Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 123, No. 154 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
June 27, 2014
Media welcomed to FLETC’s immigrant facility BY TIMOTHY P. HOWSARE RECORD EDITOR
Members of the media were given a tour Thursday of a facility set up at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia to house female adults with children from Central America who have entered the United States illegally. On Tuesday, local elected officials, including Roswell Mayor Dennis Kintigh and State Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell, where given a similar tour. Most of the adult females housed at the FLETC site will be mothers, but others could also be older sisters taking care of younger siblings, immigration officials said. There will be no males over age 17 housed at the facility. For security reasons, officials said they would not give a specific time or date on when they will start busing immigrants to the facility, but did say it will be soon. Last week, the Obama administration announced plans to convert the training center in Artesia into one of several temporary
sites being established to deal with the influx of women and children fleeing gang violence and poverty in Central American. The Artesia center will only house children caught traveling with their mothers or other female relatives. Unaccompanied minors will continue to be turned over to the Department of Health and Human Services and adult men will be housed at different U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement locations (ICE). Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 52,000 immigrant children crossing the border alone since October. The Artesia site was selected because it is already owned by the federal gover nment and has three barracks that were built in 2003 to house the influx of federal officers who needed training after 9/11, said Barbara Gonzalez, press secretary for ICE. Gonzalez, who traveled to Artesia from Washington, D.C., led the tour. “We want to be as transparent with the public as possible,” she said.
Gonzalez said a lot of misinformation has been disseminated to Central Americans fleeing their homelands by smuggling organizations in Mexico. The sad reality, Gonzalez said, is that at the end of a perilous 2,000-mile journey, in which many of them die or become victims of the smugglers, the immigrants discover they are not eligible for the immigration reforms promised by the smugglers. Many are falsely told they are eligible for DACA, or deferred action for childhood arrivals, Gonzalez said. However, requirements for DACA include continuously residing in the United States from June 15, 2007, up to the present time and being physically present in the U.S. on June 15, 2012. The women and children will be housed in three modular buildings that each have 28 dormitorystyle rooms. Each room has four sets of bunk beds, two closets, a flat-screen TV, a desk and toys for the children. See FLETC, Page A3
Timothy P. Howsare Photos
Above: Barbara Gonzalez, left, ICE press secretary,
does an interview Thursday
with Josie Ortegon, a
reporter with the ABC affiliate in El Paso. Left: Each
dorm-like room has four
beds, two closets a desk and
City discusses prospect of convention center expansion flat-screen TV.
BY JEFF TUCKER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Jeff Tucker Photo
Roswell leaders on Thursday discuss a proposal to expand the Roswell Convention, Civic & Visitors Center. The City Council held a workshop Thursday night to explore expanding the convention center and paving a large gravel parking lot near DeBremond Stadium.
Worker salaries boosted after dispute
SAFELY
calling
SANTA FE (AP) — About 5,300 state workers will receive hourly salary increases from 13 cents to more than 50 cents in their paychecks on Friday to help resolve a six-year-old union contract dispute. Of ficials in Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration said Thursday that salaries were adjusted in early June to reflect wage rates that should have been in place starting in 2008. Employees will get paychecks Friday reflecting the increases. The checks cover the most recent two-week pay period, which started June 7. Risk Management Director A. J. Forte said a worker getting a 50-cent hourly raise could see about a $600 annual salary increase after required withholdings, including taxes, health care and pension payments. Of the 5,300 workers, about 21 percent will get increases of less than 13 cents an hour and about 75 percent will receive between 13 cents and 50 cents. Only 4 percent will have raises of more than 50 cents an hour. The pay raises will cost about $2 million a year. The amount of the pay will vary from
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worker to worker, depending on an individual’s job and the employee’s experience with government.
If they build it, will they come? That was the unanswered question at a Roswell City Council workshop Thursday regarding proposals to expand the Roswell Convention, Civic & Visitors Center and to pave a large gravel parking lot near city-owned DeBremond Stadium. City Councilor Steve Henderson chaired the workshop and laid out the proposals to add about 200 parking spaces west of the convention center, estimated to cost about
$1.4 million. Henderson also proposed an expansion of the convention center he said would allow the convention center to accommodate larger crowds by doubling its square footage with an expansion to the west of the exhibit hall. That project was estimated a few years ago to cost $7.7 million. “We want to put the two projects together to make it a viable project for the contractor,” Henderson said. “It’s been on the drawing board for several years. The reason we haven’t done it is we haven’t had the money.”
Henderson and others discussed financing options to fund the projects. Henderson proposed utilizing $500,000 of city funds, a $250,000 loan from the state, and local hotel/motel bed taxes to pay for the parking lot project between Pennsylvania and Richardson avenues, and Ninth and 10th streets. The city would likely have to float bonds to fund the expansion of the convention center, city leaders said. Henderson said the new parking lot could be used See EXPANSION, Page A2
Lovelace hosts Business After Hours
There will be separate checks issued later for back pay estimated at nearly $24 million. Those payments will range from more than $8,000 for about five dozen workers to as little as $7, before required withholdings. The state Supreme Court ruled last year that 10,000 employees are entitled to retroactive pay increases because former Gov. Bill Richardson’s administration didn’t follow union contracts in distributing 2008 salary money.
Only about 5,300 of those employees are still working for the state, and the state’s first step was to adjust their salaries to stop the liability for back pay from continuing to grow. Forte said the unions agreed to the method for calculating new salaries. The final step is to provide workers with back pay, and Forte said the administration is in the process of verifying final calculations for current and past workers who will receive a check.
The Roswell Chamber of Commerce hosted a Business After Hours on Thursday at Lovelace Regional Hospital. Dozens of Chamber members and friends turned out to visit and enjoy the evening.
IS JUST THE
8-1-1BEGINNING
HIGH 103 LOW 68 TODAY’S FORECAST
• EDWARD “FRANK” HORTON • RONALD C. HORTON • GLENDA C. BRUNK
Randal Seyler Photo
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGE A7
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CLASSIFIEDS ..........B5 COMICS .................B4 ENTERTAINMENT .....A8 FINANCIAL ..............B3
INDEX GENERAL ...............A2
HOROSCOPES .........B5 LOTTERIES .............A2
OPINION .................A4
SPORTS .................B1
WEATHER ..............A8