SECRECY IN LAS CRUCES GOVERNMENT: SPECULATION ABOUT CANDIDATES AND ENABLERS

With elections approaching, I speculate on an on-going situation interweaving political campaigns and legal action.  It involves two candidates for local office and the Las Cruces Law Office.  District 1 Councilor and Mayor Pro Tem Kasandra Gandara is running for mayor, District 2 Councilor Tessa Abeyta is running for re-election, and City Attorney Linda Samples is resisting an Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) request.

 

The situation is a complicated one.  Politically, Gandara’s and Abeyta’s membership on a secret city government committee contradicts their professed commitment to transparency and accountability.  Although a majority of City Council approved the creation and charter of the Select Committee on Public Safety on 6 January 2020, several councilors seemed unaware of it or its activities at a 22 May 2023 Council meeting.  Their ignorance over three years later might seem odd except that the Select Committee, though charged to provide information and make recommendations to Council, has apparently never done so.  Understandably, the non-member councilors might have forgotten all about it.  Meanwhile, Gandara and Abeyta have been operating in secret not only from their fellow councilors, but also from Las Cruces citizens.

 

Legally, Samples is resisting an IPRA request for information about the Select Committee which, if disclosed, might indicate violations of the Open Meetings Act (OMA).  My legal action in Third District Court aims to overcome her resistance and effect the city’s compliance with IPRA.  The city’s violation seems clearcut.  IPRA requires the city to disclose certain information even about redacted or withheld documents, like who communicated with whom and what was their subject.  The city refuses to disclose this information.  The question is why.

 

My speculative answer is that, if the disclosure of this information about redacted or withheld documents were to lead to the disclosure of their contents, that information would likely be unfavorable to Gandara and Abeyta.  It would show them violating the separate, city-charter-defined roles and responsibilities of Council and its one employee, the City Manager, by directly involving themselves in the management of government operations.  It would show them diminishing and usurping the City Manager’s authority by their covert involvement in city operations without transparency or accountability for their actions.  And it would show them disregarding—that is, violating—OMA.

 

The political and the legal overlap.  Samples has denied the allegations and seems indifferent to needlessly running up the city’s legal costs.  It is easy to infer one reason for her perverse and expensive response: she is doing Gandara and Abeyta a favor.  If she had complied promptly with IPRA, I might have obtained information damaging to their campaigns.  Bad enough if the court’s decision finds that the city has violated IPRA.  Worse if the unredacted or released documents reveal operational decisions in secret meetings in which Gandara and Abeyta violated OMA—facts suggesting criminal liability.  Samples’s denial of the allegations to delay these disclosures seems a good-ole-girl effort to help these candidates at taxpayer expense.  If elected, they will be safe from voter disapproval for four years, after which time, time will have swept their dirty deeds under the carpet.  (Nothing need be said about the Mayor’s dishonorable leadership.)

 

The record of the Law Office with respect to IPRA is not, in my experience, a savory one.  When I made an IPRA request about my complaint about false police allegations, Senior Assistant City Attorney Roberto A. Cabello redacted and withheld a number of documents.  To me and later to a New Mexico Assistant Attorney General (AAG), he cited the exemption for matters of opinion related to employer/employee relationships to justify his redactions and withholdings.  Without seeing the documents in question, the AAG did not accept Cabello’s justification.  Yet only when I threatened legal action did the city release the pertinent documents unredacted.  The previously redacted portions had nothing to do with that relationship.  Cabello lied to me and to the AAG, with the approval of the then, since fired, City Attorney Jennifer Vega.  Not a laudable record.

 

So I am inclined to suspect that the Law Office is improperly exempting the many redactions in the Select Committee’s notes, some short, some long, and its two withheld documents from disclosure and release by a bogus claim of attorney-client privilege.  They likely show that the committee of selected councilors and ranking city officials—Mayor, two Councilors, City Manager, City Attorney, Police Chief, Fire Chief, City Clerk, and others—has been making decisions of policy and practice, thereby shutting out City Council in matters of policy and directing the City Manager as well as the Police and Fire Chiefs in matters of practice.

 

Such covert operations are the antithesis of transparency and accountability in city government.  If so, there needs to be a price for sneakiness and subversion of democratic processes.  It would begin with the defeat of Gandara and Abeyta at the ballot box and continue with the firing of Samples for involving the Law Office in election politics.

 

To conclude, I speculate on the basis of information available to me and inferences about information denied me in particular circumstances.  I close with this promise.  I shall correct or confirm my speculations as the facts play out, in and out of court as they become available, probably after the election.  In the meanwhile, voters should question Gandara and Abeyta about their secret committee work and their commitment to transparency and accountability.  Look for my follow-up as I learn more about secrecy in the Las Cruces government.

NOT THE RULE, BUT THE REPUDIATION, OF LAW IN NEW MEXICO

All citizens of New Mexico owe a debt of gratitude to Governor Michelle Lujan Gresham for her doubly unconstitutional executive order banning open and concealed carry of firearms in public places in Albuquerque for 30 days.  Because her “emergency public health order” violated the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a federal court struck down the order in the state’s equivalent of a New York minute.  It also violated New Mexico’s constitution protecting open carry.  The reason for gratitude is the clarity with which her actions show contempt for adherence to law at the highest levels of state government, which contempt trickles down to other state officials in her administration, the legislature, and the courts.

 

I am not going to itemize the many various outrages of this executive order; others have done a fine job of detailing them, with justifiable outrage.  I shall add only that her ill-conceived order is more than a sign of frustration or sympathy with the casualties, both the dead and their families.  It indicates that she has no ideas about how to address the problem of gun violence and believes that no one else has any either.  Of course, the Albuquerque police department compounds the problem because it has no idea, desire, or determination to address the problem of gun violence by its officers.

 

Instead, I am going to note only this new western variant of the old southern doctrines of state interposition and nullification.  Like Gov. Orville Faubus (Arkansas) and Gov. George Wallace (Alabama), among other notorious state governors, Gov. Michelle Gresham has, in effect, adopted these doctrines.  Whereas they embraced them in a broad campaign to protect the “southern way of life”—their byword was “never” to integration—, she resorted to them to reduce the number of fatal shootings in one city for one month.  She thus lowered the bar for officials to ignore, repudiate, or defy state and federal constitutions and the rule of law in New Mexico.

 

Gov. Gresham’s breach of the state and federal constitutions which she has twice sworn to uphold is but another instance of abrogation of oath and dereliction of duty by elected state officials in or associated with the legal community.  One notorious example is the conduct of the state’s Attorney General, Raúl Torrez, whose political ambitions—governor? senator?—override his obligation to perform his assigned duties and to communicate truthfully with the public.  Political oratory substitutes for performance.

 

Consider AG Torrez’s recent public statement on police killings.  In Searchlight New Mexico (14 Sep), 

 

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said he wants the state legislature to fund permanent investigators and prosecutors who can probe police shootings statewide.  Torrez, who previously served as the Bernalillo County District Attorney, said the state needs a review process that “eliminates concerns over potential conflicts of interest” while “promoting public confidence in the criminal justice system.

 

The juxtaposition of this statement and the defunct status of his investigation meant to cover up Officer Jared Gosper’s murder of Sra. Amelia Baca shows both his dereliction of duty, his participation in a law enforcement conspiracy to prevent prosecution of a police officer—AG Torrez really is an accessory after the fact—, and his hypocrisy.  Probe, yes; prosecute, no.

 

The truth of the matter is, as the SNM article details, New Mexico seldom charges, rarely prosecutes, and never convicts a police officer of murder.  AG Torrez, with his eye on higher office, has deliberately avoided doing his duty to avoid reducing his chances.  He knows that charging Officer Gosper with manslaughter or murder will cost him the votes on one side or the other depending on their views of the police.  He calculates that he can omit his duty, keep everything quiet and hopefully forgotten, but deny IPRA requests on the spurious grounds that the investigation is on-going.  His claim is an obvious lie.  As I have written in another blog, nothing remains to be investigated after a long-ago murder occurring on 16 April 2022.  As he sets his ambitions above the performance of his duties in public office now, so he will then set his interests above the public’s interests in another office then.  The last man worthy of election to higher office is this liar, hypocrite, and malingerer, and accessory to murder.

 

This indifference to or disdain for the rule of law is not confined to the executive branch of New Mexico’s government.  It extends to the legislature, where it combines with discourtesy toward and contempt for citizens concerned with the law.  On 5 May, I emailed a letter to all NM legislators on the status of the Baca murder case and attached the unedited body-cam footage.  One legislator responded, but only to replace discarded footage.  On 16 August, I emailed an open letter (see below) to Senator Joseph Cervantes and Representative Christine Chandler, chairs of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, respectively.  Neither had the courtesy nor felt the obligation to respond.  Apparently, they thought that inquiries about this continuing miscarriage of justice was not worth the political risks of offending law enforcement and legal communities.

 

FLASH: Third Judicial District Senior Judge Robert Brack has found Officer Cosper’s shooting “constitutional.”  Judge Brack failed the law by failing to match the two legal tests of reasonable use of force to the circumstances.  His failures mean two things.  One, he has given police officers a year-round, open-season license to use excessive force at their discretion and regardless of circumstances on civilians.  Two, he spares AG Torrez from deciding whether to charge Officer Cosper.  AG Torrez can now ignore the relevant circumstances known to the investigation and not satisfying the two legal tests; he can claim that Judge Brack’s decision renders his office’s investigation superfluous.  Police officers know that they can get away with anything up to and including murder.

 

I exclude the Supreme Court only because I have had no direct experience with it.  However, its corrupt bias to protect lawyers and its contempt for citizens with complaints about lawyers appears in the response of its Disciplinary Board, particularly its Office of Disciplinary Counsel to my 100-plus-page complaint about the misconduct of then and since fired Las Vegas City Attorney Jennifer Vega-Brown.  It rejected my complaint in less than three weeks.  Deputy Director Christine Long wrote that my documentation was insufficient.  Her opening paragraph may arouse doubts that anyone read my complaint:

 

The Office of Disciplinary Counsel has investigated your complaint against the above-named attorney [Vega-Brown] but has found insufficient evidence to support allegations that Ms. Hays [emphasis added] has violated the Rules of Professional Conduct.  For that reason, the Board will be taking no further action.

 

This complaint came at the end of my failed effort to have the law enforcement and legal communities address my complaints about non-lethal police misconduct: false allegations, denial of due process, and bias-based policing.  The Office of the Attorney General ignored two formal complaints and made no reply to explain rejecting them.

 

Such is justice in New Mexico.  The rule of law is not to ensure equality under the law, but to grant privilege to protect police officers, not citizens.  At no level of government is there either transparency or accountability expected of law enforcement officers.  As a result of official indifference by District Attorneys and Attorneys General, the police understand themselves to have license to do as they please.  Jared Cosper’s killing of Amelia Baca is the proof; he is back on the streets.

 

The danger comes to every community which places unbounded confidence in police officers, whose training emphasizes seizing and securing control of situations with overwhelming force and firepower.  Police officers are usually pleasant enough when they are not confronted by a challenge or a crisis.  But when they are so confronted, they resort to trained responses and often become a threat to limb and life.  Officer Cosper’s response, despite prior training in de-escalation and the cautionary remarks of her family, did not restrain him for one moment.  He killed Sra. Amelia Baca within seconds of arriving on the scene.  Now school districts have police officers stationed in schools to protect students.  It is only a matter of time until a teenager does not respond as an officer expects—shows some “attitude” or gives a little lip—, and the officer overreacts.  No doubt, those officials who approved such programs will decry the mental health of the victim and not the propensity and training of the police officer to react violently.

*     *      *

2023-08-16

 

Dear Senator Joseph Cervantes and Representative Christine Chandler:

 

The shooting of Sra. Amelia Baca by LCPD Officer Jared Cosper on 16 April 2022 has received not only local, but also national, attention.  However, no decision to charge or not charge Officer Cosper has been made in the sixteen months since her death.

 

All police officers and legal authorities able to charge the officer—former LCPD Chief Miguel Dominguez, Third District Attorney Gerald Byers, former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas, and New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez—have failed to act one way or the other.  By failing to act, these officials have made an exception for a vocational colleague to the principle of equality under the law.

 

My IPRA request to see the report sent from the local multi-agency task force to DA Byers was refused on the grounds that AG Torrez was still investigating the shooting.  The claim is implausible.  Officer Cosper’s body camera clearly captured the incident.  Investigators interviewed Officer Cosper, other officers, family members, witnesses, and others at least once, some likely several times.  It is difficult to imagine what remains to be investigated.  It is easy to imagine that the evidence is convincing but uncomfortable.

 

I doubt that AG Torrez is conducting an investigation.  I suspect that he makes the claim to avoid transparency and thereby shield officials from accountability.  The claim deflects inquiries and defers action indefinitely; justice thus delayed is justice thus denied—indefinitely.  Meanwhile, as the public learns nothing about the reasons which have delayed a decision, so its distrust of the police grows.  Inaction shows that police can get away with anything, including killing.  Indeed, Officer Cosper is out on the street.  In this context and these circumstances, the conduct of these police officers and legal authorities amounts to a continuing cover-up and makes them accessories-after-the-fact.

 

Accordingly, I write to urge that you and your committees inquire whether the AG is conducting an investigation; if so, why is it proceeding so slowly; if not, when will he announce his decision and what has delayed an announcement.  I further urge that you issue a report to the public.  An explanation of the failure of police officers and legal authorities to act in this notorious case is long overdue.

 

I look forward to, and shall publish, your responses.

 

Michael L. Hays

Las Cruces

BOOK CENSORS CHALLENGE LAS CRUCES HIGH SCHOOL

Unreported by the Sun-News—well, what did you expect?—, two citizens are urging the Las Cruces School Board to censor a book entitled Jack of Hearts and Other Parts by removing it from the Mayfield High School library.  They object to the book, written for high-school-age readers, as age-inappropriate because of the sexual orientation of the protagonist, a queer, and some explicit descriptions of sexual behavior.

 

All citizens have the right to raise objections to just about anything, including books available to or required for students in public schools.  In this case, the standing of citizens raising objections depends on their qualifications.  Professionals have relevant knowledge and offer informed opinion; they have motives and purposes appropriate to the issue.  A few amateurs parallel the pros, but most rely on positions tangential or irrelevant to, and have motives and purposes independent of, the issue.

 

The two citizens objecting to the inclusion of Jack of Hearts and Other Parts in a high-school library, are Juan Garcia and Sarah Smith.  Mr. Garcia heads the local chapter of the Coalition of Conservatives in Action; Ms. Smith champions various causes before City Council.  I suspect that neither is a trained professional in education or a closely allied field.  Neither is a parent of a Mayfield student, and, I am told, Ms. Smith home-schooled her children.  So their standing is suspect because their pertinent knowledge is nominal, their opinions uninformed, and their motives and purposes more political or moral/religious than pedagogical.

 

Accordingly, they are impressively arrogant.  Against the professional expertise and judgment of librarians and teachers, they presume that their political or moral/religious ideologies have superseding authority.  I doubt that they have the education or experience to ascertain and explain the age-appropriateness of literature with sexual content.  I doubt that they can ascertain and explain the age-appropriateness of various aspects of human sexuality as represented in literature.  I doubt that they have anything other than their ideologies to justify their objections.

 

The ages at which students acquire knowledge of and engage in sex influence any ascertainment of age-appropriateness.  Anyone familiar with the facts of life knows that students learn about sex a little in school libraries, some in health classes, and much in school hallways, lavatories, and locker rooms—and, of course, lots outside schools.  They engage in sex as circumstances and opportunity permit.  A common progression is from you-show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine to masturbation to kissing to petting (light and heavy) to fornication, fellatio, and cunnilingus.  I assume that, in these activities, there are stylistic, situational, or creative variations; experimentation with different kinds of partners and practices is not uncommon; but excess is more common than kinkiness.  The progression is not rigid.  Some people skip ahead or go beyond; some lag behind or fall out.  At what ages is knowledge of these diverse activities age-appropriate?  At what ages is engagement in them age-appropriate?  How have Mr. Garcia and Ms. Smith ascertained the appropriate match of ages, knowledge, and activities?

 

I have to tell two family stories here.  My first wife and I had two children, first Kelly, then David.  When she was about five, Kelly asked the question, where did I come from.  My wife gave the high-school, health-class answer.  Kelly‘s face first grew serious with thought, then with horror: “You mean you did it twice!”  When I was Kelly’s age and asked the question of my nannie, she told me that I came from my mother’s stomach.  So I asked, why did she eat me.  Perhaps storks would have been better answers both times.

 

The acquisition of sexual knowledge and experience—I omit child molestation and rape—occurs inevitably.  What is inappropriate about knowing about sex and, if it does not result in irresponsible consequences—diseases, juvenile pregnancies, etc.—, engaging in it?  Do Mr. Garcia and Ms. Smith play God by proscribing, as God forbade Adam and Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, what books high-school students should not read lest they learn about unconventional ideas about who has sex with whom and how?  Do they object to this book because it depicts people whom, or practices which, they shun?

 

Do Mr. Garcia and Ms. Smith imagine a past Golden Age of exclusively adult, heterosexual, monogamous, procreative, and missionary sex, and want to restore it by banning from high schools this book and perhaps others involving sexual content?  Do they fear that today’s students, presumably unlike supposedly sexually naïve students in my day over 65 years ago, are susceptible to what they think is alluring, perverted and contagious sex?  Let me tell them that we knew and did not care who were LGBTQ; they were our classmates and friends.  Even so, none of us woke up one fine spring morning and said, I think I’ll try being a queer for a day.

 

I have no hope that Mr. Garcia, Ms. Smith, and their ilk can get real.  But the rest of us should get real about them.  People who defy experts and object to literature with sexual content on purported grounds of age-inappropriateness have problems.  Mine—ours, really—is not only their arrogance, political or moral/religious ideologies, and sanctimonious hypocrisies, but also their efforts to impose agendas on us.  The time to resist their first attempted imposition on public education is now, to make it their last.

 

When it comes to public education, I wish, as I have blogged, that schools emphasized traditional academic subjects—for instance, reading with proficiency by all students after 4^th grade—more than diversity, inclusion, and equality.  But, if librarians or teachers believe that books like Jack of Hearts and Other Parts with sexual content serve the needs of high-school students, then libraries or courses should address their needs, not the demands of Puritanical meddlers like Mr. Garcia and Ms. Smith, who want to exclude from a school library a book with sexual content outside their up-tight comfort zone.

 

Including this and other unconventional books in school libraries or courses is true to education: a leading out of oneself into a world not well known.  A key part of the job of school board officials is to help teachers open student minds, inform students about the world in which they live, and guide them to make good use of that knowledge.

 

Let us do more than hope that the Las Cruces School Board, which has done little for academic achievement, can rouse itself to protect students from those who would apply political or moral/religious dogmas to define what can or cannot be read as part of a civic and civilizing public-school education.  To leave little to chance, citizens should ask their School Board representatives what their position on this issue is.  Voters in School Board Districts 1, 4, and 5 should ask the same question of Board candidates.

 

 

 

District 1:

Patrick D. Nolan           (575) 520-8817                  PATRICKDNOLAN@GMAIL.COM

325 Townsend Terrace, LC, NM 88005

Joseph W. Sousa           (619) 987-5150                 jsousa12@hotmail.com

2870 San Miguel Court, LC, NM 88007

District 4:

Julia E. Ruiz                  (575) 635-3649                JULIARUIZ4SCHOOLBOARD@GMAIL.COM

PO Box 314, Fairacres, NM 88033

Edward Posey Howell   (915) 549-0020                howellep29@gmail.com

1626 Calle Murillo, LC, NM 88007

Teresa Maxine Tenorio  (575) 652-4500               TERESA4LCPS@GMAIL.COM

PO 47, Fairacres, NM 88033

 

District 5:

Jose L. Aranda                (575) 405-9888                jaranda2@hotmail.com

 4964 Kenmore Road, LC, NM 88012

Ernest B. Carlson           (575) 635-2759                 ecarlson4th@gmail.com

 4655 Baylor Canyon Road, LC, NM 88011

Carol Lynn Cooper         (575) 644-1790                CLCOOPER1946@GMAIL.COM

PO Box 13515 LC, NM 88013 

Edward Frank                  (610) 888-6116                LASCRUCESLALO@GMAIL.COM

4111 Bella Sierra Court, LC, NM 88011

 

 

[Correction: in my previous blog, I cited the Sierra County Sentinel as an example of mature reporting and editorializing.  That paper closed in December 2021.  Its successor is the Sierra County Citizen, a weekly by volunteer journalists.  Kudos to them all, especially Diana Tittle, who leads the effort.]

IS THE SUN SETTING ON THE NEWS IN LAS CRUCES?

I wrote a fortnightly column for the Saturday edition of the Las Cruces Sun-News for over 6 years.  I resigned to revise my book on Shakespeare and make it available for free on an academic website.  Editorial-page editor Walt Rubel’s email was effusive in its praise: “Thanks for your column.”  Notwithstanding his columns urging readers to vote for certain candidates or issues, he then wrote a column in which he criticized me for expecting to influence people on issues important to the city or state.  Eventually, I returned to writing occasional, though frequent, blogs, without deadlines or limitations.  Soon after its current editor, Jessica Onsurez, received some, she or someone else blocked them for a time apparently because they raised “security” concerns.  Meanwhile, the Sun-News building keeps its doors locked at all times.  Although articles and columns give their emails and telephone numbers, the writers rarely respond to calls or messages, at least to mine.  It has published none of my letters or op-eds in recent years.  Poor me.

 

The Sun News is typical of many small-city papers.  Despite a growing population, its readership has shrunk.  In 2011, population was 100,000, total circulation was 22,500, and the paper was hefty.  In 2022, population was 115,000, total circulation was roughly 15,000, and the paper was flimsy.  In between, the website version, which mixes past and present stories, some “front page” for days, may account for some loss of print readers.  But the coverage in both print and electronic formats is superficial, especially on serious topics.  By contrast, Truth or Consequences with a population of 6,000, one-twentieth of Las Cruces’s, has a weekly liberal paper in a conservative populace, the Sierra County Sun, which offers more serious and comprehensive coverage of local government than the Sun-News editor and writers can imagine.

 

I dropped my subscription to the Sun-News long ago, but I occasionally visit its website to see its coverage, with a special eye to politics and the police.  According to the website, the paper “covers public safety and local government in Las Cruces.”  The core of this coverage is headline stuff, usually with scanty, if any, investigative follow-up, despite former claims to the contrary.  The paper was not first to publish the unedited body-cam footage of the Baca murder.  It did not report on LCPD’s participation in a supposedly “independent” investigation or its leadership at the meeting reviewing the report to the DA.  Nor on why DA Gerald Byers, after promising a decision about charges within a few days, kicked the case up to the NMAG.  Nor on why two NMAGs have done nothing about the case.  Nor on why the current NMAG claims that the investigation is on-going when there is neither the reason nor the appearance of a reason for it to go on.

 

The Sun-News did not report on Jennifer Vega’s late fall departure from office as City Attorney without public notice.  Nor on why no one on City Council or in the city administration has explained her departure.  Six or so months later, City Manager Ifo Pili said that she was fired but gave no reason.  Even local gossip—personality conflict, low staff morale, disorganization and dysfunction, loss of confidence in her work, expensive settlements, kickbacks on settlements or other forms of illicit enrichment, threatened lawsuit for sexual harassment—would have had some value by prompting those in the know to set the record straight.  The idea that the departure of a senior and influential public official is not newsworthy discredits the paper for dereliction of journalistic duty.  The suspicion of cover-up in serving political masters, not the public, is quite plausible.

 

Either dereliction or cover-up seems part of the paper’s effort to ingratiate itself with the powers-that-be and ignore a public assumed to be politically supine or stupid or both.  For example, the paper’s coverage of the work session on a proposed oversight board reported no citizen comments, mostly favorable on the proposal and unfavorable on City Council.  The paper’s readers can be forgiven for their ignorance about this issue as well as many others because the Sun-News does its best to keep them ignorant.

 

In this context, the absence of an editorial voice in the Sun-News is notable.  Time was when its editorial column addressed matters of concern to the city.  Not now.  It relies on a variety of columnists to write according to their predilections.  So the paper itself does not speak for the city or to the city or its government.  Recent research on “rural” papers “shows that in these ‘news deserts’ where community journalism has died, … local governments’ corruption and financial mismanagement worsen in the absence of watchdogs.”  Such is the history of the Sun-News and the city for many years.

 

As the Sun-News no longer serves as a watchdog, so incompetence and corruption in city government has grown.  No one was surprised, much less outraged, that a moribund paper with no editorial voice said nothing about a wasted three-quarters of a million dollars on a long-running, SNAFU’d, public works flood control project.  Or said nothing when former Police Chief Miguel Dominguez tried to deceive the public about Officer Jared Gosper’s murder of Sra. Amelia Baca.  Its silence serves incompetence, corruption, wasted tax dollars, dishonesty, police killings, and more  It is not a free press serving the public.  It is a bought-and-paid-for rag mainly serving city officials, hobbyists, sports fans, and its corporate owners, whose concerns are private profits, not public service.

 

Earlier this year, the Sun-News offered a 3-month digital subscription for $1.00.  I tried it, but I did not get my money’s worth.  So I discontinued my subscription.  Then, the paper offered a 'til-the-end-of-the-year digital subscription for $1.00.  No thanks.  My only wish is that I could cancel my subscription in protest, but I have already done that.