Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 124, No. 137 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
June 9, 2015
Tuesday
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Lawmakers pass $295M spending bill
By Jeff Tucker Record Staff Writer
State lawmakers convened Monday in Santa Fe for an unusual special session intended primarily to correct the recent legislative train wreck when the Democratic-led Senate and the GOP-controlled House were unable to strike a deal on hundreds of millions of dollars of capital outlay projects. The state Senate and New Mexico House of Representatives on Monday passed Senate Bill 1, a massive capital outlay bill that allocates $295 million on more than 1,000 different projects across the state, including $5,674,190 for 19 projects in Chaves County. The Senate voted 42-0 on the measure before the House approved the bill by a 62-0 vote. Democrats control the Senate with a 24-18 majority while Republicans won a 37-33 majority in the House in November’s elections, taking control of
the House for the first time since 1954. “It’s really nice to have come to a compromise where we can do what needed to be done for all the communities across the state,” said state Sen. Cliff Pirtle. Pirtle, R-Roswell, said there were no amendments offered on the Senate floor Monday and the entire legislative day took about 4.5 hours, ending at about 4:30 p.m. “Everything went smoothly,” Pirtle said. “All in all, everybody was pretty much prepared for the votes. Everyone knew we had a lot of time to know what the tax bill, the capital outlay bill, were more than likely going to look like. Everybody has had time for the last three months now to review the issues.” Pirtle said there was a lot of down time Monday at the Roundhouse. “It was definitely different just because the staff numbers are way low,” Pirtle
said. “With there being such few bills, it takes time to move them back and forth. There’s a lot of time sitting and waiting for the legislation to come from the House before we act on it.” State Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell said the House wrapped up its business at about 4:15 p.m. after also convening at noon. “It was short and sweet, thank goodness,” said Ezzell, R-Roswell. “We saved taxpayers a lot of money by having this short and sweet. This particular item we were focused on today (the capital outlay bill) should have been taken care of in the regular session.” Ezzell said state Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Santa Fe, was the only lawmaker to offer an amendment on the House floor Monday. McQueen’s proposed amendment to the tax package was roundly rejected by House members. “Everybody held on what was previously agreed on before we held this special
session,” Ezzell said. “It was voted down by a big margin to extend the tax credit for solar energy, which won’t expire for three more years. “If we started accepting amendments to either of the bills that were before us, we would have just opened up a whole can of worms right there. It would have gotten real ugly and we could have been up here for over a week.” The annual spending bill approved by the House and Senate appropriates capital funding to each of the 70 House and 42 Senate districts. The capital outlay bill allocates: • $1.5 million to plan, design, construct, renovate, equip and furnish the science lab and surrounding areas at New Mexico Military Institute, including demolition. • $1.1 million to design, renovate, construct, equip and furnish the District 2 See OUTLAY, Page A3
Invading baseball
Child recovering after being found in swimming pool
By Jared Tucker Multimedia Journalist
Submitted Photo
The Roswell Chamber of Commerce had a evening of baseball recently with the Roswell Invaders during Chamber Night. The chamber’s board of director, staff and Redcoats, along with many fans, enjoyed a great game as the Roswell Invaders defeated Los Vaqueros from Las Cruces. From left, Ester Portillo, communications coordinator, holding her son Jeremiah Garcia; Dorrie Faubus-McCarty, executive director; the Roswell Invaders mascot; Candace Lewis, office manager; and Cassandra Washington, special events coordinator.
A 3-year-old girl is being treated at a local hospital after being found in a backyard swimming pool in south Roswell. According to Roswell Police Public Information Officer Todd Wildermuth, paramedics responded to the 1400 block of South Stanton Avenue around 4:00 p.m. Monday in reference to a child that possibly had no pulse or was not breathing (code blue). When crews arrived, they radioed to dispatch that the incident was not a code blue, but the child was transported to a local hospital for treatment. Family members of the girl said in a comment thread of the Daily Record’s Facebook page that a relative of the victim administered CPR shortly after the girl fell into the pool. The
relative said the girl is doing well, and should make a full recovery.
Pursuit passenger encouraged Perez to run; spat in deputy’s face
New details have emerged about the high speed pursuit of a convicted armed robber who led police on a high speed chase through Roswell May 29. It was revealed in Chaves County Magistrate Court that Javier Perez, 24, had a passenger in the vehicle with him during the pursuit who allegedly encouraged Perez to run on foot after he crashed the vehicle into a telephone pole near the railroad tracks on the 1700 block of North Garden Avenue. According to the Chaves County Sheriff’s Office case See BRIEFS, Page A3
R2R New Beetle Show lands in Roswell again Casting new light on historic Questa church By Katy Ross Record Student Intern
The Return To Roswell— National New Beetle Show will be held from June 26-29. This is the thirteenth time this show has taken place. Sue Isley, an organizer as well as a participant of the show, said she’s been participating since the show began. “I have the only Beetle that’s been in every single year, every single time that they’ve had the event in Roswell,” said Isley. She said there are two types of Beetles that will be showed: the “New Beetles,” which were manufactured from 1998 through 2010, and the “Beetle,” which has been manufactured since the year 2012.
Brief history
According to an email, Isley wrote that the show was started in June 2000 and was initially known as “Roswell 2000” and eventually became known as “R2K.” The event was “spearheaded and organized by a man named
David Allen. Isley continued to write that he and others met in a group email list. They decided to meet in Roswell after a commercial aired by Volkswagen American said the “New Beetle” was “reverse-engineered by UFOs.” It also didn’t hurt that Roswell is famous for a UFO crash in 1947. Every June for the next seven years, people drove their New Beetles to Roswell from all across the United States—even as far away as Alaska. Isley wrote that “(New Beetle people) were expected to ‘meet with the Mother Ship.’” Isley wrote that Allen went to great lengths to make these events fun for everyone in attendance. Isley recalled a specific instance in 2005 when Disney released “Herbie: Fully Loaded,” a movie that includes a Volkswagen Beetle. Allen was able to organize a private viewing of the movie at the drive-in theater in Carlsbad. The best years of attendance, wrote Isley, was in 2001-03 when “literally hundreds of New Beetle
owners and their cars participated.” Attendance began to decline “in part due to rising oil/gasoline prices and in part because people grew tired of spending their hard-earned vacation time in a city that often reached temperatures of 100+ degrees,” wrote Isley. In the year 2007, Allen announced he no longer wanted to lead the event. A group of die-hard New Beetle drivers in 2009 decided to attempt to resurrect the Roswell-New Beatle weekend. The name of the event was changed from R2K to R2R, which stands for “Return to Roswell.” A gathering took place that same year and the majority of attendees voted for the show to take place every other year. “Thus,” wrote Isley, “R2R gatherings took place in 2009, 2011, 2013, and now in 2015.” R2R Event for June 2015 Fifty participants are expected to take part in this year’s convention with a See R2R, Page A3
By Andrew Oxford The Taos News
TAOS — Cutting, grinding and soldering away two nights each week, volunteers are casting new light on Questa’s San Antonio de Padua Church. As parishioners and community members have renovated the building, another group has set to work creating new stained glass windows. Wa lk in g th ro u g h th e studio tucked into a back room at CarQuesta, an auto parts shop on State Road 522, deacon and stained glass artist Marcus Rael explained how the undertaking is turning out much like the renovation itself — a return to tradition but with a few improvements. Designs for several windows, for example, draw on retablos by Antonio Molleno and Jose Rafael Aragon, he pointed out. “I got the inspiration for copying the old santeros and retableros from a pilgrimage,” Rael explained, leafing through a book of the devotional paintings. “I walk the pilgrimage for
Today’s Forecast
Today’s Obituaries Page A6
HIGH 91 LOW 67
• Kelly Wayne Hobbs • Perry Dean Garcia • Josie H. Medina
Submitted Photo
Marcus Rael adjusts pieces of glass on May 19 that form a dove on a stained glass window for the San Antonio de Padua Church being restored in Questa. vocations every year. We stopped in Córdova and they’ve got some beautiful stuff in there. They’re little pieces but they’re powerful. So I thought we should do what these guys did but just bigger.” And with that, volunteers set about sketching designs for four windows on the church’s east and west sides. One will depict the church’s patron saint, San Antonio, although the window needs to be redesigned, Rael said.
“They told me he looked too fat,” he explained. However it turns out, the window is also likely to include a chile, a nod to Molleno who was known for including peppers in his work. The other windows will depict San Ysidro, Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Christ child — each window representing the 19th century church and each of its missions. See QUESTA, Page A3
Index Classifieds...........B6 Comics..................B5 Entertainment. ....A8 Financial..............B4
General...............A2
Opinion.................A4
Horoscopes.........A8
Sports. ................B1
Lotteries. ............A3
Weather...............A8