Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 121, No. 213 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
INSIDE NEWS
FACTORY ACTIVITY SHRINKS
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. factory activity shrank for the third straight month in August as new orders, production and employment all fell. The report adds to other signs that manufacturing is struggling around the globe. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade group of purchasing managers, said Tuesday its index of manufacturing activity ... - PAGE B3
September 5, 2012
First lady: Husband ‘a man we can trust’
WEDNESDAY
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama lovingly praised her husband Tuesday night in a prime-time Democratic Convention speech as a devoted husband and caring father at home and a “man we can trust” to revive the nation’s weak economy as president, beckoning the country to retur n him to the White House despite agonizingly slow recovery from recession. “He reminds me that we are playing a long game
here ... and that change is hard, and change is slow and it never happens all at once,” she told a nation impatient with slow economic progress and persistently high unemployment of 8.3 percent. “But eventually, we get there, we always do,” she said in a speech that blended scenes from 23 years of marriage with the Obamas’ time in the White House. Mrs. Obama, given a huge ovation and describing herself as the “mom in chief,” made no mention of
Almost finished
Republican challenger Mitt Romney. But those who preceded her to the podium on the first night of the president’s convention were scathing. “If Mitt were president, he’d fire the reindeer and outsource the elves,” declared former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland in one biting speech. Tapped to deliver the keynote address, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro said Romney was a millionSee DEMS, Page A3
AP Photo
First lady Michelle Obama addresses the Democratic National Convention, Tuesday.
GEAR UP apps down JULIA BERGMAN RECORD STAFF WRITER
TOP 5 WEB
For The Past 24 Hours
• Hobbs to stand trial • Green wins Impact Confections ... • CASA helps abused, neglected children • One jazzy Labor Day at Spring River • Riddle wins award
INSIDE SPORTS
Mark Wilson Photo
Workers add finishing touches to the roof of the nearly completed Educational Center on the ENMU-R campus, Tuesday.
Area real estate market ‘healthy’ NOAH VERNAU RECORD STAFF WRITER
SEASON OPENER TONIGHT
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — A good start is what is on the line this time when the New York Giants host the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL season opener. The stakes were much greater the last time the NFC East foes faced off to close the last regular season. New York won to claim the division title en route to the Super Bowl title. Dallas was left out of the postseason. - PAGE B1
TODAY’S OBITUARIES
• Wanda Marie Wallace • Herbert Wayne Ford • Richard Herrera Jr. • Mildred Shirley • Damona Boling • Anna Aguirre - PAGE A7
HIGH ...98˚ LOW ....71˚
TODAY’S FORECAST
CLASSIFIEDS..........B6 COMICS.................B4 FINANCIAL .............B3 GENERAL ..............A2 HOROSCOPES ........A8 LOTTERIES ............A2 OPINION ................A4 SPORTS ................B1 WEATHER ..............A8
The general health of the real estate industry in Roswell appears to have improved in 2012 compared to recent years, with more homes being built and a higher volume of sales. Brad Davis, general manager and co-owner of Prudential Enchanted Lands Realtors, says a good way to gauge the health of a real estate market is through absorption analysis, which determines how long it would take to sell
everything listed in a particular market if no homes were added within that period of time. The absorption figure is determined by dividing the number of sales in the past 30 days by the number of current listings, he said. “If no other listings came on the market, and the sales stayed what they have been in the past 30 days, it would take us nine months to sell everything that’s currently listed,” Davis said. “And I think most economists would say the single digits, between five and nine months, is a
healthy market. So we’re on the top end, the high end. We’re just barely getting to those healthy levels right now. “... The sales are slightly up over what they have been over the past three years — they’re up and active listings are down. So both of those are good indicators for getting back to checks and balances in the market.” Davis said the number of new homes being built in Roswell has also increased. He attributes a large part of
A cohort of Roswell students is seemingly not taking advantage of a free college education. Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell has reported a lower number of students applying for the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs scholarships in comparison to last year. Last year 441 scholarships were awarded to members of the Class of 2011 for the fall semester, while the Class of 2012 has only capitalized on 320. Despite continuing efforts to market the scholarships through media placement and high school orientations, RISD officials are unsure of the source of the decrease. “I don’t think every graduating class is the same. You have some See GEAR, Page A3
Company’s coming
Mark Wilson Photo
A dragonfly glistens under the sweltering sun Tuesday afternoon at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge. The 11th annual Dragonfly Festival will be held this Saturday and Sunday.
Gov aide recorded DOH whistleblower settles lawsuit on state email use ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — An Albuquerque attorney said Tuesday he has a recording of the governor’s top aide telling one of his clients that he never uses state email to conduct business because “I don’t want to go to court (or) jail.” Defense attorney Sam Bregman represents fired Department of Corrections worker Larry
Flynn in a wrongful termination case where the administration’s use of private email accounts was first revealed. He released the recording to reporters and said it is of Republican Gov. Susana Martinez’s chief of staff, Keith Gardner.
Gardner did not immediately respond to a See EMAIL, Page A3
See REAL, Page A3
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — The state has agreed to settle a lawsuit with a whistleblower who accused the New Mexico Department of Health of nepotism and financial irregularities. The Albuquerque Journal reports that under a settlement agreement made public last week, former state Department of Health manager Diane Moore received $225,000 and agreed to resign and never seek reinstatement. She filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the agency in 2010 but continued
working there as the employees she complained about filed internal grievances against her. Moore’s allegations involved the Health Department during former Gov. Bill Richardson administration, but the state’s decision to fight the case continued through the first year of Gov. Susana Martinez’s tenure. In the settlement agreement of last October, the department denied liability and denied all of Moore’s allegations. The agreement was made
public last week after attorneys for the Journal challenged the state Risk Management Division’s decision to keep it confidential at least until the end of the year.
Moore, who earned about $39,000 a year, spent a month on paid leave before the settlement. She no longer lives in New Mexico. Her lawsuit alleged the department retaliated against her for voicing what she considered to be See DOH, Page A3
Southern Louisiana residents blame Corps of Engineers for floods
INDEX
AP Photo
A wrangler rescues a cow stranded from Hurricane Isaac, in Plaquemines Parish, La.,Tuesday.
LAPLACE, La. (AP) — At the urging of residents who have long felt forgotten in the shadow of more densely populated New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers says it will look into whether the city’s fortified defenses pushed floodwaters provoked by Hurricane Isaac into outlying areas. However, the Corps has said it is unlikely scientific analysis will confirm that theory, suggested not only by locals, but by some of the state’s most powerful politicians. Instead, weather experts say a unique set of circumstances about the storm — not the floodwalls surrounding the New Orleans metro
area — had more to do with flooding neighborhoods that in recent years have never been under water because of storm surge. Isaac was a large, slow-moving stor m that wobbled across the state’s coast for about two and a half days, pumping water into back bays and lakes and leaving thousands of residents under water outside the massive levee system protecting metropolitan New Orleans. It was blamed for seven deaths and damaged thousands of homes on the Gulf Coast. The Corps’ study was prompted by the suggestion that Isaac’s surge bounced off the levees and
floodgates built since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and walloped communities outside the city’s ramparts.
Blaming the Army Corps of Engineers is nothing new in southern Louisiana, a region that is both dependent on the Corps and by instinct distrustful of an agency that wields immense power in this world of harbors, wetlands, rivers and lakes, all of which fall under the agency’s jurisdiction. The Corps was roundly criticized after Hurricane Katrina, which See ISAAC, Page A2