Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Authorities seek witnesses in car fires Vol. 123, No. 178 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Someone in Roswell knows who is starting the vehicle fires here in town, and Roswell Fire Department of ficials want that person to call them before the arson spree tur ns deadly. “We don’t care who you call,” said Fire Chief Chad Hamill on Thursday. “You can call 911, you can call the fire department, you can call Crimestoppers — we just want people to call us.” So far, Fire Marshal Brian Powell estimates 20 cars and two houses have been destroyed by arson, and the total cost of the damage is unknown, but
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Hamill estimates the tally will be north of $250,000. The most recent report of a vehicle arson occurred Tuesday morning. Police responded to a report of an attempted vehicle arson on the 1000 block of South Kentucky Avenue at 2:09 p.m. According to police, a 2004 Dodge Stratus valued at $3,000 was damaged in the incident. “The thing with this person or persons is that there is no pattern to the fires,” Hamill said. “We have had fires on all sides of town — it doesn’t matter if it’s a rich or poor neighborhood, or north or south of town. There doesn’t seem to be any connection.” There also are no gang or
sets them apart from mechanical or electrical vehicle fires, Powell said, which take a longer time to ignite. Arsonists are typically hard to catch, and often the way they are caught is they wind up victims of their own fires, Powell said. The fires also have been taking place in the wee hours of the morning, so if people are out and about in the early morning hours they need to be on the look out for anything or anyone out of the ordinary. T ips to Crimestoppers are also eligible for a $1,000 reward, Hamill said. Ultimately, even with multiple government agencies involved in the investi-
known criminal connections to the fires, Powell said. “Our concern is that we find this individual before this becomes a body recovery,” Powell said. “That almost happened on Stanton Drive.” In the Stanton Drive arson, two houses caught on fire after a vehicle in the carport was set ablaze. “That fire was only a quarter mile from a fire station, and when we got there it was fully engulfed,” Hamill said. “And we are not talking about a long response time, maybe four minutes.” One feature of these arsons is that they are fully ablaze by the time the fire department arrives, which
File Photo
This arson at 1618 S. Stanton St. on July 9 caught two homes on fire, endangering the families who lived within them. The Roswell Fire Department is seeking the public’s help in catching the person or persons responsible for the recent string of vehicle arsons.
gation, the fire department needs the public to be alert and paying attention to what is happening in their
neighborhoods. “People need to be vigilant, and they need to take this seriously,” Powell said.
ENMU-R grads receive Special Services certificates
BY RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Randal Seyler Photo
Graduates of the ENMU-R Special Services Occupational Training Program turn their tassels after receiving their diplomas on Thursday at the Performing Arts Center, located on the Roswell campus. The 69 students received certificates in a number of occupational programs as well as learned life skills while participating in the yearlong course.
Smiles, applause and a few tears greeted the 2014 graduates from the Special Services Occupational T raining Program at Eastern New Mexico UniversityRoswell on Thursday. The ENMU-R Performing Arts Center was nearly full of friends, family and well-wishers there to congratulate the students receiving their certificates in occupational skills such as veterinary assistant, stocking and merchandising, groundskeeping and office skills, among others. “My years here helped me learn more than just a career,” said student Charlie Barenberg. “The teachers have been very helpful with school and with personal problems. We have made a
lot of friends and now it is time for us to move on.” The occupational training program is a comprehensive community university program that provides services and programs to students with disabilities. The Special Services department seeks to maximize the educational and career opportunities for all students with disabilities. Keynote speaker Dr. Jose Garcia, the state Secretary of Higher Education, encouraged the students to keep their imaginations strong and to follow their vision of who they want to be. “Your imagination is what brought you here to this place,” Garcia said. “Before you came here, you imagined yourself going to school here and then See GRADS, Page A3
Residents awakened by early-morning crash NM lawmakers to host energy secretary for WIPP discussion BY TIMOTHY P. HOWSARE RECORD EDITOR
SUBMITTED
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich and U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce announced Thursday that U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Er nest Moniz will visit Carlsbad on Aug. 12 for a discussion about the ongoing recovery at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Last month, the lawmakers invited Moniz to visit to get an update on cleanup ef forts and to talk with workers and local officials about WIPP’s importance to the community and to
national defense, as the only deep geologic repository for Cold War transuranic waste.
WIPP has been closed since a Feb. 5 truck fire, which was followed on Feb. 14 by a radiation release that is still under investigation.
Among the issues the lawmakers want to discuss with Moniz is the future of funding for recovery and the need for DOE to provide Congress with a detailed accounting of the money it needs and how the funds See WIPP, Page A3
AP Photo
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., right, with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., speaks during a news conference on the Veterans Administration, Thursday, on Capitol Hill.
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Roswell Police were out in full force Thursday morning investigating a single-vehicle crash that occurred around 2 a.m. on South Washington Avenue, two blocks south of Missouri Avenue Elementary School. Of ficers had South Washington Avenue blocked off between Reed and Deming streets and were using sophisticated forensics equipment to record the crash scene. A blue mini-truck had come to rest in the front yard of a residence in the 1000 block of South Washington. Officers were takSee CRASH, Page A3
Timothy P. Howsare Photo
Roswell Police investigate a crash that occurred early Thursday in the 1000 block of South Washington Avenue.
House, Senate chairs offer competing bills on VA WASHINGTON (AP) — With Congress scheduled to recess in a week, the chairmen of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees offered competing proposals Thursday to fix a veterans’ health care program scandalized by long patient wait times and falsified records covering up the delays.
parties expressed shock at price tags totaling more than $35 billion. The new proposals would still allow veterans to go to private doctors if they face long waits for appointments at VA hospitals and clinics, or if they live more than 40 miles from a VA site.
Both proposals would scale back separate Houseand Senate-passed bills after lawmakers in both
Sen. Bernie Sanders, IVt., chairman of the Senate panel, made the first move, announcing a proposal that would cost about $25 billion over three years to
• KRYSTAL RAE FINNEY (KRYSSIE VERNON) • CHARLES FREDERICK SMITH
• LARRY E. BILLIG • FRANCES C. BIGGERS-HAYES
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGE A8
lease new clinics, hire thousands of doctors and nurses, and make it easier for veterans who can’t get prompt appointments with VA doctors to get outside care. The proposed price tag is $10 billion less than a bill passed by the Senate last month and nearly $20 billion less than a Housebacked measure. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House veterans panel, countered
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hours later with a proposal that would require only $10 billion in emergency spending, with a promise of more spending in future years under the normal congressional budget process. Miller’s bill would keep most of the provisions in the Senate-passed bill and also would authorize about $100 million for the Department of Veterans Affairs to address shortfalls
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