City council cracks down on dog park rules

The City of Gallup is trying to put a muzzle on vicious and/or dangerous dogs and their owners by making amendments to its animal ordinance.

City Attorney Curtis Hayes brought the ordinance to the city council’s attention during its meeting May 11.

According to Hayes, the current ordinance had confusing language. It defined a vicious animal as an animal which kills or seriously injures a person or domesticated animal resulting in muscle tears or disfiguring lacerations, requiring multiple sutures or extensive corrective or cosmetic surgery.

A dangerous dog is defined as a dog that causes serious injury to a person or animal. Serious...

How exactly can the tax be used?

Many local events had to be canceled last year because of the pandemic and as the community looks toward the future, the Lodgers’ Tax committee is helping people figure out how upcoming events will be funded.

The Lodgers’ Tax is paid by anyone using a commercial lodging accommodation. The funding has declined because of COVID, but a Lodgers’ Tax committee is trying to help the community figure out how the limited amount of money collected in 2020 should be used to support events.

That was the purpose of the May 6 committee meeting.

Gallup City Attorney Curtis Hayes explained that the tax money could be used to advertise, publicize, and...

Gallup includes pipe replacement in latest budget

Gallup has been the site of numerous unscheduled water outages in recent months. The city’s aging water pipes have kept Gallup Water and Sanitation Director Dennis Romero and his crew busy making repairs.

Romero said water line breaks in Gallup are trending “slightly downward, as we’ve made a concerted effort to move line replacement projects forward.”

The attention to the city’s aging water lines comes at a time that the country is studying infrastructure issues.

Gallup has 201.4 miles of water lines, according to Romero.

The oldest pipes — some of them close to 100 years old — are made of cast iron. After World War...

NMDOT presents zipper merge

In an effort to cut the number of collisions as construction work resumes on five projects along I-40 in McKinley and Cibola counties, District 6 of the New Mexico Department of Transportation has introduced the “zipper merge.”

NMDOT says most New Mexico motorists start to merge in construction zones as soon as they see warning signs and learn which lane ahead is closed. This is called an “early merge” and it can lead to dangerous lane switching, inconsistent driving speeds that cause crashes, long back-ups that block interchanges, angry drivers and road rage.

Research shows, however, that these dangers decrease and traffic moves more smoothly...