponent.
AP Photo
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., goes before the House Rules Committee for final work on his budget to fund the government in fiscal year 2015, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday.
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TODAY’S FORECAST
RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Cleaning up Roswell is a priority for newly elected Mayor Dennis Kintigh. As a retired FBI agent and former Chaves County Sheriff’s detective, as well as having served as interim Roswell Police Chief, Kintigh has seen his share of crime — and he says crime goes hand-in-hand with derelict buildings. “Don’t ask me why, but every time you go into an abandoned building, you find two things: needles and pornography,” Kintigh told members of the Kiwanis Club of Roswell on Tuesday. The city has 22 structures on its short list of properties that the mayor wants to see tor n down and cleaned up, including a cosmetology academy that burned over a decade
Randal Seyler Photo
Mayor Dennis Kintigh discusses his plans for cleaning up abandoned properties in Roswell during the Kiwanis Club meeting on Tuesday.
ago. “A lot of these structures have needed to be removed for years,” Kintigh said. “We just happen to be a
little ahead on revenue this year, and we are trying to take some of that money and put it toward cleaning up some of these
properties.” In the case where the city cleans up a private property, a lien is placed on that property so that the property owner will have to repay the city for the work done before the property can be sold. “In the past, we’ve used city road crews to clean up properties in the winter, when they weren’t working on streets,” Kintigh said. “But we have a list with more than 100 properties on it that need cleaned up, so I would like to see us be able to go to some contractors for some of this work.” There are also volunteer groups working in town to clean up properties, the mayor said, as well as do some repair work for residents who can’t do their own cleaning, such as senior citizens. See MAYOR, Page A3
GOP lawmakers balk when spending cuts turn real
WASHINGTON (AP) — When House Republicans pass Rep. Paul R yan’s budget for a fourth year in a row this week, they’ll go on record again in favor of big spending cuts across a wide swath of programs, including Medicaid, food and farm aid and eliminating subsidies for Amtrak and airline flights to small cities.
But a budget is only a non-binding framework. It can promise the sky, but to actually fulfill its
• ARTHUR ROBERT MCQUIDDY • DANIEL RAY BARROW • RONALD FLYNN WOOD
pledges requires follow-up legislation. When the cuts turn real, lawmakers tend to lose their nerve, even some of the hardiest tea party conservatives. Virtually none of the bold promises of the R yan budget have come to pass. “Cutting spending is hard. Easy in theory, hard in practice,” R yan, the GOP’s vice presidential nominee in 2012, says of some recent votes. “I’ll leave it at that.” Less than two months
• DENIO, STEVE E.
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after Congress passed a budget deal Ryan negotiated with Senate Budget Committee Chair man Patty Murray, D-Wash., it reversed course in February and repealed a modest cut to inflation increases for military pensioners under age 62.
Lawmakers beat a hasty retreat in the face of an uproar from veterans groups. Ryan and only 18 other House Republicans voted to stand by the cut. Similarly, a hard-won law
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aimed at refor ming the government’s flawed flood insurance program was largely reversed earlier this year after af fected homeowners complained. As in years past, the GOP plan is boldest when it promises big cuts to massive benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Bills that would actually do it — by, say, transfor ming Medicare into a voucher -like pro-
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See GOP, Page A3
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