9-22-11 newspaper

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Roswell Daily Record

Adair blasts redistricting plan

Vol. 120, No. 228 50¢ Daily / $1 Sunday

INSIDE NEWS

THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY

JULIA BERGMAN RECORD STAFF WRITER

KARA KENNEDY LAID TO REST WASHINGTON (AP) — Kara Kennedy, the oldest of three children of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, was remembered at funeral services Wednesday as a thoughtful friend and devoted mother who had a mischievous side like her father.

The Democrat supported redistricting plan the Senate passed on Monday has the potential to affect representation in Chaves County, and specifically Roswell, if the House and Gov. Susana Martinez approve it. All Republican senators voted against the plan, which passed the Senate on a 27-15 party-line vote. Under the plan, the districts held by Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell and Sen. William Burt, R-Alamogordo, would merge. Majority-minority districts, districts constructed to give a racial or language minority population a

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September 22, 2011

THURSDAY

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majority, must be protected under federal law, and this mandate affected where certain pairings could be made, according to Senate President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, R-Roswell. Some of the other Senate plans for redistricting changed the percentage of numbers so they were too low in certain majority-minority districts, such as Sen. Carrol Leavell’s, R-Jal, district in Hobbs. “We had to go back and leave Senator Leavell’s district alone, so that necessitated a change where pairings ended up happening. The changes ended up happening in Chaves County and Otero County,” Jennings said. His district is also a majority-minority district. Although a Republican senator

could be lost on the eastern side of the state, Jennings said one would be picked up in Albuquerque. In response to the criticism that rural areas are not adequately represented under the plan, Jennings said, “The problem is the rural areas did not grow. I didn’t set this thing up in terms of one man, one vote. Those changes were set up under the United States government and Constitution. So if you don’t grow, something has to give somewhere. Albuquerque has grown more than the rest of us.” Expressing his belief that he expects the governor to veto the plan, Jennings said, “She threatens if you don’t do away with your leader (Senator Sanchez) then I’ll veto it. That’s like pouring gasoline

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TOP 5 For The Last 24 Hours

Jesus Avitia Julian Garcia Water pipeline bursts Benny Encinias Guadalupe Castaneda

INSIDE SPORTS Mark Wilson Photo

Bernie Perez of Superior Signs installs “Home of the Whopper” signage to a side entrance at the new Burger King located between Hastings and Walgreens on North Main Street, Wednesday morning. The new restaurant is due to open in the next several weeks.

Dumping of 35 bodies seen as challenge to Zetas BRONCOS LOOK SHAKY The New Mexico Military Institute Bronco volleyball team didn’t look very sharp on Wednesday at Cahoon Armory. The Broncos racked up numerous missed serves, receive errors and attack errors and fell in five sets to Western Junior College Athletic Conference foe Frank Phillips College.

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TODAY’S OBITUARIES

• Vitalia Gomez • Adriana K. Araujo

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HIGH ...85˚ LOW ....60˚

TODAY’S FORECAST

CLASSIFIEDS..........B5 COMICS.................B3 NATION .................A6 FINANCIAL .............B4 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........B5 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8 LOCAL ..................A5

INDEX

Mayor says new tax would spur growth

See REDISTRICTING, Page A3

JULIA BERGMAN RECORD STAFF WRITER

WEB

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on a fire. We don’t tell her who she can pick.” A strong opponent of the Senate plan, Adair, raised several issues it creates. “It would prevent the expression of a lot of viewpoints, opinions and philosophies that are shared by a very high percentage of New Mexicans,” Adair said. “The plan is designed to skew the debate to the left, into a really narrow range of choices. It’s not really reflective of the diversity of opinion in the state.” The plan gets rid of two Republican senators right away, according to Adair, who said one would lose to

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) — A gang known to be aligned with Mexico’s most-wanted drug lord appears to be making a violent challenge to the dominant Zetas Cartel in the Gulf state of Veracruz, dumping 35 bodies on a busy avenue in front of horrified motorists near where the nation’s top prosecutors were about to start a convention. The cartel known as the New Generation unloaded the bound, seminude, tortured bodies during rush hour Tuesday as part of a several-month campaign to take the strategic port of Veracruz now controlled by the Zetas drug gang, an official in the Mexican armed forces told The Associated Press on Wednesday. All 35 victims, who included 12 women and two minors, were linked to the Zetas cartel, said the official, who couldn’t be quoted by name for security reasons. It was the first official acknowledgment of who may have carried out the attack after a banner left at the scene threatened the Zetas and bore the initials “G.N.” A U.S. law enforcement official said the New Generation is believed to be linked to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, widely considered the world’s wealthiest drug trafficker. But the U.S. official, who also could not be quoted by name for security reasons, said it would be surprising to see heavy involvement in Veracruz by Guzman or his Sinaloa cartel, which is based in the Pacific coast state of the same name on the other side of Mexico.

In an attempt to defy history, Mayor Del Jurney plans to reintroduce the proposal to add a Municipal Infrastructure Gross Receipts Tax to the city’s current growth receipt tax. The proposal for the additional tax has not passed in the past two attempts, and will be part of the city election on March 13. The addition of the tax would result in an increase of the city’s current gross receipts tax, which would shift from 7.125 percent to 7.25 percent or 12.5 cents for every $100 spent. It would apply to all taxable goods, excluding food or medicine, and is projected to create revenues of $1.2 million

Grant helps law enforcement upgrade computer systems JESSICA PALMER RECORD STAFF WRITER

The Roswell Police Department announced Wednesday that its grant application to the Justice Assistant Grant had been accepted. The Chaves County Sheriff’s Office and RPD filed jointly for the federal grant designed for use by states and local law enforcement to make improvements. The RPD’s share is $28,606.20, which will be used for computers in officers’ patrol units. The Sheriff’s Office will receive $12,259.80 for in-car computers and tasers. The grant will pay for a small portion of the computer upgrades required by the RPD. With their share of the grant money, the police will be able to purchase nine Panasonic Toughbook laptops, with docking hardware, priced at $3,000 apiece. Installation costs, also covered by the grant, are estimated at $1,606. The Sheriff’s Office will be able to acquire and install four computers for use in their units, at an estimated $2,000 each, along

See TAX, Page A3

with six tasers. The RPD portion of the grant for the new computer equipment is only a part of the computer upgrade needed for the records department and dispatch. The Roswell City Council has already voted on budgeting $515,309 for system upgrades for the fiscal year of 2012. Finance Officer Debra Morsey said the laptops supplied by the JAG will be completely integrated with the planned new system which will allow police officers to communicate with sheriff’s deputies and gain immediate access to records. “The computers will work hand-in-hand with the Sheriff’s Offices, records department and computer-aided dispatch,” said Support Services Commander William Brown. He reported that the new software chosen by RPD to upgrade its system is OSSI Sungard which is designed specifically for law enforcement and government agencies. “The contract was signed by City Administrator Larry Fry last week.”

Fed to shift $400B in holdings to boost economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it will shuffle $400 billion of its portfolio to try to drive down long-term interest rates and get the economy going. But economists doubted it would do much good, the stock market sold off, and the Fed itself was unusually divided over the strategy. The idea is to make mortgages and other major loans cheaper and encourage people and businesses to spend more money — providing a lift to the broader economy, which has slowed sharply more than two years after the Great Recession. But economists pointed out that Americans, still feeling insecure about the future and inclined to save rather than borrow, might not be willing to take on more debt, even at lower rates, or eligible to get it. Others see no reason to jump into the housing market when prices are still falling. “Frankly, I don’t see it having any meaningful impact on the economy,” said Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist with the Economic Out-

look Group. “What the Fed did today was a distraction.” Yields on U.S. government debt were already among the lowest on record, and investors drove them down further after the Fed announcement. The yield on the 10year Treasury bond, an indicator for mortgages and other long-term loans, closed at 1.86 percent, down from 1.93 percent the day before and the lowest since at least 1962. Along with the strategy statement, the Fed gave a stormy overview of the economy — slow growth, high unemployment and a slumping housing market. The Fed has already said it will keep short-term interest rates super-low into 2013, a sign that the central bank was not optimistic about the next two years. Three members of the Federal Open Market Committee, the policymaking arm of the Fed, dissented. There are 10 members in all, including Chairman Ben Bernanke, and See ECONOMY, Page A3

See GRANT, Page A3

AP Photo

A trader signals in the S&P 500 Futures pit at the CME Group in Chicago, Wednesday. The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it will use more than $400 billion to try to drive down long-term interest rates, make home loans cheaper and invigorate the economy.


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