77 votes separate Kumar and Chavez

The two incumbents running for Gallup City Council seats March 14 reclaimed their seats, according to unofficial election results from Gallup City Hall. The certification related to the election took place this week and included City Clerk Al Abeita, deputy City Clerk Alicia Palacios, Municipal Judge Grant Foutz and City Attorney George Kozeliski.

Linda Garcia and Yogash Kumar won council seats in District 1 and District 3, respectively. There are 6,459 eligible voters in Gallup. There were 799 votes cast in the election. The election turnout number was 12.37 percent.

“Everything went very well,” Gallup Deputy City Clerk Alicia Palacios said...

Dimas, Lee, Bowman-Muskett, Jackson go to Washington

Since the election, hundreds of people from around the country have traveled to Washington to sit down with congressional leaders. Last week, the McKinley County Board of Commissioners took the plunge and visited with New Mexico’s congressional delegation.

The trip cost about $4,300 and was paid for by county taxpayers. McKinley County Manager Anthony Dimas and Commissioners Carol Bowman-Muskett, Genevieve Jackson and Bill Lee flew coach via Delta and Southwest airlines to the Nation’s Capital.

The trip took place from March 6 through March 9 and the meetings were conducted at the congressional offices at the U.S...

Gov. Susana Martinez is getting attention, to say the least, for her onslaught of vetoes as the legislative session nears a potentially messy end.

But the tension between Martinez and state lawmakers started with her early veto of the bill to fund the operations of the Legislature during the session and the interim. It continued towards the end of January, when she vetoed a much-publicized bill to allow for industrial research of hemp.

February came and went with no bills headed to Martinez’s desk. But at the end of the first week of March, she rejected a measure to allow teachers to use all of their allotted sick days without absences making a negative impact on their statewide...

Gov. Susana Martinez vetoed legislation March 9 that would allow teachers to use their sick leave without it affecting their evaluations.

Martinez said if the bill, which sponsors dubbed the “Teachers are Human Too Act,” became law, it would lead to more teacher absences, which would create more expenses, including for substitute teachers. Martinez said this would also lead to decreased quality of education.

“We need our teachers in our classrooms, and House Bill 241 would lead to more teacher absences,” Martinez wrote.

The Public Education Department was unable to estimate in the bill’s Fiscal Impact Report how many teacher absences there would be under the bill, and at...