Roswell Daily Record
Vol. 121, No. 134 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
INSIDE NEWS
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) — Six months after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan sent four aircraft carriers to the Pacific atoll of Midway to destroy what remained of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
June 5, 2012
TUESDAY
www.rdrnews.com
Voter turnout averaging 28% in recent NM primaries
SANTA FE (AP) — With Election Day finally at hand, candidates across New Mexico focused their attention on turning out supporters to vote on Tuesday.
Brian Sanderof f, an Albuquerque pollster, said Monday he expected voter turnout to be average or slightly lower.
An average of 28 percent of registered Democrats and Republicans have cast ballots in presidential election year primaries in New Mexico since 1996.
Four years ago, about 274,000 Democrats and Republicans — 31 percent of eligible primary voters — cast ballots. However, there were contested races in
Only Democrats and Republicans can vote in the primary election. Winners of races will become the party nominees in the November general election.
NAVY MARKS WORLD WAR MILESTONE
THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
“Really, it’s going to take some of the local or legislative races to increase turnout because there are many top-of-the-ticket races that are either unopposed or just not hotly contested,” Sanderoff said.
each of the state’s three congressional districts in 2008 because all of the seats were open as the incumbents sought other offices.
The race for president tops the ballot, but President Barack Obama is unopposed on the Democratic side and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has locked up the GOP nomination. One of the hardest-hitting races is a three-way contest for the Democratic nomination in the Albuquerque-area 1st Congres-
sional District. State Sen. Eric Griego and Bernalillo County Commissioner Michelle Lujan Grisham were running even and former Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez trailed them, according to a poll two weeks ago by the Albuquerque Journal. Former state legislator Janice Arnold-Jones is unopposed for the GOP nomination. The 1st District seat is open because two-ter m Democratic incumbent Martin Heinrich is running for the U.S. Senate against State Auditor Hector
- PAGE A3
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INSIDE
Julia Bergman Photo
Repair work on water line break has begun Repair work began Monday on a water line break at the corner of Southeast Main Street and East Chisum Street.
JULIA BERGMAN RECORD STAFF WRITER
An estimated $180,000 repair job began Monday on a transmission line break at the cor ner of
OU UP 1-0 IN WCWS OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Keilani Ricketts struck out 12 in a five-hitter and Oklahoma beat Alabama 4-1 on Monday night in Game 1 of the Women’s College World Series final. - PAGE B1
TODAY’S • • • • • •
OBITUARIES
Irene Lavern Tyler Joseph Rollwitz Charles Thompson Eva Aragon Kathy Ann Long Geneva Sotelo
- PAGES A2, A7
HIGH ...92˚ LOW ....66˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
INDEX CLASSIFIEDS..........B5 COMICS.................B3 ENTERTAINMENT.....B8 FINANCIAL .............B4 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........A8 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8
Primary voters also will decide contested races for the Legislature, Court of Appeals, district judges, Public Regulation Commission and county offices.
CYFD changes discussed JULIA BERGMAN RECORD STAFF WRITER
TOP 5
SPORTS
Balderas. Former U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson and Las Cruces businessman Greg Sowards are seeking the GOP nomination. Heinrich and Wilson held wide leads in their primary races, according to the most recent Journal poll. The candidates are seeking to replace Democrat Jef f Bingaman, who’s retiring after 30 years in office.
Southeast Main and East Chisum streets with a construction crew and heavy machinery on site. City personnel began working on the break April 25.
The break, which affects a three-foot stretch of one of the city’s transmission lines, was caused by age and corrosion. The 50-year -old line extends from the Roswell Interna-
tional Air Center to Main and Chisum, where it dead ends. The 30,000 gallons of water that were being pumped daily into
the union and 30 against it, during the election for representation Monday at the Roswell Convention and Civic Center. This was one of the steps necessary for Local 1249 to be recognized by the city as a union.
a unanimous decision allowing Roswell Fire Department lieutenants to be included in a collective bargaining unit. On Oct. 26, the board first held an all-day hearing on the merits of the petition for representation filed by the Roswell Professional Firefighters Local 1249. The city argued that due to their supervisory powers,
lieutenants should be excluded from the bargaining unit. Members of the RFD, including thenDeputy Chief Chad Hamill and then-Fire Chief James Salas, served as witnesses during the hearing.
See REPAIR, Page A3
Professional Firefighters Union denied by RFD vote While it may remain an unof ficial charter, the Roswell Professional Firefighters Union Local 1249 will have no rights to bargain on behalf of its employees and will not be certified as the exclusive representative. Of the 71 firefighters through the rank of lieutenant who are eligible to vote, 52 cast ballots, with 22 in favor of
In February, the threemember Labor Management Relations Board for the city of Roswell reached
The firefighters will have to wait another year before holding another election.
Accusations of a big brother approach and micromanagement laid claim to frequent criticism that overregulation is rampant in New Mexico, particularly when it comes to education. Proposed regulation changes to child care licensing and child care assistance by the Children Youth and Family Department prompted tense reactions, even from an area legislator and a city councilman, at a town hall-style meeting held in Roswell Monday evening. “We’re 36th in the nation in the quality of our regulations,” Dan Haggard, direc-
Gila fire is growing
See CYFD, Page A3
RESERVE (AP) — Firefighters in southern New Mexico made slow progress Monday against the massive Gila wilderness fire, while crews in the northern part of the state worked to contain a lightning-sparked blaze in the Santa Fe National Forest. Forest officials said the 30- to 40-acre Bear Springs Fire was burning about 6 miles southeast of Jemez Springs. Crews had made little progress containing the fire Monday afternoon, but no structures were being See FIRE, Page A3
Grim search for dead after airliner plane crash in Nigeria kills 153
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Emergency crews wearing masks to protect them from the acrid smoke and the stench of the dead searched for bodies in a smoldering, shattered neighborhood near the Lagos airport Monday after the crash of an airliner killed all 153 people on board and an unknown number on the ground. Apartment buildings, small businesses and roadside shops were smashed to bricks and rubble Sunday when the Dana Air MD-83 plowed into the area about five miles (nine kilometers) short of Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed International Airport. Pilots on the flight from Nigeria’s capital Abuja to its largest city of Lagos radioed the tower that they had engine trouble shortly before the crash, but the exact cause remained unclear. The weather was clear at the time. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan wept as he visited the Iju-Ishaga
neighborhood, where emergency workers wore masks. A backhoe clawed at the debris looking for the dead. Jonathan pledged to make air travel safer, but the crash called into question the government’s ability to protect its citizens and enforce regulations in a nation with a history of aviation disasters. By nightfall, searchers with police dogs recovered 137 bodies, including those of a mother cradling an infant, according to Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency. Rescuers acknowledged they still didn’t know how many people died in the wrecked apartments and smaller tin-roofed buildings along the narrow streets of IjuIshaga. “The fear is that since it happened in a residential area, there may have been many people killed,” said Yushau Shuaib, a federal emergency management spokesman. Lagos state, home to 17.5 million people, has grown
People stand on a wing of a plane crash in Lagos, Nigeria, Sunday.
rapidly in recent years and soon will be home to the most populous city in all of Africa. Some U.S. citizens were aboard the flight, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, but he could not provide a firm number. Others killed in the crash included at least four Chinese citizens, two
Lebanese nationals and one French citizen, of ficials said. Boeing said in a statement on its website that the company is ready to provide technical assistance to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority through the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. Dana Air said an investiga-
AP Photo
tion was under way with U.S. officials assisting the Nigerian government. On April 19, 2010, the same plane made an emergency landing in Lagos because of a loss of engine power after a bird strike following takeoff, according to the Aviation Safety Network.