Roswell Daily Record
Search for new city manager begins THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 123, No. 140 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
BY TIMOTHY P. HOWSARE RECORD EDITOR
The City of Roswell has posted an employment advertisement on the home page of its website for a city manager. The salary range for the full-time job is $110,000 to $130,000. Current City Manager Larry Fry announced his resignation at a recent City Council meeting. Mayor Dennis Kintigh said during the meeting that Fry would
June 11, 2014
WEDNESDAY
www.rdrnews.com
remain in his position until he either finds another position or until Jan. 1.
Kintigh said the position will be posted on other sites and publications, like the New Mexico Municipal League website.
He said a three-member selection committee has been appointed to assist the city in the job search. They are Ruben Bolanos, principal of Roswell High School; Greg Neal, vice president of New Mexico
Veterans Transportation Network; and Mike Gottlieb, a for mer Roswell Independent School District superintendent who is chairman of the committee. Kintigh said once a candidate is selected, he will submit a name to the City Council, who will then make the hiring decision. Kintigh said he wants to move quickly and aggressively with the search, adding that citizens can help with the search.
Flaming fingernails are a cool thing
“If you know somebody back in another state then encourage them to apply,” he said.
The mayor said the city manager has autonomy when hiring and firing employees, but it is the City Council that makes final decisions on the budgets.
The city manager is an at-will employee, meaning he or she can be terminated at any time for any reason. The opening date for
applications was June 5 and the position will remain posted until it is filled.
The ad states the city manager is the chief administrative officer for Roswell, managing the dayto-day operations.
The city manager directs and coordinates the administration of municipal government, enforcing all ordinance rules and regulations enacted by the City Council and federal and
State teacher evaluations have better results here BY RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Teacher observation scores released last week had some questionable scores, but overall, the evaluation system seemed to work — at least better than it worked in Albuquerque. “The teachers are finding some errors in the data,” said Superintendent Tom Burris at Tuesday’s meeting of the Roswell Independent School District Board of Education. He estimated the questionable results were 2 to 3 percent of the evaluations received from the state. The state released the teacher observation scores on June 4 and Burris said he is researching some questions he had regarding teachers whose scores may be missing data. Under the new system, half of the teacher’s score is based on student achievement data from standard-
Timothy P. Howsare Photos Nancy Schummer, young
Seven young ladies got a crash course in flaming nail art Tuesday at the Roswell Public Library. Flaming nail art doesn’t involve lighting anything on fire, but it does take a lot of patience and some skill. Although flaming nail art has been around for a while, it is trending right now because of the movie “The Hunger Games.”
adult and teen librarian, said the class was taught as part of the library’s summer reading program. Above: Schummer, standing, assists, from left, Daisy Deleon, 13, Alexis Ontiverso, 13, Mia Torres, 13, and Lacy Jackson, 13. Right: Reagan Bradford, 13, shows off her progress painting flames directly onto her nails.
state law applicable to the municipality, and performs other responsibilities as may be delegated or directed by the City Council. He or she hires, promotes, trains, supervises, disciplines and discharges all persons employed by the City of Roswell. Other duties include preparing and submitting an annual budget for approval by the City CounSee SEARCH, Page A3
ized tests. Classroom observations, review of lesson plans and attendance make up 25, 15 and 10 percent of the score. At the end of the evaluations, teachers are rated by their effectiveness, with “exemplary” as the highest and “ineffective” as the lowest. “You might recall that I did get to most schools prior to the end of the year to show the staff how the system worked,” Burris said. “The premise is relatively straightforward and the processes are understandable.” However, he has received some questions from teachers about the grades. Board President Pauline Ponce also thanked Burris for his efforts to educate the district’s teachers on the state’s new teacher evaluation system. “I think his explanation of the evaluations averted a
Officials eye 6 barrels VA reviews deaths of waiting NM patients tied to leak at WIPP
SANTA FE (AP) — Scientists investigating a mysterious radiation leak at the federal gover nment’s underground nuclear waste dump have identified five other potentially explosive containers of waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory that are being stored at a site in West Texas, New Mexico Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn told a legislative panel Tuesday. Flynn told lawmakers that scientists have been unable to replicate the chemical event believed to have caused a drum to breach at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant on Feb. 14, contaminating 22 workers. But they have tied the bar-
rel to a waste stream from Los Alamos with an unusually high acid level, he said. That waste was packed into a total of six drums, including the one at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad. The rest are among more than 100 that were shipped from Los Alamos to Waste Control Specialists in Andrews, Texas, after the leak indefinitely shuttered the New Mexico facility, which is the federal government’s only permanent repository for waste from decades of building nuclear bombs. Asked if the public should be worried, Flynn See WIPP, Page A2
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — Officials with the Veterans Affairs health care system in New Mexico said Tuesday they have identified at least 21 people who died while waiting to see a doctor amid an investigation into lapses in care. VA administrators have not determined whether any of the deaths were related to a lack of care or delays in seeing a doctor. “What we are doing is looking at every single one of those cases in detail to make sure the wait for care was or was not related to their death,” said Dr. Meghan Gerety, chief of the health care system’s integrated care service. “At this point, we’re still in
Jamison Marsh, left, and Margaret Barnard discuss the AmeriCorps team’s volunteer work in Roswell on Tuesday. The team, based in Denver, is here until July helping Embrace Inc.
HIGH 102 LOW 69 TODAY’S FORECAST
AP Photo
New Mexico Veterans Affairs health care system interim director James Robbins points to the findings of a recent audit on patient wait times, during a news conference in Albuquerque, on Tuesday.
months or more for initial medical appointments within the New Mexico system. The audit also found new patients seeking primary care in New Mexico
were waiting an average of 46 days, while those needing specialty care waited nearly two months. New patients seeking mental health care waited an average of 38 days.
busy working with the nonprofit organization Embrace Inc. on local community projects. They are working at Enchanted Gardens learning how to grow vegetables, and they are also working in Lake Arthur helping restore an old schoolhouse so that it can be reopened as a museum, Marsh said. Among the skills they have learned during their time with AmeriCorps, Marsh said his experiences with wildfire training and
using a chainsaw in Colorado, as well as his gardening experiences here in Roswell, have been memorable.
AmeriCorps team volunteering in Roswell
BY RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Randal Seyler Photo
the review process. It takes a while.” The VA learned of the patients’ deaths while reaching out to more than 1,000 veterans who were on waiting lists to see primary care doctors or receive specialty care. Calls are being made to each person on the waiting lists. Letters are being sent to some in an effort to see if they still want appointments, if their conditions have worsened or if they want to seek care outside the VA system. A wide-ranging national audit released Monday showed more than 1,000 veterans as of mid-May had been waiting three
See EVALS, Page A3
A team of youthful AmeriCorps volunteers is in Roswell helping with community projects, and they stopped by the Roswell Kiwanis Club on Tuesday to discuss their stay in Southeastern New Mexico. The nine team members who visited Kiwanis are between the ages of 18-24 and they come from all
• BILLY CHARLES FRENCH • ROBERT “BOB” SCOTT TERRY • WANDA STORIE
over the country to participate, said AmeriCorps team member Jamison Marsh. Marsh is a Minnesota native who volunteered for AmeriCorps. “We get to travel all over the country and meet all kinds of people,” Marsh said. “This really gives us a chance to have some life experiences that we normally would not have had.” The team arrived in Roswell on May 20 and will leave the area in July, but in the meantime, they are
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGE A6
CLASSIFIEDS ..........B6 COMICS .................B5 ENTERTAINMENT .....B6 FINANCIAL ..............B3
“I am really loving learning about gardening,” Marsh said. “I never had any experience with gardening before and I am really enjoying learning how to make plants grow.” AmeriCorps, both at the state and national level,
See AMERICORPS, Page A3
INDEX GENERAL ...............A2
HOROSCOPES .........B6 LOTTERIES .............A2
OPINION .................A4
SPORTS .................B1
WEATHER ..............A8